Hi all,
There’s a massive storm raging outside, with a name like Bertie Wooster’s long-lost Aunt: Eunice. Eunice has done some damage: a church spire fell off, the Millennium Dome has had its covering ripped off like Hulk Hogan’s vest, and the sent the sheep to find shelter. But it’s also created some much needed social capital as a couple of hundred thousand people followed a YouTube channel called “Big Jet TV” to… well, watch big jets land at Heathrow, with a few wobbles. Two thoughts crossed my mind: first, if they thought that was compelling, they should really have watched the disaster that was the St. Helena Airport (funded with aid money, no less); and secondly, UK bad weather really is puny, tiny bad weather compared to what the US gets. What would Cameron Tucker say? Just, whatever you do, don’t claim that people take storms with female names less seriously without reading this first.
- It was Valentine’s day on Monday, a day we celebrate in my household with good food and a bottle of wine, much like every other day we can manage it. But Valentine’s day isn’t just about crass commercialisation and the desire to sell gaudy tat to credulous boy- and girlfriends: it’s also about economics. Specifically, it’s about Planet Money picking their (mainly) economic Valentines, reliably one of the best episodes of the year. This one opens with a paper I missed in AER that shows the price disclosure does indeed help drive prices down… but only if consumers use it and act on it; otherwise it aids collusion and increased profits. It also includes a segment on what happens to goods we attach sentimental value to when they’re stripped of all sentiment and sold on the cold auction market, quite apposite for the occasion (transcript).
- Dan Banik’s In Pursuit of Development is a great podcast, and this was my favourite episode so far, from the opening moments when Dan introduces his guest as Pranab Bardhan as Pranab-da (literally translated as ‘Pranab big brother’, a term of respect; there was a time when virtually the entire Indian continent knew Sourav Ganguly as Dada). The whole conversation is good, but I particularly like their discussion of the ‘stopping power’ of bureaucracy, often more important (and conducive to petty corruption) than the positive power to effect change. Transcript in the second tab.
- I enjoyed this: Taryn Dinkelman and Liwa Racehl Ngai write up their new work using time-use surveys to show how female paid work has changed with changing economic structures (specifically a shift from agricultural work to services work). One interesting finding: many women shift to services work but do very little non-household work at all. Related, Florence Kondylis on how to value unpaid work time.
- Switching towards politics for a moment: two good FiveThirtyEight pieces on how the pandemic—and more specifically, responses to the pandemic—is currently evolving in the US. First, Maggie Koerth has a discussion with Megan Ranney about the merits (and appropriate stopping point) of using masks in schools; and secondly, Jean Yi writes up polling results that show how much people are ready to move on, and start living a (modified) normal life, despite the disease.
- And on the other side of the pond: The Economist covers the UK’s ‘shrinkflation state’, charging the same high taxes (rather, historically high taxes right now) for fewer and fewer services. I could write an essay about this. A Government doesn’t just raise money and buy services. It creates, in the round, an economic and policy environment that facilitates or hampers the delivery of services and the general progress of private economic and social business. We have seen an incredible amount of poor, destructive policy over the last several years. We cannot buy our way out of the problems it has created. No amount of tax will fix it. We have to govern our way out, and the current lot do not look so inclined.
- Progresa results, 20 years out: still big compared to control. It’s hard to tell if this is great (we know how to improve things!) or sad (even after 20 years, a medium-sized intervention is the difference between treatment and control).
- And lastly, last week I mentioned Linsanity; this week I discover Jeremy Lin has a graphic novel about his life coming out. I recall now how much casual racism, both overt (outright racism in the commentary box) and more subtle (the fact that Lin was marked out as an ‘average athlete’ despite—by any metrics—being one of the most extraordinarily fast and strong players in the draft, because the prior that Asian=weak was just too strong for the data to shift). And if sports aren’t your bag, here is Haruki Murakami listing his five favourite books, none of which will surprise anyone whose read more than a couple of his novels.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
R
