Tyler Cowen's Blog, page 27

Good sentences

Our social and political life is awash in unconsciously held Christian ideas broken from the theology that gave them meaning, and it’s hungry for the identification of sinners—the better to prove the virtue of the accusers and, perhaps especially, to demonstrate the sociopolitical power of the accusers.

That is from Joseph Bottum, via PW.

Designing Private Cities, Open to All

NEW YORK — The world is building more cities, faster than ever before. China used more cement in the last three years than the United States used in the entire 20th century. By 2050, India will need new urban infrastructure to house an additional 404 million people — a task comparable to building every city in the United States in just 35 years. The global urban population is expected to rise to well over six billion by 2050 from 3.9 billion today.

The world needs more cities. The task, however, is not simply to build new cities but to design them for today, tomorrow and the next century.

Jane Jacobs taught us that a city is a complex dance of top-down and bottom-up planning. Too much of one or the other and a city fails to meet the needs of its residents.

As the world urbanizes, we need to experiment with new urban forms and new forms of urban planning, and privately designed and operated cities — proprietary cities — like Jamshedpur, India, or Reston, Va., may provide answers.

That is the opening to an op-ed in the New York Times written by me and Shruti Rajagopolan, do read the whole thing.

Addendum: The op-ed is a precis to our paper, Lessons from Gurgaon, India’s Private City in the book Cities and Private Planning. You can also listen to my EconTalk with Russ Roberts on these issues.

The tour that is Chinese

Just how confident is Los Angeles property broker Erik Coffin that he can interest Chinese clients in high-end Las Vegas villas? He’s charging $4 million a month for a quick glimpse.

It isn’t just any tour. The marketing push is set to start next month for these twice-monthly journeys that cost $250,000 a pop for a seven-day, private jet and Rolls Royce-chauffeured trip to the American heartland. Eight-person groups also will be offered consultations on plastic surgery, picking the sex of a child and wealth-management.

“It’s already a win for us,” said Coffin, 42, who employs 18 Mandarin speakers, almost a third of his staff, at Gotham Corporate Group, which recently opened an office in Beijing.

Here is one response:

“People usually come to the U.S. shopping for luxury bags or expensive clothes, but I bought a home,” said Lin, who owns a petrochemical export business in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. “Maybe I’m crazy and a bit impulsive, but it was a better deal than buying a similar type of home in downtown Shanghai. And I just really like the city. It’s as simple as that.”

The full story is here, by Bonnie Cao.

Sentences to ponder

Overall, our findings suggest that correlations observed in affluent, developed countries between (i) wealth and health or (ii) parental income and children’s outcomes do not reflect a causal effect of wealth.

The paper is here, commentary from Arnold Kling is here.

The rsvp and livestream for my conversations with Peter Thiel and Jeffrey Sachs

You can sign up for rsvp or the live stream here, the chat with Peter Thiel is March 31, 2-3:30 p.m. EST, held at the Arlington campus of George Mason University.  It is part of a new event series Conversations with Tyler.

The chat with Jeffrey Sachs is April 7, 3:30 to 5 p.m., again EST in Arlington.  There will be more to come in the Fall.

I will host and talk with guests, but without formalities.  I won’t ask “So tell us about your new book,” or any of the usual soporific chit-chatty questions.  I will try to replicate the conversations I would have with these same individuals in a private setting, except that you all get to listen.  That means launching into substance immediately and seeing how far the back and forth can be pushed.  It also means asking questions that not everyone listening will understand and willing to let parts of the audience suffer in their confusion.  I want these dialogues to be as smart as possible, based on the premise that each guest, no matter how renowned he or she may be, is nonetheless a radically underrated thinker.

The goal is to be never hostile or combative, but always probing.  I’m aiming for the chat to be 1/3 me vs. 2/3 guest, more or less, but about the ideas and contributions of the guest most of all.

Assorted links

1. Visualizations of Pi and the randomness (or not) of its digits.

2. Tibet from space, and its watersheds: important photos for the next fifty years.  And David Shambaugh defends his view on China collapse.

3. The old Macau is dead.  And the mortality of professional wrestlers.

4. Why not watch robots wrestle instead?: Robin Hanson reviews Martin Ford.

5. Advances in beaming solar power from space.

6. Is economics driving the decline in marriageable men? (no, pdf)  But it seems the Great Depression did matter.  And further new results on how China and automation have affected U.S. labor markets.

The Open Borders Manifesto

In honor of March 16, Open Borders Day, here is the Open Borders Manifesto to which I am a signatory.

Freedom of movement is a basic liberty that governments should respect and protect unless justified by extenuating circumstances. This extends to movement across international boundaries.

International law and many domestic laws already recognise the right of any individual to leave his or her country. This right may only be circumscribed in extreme circumstances, where threats to public safety or order are imminent.

We believe international and domestic law should similarly extend such protections to individuals seeking to enter another country. Although there may be times when governments should treat foreign nationals differently from domestic citizens, freedom of movement and residence are fundamental rights that should only be circumscribed when the situation absolutely warrants.

The border enforcement status quo is both morally unconscionable and economically destructive. Border controls predominantly restrict the movement of people who bear no ill intentions. Most of the people legally-barred from moving across international borders today are fleeing persecution or poverty, desire a better job or home, or simply want to see the city lights.

The border status quo bars ordinary people from pursuing the life and opportunity they desire, not because they lack merit or because they pose a danger to others. Billions of people are legally barred from realising their full potential and ambitions purely on the basis of an accident of birth: where they were born. This is both a drain on the economic and innovative potential of human societies across the world, and indefensible in any order that recognises the moral worth and dignity of every human being.

We seek legal and policy reforms that will reduce and eventually remove these bars to movement for billions of ordinary people around the world. The economic toll of the modern restrictive border regime is vast, the human toll incalculable. To end this, we do not need a philosopher’s utopia or a world government. As citizens and human beings, we only demand accountability from our own governments for the senseless immigration laws that they enact in our name. Border controls should be minimised to only the extent required to protect public health and security. International borders should be open for all to cross, in both directions.

See here to join as a signatory.

To which countries does the future come first?

In some recent talks I’ve argued that the future may be coming first to both Israel and Singapore.  Today let’s consider Israel by listing a few features of that country:

1. The tech sector is important, and, partially as a result of that, income inequality is very high; see Paul Krugman’s post on the latter.

2. There is a large segment of lower middle class, intelligent bohemians, whose low incomes do not reflect their real standard of living and orderly lives.  Many of them study Torah, and receive a kind of (selective) guaranteed annual income.

3. The rent is too damn high, and that won’t be changing anytime soon, due to building restrictions.  The bohemian class generally chooses lower rent venues to pursue its preferred lifestyle.

4. Unlike most current North Americans, Israelis do not take geopolitical stability for granted.

5. There is intense and widespread concern with demographics and the economics of population.

Mexican markets in everything, James Bond edition

Mexican government officials were allowed to make casting decisions and changes to the script of the upcoming James Bond movie, after giving the film’s producers millions in financial incentives, according to a report based on emails leaked in the Sony hack.

The government reportedly offered the makers of the upcoming “Spectre,” directed by Sam Mendes, $14 million in exchange for four minutes of the film portraying the country in a positive light.

Emails released from the Sony hack, published by tax policy website Tax Analysis, show that the studio was concerned that the film’s costs had spiraled, to a gross budget of $300 million, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made. Executives pressured the filmmakers to make changes to the script that would keep the Mexican money coming in.

“You have done a great job in getting us the Mexican incentive,” wrote Jonathan Glickman, president of MGM’s motion picture group, in an email to the film’s producers. “Let’s continue to pursue whatever avenues we have available to maximize this incentive.”

…emails revealed that Mexico asked that the character of a Mexican governor, who was the target of an assassination, be replaced with an international leader, and that Mexican police be replaced with “some special police force” instead.

A further $6 million was said to have been achieved by means such as replacing a cage fighting scene with footage of Mexico’s popular Day of the Dead festivities, and highlighting Mexico City’s “modern” skyline, the Telegraph reported.

There is more here, via Fred Smalkin.

Assorted links

1. Nudging people to decrease their credit card spending.

2. Edmond Malinvaud passed away a few days ago, here is an Alan Krueger interview with him.

3. “Dried tardigrades have been brought back to life after eight years.”

4. Paul Krugman argues you sometimes should reason from a price change.  And Scott in response.

5. Have American hospitals actually been on a productivity binge?

6. How TripAdvisor is changing travel, from Tom Vanderbilt.