Re: Marx vs. Hayek - let Amazon decide!!

F. Guillermo wrote: Here some cute numbers Title Amazon.com sales Rank Approx Price The Communist Manifesto 3,955 $5 The Road to Serfdom 866$8 Wealth of Nations 1,782 $9 Essential Works of Lenin

Re: AIDS/POLIO-Not Much Econ

Alexander Tabarrok wrote: ... Furthermore as Robin pointed out there was "a claimed strong correlation between where CHAT was given and the earliest HIV cases. But this correlation is only described via some maps. This cries out for a more formal statistical analysis..." According to the

Economist Olympics?

Does anyone know if anyone has held an "economist Olympics?" via one of these games (e.g. Sim City)? It seems like it might be a fun tool for evaluating policy proposals. For example, suppose two economists disagreed about the effects of a given policy proposal. To resolve the issue, they

Re: reading recommendation

Let me second Bill's point. It's because decision heuristics are usually so useful that we can be lulled into following them when doing so is downright irrational! Alex -- Dr. Alexander Tabarrok Vice President and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA,

Re: AIDS/POLIO-Not Much Econ

The article did grant that there remains the strange puzzle of the coincidence in timing of the various strands of AIDS all being transmitted from primates to humans within a close period, which I suppose that Hooper will emphasize when backed into a corner. The article suggests theories of

Re: reading recommendation

Regarding the exchange between W. Dickens and B. Caplan over decision heuristics: __ I encourage you to browse, if you haven't, the following: FAMA, EUGENE F., "Market Efficiency, Long-term Returns, and Behavioral Finance," The Journal of Financial

Adobe and pdf files

I just read the series of correspondence considering the Xerox machine and the usage of the term "Xerox" to refer to photocopying. Now the problem I have does not have to do with the term but with the use of advertising by providing a free product. Adobe acrobat and its free reader for pdf

Re: AIDS/POLIO-Not Much Econ

William T. Dickens wrote: The article did grant that there remains the strange puzzle of the coincidence in timing of the various strands of AIDS all being transmitted from primates to humans within a close period, which I suppose that Hooper will emphasize when backed into a corner. The

Re: reading recommendation

Sure, some important real world applications exist. But why is that interesting? I would think that the interesting question is: what's the *expected value* of the loss, averaging over situations of all importance levels? So would you argue that the interesting question about government

RE: Adobe and pdf files

wait a second: you can only READ .pdf files if someone has MADE them first, and to MAKE them you need to buy the full fledged product. the logic is that by spreading the reader around for free you create demand. else it would be a completely closed circuit. note, Microsoft offers a Word reader

Re: Economist Olympics?

Can such games model reality well enough to give interesting results? Interesting to whom? To game players yes. For certain purposes there are useful models that can help people understand how systems operate and predict outcomes. Would economists agree on the meta-rules enough to agree to

Re: Adobe and pdf files

Alexander Guerrero wrote: Anyoneo who uses acrobat reader to read PDF documents, in the near future will enjoy the need to reverse the proces, that is to convert PDF to word and other way around. On leads to the other and you for Acrobat Destiller y Exchange and get the reader "free".