EconTech

More Torture Info From Senate Committee

Economist.com: The Endowment Effect and Evolutionary Psychology

In China, Fascination With Obama’s Skin Color - washingtonpost.com

Global war deaths have been substantially underestimated

Research paper: 50 years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia
Globally, war has killed three times more people than previously estimated, and there is no evidence to support claims of a recent decline in war deaths, concludes a study published on BMJ.com.
Current survey-based techniques used to estimate violent [...]

Marginal Revolution: Bottomfeeder
(tags: food)

Vinod Khosla - All Biofuels Are Not The Same - washingtonpost.com

Trying to solve the long-term nuclear waste storage problem
I hear a call for space elevators.
(tags: energy environment nuclear)

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Analysis - For Le Monde and the French press, the news is nearly all bad

Good surveillance: satellites watch for [...]

I always knew the prices were much higher than I was willing to pay (luckily, there is always a Walgreens, grocery, or liquor store nearby). I never suspected the larges were so large small though (Felix Salmon via Cowen):
Popcorn fact of the day
[Richard] McKenzie did a fair amount of real-world research on the popcorn front, [...]

Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood
I would not agree with all the characterizations made of HP, but overall, well written.

FT.com / Columnists / Christopher Caldwell - Web gossip is forever

Healthcare Economist · High Quality Hospitals Near You

Economist’s View: Is McCain Confused?

The Kozinski mess (Lessig Blog)
(tags: privacy media)

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Let the markets solve the energy crisis
(tags: energy economy oil)

Job creation? - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog

Some thoughts on the saying, “All models are wrong, but some are useful”

. . . Al Jazeera reports. My question is, has there ever been a situation where a country that was outside the international mainstream made a change in policy due to sanctions. There are the obvious major counter-examples (Cuba, North Korea, Iraq). I cannot think of any evidence that supports the notion that sanctions are [...]

Tyler Cowen argues that most anti-trade positions are driven by xenophobia. Dani Rodrik argues that differing rule-sets (labor laws and such) are a serious source of concern. Tyler and his co-blogger Alex respond. All of those posts are worth reading.
In my mind, this is definitely not an either-or situation. I hope that before I die [...]

The roots of sticky prices
Apparently the beasts are back in charge:
Now we’re beginning to find out that eBay’s seemingly revolutionary core - the online auction - may have been a fad all along. As Business Week reports, eBay’s auctions are “a dying breed.” Buyers and sellers are reverting to the traditional retailing model of fixed [...]

The Ambrosini Critique » Blog Archive » More reasons why we should treat morals as ethical preferences

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Manufacturers score victory in patent rights ruling

TED | Talks | Seyi Oyesola: Rich hospital, poor hospital (video)
Finding medical technologies appropriate to the environments in which they operate.

Cable: deregulation good for consumers; Ars: [...]

Just who is this ‘Stephen Colbert’ character? - CNN.com

Bio-debatable: Food vs. fuel
(tags: biofuels environment food)

Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong
(tags: economics finance regulation)

Climate change economics | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

FT.com / World - Obama calls McCain tax plans ‘outrageous’

FT.com / World - Geithner stresses Fed role in dollar stance

When corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptions

Economist’s View: Obama [...]

Bore-Gush, revisited
Recently I worried that the news media would do again what they did in 2000, and somehow latch on to the storyline that a very conservative Republican and a progressive Democrat were really practically the same on the issues. And lo and behold, it’s starting (via dday).
As a numbers guy, I’m particularly upset that [...]

More on Carbon Policy Equivalence
Please read Arnold Kling.
My sympathies in economics lie with the so-called “new institutionalists.” I think institutionalists are going to see more clearly than neoclassicals the rather big difference between a carbon tax and a whole new market institution for trade in government-created and government-rationed permits.
But let’s back up a little, [...]