Tyler Cowen's Blog, page 473

Very good sentences

CSR [corporate social responsibility] with honest moral content, as opposed to anodyne public-relations campaigns about “values”, is a recipe for the politicisation of production and sales.

That is .

The Medicaid wars continue

From Sarah Kliff:

Sandra Decker, an economist with the Center for Disease Controls, recently poured over the 2011 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, which asks doctors whether they would accept new Medicaid patients.

What she found could spell trouble for the health care law: More than three in ten doctors – 31 percent – said no, they would not.

Her research, published this afternoon in the journal Health Affairs, is the first that has ever given a state-by-state look at doctors’ willingness to accept Medicaid.

The problem, of course, is that higher demand will be pressing against a relatively fixed supply.

What predicts when an Olympic record will fall?

It turns out that if the current holder also set the record in the past, the record is more likely to be broken at the next games.

If the current Olympic record is also the world record, it is less likely to be broken in the next games.

A change in the number of countries competing in an event  is also an important indicator of whether the record will fall.

And most surprising of all, the percentage by which the existing record improved on the first Olympic record, is also a significant indicator.

There is more here, and the original paper is here.  For the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson.

A misquotation episode

Brad DeLong and David Warsh criticize a quotation from me on the origins of the internet.  But in fact the quotation is not from me, it is from Brian Carnell.  The WSJ link, offered by Warsh but not by DeLong, has a correction to this effect.

At least one Greek wage is proving itself flexible

“While the crisis has not reduced corruption itself, it has reduced the price of corruption,” Rakintzis told Skai TV after publishing his annual report.

“They (civil servants) have lowered their price,” he added.

Here is more, and for the pointer I thank Ken Feinstein.

Assorted links

1. Update on the Irish economy.

2. Raise prices to keep coins, adventures in Gresham’s Law.

3. Daphne Koller TED talk on on-line education.

Twenty questions?

Or forty questions, as the case may be.  One of my favorite methods of giving a talk is to have the audience write out questions in advance, and then during the talk I have to try to answer them (without peeking at them beforehand).  The goal is not only to address the queries, but also to weave the answers together into the form of a broader talk with underlying themes.

I did this recently, and I thought the best question was something like this:

“If you were designing a ten question True-False test to fool the American public and induce the greatest number of wrong answers, which questions should go on the test?  Which question would people get wrong the most often?  How many questions of the ten would the American public get right on average?”

I also was asked which of my habitual errors I would most want to change, looking forward in life.

I was asked about Jeremy Lin, and whether he or LeBron James did more to maximize global wealth.  I suggested that Lin did more to maximize utility, as his fame in Asia did not much detract from the fame of any other NBA player, but that LeBron did more to maximize wealth, in part through endorsement income.

Another good question was “How far do you think real interest rates will fall into negative territory?”, or something like that.

Can you pass this Turing test?

What did they think about the weather that morning?

Three different responses came from a male human, a female human and a machine. Which is which? Keep in mind that the event was held in October 2008 and they all knew it was autumn/fall in England. The responses were:

A.”I do tend to like a nice foggy morning, as it adds a certain mystery.”

B. “Not the best, expecting pirates to come out of the fog.”

C. “The weather is not nice at the moment, unless you like fog.”

So which is which?

That is from a paper by Kevin Warwick, “Not Another Look at the Turing Test.”  I will offer the answer when I get back home.  For the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson.

Has India solved the problem of banking regulation?

Forget Glass-Steagall:

The branches are run almost entirely by and for the children, with account holders electing two volunteer managers from the group every six months.

“Children who make money by begging or selling drugs are not allowed to open an account. This bank is only for children who believe in hard work,” said Karan, a 14-year-old “manager”.

During the day, Karan earns a pittance washing up at wedding banquets or other events. In the evening, he sits at his desk to collect money from his friends, update their pass books and close the bank.

“Some account holders want to withdraw their money. I ask them why and give it to them if other children approve. Everyone earns five per cent interest on their savings.”

This system now has over two hundred branches in half a dozen countries.  The article is here, hat tip goes to Kottke.  If I understand the account correctly, it is also run largely by street children.

Manila notes

How the mothers talk to, smile at, and elevate their small children reminds me uncannily of Mexico.  It was actually Mexico, not Spain, that ruled the Philippines for centuries.  You can tell how bad the traffic or the flooding is by the clucking sounds made by the taxi drivers.  There is a lot of boxing on TV, and you will regularly be surprised by which food items turn out to taste the best.  Don’t rule out the baked goods or the chicken minestrone soup.

This is a surrealistic dream country, combining fractured elements of an earlier global economy in strange and unpredictable ways.  If you’re not paying attention you can think you are somewhere else — Acapulco?  Lima?  Los Angeles? but in which years? — and yet you are regularly pulled back to the Filipino reality, if only by seeing the Chinese dragons perched in front of the Spanish colonial church.  “My Favorite Things Filipino” would all be moments of disorientation.  The traditional exotic spots now seem pseudo-exotic to me, at least compared to Manila, which forces you to rethink everywhere else you have visited.

Someone should write a New Yorker article about how Filipinos use music in public spaces.  The mango is superb, even by the standards of tropical countries.  If I lived here, I would learn how to talk with my eyebrows.  They don’t like to criticize each other.  Martha Stewart is brought up and discussed by high status Filipinos without irony.

The ability to appreciate the Philippines is a Turing test of some sort, but I am not yet sure for what.