Re: misc - ignore!
I am a dunce and I have inadvertently given Bryan's secret away. I promise, however, not to reveal the names of the other participants (especially if they send me large wads of cash - you know who you are.) My apologies to all. Alex Alex Tabarrok wrote: > Hi Bryan, > Thanks for your hospitality. I regret that we did not have the opportunity to >speak more but time had to be allotted to the big wigs. Most important > benefit of being at GMU I did not know before the trip? All economist D&D game - >excellent! > > Cheers > > Alex
Re: Basketball Puzzle
Maybe players think that a minimum age restriction would set a precedent allowing for a maximum age restriction down the line. --James Haney
misc
Hi Bryan, Thanks for your hospitality. I regret that we did not have the opportunity to speak more but time had to be allotted to the big wigs. Most important benefit of being at GMU I did not know before the trip? All economist D&D game - excellent! Cheers Alex
Re: nafta
"Mexican real GDP increased 5.2 percent, and the real value of the peso was quite high in 1994, both factors that would have boosted U.S. exports to Mexico. As a result, it is unlikely that NAFTA and its lower trade barriers were the only influence on bilateral trade flows. To isolate the effects of NAFTA, one must account for the effects of changes in income, exchange rates, and trade with other countries; only then can NAFTA trade be ascertained." (David M. Gould "Has NAFTA changed North American trade?" Economic & Financial Review, 1998, issue Q 1, pages 12-23) Using a gravity model Gould found that U.S. export growth is about 16.3 percentage points higher per year with NAFTA. The increase in exports to Canada was estimated to be 8.6 percent due to NAFTA - which is not too surprising given the the US and Canada had a free trade agreement in 1989. Also, in the winter 2001 issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Burfisher, Robinson, and Thierfelder in "The Impact of NAFTA on the United States" concluded that "the mainstream forecasts during the NAFTA debate were basically correct: NAFTA has had relatively small positive effects on the U.S. economy and relatively large positive effects on Mexico." Scott Merryman On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Wei Dai wrote: >According to http://www.ustr.gov/naftareport/intro.htm: During NAFTA's first five years, U.S. merchandise exports to Mexico increased 90 percent. U.S. merchandise exports to Canada, our largest trading partner, increased 55 percent. Together, this meant $93 billion in export growth from 1993 to 1998-two fifths of the growth in U.S. exports to the world. (end quote) The U.S. GDP is only $10 trillion so the $93 billion increase already represents a 1 percent increase. Where does the 0.1 to 0.2 number come from? Is Paul Krugman saying that even without NAFTA, U.S. export to Mexico and Canada would have increased by $80 billion?
Re: Basketball Puzzle
>From: Ananda Gupta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Basketball Puzzle
>Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 16:41:56 -0700
I find #1 to be the most reasonable:
>
>Possible answers:
>
>1. Agents are the ones who are really in charge; they maximize their own
>incomes by representing as many players as possible. They also have an
>incentive to represent "high potential" players who will sign big contracts
>and drop out of the league after three years, since this sort of contract
>represents fast cash with little long-term investment -- a fairly common
>occurrence among high school players. Agents thus use their influence over
>players (and by proxy the players' union) to keep the door open for high
>school players. Objection: why don't less popular agents point this out to
>players and use it as a selling point?
Response to objection: because they're less popular for a reason. Probably
because they're not quite as good ("good" meaning well-connected, skilled in
negotiation, strong in reputation, etc).
-JP
_
Join the worldÂ’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
http://www.hotmail.com
Basketball Puzzle
OK Armchairs, here's a puzzle: In discussion of her recent article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14426-2002Apr19.html) about Kwame Brown, the first ever high schooler to be taken #1 overall by an NBA team, Sally Jenkins mentioned that both the NBA itself and the NCAA would like to simply ban players under 20 from playing professional basketball in the U.S. Jenkins notes that the chief reason such a ban hasn't already become NBA policy is opposition from the players' association. This flies in the face of most models of union behavior: unions are supposed to like lower labor supply, because it drives up wages. So why does the NBA players' union oppose a measure that would lower labor supply by denying draft entry to high school players? Possible answers: 1. Agents are the ones who are really in charge; they maximize their own incomes by representing as many players as possible. They also have an incentive to represent "high potential" players who will sign big contracts and drop out of the league after three years, since this sort of contract represents fast cash with little long-term investment -- a fairly common occurrence among high school players. Agents thus use their influence over players (and by proxy the players' union) to keep the door open for high school players. Objection: why don't less popular agents point this out to players and use it as a selling point? 2. Having extremely raw high school players in the league helps less talented veterans polish their images, since the high school players make dumb mistakes and make the veterans who play against them look better. This leads to better negotiating positions for the veterans, who believe their wages increase more by letting in the HS players than if they were to remove this source of wage competition. Objection: The majority of HS players play few minutes in the first two years, minimizing their visibility. Some don't play at all during their "development". 3. The salary cap (the ceiling on the total amount that teams can spend on player contracts) is a percentage of gross revenue. Maybe the expected value of a high school superstar five years after he is drafted will increase ticket sales so much that the team will have salary cap room to reward its veterans. So it's in their interest to allow teams to take risks on high school players. Objection: Rookie contracts last two or three years; after that, a player will renegotiate. If he turns out not to be a bust, then his cost will rise substantially, so the team doesn't economize by drafting him and keeping him on the bench (as opposed to letting someone else draft him and then trying to get him as a free agent once his rookie contract expires). Any thoughts? ASG
Re: nafta
On Sun, Apr 21, 2002 at 03:40:39PM -0700, Scott Eric Merryman wrote: > Paul Krugman has an article on NAFTA you might find interesting. > If job creation isn't the point of NAFTA, what is? Another possible > justification is the classic economic argument that free trade will raise > U.S. productivity and hence living standards. Few economists, however, > thought the pact would yield large gains of this type. Mexico's economy is > simply too small to provide America with the opportunity for major gains > from trade. Typical estimates of the long-term benefits to the U.S. > economy from NAFTA are for an increase in real income on the order of 0.1 > percent to 0.2 percent. According to http://www.ustr.gov/naftareport/intro.htm: During NAFTA's first five years, U.S. merchandise exports to Mexico increased 90 percent. U.S. merchandise exports to Canada, our largest trading partner, increased 55 percent. Together, this meant $93 billion in export growth from 1993 to 1998-two fifths of the growth in U.S. exports to the world. (end quote) The U.S. GDP is only $10 trillion so the $93 billion increase already represents a 1 percent increase. Where does the 0.1 to 0.2 number come from? Is Paul Krugman saying that even without NAFTA, U.S. export to Mexico and Canada would have increased by $80 billion? On Mon, Apr 22, 2002 at 05:44:37PM -0400, Robin Hanson wrote: > Since when is .1 percent of GDP small?! That's a wonderfully large benefit > for a policy to have. In a $10 trillion/yr economy, .1% is $10 billion/yr, > the present value of which is at least $100 billion. If a thousand > economists took ten years to produce this outcome, their marginal product > would be $10 million/yr! I think that is considerably more than the > opportunity cost for most economists. :-) Why don't economists should form a union and demand to be paid their marginal products? :-) First order of business: what's the marginal product of the person who organized the union?
Steve Kangas on liberalism?
Is it worth to discuss with the fellow armchairers the Steve Kangas´story? Suicide? I accidentally stepped into one of his sites and it was my first contact with the subject: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/LiberalFAQ.htm#Backhomoeconomicus I would love to hear your comments and insights. ___ Enrique A. Rodriguez Public Choice Center Francisco Marroquin University Guatemala, Central America
RE: General Theory
now that we know what the book is, where can we get it? okay, it's a rhetorical question! in Europe, Amazon.co.uk can get it in 4-6 weeks (or so they say). (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572460016/qid=1019639017/sr=1-8/r ef=sr_1_0_8/026-7055219-4760407) in the US, Amazon.com only has it on special order/zShops/used (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/104-7912338-3509550) for what it's worth, the Hazlitt Foundation (www.hazlitt.org) has a number of HH's books online, for free, downloadable - but not this one. the Foundation does give some other clues about how to buy HH's books, though. a-and there's always a library, if you've got access to one. etb > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of > Peter J Boettke > Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 4:07 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: General Theory > > > Henry Hazlitt, The Failure of the New Economics, also see his Critics of > Keynesian Economics, which he edited. > > Peter J. Boettke, Deputy Director > James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy > Department of Economics, MSN 3G4 > George Mason University > Fairfax, VA 22030 > PHONE: 703-993-1149 > FAX: 703-993-1133 > EMAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > HOMEPAGE: http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/pboettke > - Original Message - > From: "John Jernigan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 7:23 PM > Subject: General Theory > > > > Hello all, this is my first post. > > > > I remember reading someplace that someone had written what was > essentially > a > > line-by-line response to Keynes "General Theory " based on libertarian > > grounds. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and is it any good? > > > > John Jernigan > > > > >
