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Assorted links
1. Bottom line thinking on the stimulus, pro and con.
2. Which personality types let you cut in line?
3. Cultural treasures of New Jersey?
4. Markets in everything: clothes made out of your pet's fur.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 26, 2009 at 08:54 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Well heck, what with our, ahem, substantial cat population, we could make enough sweaters for all our Christmas gifts.
Posted by: Peter at Jan 26, 2009 9:07:37 PM
Surprised that you link to Arnold's misleading piece on stimulus plans and even more surprised that you have not linked to Cochrane's paper, by far the most complete analysis of all arguments about stimulus plans (by the way, Arnold's comments on Cochrane's paper reflect a poor understanding of the relevance of the budget constraint, the experience of credit crunches as supply shocks, and the distinction between stocks and flows).
Posted by: E. Barandiaran at Jan 26, 2009 10:16:47 PM
Cultural treasures of NJ? I think we could add some new ones to that list... Davey's Locker, Finnegan's, Ronnie's bagels, the Porterhouse
Posted by: laura at Jan 26, 2009 11:32:11 PM
Isn't obvious that "self-monitors" are more concerned with rules of proper behavior in general and apply them to others as well as themselves? I was surprised the researchers expected the opposite result.
Posted by: aqdrinker at Jan 26, 2009 11:44:53 PM
Isn't obvious that "self-monitors" are more concerned with rules of proper behavior in general and apply them to others as well as themselves? I was surprised the researchers expected the opposite result.
Posted by: aqdrinker at Jan 26, 2009 11:46:19 PM
I'm pleased that DeLong and others have picked up on Murphy's framework. It's simple and clean, and agreed frameworks help to keep discussions objective and avoid ideological free-for-alls.
However, there is an important aspect of the stimulus that it misses. Murphy's formula does dollar accounting, but the left in particular is interested in utility accounting. To understand this, note that, in normal times, even a left-wing economist is likely to grant that taxation and government spending for anything more than classic public goods is wealth-destroying, when wealth is measured in dollars. But he nonetheless advocates it because he believes that a marginal dollar taken from a rich person and spent on a poor person gives more utility for the poor person than it takes away from the rich person. The upshot, in the current context, is that a left-wing economist might advocate the stimulus package even he agreed that Murphy's inequality was not satisfied, if he believed that stimulus benefits were likely to flow from rich to poor.
For the broader (non-economist) left, this is really the core motivation for the stimulus. When leftists speak of a new new deal, it is not because they want to emulate the targeted and temporary measures of the time. Those are mostly forgotten failures: gold price manipulations, destruction of foodstuffs to raise prices, the ecouragement of cartels. What they want to emuate are its permanent redistributive aspects.
Posted by: David Wright at Jan 27, 2009 4:26:43 AM
The cat thing? Well it's just creepy!
Posted by: Lorraine at Jan 27, 2009 5:02:51 AM
The cat thing? Well it's just creepy!
Posted by: Lorraine at Jan 27, 2009 5:03:04 AM
The cat thing? Well it's just creepy!
Posted by: Lorraine at Jan 27, 2009 5:03:12 AM
The article on NJ says that the legislature formally adopted the nickname Garden State in 1954. Be that as it may, Garden State Park, the first racetrack in the state, opened in 1941 or 1942. And I'm reasonably sure the nickname wasn't new then either.
Posted by: ballyfager at Jan 27, 2009 7:11:22 AM
It is telling that the first comment Arnold makes about the Murphy framework is this:
"First, it assumes that the four parameters are constants."
His comment should have been that the four parameters are just made up. DeLong and Murphy just assume totally different values for these numbers. This basically means that these parameters are extremely uncertain; you can get any conclusion you want out of the framework by just picking the numbers you like. It's laughable that neither Murphy nor DeLong explicitly recognize this by setting realistic confidence interval on the parameters and thereby derive a confidence interval for the net effect of the stimulus.
Posted by: JDM at Jan 27, 2009 8:15:50 AM
It is telling that the first comment Arnold makes about the Murphy framework is this:
"First, it assumes that the four parameters are constants."
His comment should have been that the four parameters are just made up. DeLong and Murphy just assume totally different values for these numbers. This basically means that these parameters are extremely uncertain; you can get any conclusion you want out of the framework by just picking the numbers you like. It's laughable that neither Murphy nor DeLong explicitly recognize this by setting realistic confidence interval on the parameters and thereby derive a confidence interval for the net effect of the stimulus.
Posted by: JDM at Jan 27, 2009 8:16:39 AM
"Putting it all together, DeLong says that the Keynes effect means that $100 of government spending gives us $150 of output from previously unemployed resources. We subtract only one-fifth of this ($30) for the Housework effect and nothing for the Galbraith effect, for a net of $120. Subtract from this a Feldstein effect of $33, so the net gain is $87."
Am I missing something, or is DeLong saying (or not refuting) that we'll get $87 worth of value for the $100 we spend? Seriously, I must be missing something. I don't think he'd advocate trading $100 for $87.
Posted by: Rich at Jan 27, 2009 10:27:24 AM
I haven't had time to read the original copier study but it occurs to me that the authors are taking "I need to make copies" literally. The phrase can be said in such a way as to convey "I'm in one hell of a hurry!". I'm not convinced the study has much insight.
Posted by: MnM at Jan 27, 2009 12:31:14 PM
They forgot Debbie Harry and all of The Misfits on that Jersey list....
Posted by: justinslot at Jan 27, 2009 9:04:43 PM
