
Hat Tip: Travis Wiseman
We're Economists. We know things about stuff.
Sen. George W. Della Jr., a Baltimore Democrat, said such games encourage excessive drinking, which leads to raucous behavior in city neighborhoods. A bill he introduced late last month would have outlawed any games that award drinks as prizes in city taverns.You can file this under "evidence that democrats and republicans are the same."
What empirical evidence do we have about the responsiveness of high earners to tax rates? What is the reliability of that evidence?Since I did some research on this subject in my dissertation, here are some expanded thoughts. First, what are the challenges inherent to studying the income tax responsiveness of the "rich?"
Bakija and Slemrod. (2004). "Do the Rich Flee from High State Taxes? Evidence from Federal Estate Tax Returns." NBER working paper 10645.All of the above papers suggest that the tax responsiveness of the rich is very high, often dollar-for-dollar. The major paper I am aware of that goes against this is:
Goolsbee* (2000). "Taxes, High-Income Executives, and the Perils of Revenue Estimation in the New Economy." AER 90, p. 271-75.
Goolsbee* (2000). "What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence from Executive Compensation." J Political Economy, 108, p. 352-75.
Slemrod (1998). "The Economics of Taxing the Rich." NBER working paper 6584.
Ross and Dunn (2007). "The Income Tax Responsiveness of the Rich: Evidence From Free Agent Major League Baseball All-Stars." CEP, 25(4).
Leigh (2005). "Can Redistributive State Taxes Reduce Inequality?" Australian National University Discussion Paper #490.I believe Leigh's paper has been published in the National Tax Journal, but that is not the citation I have immediately in front of me.
U.S. investigators have wrapped up a major 21-month drug-enforcement operation aimed at crippling a powerful and violent Mexican cartel operating in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Wednesday.Or the cartel was trying to increase cocaine prices because...they are a cartel. Regardless, I'm sure your temporary supply disruption is a permanent one. Congratulations DOJ, your continued existence is a mockery of humanity.
...
In two years, cocaine prices more than doubled, while purity dropped by a third, indicating enforcement efforts are having an impact, Leonhart said.
"The result [of law enforcement pressure] is less cocaine on the streets of the United States. That's why the price has been affected. That's why the purity has been affected," she said.
"Nowadays, Leonardo might have been hired by a top research university, but it seems likely that he would have been denied tenure. He had lots of notes but relatively little to put in his portfolio."
If ghosts do indeed exist then there would still be no need to fear them, at least not any more than any living entity. If ghosts are rational economic actors then ghosts would have no incentive to severely disturb the living population as it is likely that the costs to the ghost of killing an individual outweigh the benefits.When a ghost kills an individual then that individual could then conceivably turn into a ghost and, as a ghost, annoy its phantom killer for an even longer time period than if left alive. A ghost would be much better off being annoyed by a living entity for the comparably short period of time of that person’s lifespan rather then to kill that individual and, by doing so, inducing that person to seek retribution in the afterlife. This paper provides research to show that ghosts are indeed rational actors and, as such, refrain from the practice of killing living entities. The paper concludes by discussing the impact that this result could have on the housing market.The paper is chalk-full of interesting literature reviews:
For example, according to Sheppard (2008), European folklore reveals that ghosts are most attracted to travelers because they are usually traveling alone and do not have a support system such as family and friends nearby.
[...]
According to paranormal expert Susan Sheppard, “Many speculate the reason spirits come across as orbs (circular shapes) is that circles are the easiest way for energies to assume physical shape” (Sheppard, pg. 110). This is saying that when ghosts do choose to manifest themselves, they tend to do so in the easiest or least costly way possible. This provides evidence that ghosts are acting with some concept of a cost-benefit analysis dictating their behavior.
Like the men, they usually just hand the teller a note, knowing most banks instruct employees to hand over the cash rather than risk injuries.
CEOs have a potential conflict of interest when their company is acquired: they can bargain to be retained by the acquirer and for private benefits rather than for a higher premium to be paid to the shareholders. We investigate the determinants of target CEO retention by the acquirer and whether target CEO retention affects the premium paid by the acquirer. The probability that a CEO is retained increases with a private bidder, the performance of the target, and with the fraction of target shares held by insiders. Regardless of the bidder type, we find no evidence that the premium paid is lower when the CEO is retained by the acquirer. Strikingly, the target stock price increases more at the announcement of an acquisition by a private firm when the CEO is retained than when she is not. This result holds whether the private acquirer is a private equity firm or an operating company and for management buyouts.At first, I was surprised by this result, but perhaps not bargaining with the acquirer for greater private benefits is why they get to keep their jobs in the first place. If you were buying a new business, you would probably take how the management negotiates the acquisition as a signal of their future productivity on your behalf. If the management tries to do what is in the interest of the shareholders when it is counter to their self-interest, then those are the kind of people you would like to retain.
To many observers, the current recession provides compelling circumstances for renewed fiscal policy activism. But the strong support for fiscal policy intervention reflects a renewed belief in policy activism that had already appeared before the present crisis. However, the recent debate about possible fiscal policy interventions suggests that we are still relying on the approaches to discretionary policy used in past periods of policy activism. It is not surprising that there have been few advances in discretionary policy design, given the lack of favor such policy suffered over many years. But if we are going to practice fiscal discretionary policy on a large scale, then more attention to policy design is sorely needed.
If you read the story, you will see that this guy got at least the minimum of what he deserved.At the time, the businessman, identified only by his last name -- Fan -- was married and had four other mistresses, according to the Peninsula Metropolis Daily newspaper in Qingdao.
The women knew of one another, but none elected to break up with the man and give up their rent-free apartment and a 5,000 yuan ($730) monthly allowance, the reports said.
When the economy soured, the businessman apparently decided to let go of all but one mistress.
He staged a private talent show in May, without telling the women his intentions. An instructor from a local modeling agency judged the women on the way they looked, how they sang and how much alcohol they could hold, the Shanghai Daily said.
The judge knocked out Yu in the first round of the competition based on her looks.
Big companies are like communist countries - we all know how well communist countries worked. At some point they fell apart, not because the leaders were dumb, but because nobody would tell the leaders at the top, who had to make decisions, what decisions to make.
Why does it matter who oversees the census? In very general terms, Republicans would prefer to err on the side of under-counting and Democrats would prefer to err on the side of over-counting. The options can yield very different numbers for demographic groups and localities — and they have significant political and policy implications. This most recent skirmish is more manufactured than real, the result of willful misunderstandings. But it has its roots in an ongoing battle over whom the census counts — and how.Despite its self-granted monopoly in education, government agencies cannot even count.
I think it's an error in human wiring that we're capable of putting the acts of collectives on par with those of individuals; many are comfortable considering the decisions of groups as coming from a single granular point, and not from the complex internal-debate engines they really are. 'Congress,' for instance, or the 'shareholders of Ford,' or the 'Pawtucket City Council.'"It's an interesting read as a college basketball fan, and equally as much so as a student of the trials and tribulations of the process of making group decisions.
Software giant Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of hackers behind a powerful computer virus that could lead to millions of PCs being hijacked.How you do you think they chose (or solved for p=) $250,000?
"It is the intent of the General Assembly to encourage faculty, students, bookstores, book distributors, publishers, postsecondary education institutions to work together to contain costs of essential college textbooks and supplemental materials for students in ways that still maintain the academic freedom of faculty to identify high quality course materials for students."
"No later than the 2009-2010 fall academic term, each Kentucky public postsecondary education institution shall implement a policy establishing a deadline for faculty adoption and public posting of the International Standard Book Number and retail price for all courses within the undergraduate course schedule."
"No later than the 2009-2010 fall academic term, a publisher that sells a college textbook and any supplemental material in a single bundle in a college bookstore in Kentucky shall also make available the college textbook and the supplemental materials as separate and unbundled items with each priced separately."
"No later than the 2009-2010 fall academic term, publishers shall publish substantial content revisions between new editions of college textbooks from the earlier editions of the same textbooks in order for faculty to make informed adoptions and for students to determine whether it is necessary to purchase a new edition if it is adopted."
House Bill 1656, sponsored by Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson, would rely on $500 million from the trust fund created by the $3.8 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road, plus $250 million from federal highway funds that the state has and $250 million from money the state expects to get from the federal stimulus.Moving your wallet from your pants pocket to your coat pocket will not make you wealthier. Especially if you have to burn money in the process of doing so.The money would be divided among Indiana counties, cities and towns over the next two years. In addition, the bill would create a $20 million program to help local governments hire engineers and consultants to design projects, and would provide money for two-year, $6,000 grants so that out-of-work Hoosiers can return to college for job training.
The bill also would steer business to Indiana companies, requiring the use of Indiana steel and allowing agencies to spend 15 percent more in most cases in order to award contracts to Indiana companies instead of out-of-state firms with lower bids.
But the risk of doing nothing is far greater than the current price tag, some economists contend.I don't think that is the recipe or that it is the single worst thing, but whether or not it is an important ingredient can be well argued. Congrats to the EPI!
"The single worse thing that can happen when the economy gets mired down is to sit on the sideline, pull back, start acting like a scared household, because that's the recipe for a recession that lasts a decade rather than three years," said Josh Bivans of the Economic Policy Institute.
LONG BEACH, California -- Students at the MIT Media Lab have developed a wearable computing system that turns any surface into an interactive display screen. The wearer can summon virtual gadgets and internet data at will, then dispel them like smoke when they're done.
The ice storm that slammed the American mid-south in the last weekend of January and then moved onward to the East Coast has left an estimated 1.3 million people without power. And nowhere was hit harder than Kentucky, where some 700,000 people lost electricity and 24 deaths were attributed to the storm. Yet President Barack Obama only declared the state a major disaster area this week. What took so long? Where is the presidential compassion for the victims of this tremendous disaster?The story is not without its heroes:
The answer is that nothing is wrong and President Obama surely feels for each and every person hurt or put out by the storm. The reality is that even after the emergency management reforms allegedly implemented after Hurricane Katrina, help from far-off Washington still does little in times of fast-moving crisis. This view may be heresy in the age of federal bailouts, but it is still true.
Enter David Strange, the enterprising figure the Associated Press calls the "generator man." Strange drove the hills and hollows of backwoods Kentucky delivering and setting up generators to those without power—at a $50 to $100 mark-up over retail. Willing customers included a dialysis patient and a powerless 80-year-old woman dependent on an oxygen system. They called him a "godsend," although Strange prefers "jack of all trades" or even "hustler." To Adam Smith, he would be recognizable as an agent of the invisible hand.
But beyond the broad language of the Outer Space Treaty, we don't really have set guidelines for how we should treat microbial life on another planet, should we run across it.But there are efforts to fix that:
That's why NASA planetary scientist Christopher McKay, in an article in this week's Science, suggests the need for a stronger policy that ensures all exploration of Mars be "biologically reversible" — meaning we would be required to effectively wipe away our footprints and remove any possibility of contamination, by leaving behind nothing that could foster alien microbial growth. Such a policy would be especially necessary if we discover that life on Mars has emerged independently from life on Earth — what McKay calls a "second genesis" (as opposed to Martian life that arose because of meteorites exchanged between Mars and a hospitable Earth, a condition in which the two planets would share a tree of life and contamination would be less of a concern). If there really were a second genesis on Mars, "contamination by even one Earth bacterium may be a serious issue of environmental ethics," McKay writes.My first thought: "What a pointless thing to spend time working on!"
Almer's family is suing the Peanut Corporation of America, whose plant in Blakely, Georgia, has been identified as the source of the outbreak. The FDA is urging that every product produced there since the beginning of 2007 be thrown away.My complaint is that you cannot blame someone (i.e. the FDA/federal government) for something they could not be capable of doing. For example, I do not blame Danny Devito for not being able to dunk a basketball. To ascribe blame, it requires one to have the responsibility and capability, neither of which fall at the feet of the FDA when it comes to food poisoning.
Food safety experts said the underlying cause of the problem, however, is that the century-old system of regulation is broken. In this case, the experts said, the federal government failed to oversee the safety of products coming out of the Blakely plant and was slow to identify it as the source of the salmonella.
"Speaking aboard Air Force One en route Thursday to a House Democratic retreat in Virginia, Obama..."Equal time, anyone?
"El Centro, Calif., continued to hold the highest rate of unemployment at 22.6%. Morgantown, W.Va., had a rate of just 2.7%, the lowest in the country."
"It will be up to you to manage it--to spend it or save it as you see fit."To their parents' chagrin, the cubs turn out to be a Keynesian dream. Each week they are paid their allowance, the cubs immediately run out to the store and blow through their money quickly, buying candy, bubble gum, cards, and other toys they quickly tire of, then spend the rest of the week moping about.
"But instead of giving [the allowances] to [the cubs] at the beginning of each week so that you can go out and spend them before they burn a hole in your pockets, we're going to hold them for you. Then when you want a little pocket money or want to buy something, you write out a check."The new checkbook system is a success for the parents. Immediately, the cubs start delaying their present consumption for greater future consumption:
"[Sister Bear] decided to save her first week's allowance and buy the Bearbie wedding dress with her next week's allowance so she would still have ten dollars left."The Economics Lesson: This is a classic example of Libertarian Paternalism, as advocated in Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. By changing some default in the "choice architecture" of a decision society might achieve welfare improvements. The paternalism lies in letting government (or possibly an employer) decide the default path for the citizen. The libertarian aspect is that the citizen can choose to step off the path and follow a different pursuit. For instance, Sunstein and Thaler often note that when employers automatically enroll their employees into a 401K, they have significantly higher savings rates and greater economies of scale than if they let them voluntarily enroll. Default enrollment in organ donor systems have similar consequences. Since employees and donors can opt-out, it is argued that changing the default is not an act of coercion, but is rather "soft" or "libertarian" paternalism.
"Those of you who have the means and are whining about a slight delay in the state's money should be ashamed of yourselves. People's needs are not being met and you're complaining about the timing of checks? This is precisely why we have elected Obama, to appropriate the wealth in this country in accordance to a common good, rather than in in the vein of the Cheney, Bush Reagan selfish greed manifest. If you loved this country and our president, you'd tear the IOU up when you received it."
"Which brings me to the point of why the federal government doesn't simply print more money and give it the states...[a]fter all we need to save capitalism..."
"Let me just be blunt. Protectionism is the crack cocaine of economics. It may provide a high. It's addictive and it leads to economic death."Given the concessions to unions recently, this may be closer to reality than we'd like to think.