- John Cochrane on that Krugman article. Reminds me of the very nice open letter from Rogoff to Stiglitz in 2002. HT: Mankiw
- Frank Furedi on experts. HT: ALDaily
Sabtu, 12 September 2009
Evening roundup
Kamis, 10 September 2009
Biscuit Harm Index
Marginal Revolution points us to a new biscuit harm index calculated for the UK. Turns out that many Brits injure themselves while eating biscuits. If their biscuits are as hard, rough, and prone to tongue-laceration as the Kiwi ANZAC biscuit, I can understand.
Perhaps BERL could use this data to produce a biscuit harm index showing the social costs that could be avoided if only biscuits didn't exist. Then the New Zealand Police could release stats showing the social harms that they have prevented through biscuit-eradication activities.
So to counter yesterday's post, here's one for the other side: the ANZAC biscuit, which best ought be classed as a munition. Only a people who find the itch of woolly sweaters either comforting or a more practical alternative to the cilice could appreciate this weapons-grade cookie.
Perhaps BERL could use this data to produce a biscuit harm index showing the social costs that could be avoided if only biscuits didn't exist. Then the New Zealand Police could release stats showing the social harms that they have prevented through biscuit-eradication activities.
So to counter yesterday's post, here's one for the other side: the ANZAC biscuit, which best ought be classed as a munition. Only a people who find the itch of woolly sweaters either comforting or a more practical alternative to the cilice could appreciate this weapons-grade cookie.
Rabu, 09 September 2009
Afternoon roundup
- Luke Malpass at CIS argues that the government should realize its losses and sell off KiwiRail: privatisation and immediate culling of unprofitable lines makes more sense than continued stagnation. He's right.
- Grocery line optimisation algorithms. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person in the world trying to run these models in his head while standing in line. Long story short: ballpark 50 seconds per person ahead of you with fewer than 3 items and add in an additional 3 seconds per item beyond that. Of course, adjust for the usual confounds like chatty or trainee clerks or elderly folks in the queue. In NZ, add in 10 second fixed cost per person in line with alcohol so the clerk can get a manager's check on age. HT: Marginal Revolution
Things I like about NZ
Another for the list: when some nutjob firebombs the Prime Minister's electorate office, the police probe it as a normal arson attack. No terror alert level to raise from hysteria to hyper-hysteria, no machine-gun humvees flitting around.
Drunk driving limits and risk aversion
John Key's National Government, elected partially due to public annoyance at Labour's "nanny state" initiatives, is talking about lowering the drink driving limit from 0.08 to 0.05.
David Farrar rightly asks, given that the vast bulk of drunk drivers killed in car crashes had well over 0.08, would the reduction in deaths among folks in the 0.05-0.08 range be worth the cost in terms of reduced enjoyment of nights out.
I've heard rebuttals of this question pointing out that most drivers who have wine with dinner are in fact under the 0.05 limit anyway and so would not be affected. This seems a nonsense though. It's difficult to know with certainty what your blood alcohol level is after any given quantity of beer or wine, so sensible folks who weigh heavily the costs of being caught over the limit will target a level sufficiently below 0.08 that they will not err and be over the limit. The wider the confidence interval around your point estimate, the lower will be your targeted level to avoid the risk of erring on the upside.
So, if the limit is dropped from 0.08 to 0.05 and most folks currently target somewhere around 0.04, their drinking, and their enjoyment of a night out, will drop considerably even though the dropped limit remains theoretically unbinding. And the folks who are happy to be caught for the 10th time driving on a suspended license at four times the legal limit will continue to ignore the limit.
Isn't it better to have a sensible limit with heavy punishment rather than a low limit that cannot have a punishment sufficient to deter the really dangerous folks? With a limit at 0.08, really dangerous anti-social deviants like this guy can have the book thrown at them; with a limit at 0.05, there would be no support for heavy punishment because the net is cast too wide.
David Farrar rightly asks, given that the vast bulk of drunk drivers killed in car crashes had well over 0.08, would the reduction in deaths among folks in the 0.05-0.08 range be worth the cost in terms of reduced enjoyment of nights out.
I've heard rebuttals of this question pointing out that most drivers who have wine with dinner are in fact under the 0.05 limit anyway and so would not be affected. This seems a nonsense though. It's difficult to know with certainty what your blood alcohol level is after any given quantity of beer or wine, so sensible folks who weigh heavily the costs of being caught over the limit will target a level sufficiently below 0.08 that they will not err and be over the limit. The wider the confidence interval around your point estimate, the lower will be your targeted level to avoid the risk of erring on the upside.
So, if the limit is dropped from 0.08 to 0.05 and most folks currently target somewhere around 0.04, their drinking, and their enjoyment of a night out, will drop considerably even though the dropped limit remains theoretically unbinding. And the folks who are happy to be caught for the 10th time driving on a suspended license at four times the legal limit will continue to ignore the limit.
Isn't it better to have a sensible limit with heavy punishment rather than a low limit that cannot have a punishment sufficient to deter the really dangerous folks? With a limit at 0.08, really dangerous anti-social deviants like this guy can have the book thrown at them; with a limit at 0.05, there would be no support for heavy punishment because the net is cast too wide.
The new Copenhagen Consensus
Seamus has shown that there's pent-up demand out there for global warming posts - I'm massively impressed with the quality of our commentariat, by the way - so here's a bit of fun. Bjorn Lomborg has commissioned a new expert panel. Even though tackling warming came very low on his prior panel's list of things worth doing (relative to spending money on malaria alleviation, for example), his new panel is charged with finding the best way of spending $250 billion targeted at climate change. High on the list: climate engineering proposals, research, and adaptation. Low on the list: carbon taxes. Even lower on the list: carbon trading regimes.
Unfortunately for Seamus, methane mitigation makes their top ten - partially because of its short lifespan. Decreases in methane output strongly reduce steady state methane levels in the atmosphere. They focus on science fixes rather than culling the herd.
HT: National Post
Unfortunately for Seamus, methane mitigation makes their top ten - partially because of its short lifespan. Decreases in methane output strongly reduce steady state methane levels in the atmosphere. They focus on science fixes rather than culling the herd.
HT: National Post
Senin, 07 September 2009
Canada needed Ted Kennedy
I was disappointed to see a dearth of eulogies praising Ted Kennedy's laudable work in helping to push through airline deregulation in the US under Carter.
Today's National Post tells me something I didn't know before: intercity buses in Canada are under the same kind of ridiculous regulatory regime that stifled the US airline industry pre-deregulation. In short, dominant carriers get protected access to more profitable routes coupled with mandated service on loss-making routes. So folks busing between big cities cross-subsidize folks going from Winnipeg to Manitoba's far north. And now Greyhound has pulled out of the entire deal as the package was no longer profitable.
Ugh. If there's some compelling social interest in providing subsidized busing to remote areas, the government would do much better by simply paying a per-ticket subsidy to any operator running the route and allowing free entry into service provision on all routes. It's hard to see why it makes more sense to force relatively poor folks taking the bus from Winnipeg to Calgary to foot the bill for the even poorer folks taking the bus from Winnipeg to Terrace Bay than for the subsidy to come from the general tax take. The deadweight losses from cartelization of the main routes have to be large.
It's also thoroughly unclear why mucking about in prices is preferable to just using the second welfare theorem: charge market prices for everything but give poor people more money and let them decide whether to live in the middle of nowhere or not. But that's perhaps a bigger policy shift than Canada would be comfortable with. At minimum they ought to shift from route cross-subsidisation to direct subsidisation of otherwise underserviced routes.
Even Ted Kennedy knew that the cross-subsidisation system was a nonsense (though it helped that he was from Boston, one of the bigger providers of cross-subsidies to other places). Perhaps Canada will catch on someday too.
Today's National Post tells me something I didn't know before: intercity buses in Canada are under the same kind of ridiculous regulatory regime that stifled the US airline industry pre-deregulation. In short, dominant carriers get protected access to more profitable routes coupled with mandated service on loss-making routes. So folks busing between big cities cross-subsidize folks going from Winnipeg to Manitoba's far north. And now Greyhound has pulled out of the entire deal as the package was no longer profitable.
Ugh. If there's some compelling social interest in providing subsidized busing to remote areas, the government would do much better by simply paying a per-ticket subsidy to any operator running the route and allowing free entry into service provision on all routes. It's hard to see why it makes more sense to force relatively poor folks taking the bus from Winnipeg to Calgary to foot the bill for the even poorer folks taking the bus from Winnipeg to Terrace Bay than for the subsidy to come from the general tax take. The deadweight losses from cartelization of the main routes have to be large.
It's also thoroughly unclear why mucking about in prices is preferable to just using the second welfare theorem: charge market prices for everything but give poor people more money and let them decide whether to live in the middle of nowhere or not. But that's perhaps a bigger policy shift than Canada would be comfortable with. At minimum they ought to shift from route cross-subsidisation to direct subsidisation of otherwise underserviced routes.
Even Ted Kennedy knew that the cross-subsidisation system was a nonsense (though it helped that he was from Boston, one of the bigger providers of cross-subsidies to other places). Perhaps Canada will catch on someday too.
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)