Speed as Lower Transactions Cost

The speed of ships and shipping productivity in the age of sail

Klas Rönnbäck
European Review of Economic History, November 2012, Pages 469-489

Abstract:
A sample of vessels from the transatlantic slave trade is used as source for a quantitative analysis of the transit speed of ocean-going ships during the early modern period. In contrast to influential previous studies, the results show that the speed of ships in my sample increased significantly during this period, potentially contributing to increasing productivity of ocean shipping. The pattern is homogeneous geographically. This might have been one of the factors behind falling freight rates in the transatlantic trade, which in turn contributed to a process of market integration already during the early modern period.

MicroWork Development

From the HBR....

What’s the best way to help the world’s poor? The answer may not be giving them more aid. What people need to break the cycle of poverty is work. A small but growing industry known as “impact sourcing” is addressing that need head-on by hiring people at the bottom of the pyramid to perform digital tasks such as transcribing audio files and editing product databases. Essentially, it’s business process outsourcing aimed at boosting economic development.

Impact sourcing is not unlike microfinancing: It aspires to create meaningful work for and put money in the pockets of the people who need it most. And because it connects new workers—often those who’ve been marginalized, such as Muslim women in Calcutta—to the global supply chain and addresses real needs of first-world companies, it could quickly reach a large scale. In a study commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation last year, Monitor Group estimated that the market for impact sourcing was $4.5 billion in 2010 and would rise to $20 billion by 2015. It also predicted that employment in the industry would grow from 144,000 to 780,000 over the same period.

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Bad Day

Some overlap, but some other good ones, here...

Hard to beat the Captain America one, or the steering wheel fail... That would be a bad feeling.

Minimum Wage

The Montana Department of Employment, Division of Labor Standards got an anonymous tip that a small rancher was not paying proper wages to his help.  They immediately sent an official  agent out to investigate him.

GOVT AGENT: I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.

RANCHER: Well, there's my hired hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $350 a week plus free room and board.

GOVT AGENT:  Well, those payments and conditions are within the law.  Anybody else work here?
 
RANCHER:  Well, I wasn't going to say.  But there's also a mentally challenged guy. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work on the ranch. He makes about $10 per week, sometimes less.  He pays his own room and board.  I do buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night so he can cope with life, but then sometimes he tries to make love to my wife.

GOVT AGENT:   Okay, yes, then THAT's the guy I heard about, and need to talk to -- the mentally challenged one.

RANCHER: That would be me.

Does Cheating Make You a Cheater?

When Cheating Would Make You a Cheater: Implicating the Self Prevents Unethical Behavior

Christopher Bryan, Gabrielle Adams & Benoît Monin
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming

Abstract:
In 3 experiments using 2 different paradigms, people were less likely to cheat for personal gain when a subtle change in phrasing framed such behavior as diagnostic of an undesirable identity. Participants were given the opportunity to claim money they were not entitled to at the experimenters' expense; instructions referred to cheating with either language that was designed to highlight the implications of cheating for the actor's identity (e.g., “Please don't be a cheater”) or language that focused on the action (e.g., “Please don't cheat”). Participants in the “cheating” condition claimed significantly more money than did participants in the “cheater” condition, who showed no evidence of having cheated at all. This difference occurred both in a face-to-face interaction (Experiment 1) and in a private online setting (Experiments 2 and 3). These results demonstrate the power of a subtle linguistic difference to prevent even private unethical behavior by invoking people's desire to maintain a self-image as good and honest.

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Football: Stick a fork in it?

Earlier this year, LeBron and I wrote about the end of football in Grantland. We speculated that it could take 10-15 years before football was knocked off its perch as the number 1 US sport.

New findings from Boston University make our scenario even more likely. Researchers there have found 28 previously unreported cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in deceased football players:

Previously, CTE had been found in 18 of the 19 former NFL players whose brains were examined. The 15 new cases in the BU study mean that of the 34 brains of former NFL players that have been examined, 33 had the disease. Linemen made up 40 percent of those cases, supporting research that suggests repetitive head trauma occurring on every play — not concussions associated with violent collisions — may be the biggest risk. BU also reported CTE in four former NHL players.

So, CTE is more prevalent than we thought and may well not be fixable by focussing on concussion avoidance or treatment.

The "end of football" is very much in sight.

Attack of the clones

Anonyman sends this little gem.

A hat?  He had him made into a HAT?

Publishing as a Craft

My post the other day created some pushback.

A former student here at Duke sent this response, mostly in agreement with my claims (not that my claims were original, either, by the way!)

Hi Mike, I wanted to send a quick note to say I appreciated your post today about difficult letters of recommendation, and what it takes to succeed in academia. As someone who is basically a parishioner in the Church of Munger, all I can say is "amen." (Also, as you wrote a letter for me I am sure I am one of the people who gave you fits as someone with promise but nothing to show for it yet. I probably still am). 

Please feel free to post or distribute these comments as you fit. Let stress some other reasons why sending out a lot of work--especially early in your career--is important. Net present value is a compelling argument. But, assume that people only care about doing good work and not about future earnings or even getting tenure. Writing a lot may be even more important for reasons unrelated to salary and tenure. You don't grow as a scholar if you are not working (normal family vacations aside). 

Main points after the jump...

Other People's Money, Spent for Other People

Email from W.H.:

Many times when people discuss Milton Friedman's fourth category of spending they do so in a mistaken vacuum. How so? They forget to point out HOW other people's money came to be. Stated alternatively, other people spending other people's money on other people, the discussion thereof, many, many times leaves out Friedman's first point: coercion.

Hence one ends with an isolated discussion of how Friedman's fourth category of spending points out the careless way or ineffective/inefficient way that occurs by other people [politico]spending other people's money [taxpayer] on other people [recipient class]. True enough but it decouples the coercion and only discusses the single phenomena without discussing [coupling] the ability of such a phenomena to emerge. Think about it, how many times have you heard the discussion, in isolation, of other people [cheese master] spending other people's cheese [cheese payer] on other people [cheese recipient class]??

Meanwhile, twenty six discussions later a separate subject is discussed regarding coercion of forcibly appropriating other people's money. Better yet, this discussion many times appears in isolation from Friedman's total discussion.

Nay, nay! One must correctly discuss both subjects as coercion must occur first and only then can one arrive at other people spending other people's money on other people.

Problem solved! Please go to 11:00 to 11:34 of the youtube link below and hear Friedman himself properly layout the discussion.

Here is the video...

Harvard Students Wear Ties

Not sure if this is a prank goof, or an actual goof.

I mean....well, here is an excerpt:   It started last October with a meal in Currier dining hall with a handful of friends who shared something in common: an affinity for kinky sex.

More than a year after the group first began informally meeting over meals to discuss issues and topics relating to kinky sex, Harvard College Munch has grown from seven to about 30 members and is one of 15 student organization that will be approved by the Committee on Student Life this Friday.

Michael, who was granted anonymity by The Crimson to protect his privacy, is the founder of Munch, an informal lunch or dinner meeting for people across the kink community.  For him, the recognition will provide a sense of ease for current and future members, knowing they are receiving institutional support.

“It’s a little hyperbolic for me to get teary-eyed and paternal about sophomores, but it’s really a joy to see the experience they will have now,” Michael said.  Michael said there are many benefits to being officially recognized on campus such as being able to poster for events and promote Munch’s presence.

“If you come to campus and you have the sexual interests we represent, you may not even suspect that such a group exists,” Michael said.  Munch is also now allowed to apply for DAPA food grants, making it easier to find a convenient time and location to meet, instead of gathering in small dining halls.

Nod to Kevin Lewis