markets for your advertising time
Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff have an extremely interesting article in the Wall Street Journal editorial section today. COMMENTARY Want to Call Me? Pay Me! IAN AYRES AND BARRY NALEBUFF The national Do Not Call Registry is the most popular consumer-protection initiative in our nation's history -- because it makes clear that you own the right to be left alone. But the current law is flawed on two counts. Households can block commercial telemarketers, but not annoying calls from the benevolent association of retired dogcatchers. This government discrimination in favor of charities is why a federal court struck down the regulations as unconstitutional. More importantly, it misses a market opportunity. The classic role of government is to establish a system of property rights and then to get out of the way to let entitlement flow to highest valuers. But the Do Not Call registry needlessly prevents you from selling a scarce resource -- your time and attention. Telemarketers could call from a reverse 900 number. That way, you would get paid for taking the call. While they are trying to sell you a product, you can be selling them your time. The FTC can solve the constitutionality issue and create a market by simply tweaking the current regulation. First, the registry's coverage should be expanded to block calls from any telemarketer that makes more than 100 unsolicited calls a day. This would solve the constitutional difficulty, because the regulation would not turn on the content of the call but on the manner of calling. Then, households that sign up for the Do Not Call registry should have the right to authorize their phone company to connect any calls that meet the household's price. Just think of it: You could charge different prices for different times of day or for different types of calls. You could even be given the option of hitting a button to waive the compensation -- because you felt that a particular charitable pitch was particularly worthy -- or let through any calls approved by Rush Limbaugh. Just as Priceline turned the tables on airline pricing, this concept turns the tables on advertising. You tell your phone company your price for listening, and prospective callers can then decide whether it's worth their while. And instead of treating direct marketing as a pariah industry that needs to be caged or crippled, we reconceive it as an attractive business opportunity for everyone involved. * Families get a system that gives them more control -- and an option to be paid for their time. * Intermediaries suddenly have a new service to sell. Sign up with Verizon and choose your own price for receiving promo calls. Just as Verizon makes money by selling its 900 service, it could charge telemarketers to connect calls for a kind of reverse 900 service that compensates the household for listening. * But would telemarketers ever be willing to pay for your time? Of course they would, that's what advertising is. A full page print ad in The Wall Street Journal, for instance, costs $180,000 or 10 cents a reader. Firms are willing to pay dearly for the chance to get their message to you. And telemarketers would pay here only for the targets they reach. If they don't think the person is listening, they can hang up and stop paying. (Consumers are equally free to quit the call and stop getting paid). Telemarketers with a product that sells and a targeted list would be made better off with a truly free market in compensated calling. Compensation would make people more receptive. Also, regulations now block many forms of marketing. For instance, telemarketers are not allowed to call cell phones, send faxes or use pre-recorded calls (not that this law is universally obeyed). But under a system of compensated calling, it might make more sense to pay you to listen to a recording of James Earl Jones making a sales pitch than to pay a phone-bank caller minimum wage to try to speak to you. The appropriate role for government is not to tell us what type of calls we can and cannot block. Instead, the do not call regulations should simply protect families' right to control whether their phone rings. The current regulation is an important step in this direction. But Congress should allow the market to do more of the work. All that the FTC (or Congress) needs to do is to allow registered households to authorize intermediaries to connect calls that meet their conditions. This can be done by adding 21 words to the current regulation: A 'specific seller' for purposes of (section) 310.4(b)(1)(iii) shall include intermediaries who are authorized to connect calls that meet pre-specified household prerequisites. This simple change would strengthen consumers' privacy control and facilitate a true market for telemarketing. You should be able to block any unsolicited calls that don't meet your price and take the ones that do. Messrs. Ayres and Nalebuff are professors at
Re: Foreign aid - can money buy love?
I don't think money buys love. We give a lot of money to Egypt, and it isn't clear that we get any love. We also give a ton of money to Israel and it isn't really clear that they feel closer to us than they would otherwise. m - Original Message - From: fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Saturday, December 14, 2002 11:40 pm Subject: Foreign aid - can money buy love? Somebody said foreign aid might be justified if it increased the securityof the US through supporting a steadfast ally. Has anybody ever figured out foreign aid trade offs? For example, What has the greatest effect on the annual number of American deaths due to political violence (wars, terrorism, civil wars)? - $1 million spent on the army/navy/etc. - $1 million given to the government of a foreign nation - $1 million spent on covert forces - $1 million spend on pro-American propaganda Another question: how much do you have to spend to get a dependable US ally? How much do you have to spend per person before 50% of a population is pro-US? What does the curve mapping per capita US foreign aid to % population pro-US look like? Does money buy love? Fabio
Re: Emission Trading
Well, you might start with the symposium on SO2 trading in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in the Summer of 1998. Clear well written articles. Cropper and Oates have a pretty good survey article in the Journal of Economic Literature (1992). Mitch - Original Message - From: Steffen Hentrich [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, February 17, 1997 4:17 pm Subject: Emission Trading Dear Armchairs, does anybody know a comprehensive analysis of emisson trading programms? I'm especially interested in effects of permits distribution on competition. Greetings Steffen
Re: VA sales tax question
I didn't ask my question very clearly. Sure, a sales tax shifts purchases. They want to raise 2 billion in Northern Virginia. That has to come from somewhere. And there will be leakage -- some people will be more inclined to buy off the net or in DE which has no sales tax. But, where will the money come from? Will people buy less each week? Will randomly select items to strike from their purchases? Or will they have difficulty at the end of the month. Again, I'm sorry that my question wasn't clear. mitch - Original Message - From: Fred Foldvary [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, October 21, 2002 9:34 pm Subject: Re: VA sales tax question --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you ask the average person, they argue that it won't change what they buy at all. A sales tax does shift purchases; some purchases will shift to out- of-state mail-order or nontaxed services. (Virginia does have a use tax, but few pay it, as I recall.) Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Unions and Bankruptcy
I would ask Chuck Baird at Cal State Hayward. He'd be most likely to know. You could also ask Jim Bennett at George Mason. Bennett edits the Journal of Labor research. mitch - Original Message - From: Bryan Caplan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Friday, October 11, 2002 11:45 am Subject: Unions and Bankruptcy I didn't know the answer to this. Does anyone else? -- 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* ---BeginMessage--- Hello Bryan, Has anyone compared whether or not highly unionized firms are more likely to go bankrupt? Jim ---End Message---
Re: Forecasting the 2002 Noble Memorial Prize in Economics
Nice prediction. - Original Message - From: Bill Dickens [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2002 9:22 am Subject: Forecasting the 2002 Noble Memorial Prize in Economics Well, it's that time of the year when Nobel Prizes are announced. Last year I was half-correct in predicting that Janet Yellen would win but the rainmakers in Oslo decided to go with her husband George Akerlof. This year I will go out on a limb and predict that the field of experimental economicswill be recognized with the pioneers Vernon Smith and Charlie Plott reaping top awards. Honorable Mention - William Baumol.
WWII Germany - Olson - American South
If I recall Mancur Olson suggests that one of the reasons that post WWII West Germany did so well is that all of Germany's special interest groups were destroyed. I'm inclined to agree although I know that Germany had tremendous manufacturing ability even at the end of the war. However, why did the South fare so poorly after the US Civil War? Would the South have done better if the Freedmen's Bureau had been kept in place and Southern Bourbons were prevented from forming a powerful interest group? David Mitchell
The Dead Grandmother Syndrome
One of the best articles on statistics I've read. Includes an interesting slant on the need for divorce and remarriage to increase the number of available grandmothers. http://biology.ecsu.ctstateu.edu/People/ConnRev
Re: rewards from higher Education
I think the article your refering to was called the Education Shiboleth. First week of June in the Economist. Summarized someone's work, but I don't remember who's. Mitch - Original Message - From: Jacob W Braestrup [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 5:56 am Subject: rewards from higher Education i remember reading something recently in the Economist on the rewards from public investment in higher education not being so high after all (one of Bryans old points as I remember). Now i have been trying to find the article - unsuccesfully! can anyone remember which issue? - and/or does anybody know of any other studies on the subject - jacob braestrup
RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation
On Bill's pint about quality competition. I've heard that during the days of regulated air travel, airlines apparently competed on the beauty of the stewardesses. I've been told by numerous sourcces (but have no real evidence) that some business magazines would rate the quality of the stewardesses in each airline. If you favor hiring people based on their ability to serve coffee and tea instead of their looks, you might favor deregulation. mitch mitchell - Original Message - From: William Dickens [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, June 10, 2002 5:08 pm Subject: RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation Also relevant is quality and availability of service. Previously pricesmay have been cheap/falling but the range of offering, customer treatment or availability may have constrained enjoyment of the serviceto a sub optimal level. Deregulation could/should change this. (I think it has in my limited experience) Exactly the opposite of what happened in the formerly regulated markets I'm familiar with. With prices fixed at a level that gave most good companies very good rates of return they competed by increasing quality. Quality has declined most noticeably in air travel and the brokerage industry, but arguably in trucking and banking as well. I'm also not sure to what extent the prices charged were also controlledby governments as a macroeconomic tool to reduce measures of inflation? Any thoughts? Since the regulatory agencies tended to be captured by the regulated industry (or at least sympathetic) prices tended to be too high (thus the price declines) rather than too low. As someone else said, the counterfactual is everything. CR is comparing the price declines during the 50s, 60s and early 70s with the price declines in the late 70s, and 80s. Productivity growth was notably faster in the earlier period than the later period. Would prices have declined as much in the 80s in trucking airlines, and phone service if there hadn't been deregulation? From the studies I've seen I seriously doubt it. Of course not everybody's prices decline. Regulation did tend to set prices too low for many low volume markets. In those places prices have skyrocketed. I suspect that some of this is just price rising to meet marginal cost, but because these are also markets with substantial fixed costs (maintaining terminals, ticket agents etc.) there is probably also some element of natural monopoly pushing prices in these markets up above long-run marginal cost. I would guess that there are three factors that account for CR's anguish about deregulation: 1) Their sense of fairness is offended by the big price increases experienced in difficult to serve markets, 2) Coming from the upper middle class as they do, they put more value on quality and are less concerned about price than the marginal air traveler/bank customer/brokerage customer so they experience the change from high q high p to low q low p less favorably than the new people attracted to the market by the change, and 3) deregulating a monopoly may cause an increase in price and to some extent that is what deregulation did (perhaps most notably in the cable industry, small air markets, and certain types of phone service). With respect to 3) don't think I'm not aware of the competition that cable faces from satellite or how contestable air markets are. Imperfect competition and limit pricing still leave plenty of room for monopolistic distortion. I don't think that _the_ definitive study on the costs and benefits of deregulation has been done and I very much doubt that CR's study is it. After all, CR used to (still does?) insist that economists have to be wrong about the predictability of capital markets because there are numerous mutual funds that have had 5 or more years of ROR above the market average - - without asking how many would be expected on the basis of chance alone. Thus they used to endorse mutual funds with exceptional records which, of course, tend to be the ones with the riskiest strategies (and by the studies I've seen only infinitesimally better expected returns). Sigh... - - Bill Dickens William T. Dickens The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 797-6113 FAX: (202) 797-6181 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AOL IM: wtdickens
Re: Copy Protection of CDs
Some time ago Mark Wilson sent in an email on copy protection harming hardware. Apparently a felt tip pen can foil that. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/05/21/bc.media.cd.piracy.reut.reut /index.html?related Mitch - Original Message - From: Mark Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, May 13, 2002 5:26 pm Subject: Copy Protection of CDs Evidently, Copy-protection schemes can actually damage hardware: http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner? 30REQEVENT=REQAUTH=2104614001REQSUB=REQINT1=53255 That record companies think this is a solution is laughable. Okay, so a CD won't play in my computer and I can't 'rip' it and encode into MP3. Does this prevent the technologically savvy from sending the digital signal from their standalone CD player into their soundcard and encoding it this way, and then, of course, distributing to the non-savvy crowd? So..the record company has achieved nothing as far as preventing piracy, but has diminished the value of their product by not allowing it to be played on a computer, and left themselves open to potential lawsuits from damaged hardware, and possibly from Philips, who owns the CD patent, and is none too happy about this... Mark Wilson Appalachian State University
Re: MBA's for senior exec's
I'm somewhat familiar with ITT Hartford's executive program. For most things like basic accounting, the expected people to learn it on their own, they taught it at the office, or they paid for courses at local colleges. For the upper level management and people who were being groomed for upper level management, they used a different method. These people would go take executive MBA courses at top schools but they wouldn't get an executive MBA and the type of classes were different from a traditional MBA program. Much more managing other managers courses and strategic planning. These courses mirrored what Chris Coyne mentioned. But, managers didn't take more than two classes from any one school. So I know that they used the University of Michigan's Managing other Managers course, but not its advanced finance course (for that they used Wake Forest or UPenn). The idea was that you would get the best course in the country not just what was offered at any particular school. The other advantage was that employees never got an actual MBA. They had learned; and they had had nice trips, but they didn't have an MBA that they could put on their resume to take to other companies. That method makes a lot of sense to me, but I've never heard of any other company doing it that way. So does ITT-Hartford know something that no one else does, or is it the other way around? Mitch - Original Message - From: Chris Coyne [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 0:20 am Subject: Re: MBA's for senior exec's htmldiv style='background-color:'DIV PYet another potential reason could be that these programs keep executives up to speed on the latest management techniques, technology, etc. Most MBA programs, from what I understand, are less about lecturing and more about sharing various experiences and case study analysis amongst the participants. Presenting executives with the opportunity for continued education may be a way to get them to think out of the box and to gain new, fresh ideas and experiences through interaction with others outside of their firm (and its culture). /P PI'm not sure about those at the executive level, but I know that with lower to mid level employees, some firms require a certain commitment after the degree is completed (at least that's how it was in the IB industry) to ensure at least some return from their investment. I would also put stock in Pete's efficiency wage explanation since a major selling point of many firms is their commitment to continued investment in the development of their employees./P/DIV P /P DIV/DIV PChris Coyne/P DIV/DIV PGraduate Student/P DIV/DIV PDepartment of Economics/P DIV/DIV PGeorge Mason University/P DIV/DIV P /P DIV/DIV DIV/DIV DIV/DIV DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;From: Peter J Boettke [EMAIL PROTECTED] DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;Subject: Re: MBA's for senior exec's DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 20:18:47 -0500 DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt; DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;If it is not useful, then why do companies pay for Executive MBA programs? DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;I have known several high ranking executives here in the Northern Virginia DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;area --- for Mobil/Exxon and other companies --- who have gone on to earn DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;Executive MBA's from Georgetown, Virginia or William amp; Mary (alas GMU does DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;not compete well in this market). The programs are expensive in terms of DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;tuition, but the treatment of the students is also exotic --- a friend in DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;the Georgetown program had to go with his classmates on a trip to China and DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;to Cancun as part of the program! Everyone I know did not pay a dime for DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;their schooling --- their companies paid the entire bill, plus made the DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;commitment to give them the release time from work for course work and the DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;in-residence requirement. DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt; DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;So what is the value-added? DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt; DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;(A) Mid-career executives have already sent the signal; DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;(B) Presumably at that stage of their career they have also established DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;their network. DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt; DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;So what could it be? DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt; DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;There must be some value-added to the firm otherwise why would they pay? Is DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;it a form of an efficiency wage? (I wouldn't want to work for an employer DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;who wouldn't give educational benefits to its employees --- and if they DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;do -- then boy do I work for a good company and will bust my butt for them). DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt; DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt;Pete DIV/DIV DIV/DIVgt; DIV/DIV
Re: The Economics of Military Stop-Loss Policies
Mike, I think that the main difference is that during the draft, young men spent considerable amounts of energy avoiding the draft. In this case there's no reason to suspect that men will enroll in college to avoid the stop gap measures. Obviously some people will be unlikely to enlist if they think that they might not be able to leave on time. What is the elasticity of supply for enlistees? I suspect it is pretty inelastic with regards to potentail stop gap measures. You might find that the numbers are not too different. Also, what sort of choices do enlistees have? If an enlistee thinks that he will be forced to stay if he chooses intel, will he be able to get into procurement instead? If that is the case, then you might find that you don't get the best people for particular jobs. Mitch - Original Message - From: Strobl Maj Michael R [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 8:47 am Subject: The Economics of Military Stop-Loss Policies Armchairs, The military's current stop-loss policy prevents certain service membersfrom leaving the service at the end of their normal enlistment contract. This policy is affecting specific skills and grades deemed critical for the war on terrorism. In econimic terms, what are the similarities and dissimilarities between stop-loss and a conventional draft? My thoughts... Similarities: - Those affected by stop-loss are, in a sense, draftees. - Therefore, stop-loss bypasses efficient labor market allocation mechanisms. - Stop-loss will tend to understate the economic (if not accounting) cost of military manpower--the largest portion of the defense budget. - Stop-loss (arguably) encourages inefficient utilization of society's resources. Dissimilarities: - Those affected presumably have a higher preference for military servicethan those normally targeted in a conventional draft (i.e., the 18 year old with little or no inclination toward military service). How does this affect the concept of economic rents? - Stop-loss doesn't require nearly the bureacratic overhead (e.g., selectiveservice system, tracking down evaders) of a conventional draft.- Under a conventional draft, and the military's current closed labor system, you can't draft, say, an intelligence specialist with 10 year's of experience. Your thoughts... Regards, Maj Mike Strobl USMC, Manpower Analyst
Re:
People talk negatively about their experiences at Chicago. Unless you want something quite distinctive, I would recommend the highest ranking school that you can get into. Mitch - Original Message - From: markjohn [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thursday, November 1, 2001 1:34 am Armchairs, Biases out, which school is the best place to study economics and why?
RE: Disaster Raises Happiness, Trust
The problem with all of this is that humans don't really fit the mold. In other animals it is always the male who is adorned. The male lion has the mane. The male peacock has the long tail. Even in less glamorous birds like ducks. The male is more colorful. In humans however, it appears that it is the women who spend more time primping and preening. (Good thing, I've already disqualified myself from running for office.)Males tend to spend less time on their appearance. Even though I'm the worst offender for bringing in animal behavior models, this would seem to make these models less applicable to humans. David Mitchell - Original Message - From: William Dickens [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tuesday, October 9, 2001 3:27 pm Subject: RE: Disaster Raises Happiness, Trust Since Darwin we normally think that it is women who choose which males to mate with since males want to mate indiscriminately. Thus you would expect it would be the male who would have to adapt to the woman and not the other way around. However, if we are talking about males supporting women and/or forming lifetime bonds then we have an evolutionary game and it isn't clear what the outcome is. However, that just puts us back in the dilemma that I proposed earlier. We can see that it might be in men's interest to want to mate when threatened but not women. I don't deny the empirical fact, I just don't buy the explanations that have been given. - - Bill Dickens [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/03/01 12:12PM I think the popularity of Nightmare on Elm Street, etc., including with many young women, is fairly relevant, and supportive of stress arousal. I'd suspect a strong second order effect in women: the men are more than usually aroused; which leads to more than usual arousal in the women. I'd suspect women who are NOT more than usually aroused with such men to be at a doubly severe evolutionary disadvantage: a) fewer children overall, and b) less likely to keep a father around to help with the kids she does have. Tom Grey -Original Message- From: William Dickens [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 4:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Disaster Raises Happiness, Trust I think this is a good EP explanation for men, but there is a problem with it as an explanation for women. I have to admit that I don't know if women are aroused by stress as well, but from the woman's perspective it wouldseem that her offspring would be most likely to succeed if she waited for the guys to come back and then picked from that bunch. They would presumablybe a more fit sub-sample of the original population and would be more likely to be around to help provide for the children. - - Bill Dickens William T. Dickens The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 797-6113 FAX: (202) 797-6181 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AOL IM: wtdickens [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/01/01 10:19PM With regard to Mr. Dickens' comment regarding whether stress shouldcause sexual arousal, I am tempted to think that evolutionary psychology can certainly explain this phenomenon. Early societies, according to most models of human development, used the males as hunters and warriors; females were gatherers. With this division of labor, males certainly incurred the more perilous part of the community's job. Before an important hunt or major battle, it is manifestly in the male's evolutionary favor to become sexually aroused; after all, this may be his genome's last chance to reproduce itself! Even if he dies in battle, his sex partners -- still safely at home -- will be able to bear his young.
Happiness, Trust and mate selection
I'm not a father, but those of you who think you are might want to check. Those of you who have been surprised at how wonderful your offspring are, should be doubly cautious. Mitch - Original Message - From: Jacob W Bræstrup [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, October 3, 2001 1:32 pm Subject: SV: Disaster Raises Happiness, Trust I remember to have both read and seen (on discovery channel) a couple of studies that conclude that human females do in fact use this same strategyas the birds (nesting with the reliable male, but mating with the high quality). I believe this was labelled as a superior mating strategy - just as the superior male mating strategy is to find the right mix of quality(staying and raising his offspring) and quantity (mating with as many as possible). That this primal urge among women was still alive and kicking was allegedlyconfirmed by a study (conducted on british discos, I believe) showing that women are more prone to go out alone (with female friends - whithout boyfriends / husbands) when they also have the biggest chance of gettingpregnant. That - compaired with the girls NOT pregnant- prone - these girls were also more likely to be dressed to kill. And - finally - that girls where more likely to be unfaithful at this time of the month. Also supporting this theory is a study (reported this summer in Danish media) based on the growing number of instances where a father volunteers to donate an organ to one of his own children. In 15 percent of these cases (in Denmark) - if I remember right - the DNA test reveiled that the two were NOT related (of course the fathers were not told this - only that there was no match). Presumably these figures excluded fathers who already knew that they were not the father of the child. Although it is probably a somewhat small sample (I don't remember the size), it is nevertheless pretty representative of the population at large, I would say. As I said, most of this is just what I remember off hand - can anyone confirm??? Jacob Wimpffen Bræstrup Esthersvej 22, 2tv. DK-2900 Hellerup DENMARK Tel: (+45) 39 400 600 / 2020 3232 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Power threatens; wealth rewards: one eludes power by deceiving it; to obtain the favours of wealth one must serve it: the latter is thereforebound to win - Constant's speech given at the Athénée Royal, 1819 -Oprindelig meddelelse- Fra: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]På vegne af [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sendt: 3. oktober 2001 17:12 Til: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Emne: Re: Disaster Raises Happiness, Trust Possibly. In many species of birds, the female will mate with high quality males who are often not around b/c high quality males have manymating opportunities. The female then nests with a lower quality male who raises the young. I don't actually know if humans do this, b/c humans don't always fit the models. Mitch Mitchell - Original Message - From: William Dickens [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, October 3, 2001 7:17 am Subject: Re: Disaster Raises Happiness, Trust I think this is a good EP explanation for men, but there is a problem with it as an explanation for women. I have to admit that I don't know if women are aroused by stress as well, but from the woman's perspective it would seem that her offspring would be most likely to succeed if she waited for the guys to come back and then picked from that bunch. They would presumably be a more fit sub- sample of the original population and would be more likely to be around to help provide for the children. - - Bill Dickens William T. Dickens The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 797-6113 FAX: (202) 797-6181 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AOL IM: wtdickens [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/01/01 10:19PM With regard to Mr. Dickens' comment regarding whether stress should cause sexual arousal, I am tempted to think that evolutionary psychology can certainly explain this phenomenon. Early societies, according to most models of human development, used the males as hunters and warriors; females were gatherers. With this division of labor, males certainly incurred the more perilous part of the community's job. Before an important hunt or major battle, it is manifestly in the male's evolutionary favor to become sexually aroused; after all, this may be his genome's last chance to reproduce itself! Even if he dies in battle, his sex partners -- still safely at home -- will be able to bear his young.
Re: Handicapping the 2001 Noble Prize in Economics
I'd love to see Tullock or Smith. My prediction is that the winner will be some obscure person. Not a single one of us will be able to think of what he's done. Mitch - Original Message - From: Bryan Caplan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thursday, September 20, 2001 2:37 pm Subject: Re: Handicapping the 2001 Noble Prize in Economics My wish (not prediction): Joint prize for Anne Krueger and Gordon Tullock for rent-seeking. -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what *they* thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
