Remember, NSFW. But a pretty good description of the most likely result of trying to "regulate" monopoly. It's....monopoly.
Nod to Angry Alex
Nod to Angry Alex
Showing posts with label competition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label competition. Show all posts
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Monday, September 03, 2012
Competition, or Clutter? Counties....
Federal Competition and Economic Growth
John William Hatfield & Katrina Kosec
Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming
Abstract: This paper exploits exogenous variation in the natural topography of the United States to estimate the causal impact of inter-jurisdictional competition on income growth. We find that doubling the number of county governments in a metropolitan area leads to a 17% increase in the average annual growth rate of earnings per employee over 1969–2006, and a 10% increase in 2006 income per employee. Decomposing income effects using 2000 Census worker-level data, we find that approximately half of the effect stems from making workers more productive, while the other half comes from changing the composition of the workforce and inducing workers to work more hours. We also present evidence that inter-jurisdictional competition leads local governments to raise more in taxes, spend more, and issue more debt, but does not help them obtain more inter-governmental transfers. However, the additional cost from this increase in expenditures to a median-wage employee is much smaller than the increase in that employee's wages due to greater inter-jurisdictional competition.
Nod to Kevin Lewis
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Con-man commandments
1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups).
2. Never look bored.
3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them.
4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones.
5. Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other fellow shows a strong interest.
6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown.
7. Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually).
8. Never boast. Just let your importance be quietly obvious.
9. Never be untidy.
10. Never get drunk.
Source is here.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
My Son, With Whom I am WELL Pleased
My boy, Dan Lee, has a nice paper coming out in PRQ.
"Anticipating Entry: Major Party Positioning and Third Party Threat"
Daniel Lee
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract: Observers of U.S. elections have reason to believe that third parties are
not relevant political actors since they rarely win many votes or influence which major party wins an election. Researchers should use dependent variables besides vote choice and vote share to find third party effects that are a normal aspect of the American two-party system. A spatial model of elections motivates the hypothesis that a higher likelihood of third party entry induces greater major party candidate divergence. An empirical test that uses candidate positioning data in the 1996 U.S. House elections provides evidence of this third party effect.
So, here is the answer to the question, "Why run as a third party candidate?" We don't have to WIN to make a difference. And just the fact that a third party COULD enter conditions competition between the two state-sponsored parties.
The point is that when a reporter says, "But you can't win!", here's your answer. Opening the system to competition helps CITIZENS by making the big parties more responsive. And the article is fully peer-reviewed.
(Nod to Kevin Lewis)
"Anticipating Entry: Major Party Positioning and Third Party Threat"
Daniel Lee
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract: Observers of U.S. elections have reason to believe that third parties are
not relevant political actors since they rarely win many votes or influence which major party wins an election. Researchers should use dependent variables besides vote choice and vote share to find third party effects that are a normal aspect of the American two-party system. A spatial model of elections motivates the hypothesis that a higher likelihood of third party entry induces greater major party candidate divergence. An empirical test that uses candidate positioning data in the 1996 U.S. House elections provides evidence of this third party effect.
So, here is the answer to the question, "Why run as a third party candidate?" We don't have to WIN to make a difference. And just the fact that a third party COULD enter conditions competition between the two state-sponsored parties.
The point is that when a reporter says, "But you can't win!", here's your answer. Opening the system to competition helps CITIZENS by making the big parties more responsive. And the article is fully peer-reviewed.
(Nod to Kevin Lewis)
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Never play soccer with a politician
Pay close attention around the 35 second mark of this lovely video:
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Culture that is Australia: a story in two parts
Part One:
MELBOURNE, Australia – Two men were arrested after bewildered diners at a McDonald's spotted them wrestling a 5-foot (1.5 meter) python named Boris in the restaurant parking lot, police said Thursday. Victoria state police said the men stole the 8-year-old black-headed python and a lizard from a pet shop on Wednesday. They then brought the snake to the McDonald's parking lot, where they began wrestling with it in front of puzzled customers, police said.
SYDNEY (Reuters) – The cause of a mystery eye ailment that struck about 50 visitors to a dairy pavilion at an agricultural show in Australia has been traced -- to cow urine.
The Royal Adelaide Show had to close its dairy cattle pavilion after an rising number of people reported sore eyes when visiting the judging marquee.
Officials from the South Australia (SA) Health Department were called in to investigate and found the cause of the outbreak was stagnant cow urine.
The Royal Adelaide Show had to close its dairy cattle pavilion after an rising number of people reported sore eyes when visiting the judging marquee.
Officials from the South Australia (SA) Health Department were called in to investigate and found the cause of the outbreak was stagnant cow urine.
The Queen must be so proud!
Monday, June 21, 2010
viva la reconquista!
From USA Today:
A new kind of Mexican immigrant is making it big in the USA: huge Mexican corporations that are snapping up U.S. brand names, opening U.S. factories and investing millions of pesos north of the border.
From Thomas' English Muffins to Borden milk, Saks Fifth Avenue department stores to The New York Times newspaper, Mexican investors have taken advantage of low interest rates and depressed prices during the economic downturn to expand their holdings in el norte.
People, Grupo Bimbo (aqui hay Bimbo) owns Entenmann's!
A new kind of Mexican immigrant is making it big in the USA: huge Mexican corporations that are snapping up U.S. brand names, opening U.S. factories and investing millions of pesos north of the border.
From Thomas' English Muffins to Borden milk, Saks Fifth Avenue department stores to The New York Times newspaper, Mexican investors have taken advantage of low interest rates and depressed prices during the economic downturn to expand their holdings in el norte.
People, Grupo Bimbo (aqui hay Bimbo) owns Entenmann's!
How are those Spanish lessons coming?
Monday, May 17, 2010
A Bizarre Paper, But With An Important Point
Private-Payer Profits Can Induce Negative Medicare Margins
Jeffrey Stensland, Zachary Gaumer & Mark Miller
Health Affairs, May 2010, Pages 1045-1051
Abstract: A common assumption is that hospitals have little control over their costs and must charge high rates to private health insurers when Medicare rates are lower than hospital costs. We present evidence that contradicts that common assumption. Hospitals with strong market power and higher private-payer and other revenues appear to have less pressure to constrain their costs. Thus, these hospitals have higher costs per unit of service, which can lead to losses on Medicare patients. Hospitals under more financial pressure-with less market share and less ability to charge higher private rates-often constrain costs and can generate profits on Medicare patients.
Good lord. The problem is not "profits," but rather that costs are increasing without bound. The point is that in the absence of any kind of competition, the very idea of "cost" is poorly defined. Every step along the line can charge higher prices, because the costs are passed on. You can call that profit if you want, but it's really just a transfer based on the monopoly protections afforded to health care by government restrictions on advertising, and the creation of insuperable entry barriers.
Two things you should read, if you think the article above makes sense (hint: it doesn't)
1. My little piece on insurance, at REASON
2. Nick G's cool piece on eye surgery, at ReasonTV
Cost can come down in a hurry, with competition. But the Obamacare program will, if anything, make the problem worse by focusing on insurance and bureaucratic price-fixing. In any case, blaming "profits" is the sort of idiocy you learn in public health schools, where as far as I can tell they would save time if they could just lobotomizing students. A lobotomy and an MPH are only distinguished by the size of the scar they leave; the effects are identical.
(Nod to KL for the article)
Jeffrey Stensland, Zachary Gaumer & Mark Miller
Health Affairs, May 2010, Pages 1045-1051
Abstract: A common assumption is that hospitals have little control over their costs and must charge high rates to private health insurers when Medicare rates are lower than hospital costs. We present evidence that contradicts that common assumption. Hospitals with strong market power and higher private-payer and other revenues appear to have less pressure to constrain their costs. Thus, these hospitals have higher costs per unit of service, which can lead to losses on Medicare patients. Hospitals under more financial pressure-with less market share and less ability to charge higher private rates-often constrain costs and can generate profits on Medicare patients.
Good lord. The problem is not "profits," but rather that costs are increasing without bound. The point is that in the absence of any kind of competition, the very idea of "cost" is poorly defined. Every step along the line can charge higher prices, because the costs are passed on. You can call that profit if you want, but it's really just a transfer based on the monopoly protections afforded to health care by government restrictions on advertising, and the creation of insuperable entry barriers.
Two things you should read, if you think the article above makes sense (hint: it doesn't)
1. My little piece on insurance, at REASON
2. Nick G's cool piece on eye surgery, at ReasonTV
Cost can come down in a hurry, with competition. But the Obamacare program will, if anything, make the problem worse by focusing on insurance and bureaucratic price-fixing. In any case, blaming "profits" is the sort of idiocy you learn in public health schools, where as far as I can tell they would save time if they could just lobotomizing students. A lobotomy and an MPH are only distinguished by the size of the scar they leave; the effects are identical.
(Nod to KL for the article)
Friday, January 15, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
On political competition
Tyler had a interesting post yesterday about how increasing political competition via increasing the number of political parties is unlikely to bring about the same kind of improvements that increasing competition in the economic realm does.
I think he is right on the mark here.
However, there is another important dimension to political competition; viz polities compete with each other.
In the US, States implicitly are competing against each other for residents, businesses, jobs, etc.
In fact, if there is one thing Mark Crain taught me, it is that the States are hothouses of political innovations that often catch on and diffuse across the country.
Having our political system less centralized would allow inter-state competition to produce potential innovations in more spheres of policy.
In a way, devolving more functions of governance to the states increases competition over those functions in a way that is at least somewhat analogous to increasing competition in the economic realm.
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