Tyler Cowen's Blog, page 436
October 21, 2012
Does physical strength influence male political views?
Dr Petersen and Dr Sznycer were investigating the idea that a person’s political opinions might be aligned with his physical characteristics. The opinion in question was whether resources should be redistributed from the rich to the poor. The physical characteristic was strength.
…Dr. Petersen and Dr Sznycer found that, regardless of country of origin or apparent ideology, strong men argued for their self interest: the poor for redistribution, the rich against it. No surprises there. Weaklings, however, were far less inclined to make the case that self-interest suggested they would. Among women, by contrast, strength had no correlation with opinion. Rich women wanted to stay rich; poor women to become so.
The paper is here. Here is another paper by the authors (and two others), on attitudes toward welfare. Sznycer has a useful page of research papers here.
October 20, 2012
How to improve state-level fiscal policy
Some states rely too much on income taxes for their revenue and others rely too much on sales taxes (see the paper’s map on p.26). We could have better state-level automatic stabilizers. Here is a paper from Nathan Seegert (pdf, currently on the job market from Michigan, by the way):
I �find U.S. state tax revenue volatility increased by 500 percent in the 2000s relative to previous decades. State governments’ inability to smooth volatile revenue streams, due to self-imposed balanced budget restrictions, has caused this increased volatility to magnify U.S. state budget crises. The theoretical model demonstrates the cause of the increase in volatility is due to changes in tax rates, economic conditions, or tax base (e.g. what types of consumption are taxable). Despite ampli�fied business cycles in the 2000s and important tax base changes such as the increase in e-commerce, I fi�nd changes in tax rates explain 70 percent of the increase in tax revenue volatility in the 2000s. Motivated by this result I create a normative model of taxation and produce a condition for optimal taxation when tax-revenue volatility is considered (a volatility-adjusted Ramsey rule). I estimate the volatility-adjusted Ramsey rule and �find thirty-six states in 2005 rely ine�fficiently on either the income or sales tax, up from twenty-six states in 1965. This increase in imbalance is due to an increased reliance on the income tax as fourteen states relied inefficiently on the income tax in 1965 compared to twenty-six states in 2005. This paper fi�nds strong evidence the increase in tax-revenue volatility state governments recently experienced is due to changes in tax rates, causing states to expose their revenues to unnecessary levels of risk.
The idea of volatility-adjusted Ramsey rules is a good one. Here is Nathan Seegert’s home page.
For the pointer I thank N.
Greece fact of the day
Was this driven by the median voter, or by special interest groups?:
The government just passed a law allowing supermarkets to sell expired food at discounted prices.
The story is here.
Not from The Onion
AFP, Damascus: President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, where more than 33,000 people have been killed in 19 months of conflict, issued a law on GM food Thursday to preserve human life, state-run SANA news agency reported.
*Boom and Bust Banking*
The editor is David Beckworth and the subtitle is The Causes and Cures of the Great Recession. Contributors include Lawrence H. White, Scott Sumner, George Selgin, Jeff Rogers Hummel, Bill Woolsey, Nicholas Rowe, and Beckworth himself, with a strong representation from market monetarism. My blurb reads: “David Beckworth rapidly has become one of the most influential writers in monetary economics and his wonderful book…offers some of the most important new ideas in the field.”
Esperanto vs. Volapük
Get this:
Volapük didn’t die out completely. It has a bit of life today; there are a few online lessons and discussion boards. There is even a Volapük Wikipedia with over 100,000 articles. And its name lives on in the Danish expression det er det rene volapyk – “It’s pure Volapük,” or, in other words “It’s Greek to me.”
Assorted links
1. Analysis of how Bitcoin is actually used.
2. Are conservatives actually more generous than liberals?
4. Can humans beat horses in marathons? And what is special about human faces? Interesting throughout.
5. Wedding markets in everything, assortative mating Star Trek edition.
October 19, 2012
In which the Minnesotans call off the paddy wagon and leave us free
Pogemiller, according to the e-mail, said a 20-year-old statute requiring institutional registration clearly did not envision free online, not-for-credit offerings.
“When the legislature convenes in January, my intent is to work with the Governor and Legislature to appropriately update the statute to meet modern-day circumstances,” said Pogemiller. “Until that time, I see no reason for our office to require registration of free, not-for-credit offerings.”
Of course pursuing such an issue was not a political winner in the first place.
The link is here, and for the pointer I thank M.
Very good sentences
“Two types of attractive females were included: sexy females & beautiful females.”
It’s even economics, you can read the abstract and research paper here. Hat tip goes to Neuroskeptic.
Marginal Revolution University has been Banned in Minnesota!
Minnesota has banned MRUniversity and other online education services from providing content to Minnesota residents. This seems like a joke but it is not from The Onion. Coursera, one of the larger players in this field, has rewritten its terms of service to prohibit Minnesota residents from taking its courses:
Coursera has been informed by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that under Minnesota Statutes (136A.61 to 136A.71), a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so. If you are a resident of Minnesota, you agree that either (1) you will not take courses on Coursera, or (2) for each class that you take, the majority of work you do for the class will be done from outside the State of Minnesota.
Tyler and I wish to be perfectly clear: unlike Coursera, we will not shut down MRU to the residents of Minnesota. We are prepared to defend our rights under the First Amendment to teach the good people of Minnesota all about the Solow Model, water policy in Africa, and the economics of garlic–even if we have to do so from a Minnesota jail!
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