econlog.econlib — In fiction (and "reality" television), firing workers almost seems fun. How many times has Mr. Burns gleefully hissed, "Fire than man, Smithers!"? In the real world, though, bosses dislike being the bearer of bad news. They feel guilty when they let someone go. So guilty, in fact, that some hire...
econlog.econlib — Relax. That's my summary of an article by Pamela Druckerman in today's Wall Street Journal by an American woman who noticed that French kids tend not to be brats to the same degree that American kids are. It's more grist for Bryan Caplan's mill. One excerpt: After a few more harrowing restaurant...
marginalrevolution — There are three lanes, with the left two lanes narrowing into one. A slight bit further ahead, the traffic from Gallows Road merges into the right lane, map here. Many people from the far left lane merge “unethically,” driving ahead as far as they can, and then asking to be let...
mjperry.blogspot — From the Washington Post: "Cheap natural gas has also thrown energy markets into turmoil. It is impossible for almost any other source of electric power to compete, especially coal and nuclear. By trimming fuel bills, cheap gas has reduced incentives for energy conservation and efficiency. And it...
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econlog.econlib — Scott Sumner writes, In my view, Japan is the future of the global economy. Not the deflation (I think the Fed will be able to keep inflation close to 2%) but the low real interest rates. In retrospect the 2001 recession (when rates fell to 1%) was the...
econlog.econlib — From Ross Douthat, writing an introduction to a new edition of Robert Nisbet's The Quest for Community. Man is a social being, and his desire for community will not be denied. ... And if he can't find that community on a human scale, then he'll look for it on an inhuman...
marginalrevolution — Rogoff’s real hero, however, was Bobby Fischer, the American chess champion of the 1970s. He remembers following the games from the famous Fischer-Spassky world chess championship in 1972, and being awed by Fischer’s play – “It was like seeing the hand of God at work; the originality, the simplicity.” He...
stumblingandmumbling.typepad — If you ignore the mindless tittle-tattle, David Miliband’s New Statesman article raises a genuine issue: what should be the left’s attitude to the state? He writes: The weaknesses of the "big society" should not blind us to the policy and political dead end of the "Big State". The public won't vote...
mjperry.blogspot — From yesterday's "Non-Manufacturing ISM Report On Business"Employment activity in the non-manufacturing sector grew substantially in January, as ISM's Non-Manufacturing Employment Index registered 57.4 percent (see chart above, data here). This reflects an increase of 7.6 percentage points when compared to the seasonally adjusted 49.8 percent registered in December. Nine industries...
marginalrevolution — In China a fapioa – the official receipt used for expense claims has a resale face value of 2 – 10% of face value – leaving one behind in a restaurant or taxi is the equivalent of giving a tip (in a culture where tipping is uncommon) and not requesting...
freakonomics — (Photo: Joint Base Lewis McChord)The following is a cross-post from our Football Freakonomics project at NFL.com. Check out the interactive graphic and, at the end of this post, the video.We all know the cliché. Go ahead, put on your best John Facenda voice and say it with us:DEFENSE. WINS. CHAMPIONSHIPS.What’s...
econlog.econlib — On Thursday evening, Feb. 9, I'll be giving a public talk at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. It will go from 7:30 to 9:00, with ample time during that time period for Q&A. The talk is titled: "Do We Need to Go to War...
freakonomics — (Photo: Library of Congress)TV is bad for children. Wait, no it’s not. Yes, it is! And it’s really bad for their hearts!Here’s the latest paper on the topic, from Michael Waldman, Sean Nicholson, and Nodir Adilov. Using a natural experiment to rule out the possibility of reverse causation, the authors...
marginalrevolution — 1. Markets in everything bride price decomposition the culture that is Nigeria. 2. David Cronenberg interview. 3. How exactly do we know, from the photo, that she is on the political left rather than right? Seriously. Here is her blog and profile. Here is her Twitter feed. How do we know? And...
marginalrevolution — The RGDP growth rate has been 1.6% in the 4 quarters since late 2010, which is below everyone’s estimate of trend growth (except perhaps Tyler Cowen… There is much more at the link, from Scott Sumner. Of course Michael Mandel, Peter Thiel, Garry Kasparov, and some others would quality as well.
freakonomics — (Photo: Ruthie Hansen)There’s a new iPad app for parents to incentivize children to do chores. HighScore House! sets up a market for parents and children to assign points to chores and exchange those points for rewards.Co-founder Kyle Seaman tells us that they’ve tracked 150,000 tasks from about 6,000 users in their beta version (full version...
freakonomics — (Photo: petecocoon)I’m so pleased to see that stand-up meetings are gaining ground (or at least exposure, in the Wall Street Journal). I am on the record as someone who dislikes meetings in general; I also work much of the day standing up (at a great adjustable desk that Ikea unfortunately...
gregmankiw.blogspot — Good news today about employment. The 243,000 increase in jobs is a very solid number. The graph below shows how the prices at Intrade reacted when the news was released at 8:30 am. President Obama's probability of being reelected rose by about 2 percentage points. Click on the graphic to enlarge.
econlog.econlib — The Adam Smith Institute has just released a paper of mine on patterns of sustainable specialization and trade. An excerpt: The PSST approach drops the assumption that production technology is known. Instead, the Smithian division of labour and Ricardian comparative advantage are constantly being developed and improved. Entrepreneurs, through...
freakonomics — Last week, we solicited your questions for Mark Cuban — serial entrepreneur, Dallas Mavericks owner, and blogger, who recently published an eBook called How to Win at the Sport of Business.Here now are Cuban’s answers. A lot of answers. Granted, most of them are short but Cuban can pack a lot...
econlog.econlib — He writes, My guess is that most intellectuals underestimate just how dysfunctional most firms are. This is part of a discussion of why businesses pay consultants. I think a pretty standard view is that CEOs bring in consultants to help overcome resistance in the internal bureaucracy. Intellectuals do not get...
mjperry.blogspot — Some highlights of today's employment report:1. Temporary employment reached a 3.5-year high in January of 2.4 million jobs, the highest level since May 2008 (see chart).2. Manufacturing overtime hours, at 4.3 hours in January, were at the highest level since 2006 (see chart).3. Manufacturing companies hired an additional 50,000 workers...
marginalrevolution — All good news, 243k up but lots more information in the numbers, try @JustinWolfers or @BetseyStevenson for details and interpretation. The “big loser” here?: Old Keynesianism. You really can get a recovery when the real shocks are moderately positive. You will note, as we have been told many many times...
