EconTech

More at 1986.
Brad DeLong writes Impeach Antonin Scalia. Impeach Him Now:

Outsourced to Hilzoy:
Obsidian Wings: Returned To The Battlefield: In his dissent in Boumedienne (pdf), Justice Scalia wrote: “At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield.”
When I read this, I wondered about the word ‘returned’, since it seems [...]

Debating Polygamy

What is wrong with polygamy?
Nineteenth-century Americans coupled it with slavery, calling both “the twin relics of barbarism.” Today, it is used as a scare image to deter people from approving same-sex marriage, lest it lead down a slippery slope to that horror of horrors.
But what, exactly, is bad about it? Looking at the Texas [...]

From the nerdy(-ier?) Freakonomicist (otherwise I probably would’ve never written about this, and sorry for the length):
Think Twice Before You Wear Your “Free Mumia” T-shirt

By Steven D. Levitt

I was sitting in the student union at the University of Chicago last week when a student came by putting “Free Mumia” leaflets on the tables.
I have never [...]

VoxEU summarizes a series of analysis by Gelman that I have previously covered. Considering the quality of VoxEU summaries, I thought it worth posting.
P.S. Sorry for the outage the other evening, the power that my server is on seems to be quite unstable. After a power hiccup, a newly bad memory stick was causing networking [...]

Not a whole lot of new information here, just kind of put together. Also, someone else (Bartels, Krugman has done it before) is pointing out the very obvious point that Republicans win due to the Dixiecrat conversion to Republicans. Yes, that means race is still driving national politics at the margin, by middle and upper [...]

I chided Becker and Posner for not giving sources for their posts. Here is some data that backs them up in a more serious manner (HT: Gabriel)(Not sure how I found this), a comment below:
Food prices
How should a well-fed American react when some of the world’s poorest citizens in Haiti and Bangladesh riot over the [...]

I was surprised to see Drezner approach this in this manner. I know he isn’t a realist, but I still didn’t expect it
Through the prism of history, it’s the “quiet diplomacy” of the Bush administration that will stand out
I see that NSC advisor Stephen Hadley doesn’t think much of a boycott of the [...]

The subject has come up before. It gives me some pause, but on the whole, I agree that having sane defaults is just, well, sane. Levitt seems to think so as well:
Nudge

 
I am not a huge fan of what people call “behavioral economics,” which is a subfield of economics that expands the standard economic models [...]

Well, Alex says a lot of what I said. Bartels isn’t so surprising given the previously existing PBC literature, even in other countries. However, the literature does have a number of mechanisms, more than just sticky prices if I remember correctly; if you are interested in scoping it out, read the previous posts for the [...]

Rodrik gives Bartels space to guest blog, and he produces an excellent Q&A formatted response to the questions and criticisms many had of the result we showed last week. Tyler has a few comments up on Bartels’ response:
Larry Bartels responds

Professor Rodrik has kindly invited me to respond to some of the questions and comments generated [...]

Seriously, I just don’t understand how this administration has gotten away with breaking as many serious laws as they have. I don’t like, but can see, politicians getting away with things like corruption, nepotism, inept wars, even false premises for war. These are all things that strike at our values of democracy. But even then, [...]

Well, I thought that since PK said he doesn’t buy the Bartels graphs because he doesn’t have a sound reason to believe they are true I would mention that. I am posting though, because people are looking very confused at them (comments and trackbacks). I cannot speak to Bartels’ book, but there is already a [...]

Well, maybe. I just saw this article over at the BBC saying that 2025 candidates were required to secure the Democratic nomination. Thinking that maybe, just maybe, the BBC is more reliable than most American news sources, I went over to the DNC’s website, and I see this image (Original Screenshot of DNC Website). Cropped [...]

It is a simple matter of expected payoffs. Unfortunately, my gambit install seems to be refusing to cooperate, so I can’t draw the diagram I want. Nevertheless, it can rather easily be explained.
If there is no consequence to breaking with the pack (voting outside, in this case, early, your allotted time) and there are potential [...]

Not that the Republican machine hasn’t been screaming tax break for decades with ZERO sign of ever implementing an actual decrease on taxes. Either they don’t get it, or they don’t care. A drop in taxes is ONLY implemented in a spending decrease. Reducing taxes while implementing such a break is not a ‘tax break,’ [...]