Bill is right about the role of narrow but important constituencies, and right to
use the CRA as a case in point. During drafting of the Financial Services
Modernization Act (the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill), the Hill saw heavy lobbying on this
act. The banks see CRA as extortion by community
I detect something of a tension in academic economics. Social science
would be vastly easier than economists make it out to be if we could
usually just ask people why they do things. But economists are generally
skeptical of this approach, and so try to infer reasons from behavior,
rather
I think Robin exaggerates the extent to which social science would be
easier if we could just ask people why they do things. To be sure,
there is a tradition in economics that survey results about intentions
and ideas (as opposed to age and income!) are not to be trusted. I agree
this
Anyone see survivor last night? When asked to pick a number between 1
and 1000 (presumably the closest number to the one in the questioner's
head would win her vote) the first contestant chose 3 and the second
chose 886! Incredibly poor strategy on both contestants part especially
when a
So, the question is in the LEVEL of inquiry firms are in it to make
money-Firm Level the results of their actions maybe be No firm intends to
push price to marginal cost-Industry Level?
-Original Message-
From: Alex Tabarrok [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002
Am I correct in detecting a *hint* of facetiousness in your reference to age
and income as more trustworthy?
I remember reading that asking what year a person was born is more likely to
yield an accurate answer than asking age - math aptitude really is not what
it could (should) be, is it...
Here is another reason, that just occured to me, why survey
questions may not help us as much as we would like even on those
questions where they are relevant. In economics we are typically
interested in what matters at the margin and this may be difficult to
discover in a survey question.
The first player is at disadvantage when he has to
pick first. If he is smart then he would pick a
number that lines in the middle. The second player
will then pick the same number that is one less or
more depending which side has more numbers.
I wonder what kind of strategy is taken when it
The players on Survivor may not have been smart enough, but the
players on The Price is Right pursue the correct strategy all the time
(bids of $1 if they think everyone has overbid or bids of $1 higher than
the highest bid if they think everyone has underbid.)
James
