Economics
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As gun control is the abstract topic of the week
Megan McArdle (in the Atlantic) has some interesting thoughts and graphs on the subject.
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More Friedman
While looking over David Friedman’s blog today, I came across this article on “The Economics of War“. It’s an interesting read. Here is another one I haven’t read in ten years or so, Paying for Crime Prevention it winds up being a partial defense of the system we have in America where the government is not liable if a defendent is acquitted at trial. To wit:
The outcome of a criminal case depends, among other things, on decisions made by police and prosecutors. Consider a situation where, at some point in the proceedings, the police begin to suspect that they may have the wrong man. Suspicion is not certainty; they can choose to ignore the evidence that their suspect is innocent or someone else is guilty. They can also choose to do their best to keep such evidence out of sight of the defense. How likely they are to do so depends in part on the cost to them of being proven wrong. Under a legal system in which acquitting the defendant, or dropping charges after he has been imprisoned for some time, results in sizable cash penalties against the police department or its individual officers, the police have a strong incentive to repress their doubts and push for a conviction.
How serious this problem is depends on a variety of factors. If there is a substantial chance that the conviction of an innocent will eventually be discovered and reversed, a police department that suppresses such evidence risks having to pay for years in jail instead of months. If, on the other hand, such a reversal is unlikely, suppressing evidence may be an attractive gamble.
I suppose that is another variant of the Gandhi game, or turning the other cheek as it’s less tactically known.
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Schelling points
I refered to these in an earlier post, so I figure a definition is in order. I originally came across it in David Friedman’s ruminations on the origins of Natural Rights theory. He defines it broadly as “a possible solution to the problem of coordination without communication”.
“Communication” might be better defined as meaningful communication. He lists many examples in the essay where no communication is possible, as well as zero-sum conflict where communication would not be believed.
The functional definition (i.e. the way I use the term) is that a Schelling Point is a point or marker that is obvious to both sides without explanation, and could also mark some point of principal to one of the sides, which would cause that side to expend more effort defending it than the point might seem to be worth.
The usual example of a Schelling Point is a river (flowing North to South in this example), with an opposing tribe on each side who need to set a border. There is no significant difference difference in land between using the river as the border, and using the river plus five feet West of the border. However, the river itself will always be chosen as the border because A)it’s obvious, and B) one tribe could very well attach special meaning to the river above and beyond the land itself, i.e. the Western Tribe shall not stain the ground made holy by the River God (or something like that).
The other example is abortion. The two popular Schelling Points at which “life begins” are considered to be either at conception (by the pro-lifers) and birth (by the pro-choicers). Both of these points are trivial in a lot of ways; the components are largely the same as they were before each event (differing in union in one way, in location and dependence the next). But, both of them are obvious to both sides in the dispute and both can be plausibly seen as having special meaning to either side (Ensoulment in one case, no physical attachment to the mother in the other).
In looking over this, I see I’ve called birth “trivial”. Oh well, the point still stands.
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Pithy post on tortue
Tdaxp has an interesting post on the government use of torture here, to wit
My reply back to him mainly concerned, the subtile, which is The inside story of how the interrogators of Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s inner circle—without resorting to torture—and hunted down al-Qaeda’s man in Iraq. The title’s odd in that it is both boring and inflammatory.
The boredom first. I can imagine an article subtitled The inside story of how programmers at Microsoft Corporation released SQL Server 2008 on time — and without using hash tables.
I’ve always found the specific opposition to torture strange. We’re willing to jail people for the rest of their lives, hold them without trial, and bomb various countries which involves inherent civilian death and maiming. Drawing a line at torture seems odd to say the least. I suppose to some people it is a categorical difference in government action, and not an incremental difference in human suffering.
Now that I think about it, it does make for a good Schelling Point. It is objectionable to differing degree to both sides of the argument, as well as obvious to both. It is also seen as a categorical tactic (though not strategy) by both. Hmmm….
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European vs American Talents
From Marginal Revolution
Because European government works better, Europeans demand more of it and get more of it. American liberals look at Europe and see (sometimes) better results per dollar spent. They then conclude that America should be more like Europe, whereas in reality America would end up spending more to get more bad American government.
It’s a very nice argument against moving towards European style nationalized health care, to wit, we would not get the same results as they do. Instead we would probably just magnify existing problems.
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Sunday round up
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A rogue Core
Subadei has some interesting thoughts on the possibility of a new and hostile Core (shortly defined as a group of connected, interdependent nations) involving Iran, Venezuela. However, I think there is not much to be worried about. Assuming they do create/evolve into a second core, they would have enough incentives/core-like attributes not to do so.
I guess that raises the question, can there be two Cores? Wouldn’t the opportunity cost of maintaining the divide between the two Cores? Wouldn’t the opportunity cost of maintaining the divide between the two Cores become too costly for the divide to be sustainable?
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A vanishing meme
One pleasantly departed meme is “War is good for the economy”. While never true (you can’t destroy human and physical capital and have a net increase in the economy) I haven’t heard it that much in the past few years.
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A useful axiom
In my first advanced macroeconomics class my professor defined truth as “The consensus of informed opinion”. I remembered that for some reason today.
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Friday rapid fire
- A quick review of video hosting services
- DIY public hotspot
- SQL Refactoring and formatting – a bit pricey, but it seems interesting
- Yet another electric car – due sometime next year
- Revealed: Why understanding economics is hard
- What economists agree on