"Genius Faculty" at ILS Freedom Week

Pretty great video.



I like the part that the students talk about the "Genius faculty."  But then they show Steve Horwitz. (Thanks, folks, I'll be here all week!)

Angus gets nudged!

So Richard Thaler has an NYT op-ed, The Power of Nudges for Good and Bad

You can read it here.

I thought it was a bit unbalanced, and I tweeted the following:

Shorter version of @R_Thaler: Government nudge good, Private nudge bad. https://t.co/Trv12cjg8V

— kevin grier (@ez_angus) October 31, 2015

Richard was not pleased and tweeted back (he's pretty aggressive on Twitter):

Total and willful misread. Nudges can be good or evil from either source. https://t.co/oG6vAw6Yh7

— Richard H Thaler (@R_Thaler) October 31, 2015

"Total" is a matter of fact, and can be discussed "Willful" is just a cheap shot.

As to whether or not I misread it, here is Thaler in the piece:


"As far as I know, the government teams in Britain and the United States that have focused on nudging have followed these guidelines scrupulously. But the private sector is another matter. In this domain, I see much more troubling behavior."

So I tweeted a 140 character version of that quote back to him and dropped the mic.

But then Richard tweeted,

@FarmerHayek @ez_angus I have said the opposite dozens of times. Read the book!
— Richard H Thaler (@R_Thaler) October 31, 2015


And then I realized, "hey Angus, you got NUDGED"!!!

Though it's not clear to me how the first sentence in any way incentivizes me to follow the command in the second.

Bartleby the Economist!

Our universally acclaimed  Governor has promulgated a budget clawback executive order, which was passed on to us individual OU faculty without any guidance about which parts, if any, apply to us.

What applies is an open question because State appropriations only provide 15-20% of OU's budget, thus limiting what can be clawed back.

The parts that have attracted faculty attention are these bits:

So the question is, do I have to notify the State in writing when I renew my Econometric Society membership?

Or, if another school or organization pays my expenses to come and give a seminar (which I have coming up at least 3 times next semester) do I have to inform the State and get permission from the Governor?

I'm not sure who to blame most, Fallin for the unparseable XO, or the OU administration for just forwarding it to us with no interpretation or guidance.

However, in this matter, as in most other such cases I have encountered along my life's journey, I will practice my usual passive civil disobedience.

Bartleby the Economist!

Re-issue of the century

People, "Torch of the Mystics" is coming out (again) on October 30th. Even in Vinyl for the hipsters (and me).

If you always wondered what the Sun City Girls were about, this is the album to go to. Quite a bit more musical and accessible than say "Midnight Cowboys from  Ipanema" or "330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond the Rig Veda".

I guess it goes without saying that this is self-recommending?

I'll throw in that I also consistently enjoy the solo work of SSG member Richard (Rick) Bishop.

Do we have Joanna Newsom to thank for Dirty Projectors?

Well, maybe so!

Here's a quote from Dave Longstreth about how Newsom's debut, "The Milk Eyed Mender" affected him:

“I was in college, living in this weird house off-campus with some friends, and we blasted it a lot in that house," said Longstreth. "The melodies, the stories, the rhymes, the chord progressions: she was speaking our language for sure. I think it was one of the reasons I left school the next semester. I was like, "[what] am I doing here if someone is already out there making music like this, on this level??"


I'm a big fan of both and it's cool to learn about this connection/inspiration.

Throwing You Under the Bus: High Power People Knowingly Harm Others When Offered Small Incentives 

Jessica Swanner & Denise Beike 
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, September/October 2015, Pages 294-302 

Abstract: The potentially exploitative effects of power and incentive were examined. In the study, 250 participants heard a confederate admit or deny a misdeed and were pressured by the experimenter to inform on the confederate, sometimes in exchange for a small reward. The majority of participants knowingly falsely informed on the confederate when put in a position of high power and offered an incentive. Participants truthfully informed on the confederate regardless of power or incentive. Results are interpreted in light of social psychological theories of social power, which suggest that harmful opportunism is a likely but not inevitable effect of empowerment.

The Illusion of Competence

This may explain why Duke's Lit Department has a "Political Economy" Program.

Or why I think I am really, really good at Putt-Putt Golf.  That sort of thing.


The Curse of Expertise: When More Knowledge Leads to Miscalibrated Explanatory Insight 

Matthew Fisher & Frank Keil
Cognitive Science, forthcoming

Abstract: Does expertise within a domain of knowledge predict accurate self-assessment of the ability to explain topics in that domain? We find that expertise increases confidence in the ability to explain a wide variety of phenomena. However, this confidence is unwarranted; after actually offering full explanations, people are surprised by the limitations in their understanding. For passive expertise (familiar topics), miscalibration is moderated by education; those with more education are accurate in their self-assessments (Experiment 1). But when those with more education consider topics related to their area of concentrated study (college major), they also display an illusion of understanding (Experiment 2). This “curse of expertise” is explained by a failure to recognize the amount of detailed information that had been forgotten (Experiment 3). While expertise can sometimes lead to accurate self-knowledge, it can also create illusions of competence.

Nod to Kevin Lewis.

Oh, She's Mad....

This is amazing.  Even WOMEN think that the default setting for women is "angry."

Is She Angry? (Sexually Desirable) Women “See” Anger on Female Faces 

Jaimie Arona Krems et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming

Abstract: Intrasexual conflict may pose unique challenges for women. Whereas men’s aggression tends to be physical and direct, women’s tends to be relational and indirect, particularly when directed toward other women. Moreover, women’s expressions of anger are often suppressed, perhaps particularly when other women are the targets. Thus, women may face difficulty anticipating anger and anger-based aggression from other women. How might women manage this challenge? The functional projection of emotion may facilitate useful behavior; for instance, “seeing” anger on people believed to pose threats to physical safety may help perceivers preempt or avoid physical harm. Given the threats that women face, we predicted that (a) women are biased to “see” anger on neutral female (but not male) faces and that (b) women who are likely targets of intrasexual aggression (i.e., sexually desirable or available women) show an exaggerated bias. We report three studies that support these hypotheses and, more broadly, illustrate the value of a functional approach to social cognition.

What state has the most dangerous toddlers?

If you are in Missouri (good lord, why?) and you see a toddler....


RUN!!

There are more shootings by toddlers in Mizzou than any other state in the Union!

Here's the map to prove it.

I am so impressed with Arkansas. Zero! Must have mandatory safety lessons there before giving carry permits to the toddler crowd.

Lord, Forgive the Economists, For They Know Not What They Do

A remarkable disruption in the force.  How anyone could understand the complex rules of threat, deterrence, and protection as "profit-maximizing" per se is beyond me.  But it does illustrate how bizarrely intellectually impoverished economics is as a field.

Fighting as a profit maximizing strategy in the National Hockey League: More evidence 

Duane Rockerbie 
Applied Economics, forthcoming 

Abstract: This article estimates the effect of fighting in hockey games on attendance in the National Hockey League (NHL) over the 1997–1998 through 2009–2010 seasons. After estimating a system of equations developed from a model of a profit-maximizing club owner, it was found that fighting had a small negative effect on attendance implying that encouraging fighting on the ice is not a profit-maximizing strategy. The results are quite robust when incorporating capacity constraints on attendance and exogenous ticket pricing. Other factors that determine club performance and market size were found to significantly affect attendance. The empirical results also suggest that NHL club owners are maximizing profit.

Look, folks, hockey fights, like stylized fights in the animal kingdom, prevent actual violence and injury.  Having specialized goons makes the game cleaner.  And, in equilibrium, there is less violence.  Selecting on instances of violence and then drawing inferences is not just a misunderstanding of hockey, but a show of ignorance of basic game theory.  If you have a reputation for effective violence, you won't have to fight.  And you won't get that stick handle poke-check to your star forward's chest, breaking his rib.  Gretzky pretty much never got touched.  'Cause if he did, there would be a fight.  Gretzky wouldn't fight, and not because he was a pussweiler.  Gretzky didn't fight because he was too valuable, TO BOTH TEAMS.  Nobody wanted Gretzky hurt, and someone who hurt Gretzky was gonna get an ass-whuppin'.  Knowing that, the "no violence" equilibrium could be supported.

For a Canadian (and Duane Rockerbie is clearly a Canadian, eh?) to make this mistake is even more inexcusable.

For those seeking enlightenment, the answer (as always) is one of my appearances on EconTalk.  This one, in fact.  This recent book does a nice job of discussing when violence is "virtuous."  And, like any literate people, they know enough to reference EconTalk as THE authoritative source. Or, something like that.

Nod to Kevin Lewis