The Ambrosini Critique

Three entertainers… Bill Walsh (the greatest football coach),

Ingmar Bergman (they tell me he was a good director and I tried to sit through The Seventh Seal at least twice)

and Tom Snyder (I remember him vaguely from the 70’s but I was a regular watcher of his 90’s revival show).

Something I wrote a long time ago — Doesn’t this current state of ignorance about the origins of life give room for creationist? — sticks with me because its one of those things that are terribly-obvious-but-seemingly-disputed-and-yet-disproved.

I’m in good company. The Pope said something similar recently:

Debaters wrongly present the two sides “as if they were alternatives that are exclusive – whoever believes in the creator could not believe in evolution, and whoever asserts belief in evolution would have to disbelieve in God,” the pontiff said.

“This contrast is an absurdity, because there are many scientific tests in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and enriches our understanding of life and being.

“But the doctrine of evolution does not answer all questions, and it does not answer above all the great philosophical question: From where does everything come?”

(h/t DarwinCatholic)

Like I mentioned before, I’m confused by economists being confused about carbon offset markets. Now Arnold Kling comes out against them:

But it’s not a free market. It’s an artificial market, created by the “carbon offset” nonsense… But selling it as a way to lower your personal or corporate carbon footprint gives me the creeps. When it comes to climate change, I don’t necessarily want to be called either a believer or a skeptic. But you can definitely call me a Lutheran.

Can someone please explain to me what the carbon offsetting upstarts are like the old Catholic absolutions? People are buying away their guilt. Why can’t there be a market for this? How is it different from the ‘organic’ movement (I’m working on the well-informed assumption that there’s no difference between organic and non-organic milk, for example)?

The number and severity of hurricanes has hasn’t increased over the last 100 years:

The warming theorists — most of whom, no doubt, earnestly believe that human activity has triggered nature’s wrath — have the ears of the news media. But there is another plausible explanation, supported by decades of physical observation. The spate of recent destructive hurricanes may have little or nothing to do with greenhouse gases and climate change, and everything to do with the Atlantic Ocean’s currents.

… or do they?

The conventional view is that Americans work longer hours than Germans and other Europeans but when time in household production is included, overall working time is very similar on both sides of the Atlantic. Americans spend more time on market work but German invest more in household production. This paper examines whether these differences in the allocation of time can be explained by differences in the incentive structure, this is by the tax wedge and differences in the wage differentials, as economic theory suggests. Its analysis of unique time-use data reveals that the differences in time-allocation patterns can indeed be explained by economic variables.

This means its not culture.

(h/t The Economist)

Matthew Yglesias tries to make an economic argument against mandated paid time off. The comments are pretty fun in a “they expose the economic ignorance of a seemingly bright population of readers” sort of way.

Employers get so much value from their employees. In a competitive market, the employer will pay the employee that value. Now, by “pay” I mean give money in the form of paychecks, but also the employer gives other benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, a nice work environment and paid vacations. They won’t “pay” any more than the employee is worth. If the government makes the employer give more paid vacation, he or she will just decrease the amount he or she pays them in some other way maybe by decreasing the employee’s paycheck or by turning down the air conditioner. Its basic accounting really.

To refute this argument, you have to show employers systematically underpay their employees what they’re really worth. You’d have to argue that for some reason the labor market is uncompetitive. Last time I looked on Monster.com, there seemed to be lots of potential buyers of my labor. I’d think there’s lots of buyers for low skill jobs, too. If the McDonald’s employee doesn’t like how much he’s being paid, he can walk across the street to Burger King.

Or you could make the silly argument that employers will end up paying employees more than they’re worth to the company. I think its pretty well established that people, especially evil business types, don’t like to give away money, but I’d like to see someone give this argument a try.

Oh and why is it that people think arguing against government mandated vacation time is the same thing as arguing against vacations? I love vacations, they’re great. I’m also against mandated PTO.

Prof. Peri (ick, fix your website dude) writes a review of his immigration research and The Economist comments:

To an economist, one of the most aggravating aspects of debates on immigration and trade is the lack of perspective. There is often a great deal of hyperbole about the costs and very little exploration of the benefits. The view of trade (in goods or labour) is generally stunningly myopic, with little examination of the broader impacts on all workers… Peri’s analysis also underscores a more insurmountable bias, one that was diagnosed by French journalist Frederic Bastiat over a century and a half ago: the tendency to focus on what one can see (the Mexican workers taking the place of American workers in certain jobs)at the expense of less visible costs and benefits (the overall increase in aggregate productivity and job growth). Call it the “what-is-seen” bias. But no matter what you call it, it’s just the sort of thing that stymies the agenda of immigration and trade liberalizers worldwide.

Megan McArdle (aka Jane Galt, aka Asymmetrical Information blogress, aka The Economist blogress [we think]) writes about the annoying economics in Harry Potter:

But this actually presents a problem for authors. If magic is too powerful then the characters will be omnipotent gods, and there won’t be a plot. Magic must have rules and limits in order to leave the author enough room to tell a story. In economic terms, there must be scarcity: magical power must be a finite resource…
Yet in the Potter books, the costs and limits are too often arbitrary.
A patronus charm, for example, is awfully difficult – until Rowling wants a stirring scene in which Harry pulls together an intrepid band of students to Fight the Power, whereupon it becomes simple enough to be taught by an inexperienced fifteen year old. Rowling can only do this because it’s thoroughly unclear how magic power is acquired. It seems hard to credit academic labour, when spells are one or two words; and anyway, if that were the determinant, Hermione Granger would be a better wizard than Harry. But if it’s something akin to athletic skill, why is it taught at rows of desks? And why aren’t students worn out after practicing spells?

This is why I was dissatisfied with the online game World of Warcraft. Competence in the game’s magic meant that you knew all ins-and-outs of character abilities and special powers of different sorts of equipment. To be good at magic, you need to read hours worth of online forums about how to customize your players abilities just so. In the end, there was a few (i.e. two or three) cookie-cutter character layouts that would squeeze the most bang from your key pounding buck… Boring!

My idea for a magic system in a game would be something like this:

• players can invent new schools of magic or they can join another character’s school
• the power of a school of magic depends on the number of members in that school so those that evangelize their school best have more power… this is the first form of scarcity
• a school of magic would consist of spells that are also developed by the players in that school
• like schools, spells are more powerful if more people know them… the second source of scarcity
• but, and here’s the interesting public goods twist, spells are more powerful the less they are used by the player and the less they are used by all those that know the spell

Whatcha think?

Holy Crap! MR is doing their first book symposium and the book Tyler Cowen chose was… Greg Clark’s A Farewell to Alms. Woot!

Pre-order the book and participate. The MR gods demand it.

Because the comments section at the Economist has an excruciating registration process — I’ve attempted and failed to sign up at least three times now — I’ll ask this question here. Maybe the internet gods will get this back to the Economist blogger’s ear…

Why is “the purchasing of carbon credits” analogous “with medieval Catholic absolution”?

The Church was absolving sins in the name of God. It was obviously a racket; as if the negative of the sin could be somehow removed by a blessing and so many Hail Marys (and the lining of a pocket or two).

In the case of carbon credits, we can actually erase the sin of carbon emissions. Yes, the Vatican planting trees in Romania makes it hard for Romanians to plant trees (and offset carbon emissions). Trees aren’t the only way to offset carbon though. There’s lots of talk of artificial carbon sequestration. These techniques will become more and more profitable as a) demand for them increases and b) natural sequestration becomes more expensive.

You’re The Economist for criminy sakes. Have more faith in markets!