Re: Median Voter and Sampling
In a message dated 8/27/02 12:19:39 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 4. Cognitive limitations: I'm no expert, but my hunch is that many people are only willing to get worked up over a small # of issues - taxes, abortion, immigration, defense... and the dedicated might add their favorites like gun control or affirmative action. Therefore, it's no risk to screw the voter on an issue as long as you don't do it on certain big issues. Therefore it's easy to get a list of dozens of issues and find a descrepancy - what's so puzzling about that? I may be mistaken here, but don't public choice economists talk about the concept of rational ignorance to explain how small, concentrated groups can gain large focused benefits while spreading the costs in tiny pieces across the broader population? Sincerely, David Levenstam
Re: Median Voter and Sampling
I may be mistaken here, but don't public choice economists talk about the concept of rational ignorance to explain how small, concentrated groups can gain large focused benefits while spreading the costs in tiny pieces across the broader population? They do - but it doesn't make much sense, since theres nothing rational about being ignorant towards a political system that benefit others at the expence of oneself (or indeed benefit noone at the expense of everyone). As Bryan has pointed out (BC: correct me if I am wrong) RATIONAL ignorant voters would either punish immensely upon detection of political fraud (faliure to deliver on promises, eg.) or they would simply erect institutional barriers that would limit political fraud. However, they don't - and so they are not just rational ignorant. They are either just plain ignorant - or they are (rationally) irrational in their voting behavior - and general attitude towards politics. - jacob braestrup Sincerely, David Levenstam -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: how to eliminate unemployement
Kevin Carson wrote: For an occupant, the incentive to build on one's own land would be the same as always. Since there would be no restriction on the right of the actual occupier of a piece of land to charge a price before quitting it Does quitting have to mean selling full title? It sounds like it rules out leaving but renting to the next occupant. The upshot is that only people who can afford to buy property outright in full can use it. Capital markets can partly solve that problem, but a big problem remains. Or do I misunderstand your remarks about slum occupants taking over their buildings, etc? , it would be possible to recoup the value of improvements. The only difference would be, that one could not fence off land he was not occupying or using himself, and charge others for access to it. From: Bryan Caplan [EMAIL PROTECTED] What about the effect of this on the incentive to develop and build in the first place? Not to mention the incentive to relocate? A nice way to eliminate unearned benefits is to eliminate the existence of benefits. -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not necessary that anyone but himself should understand it. Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks* _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not necessary that anyone but himself should understand it. Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks*
Re: Celeb Pay-or-Homer's Insight
Several thoughts: 1) Might we be looking at the wrong profits when we see that a pop star is making millions and wonder why more don't enter the market? For the most part, it is the record campany (as you say) doing the hype for the star, they really make the performer (this is a phenomena most true in pop music, where many performers hardly have a career before they are big and they tend to have to be young and so don't have much time for experience or creating there own rep). Maybe the record industry has profits that much more closely mirror a competitive market? Paying the performer so much could be to make the image of that performer and be part of the marketing costs for selling records- sure Vanilla Ice only had one hit and has millions, but maybe by giving him millions, the record company thought they would increase sales- would most teenagers want to listen to a guy who lives in a trailer or the guy whose house in on Cribs (or whatever the MTV show is named)? 2) Pop music (and the same for actors in pop movies) is almost like what happens in a network- the more widely used, the bigger the benefits. A pop star could be like a snow ball- it is hard to break into the industry (indeed, I think many do try- think about the number of bands that play that only have a local following- the chance that you are an international success like Britany is miniscule), but once you get going, you can really do well. I mean, would most people listen to this music if no one else did? I just don't think this is likely- and it can be seen from the rapid drop off in record sales after a pop musician's 15 minutes. Another example (on the movie side) seen on the back of a Blockbuster rental- when is recommends other movies you might like if you rented this one, it usually does not tell you movies with a similar plot or, albeit less commonly, movies of the same genera- it tells you the other movies that the star was in. I think the barriers to entry from the marketing involved in creating the pop star image and the network effect can explain the reason pop music stars make so much. Obviously, in other parts of the music and film industry, there are many who do not make an income even equal to that of the average American. Jason
RE: Median Voter and Sampling
4. is particularly persuasive. The old adage in politics is that if your goal is to find a candidate that you agree with on every issue, run. Otherwise voters have some beliefs held more deeply than others and accept that the politician who supports the view on taxation they prefer does other things they don't like, but do not value as much. They are buying a package. Given the likelihood of being the deciding vote and the costs of getting good answers from politicians to tough questions it is a wonder that anyone votes at all... Regards, Brian Moore ESI Corporation -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of fabio guillermo rojas Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 9:03 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Median Voter and Sampling So what are you getting at? Since there is a series of elections, each with a different median voter, the MVT doesn't actually predict that the median general voter gets his way? Or what? Prof. Bryan Caplan I think that applications of MVT are very, very sloppy. Four criticisms: 1. You seem to assume that policy responds quite well to public opinion. You assume that if opinion shifts, policy will quickly follow. I believe that policy is very sticky with respect to public opinion. To make it econo-talk, I think policy is not very elastic with respect to changes in the median voter. 2. Institutions are designed to prevent policy from being overly sensitive to public opinion. Ie, we don't have elections every day. We create rules that allow policy makers to resist every whim of opinion. Examples: rules for changing the constitution, judicial dependence on precedents, etc. In a sense, institutions play the role that contracts do in the labor market - set practices over some time period (ie, you've bought labor at price X and the employee can't leave just because the price is now more than X). 3. When people (ahem, Mr. B.C.) say look - puzzle - people want X but we get Y - the poll that measures opinion is probably a random sample of adults, or maybe voters. But as I've argued before, this might not be the relevant group. Maybe it's party activists, or party-rank and file. Policies may have select audiences and there is no puzzle until you show that the relevant audience does in fact strongly oppose a policy. 4. Cognitive limitations: I'm no expert, but my hunch is that many people are only willing to get worked up over a small # of issues - taxes, abortion, immigration, defense... and the dedicated might add their favorites like gun control or affirmative action. Therefore, it's no risk to screw the voter on an issue as long as you don't do it on certain big issues. Therefore it's easy to get a list of dozens of issues and find a descrepancy - what's so puzzling about that? So my beef isn't the MVT per se, but the knee jerk use of it. Fabio
Re: Median Voter and Sampling
--- fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 4. Cognitive limitations: I'm no expert, but my hunch is that many people are only willing to get worked up over a small # of issues - taxes, abortion, immigration, defense... and the dedicated might add their favorites like gun control or affirmative action. Therefore, it's no risk to screw the voter on an issue as long as you don't do it on certain big issues. Therefore it's easy to get a list of dozens of issues and find a descrepancy - what's so puzzling about that? You mean litmus-test issues that people value above all else? Abortion is a good example. There seems to be alot of people who will choose to not vote for a candidate because of her stance on abortion, regardless of her stance on all other issues. So litmus-test issues could throw off the MVT because that issue decides who one will vote for before any other issue will be considered. I think this criticism fails because the winning candidate would be the candidate who chooses the median vector. That is, she chooses the median for the biggest litmus test issue, then the second biggest, and on down the line. Of course my criticism of your criticism would fail for issues that are under the radar of most people. At which point I would just be wasting bandwidth. But I do have a naive question: Is there a median voter for each issue, so that if there n issues, there can be up to n median voters? Or, is there only one median voter who satisfies the vector median as I described above? Can such a person be proven to exist, sort of like a voter version of the Ham Sandwich Theorem? Humbly yours, jsh = ...for no one admits that he incurs an obligation to another merely because that other has done him no wrong. -Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Discourse 16. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
