We are very fortunate to get some incredibly interesting and perceptive mail from readers. Occasionally, we share these queries (like here and here). We also get some hardcore snark, and we sometimes share those too (like this recent one). An e-mail that showed up the other day was so interesting that I wrote back to ask if I could simply . . .
I blogged recently about a Def Poetry Jam piece by Tommy Bottoms called “Basic Economics.” Below, thanks to the transcription diligence of Nicole (remember her? she wrote this very good blog post about predictive-text errors), are the lyrics of “Basic Economics.” There were a few phrases she couldn’t make out, each of which are marked with a “TK.” That’s journalism . . .
New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s new book, Positively American, isn’t selling very well. As of this writing, it is ranked #3,869 on Amazon.com, which probably translates into 2 or 3 books sold a day. It must be a little disappointing for someone as ambitious as Schumer to see his fellow Democratic senator Barack Obama selling that many books every second. . . .
Last weekend, I went to New York Comic Con with my 14-year-old nephew. As someone who’s never been heavily into superheroes, manga, anime, or gaming, I found it utterly fascinating. Gary Coleman was there, signing autographs (huh?), and I ran into a guy I knew from grad school, Roland Kelts, who has just published a book called Japanamerica: How Japanese . . .
This is an obviously important question on many fronts, especially since SSRI’s are among the most heavily prescribed drugs in the world, and because their safety and efficacy have lately been seriously questioned. So it would be helpful to know if, at the very least, anti-depressants decrease the probability of suicide. In this new working paper, Jens Ludwig, Dave E. . . .
They would both like to see the new Federal ban on Internet gambling overturned. At least D’Amato is getting paid to do something about it. Am I the only one surprised at how easily Congress enacted the ban? One day it seemed as though Internet gambling was a quasi-legal, hugely profitable, generally accepted practice. Then, all of a sudden, Congress . . .
In his New York Times column the other day (gated), David Brooks wonders aloud, and compellingly, if perhaps New Mexico governor Bill Richardson might somehow rise above the glamorously noisy H. Clinton/B. Obama fray and become the Democratic candidate for President. Here’s what Brooks likes about Richardson: He’s down to earth, accessible, funny, and smart. He is “the most experienced . . .
In the recent dustup over a Wikipedia administrator dubbed Essjay who lied about his academic credentials in a New Yorker profile, here’s how Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales responded when The New Yorker recently ran a correction: Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikia and of Wikipedia, said of Essjay’s invented persona, “I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really . . .
If there was ever a time when it made sense for economics professors to be given tenure, that time has surely passed. The same is likely true of other university disciplines, and probably even more true for high-school and elementary school teachers. What does tenure do? It distorts people’s effort so that they face strong incentives early in their career . . .
This one is pretty top-notch. It’s a lecture/performance by Yoram Bauman, who bills himself as the world’s first-and-only stand-up economist. (Hat tip: Roberto Ruiz)
Tim Harford, author of “The Undercover Economist” has written a thoughtful article on my friend and co-author Roland Fryer’s research into the gap between Blacks and Whites .
After Slate wrote about an economics paper alleging a link between TV and autism, I blogged my skepticism regarding the claim. I haven’t seen or heard anything since that time to change my opinion. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal revisited that paper on autism, but also embedded the discussion into a larger question of whether economists and economic techniques should . . .
Here’s an interesting new working paper by T. Clifton Green, Narasimhan Jegadeesh, and Yue Tang, all of Emory University, who looked at nearly 8,000 sell-side Wall Street equity analysts in order to assess gender and job performance. In terms of sheer representation, they found that women actually lost ground from 1995 to 2005, from 16% to 13% of analyst positions; . . .
Yesterday I blogged about Al Gore blaming the media for inaction on global warming. Some of you asserted, albeit quite politely, that I am an idiot for disagreeing with Gore. I may well be an idiot, but let me clarify a bit. I acknowledge that I should have put a finer point on my objection to what Gore said. And . . .
The rosters of teams in the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball have all become quite international by now. Not so the National Football League. This isn’t very surprising, since American football is barely played outside of the U.S. and Canada, while the other sports are. But the N.F.L., which dreams of expansion the way . . .
Here’s what he had to say. I would argue that he is, um, wrong. Anyone who can say with a straight face that the mainstream media’s portrayal of global warming has been overly skeptical deserves — well, an Oscar. P.S.: David Remnick wrote a very interesting essay on Gore in this week’s New Yorker (and his long Gore profile from . . .
The other night, I got to give a lecture at California State University, Fresno. I particularly like college lectures because of the audience blend: students (young), faculty/staff (usually medium age), and members of the community (typically older). It made me realize how seldom these different age cohorts assemble naturally. Too bad: the folks at Fresno were a great audience, and . . .