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Archive for May 24th, 2011

R.I.P. John Delaney, Prediction Market Entrepreneur

I’m saddened to learn that John Delaney died attempting to reach the summit of Everest. Readers of this blog will know John as the leader of my favorite prediction market, InTrade (and before that, TradeSports). John, or his data, and sometimes his stories, have long graced the pages of this blog, including this Q&A with Dubner. His colleagues know him as an energetic entrepreneur, always trying new things. I also know John as a friend and a collaborator, who was also willing to help crazy academics like myself run new prediction markets, crunch data his markets had generated, or debate what it all means, over a Guinness.
And as much as I knew John as a madcap Irishmen, and true sports fan, I never expected to hear of him drawing his last breath just meters short of the highest peak in the world. Press reports — which include the agonizing detail that John died without knowing his wife just gave birth to a baby girl – are available here and here.


Global Poverty Shifting Toward Middle Income, Failed States

A new report from The Brookings Institution examining global poverty rates since 2005 notes two primary trends: poor people are increasingly found in middle-income countries and in fragile states.
Brookings notes the obvious success of the one:

Over the past decade, the number of countries classified as low-income has fallen by two fifths, from 66 to 40, while the number of middle-income countries has ballooned to over 100. This means 26 poor countries have grown sufficiently rich to surpass the middle-income threshold. Among those countries that have recently made the leap into middle-income status are a group of countries – India, Nigeria and Pakistan – containing large populations of poor people. It is their “graduation” which has brought about the apparent shift in poverty from the low-income to middle-income country category.
 

And troubling failure of the other:


How I Self-Published a Book, And How You Can Too

I just self-published a book called How to Be the Luckiest Person Alive! I published it in paperback form, Kindle form, and free PDF (see directions below to get free PDF). The entire process took me three weeks. Using an established publisher would’ve taken over a year. [If you want Kindle version, click directly on kindle link above.]
I’ve written a prior post on my sales and advances on my first five books which were all published with major publishers. But I’m never going to publish in the morgue of the publishing industry again. This post today is about why I did it and how you can do it.
The book publishing industry is dead but they don’t know it. It’s like how the typewriter industry died. And the reason companies like Blockbuster and Borders can’t survive. And the entire music industry is dying. And broadcast television might be on the way. And the tablet industry is the first sign that companies like Dell might be in major trouble. And companies like Sirius mean the radio industry is dead.


I Feel Your Pain: The Empathy of Torture, a Guest Post by Jeff Mosenkis

A guest post from Jeff Mosenkis, on how empathy affects how we feel about torture. Mosenkis holds a Ph.D. in Psychology and Comparative Human Development from the University of Chicago. His research has focused on the intersections of social, cultural and organizational psychologies.
 
I Feel Your Pain: The Empathy of Torture
By Jeff Mosenkis

Senator John McCain re-entered the waterboarding/torture debate this month, first with an op-ed in The Washington Post, then on the Senate floor, taking issue with both the efficacy and morals of enhanced interrogation techniques, asserting that several of them are indeed torture. From McCain’s op-ed:

Much of this debate is a definitional one: whether any or all of these methods constitute torture. I believe some of them do, especially waterboarding, which is a mock execution and thus an exquisite form of torture. As such, they are prohibited by American laws and values, and I oppose them.

McCain’s anti-torture stance is well-documented and been consistent throughout his political career. But a new study adds some scientific insight into why he feels the way he does.


Are Bad Storms Good Long-Term News for Insurance Companies?

According to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., there have been 1,151 tornadoes reported (though not confirmed) so far this year. By comparison, there were 1,282 tornadoes during all of last year, and a total of 1,156 in 2009. This is resulting in billions of dollars in damage claims across much of the South and Midwest. According to EQECAT, which provides disaster and risk models to insurance firms, weather-related losses could cost insurers upwards of $10 billion in the U.S. this year, up from an average of between $2 and $4 billion per year.
But while the short-term impact will obviously be difficult as insurance companies cover record losses, the recent rise in weather-related disasters could end up being good for their stock prices.


Who Wants a Free Copy of New SuperFreakonomics Paperback?

The paperback is published in the U.S. today. Here’s what the cover looks like.
You can buy it on Amazon (and elsewhere).
There is a Facebook quiz forthcoming.
It includes lots of bonus material.
And just for kicks, we’ll give away five copies right here and now. Earlier, we asked your preferred method of giveaway and your strong preference was “random.” So why don’t we do things the way radio stations used to give away free records (maybe they still do this?) — you know, “The 28th caller will receive …” All you have to do is post a comment below. We’ll pick five comments from the lot, including the numbers represented by:
1. Steve Levitt’s age
2. Our publisher’s street address
3. The uniform number of my all-time favorite football player
4. The suicide rate (per 100,000) in Hungary
5. The episode number of our “Power of Poop” podcast
Good luck!


The Least Radical Case for Happiness Economics

There’s a fascinating debate on happiness going on over at The Economist. Officially, the motion is that: “This house believes that new measures of economic and social progress are needed for the 21st-century economy.” My own contribution tries to discipline the grandiose rhetoric of both sides, concluding that:

[T]he benefits of new happiness data have surely been overstated. But we economists compare benefits with costs. Adding a couple of questions to existing surveys is so cheap that it almost certainly passes any cost-benefit analysis. And when the motion passes, we nerdy social scientists need to stop writing grandiose treatises and get back to the mundane grind of social science, mining these data for yet more incremental insight.

My full argument is available over the fold.