Marginal Revolution

The 20 most important tools ever

Here is the Forbes list.  Only hand-wielded tools count, so the knife is number one and the abacus is number two.  Number twenty is the chisel, leave further suggestions in the comments.  It is not politically correct to wonder about "the whip," but how would it fare on a pure utilitarian calculus, realizing of course it gets animals to do the work?  Maybe "the stone" is not sufficiently handmade, but how else did they cut umbilical cords?

Thanks to Eric and Kathleen for the pointers.

China fact of the day

A recent survey of 180 PhD holders found that 60 percent had paid to have their papers published and a similar percentage had copied others' work.

Here is the link, and thanks to Yan Li for the pointer.

MR as viewed through Bloglines

The ever-vigilant Chris Masse points me to how MR looks through Bloglines.  It doesn't seem to give the reader access to comments.  Nor can the reader access posts which "lie beneath the fold."  If you know why this is, please tell us in the comments.  In the meantime, we alert you to the regular existence of comments, and posts beneath the fold, and encourage you to visit our real page or use another blog reader.

China fact of the day

Or is it Hispanamerica Fact of the Day?

...by 2015, the Hispanic population in the US will have spending power equal to 60 per cent of all consumers in China.

Here is the article, and no I don't know which exchange rate (ppp or market) is used to make this comparison.  Thanks to Pablo Halkyard for the pointer.

Economics blog for undergraduates and teaching economics

Read here, this is from Paul Romer's notable on-line education company Aplia.

Pound discrimination

A hotel in Germany has started charging its guests by the pound for an overnight stay, according to a Local 6 News report.

The hotel owner in the town of Norden, Juergen Heckrodt, said he was continually getting overweight guests, so he decided to make them step on the scales to determine room costs.

The hotel requires guests to pay half a euro or 61 cents per 2.2 pounds, according to a Reuters report.The report said that the move appears to be working with returning guests. "Much to (Heckrodt's) surprise, the guests were thinner on their next visit," according to the report.  Heckrodt said he hopes his initiative will inspire others to lose weight too and live longer.  The hotel does not turn anyone away who refuses to step on the scales.  If they do refuse, they are charged a regular room rate -- without a discount.

Here is the link, and thanks to Bill Griffiths for the pointer.  This makes sense as price discrimination if either heavier people are wealthier, or less able to choose across hotels.

List of economists in Wikipedia

This is incomplete (it doesn't list my entry, for instance), but it makes for fun browsing.  Note that Bryan Caplan still makes the cut, despite a debate over whether he is Wikipedia-worthy.  He is a "notable," most of all in my eyes: "It seems to me that the fact that someone would bother to try to delete me is notable per se."

Bribery at the UN

The United Nation's Security Council has 5 permanent members and 10 non-permanent members, the latter are elected from regional groups and serve two year terms.  Yesterday Eric Werker presented a fun paper at GMU showing that US foreign aid increases dramatically to countries elected to the Security Council.

    The result isn't that surprising but Werker did a good job of ruling out explanations other than bribery.  Foreign aid, for example, increases just as a country joins the council and drops just at it leaves.  Foreign aid also increases especially dramatically in important years, as measured by the number of New York Times stories involving the council.  Perhaps most interestingly, although US foreign aid is larger for democracies than for autocracies on average, autocracies get bigger increases in aid when they join the council.  The result makes a lot of sense.  Autocracts can sell their votes more easily than democratically elected leaders (no domestic constituencies to worry about) and transactions costs are lower - the aid goes directly to the vote seller.

My new job

Virginia Postrel has the scoop, and yes I am still at my old job as well, including the blogging part.

AI, Consciousness and Robot Outsourcing

One of my "absurd views" is that the first computer to become conscious was Deep Blue playing against Gary Kasparov in 1997.  It only happened for a moment but in one spectacular move Deep Blue performed like no computer ever had before.  After the game, Kasparov said he felt a presence behind the machine.  He looked frightened.

Ken Rogoff, a top-flight economist and chess prodigy, wonders whether we don't all have a little something to fear.

But the level that computers have reached already is scary enough. What’s next? I certainly don’t feel safe as an economics professor!  I have no doubt that sometime later this century, one will be able to buy pocket professors – perhaps with holographic images – as easily as one can buy a pocket Kasparov chess computer today.

Rogoff thinks that the upheavals caused by cheap AI will be far more important than those caused by low-wage labor from India and China.

...will artificial intelligence replace the mantra of outsourcing and manufacturing migration? Chess players already know the answer.