free lunch

Gompertz Law

2009-08-11T00:08:00.003-04:00

According to the Gompertz Law of human mortality, every 8 years, our probability of dying doubles. Looking at the mortality tables from CDC, it means there's about 69% chance I wont live to be 115. Hmmm.

23 miles

2009-08-09T15:52:00.002-04:00

Rode the bike yesterday all the way to Mt. Vernon. Started late, I didnt bring energy bars with me hoping I'll make it to the Mt. Vernon gift shop on time to have a snack. Unfortunately, got there just when they were closing. Riding back to Old Town Alexandria hungry was hard. I was hoping to ride again today but it was just too humid.

8 lives

2009-08-06T17:33:00.002-04:00

8 years ago today I was in a car accident. Driving back to DC from Southwest Va early morning, the driver side rear-wheel of the car exploded. This caused the car to spin in the middle of I-81. I figured I'll be okay if the big truck behind me will stop on time after the car stop spinning. The car continued to spin towards the shoulder/earth embankment...then it rolled a couple of times. The car was totalled. The only space that was not crushed was the bubble around me. I was hanging upside down with the seatbelt the only thing that kept me from falling. If I had passengers, they would most likely be dead. I walked out of that accident with just a minor cut in one of my fingers and muscle pain for a week. Sometimes you get lucky, really lucky.

Clubby

2009-08-06T13:51:00.002-04:00

Impulse buying. Bought two new golf clubs today. One 3-wood, one 5-wood. I dont expect that these new additions will improve my game (if you can call it that) at all.

Traveler

2009-08-05T22:04:00.003-04:00

In the past two months I've traveled back to Asia three times. I might go back again in a month. I'm getting used to traveling business class and a couple of times was lucky to be in first class. It's bad, now I'm not used to the space they give you in economy.

Last month I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a few days in Tokyo. What an interesting city. Had great fun meeting up with friends and just getting lost in the city's maze. I've been back for almost two weeks now and still have not riden my bike nor visited the driving range. This weekend is not looking promising in terms of chance of doing something outdoors. It's going to rain. Maybe it's a good time to check out the museums...maybe.

Seasons

2009-02-24T15:09:00.002-05:00

I used to long for the coming of spring and hope that every year, it will come early so I can start wearing shorts on the weekends and ride my bike on the trail again. Since I started fooling around with snowboarding, now I secretly wish for a longer winter season with lots of snow days!

with weather like that...

2008-12-24T13:10:00.001-05:00

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-12-23-literatecities_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

falling apart

2008-08-26T13:35:00.002-04:00

After 50 miles of riding:

lower back hurts
right knee feels weak

Roomba!

2008-08-08T19:51:00.003-04:00

This sucker just finished cleaning my apt. I dont think I'll be sending him back to the manufacturer anytime soon.

The happiest

2008-08-06T22:26:00.002-04:00

I can say while I was there, I was happy too.

Deepest fear

2008-07-25T22:26:00.001-04:00

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

Our Deepest Fear
by Marianne Williamson from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

Mt. Vernon and Back

2008-07-21T11:21:00.003-04:00

Rode the bike again...this time all the way to Mt. Vernon...covered some 40 miles back and forth. Both knees ok. Glad to finish it this time. Last time my right knee was hurting and I could not finish so had to stop in DCA and hop on the metro there. The heat index was so high and contributed to added exhaustion.

On your left!

2008-07-15T21:22:00.003-04:00

I was falling asleep at work so I decided to get out early and ride my bike again for 20 miles. The knees are getting used to it and the seat is not that uncomfortable anymore since I started wearing padded biking shorts.

Now I am thinking I should have bought a more expensive bike, one that has better components and parts or maybe lighter. I feel like I can go for more miles, it would be nice to have a lighter bike to do longer rides.

Rebound effect

2008-06-26T16:00:00.003-04:00

Suppose a country subsidizes a device that would lead to more efficient energy use, then imagine this device is capable of reducing consumption of the fuel needed to run an energy conversion device (car, heater, etc) by 20%. After a year can we expect that the energy consumption related to the use of the energy conversion device be reduced by 20%?
Most probably not. It has something to do with microeconomics and consumer demand. Energy efficiency improvements generally mean a lowering of the cost of running the energy conversion device. Rational consumers would consume more of the good/service that is cheaper. If say, the new compact flourescent lamp (CFL) just needs 80% less electricity to provide the same lumens as an incandescent light bulb, would I after a year or a month save 20% electricity out of using CFLs? Probably not, because I will conveniently forget to turn it off if I am stepping out of the room. Or maybe I'll turn on the lights earlier in the afternoon.

What is a rough measure of this "rebound effect?" A good bit of thinking have been invested in estimating this effect. Check some of the academic energy journals...but it boils down (roughly) to the price elasticity of our demand for that fuel. Suppose you cut consumption of electricity by 50% everytime the price of electricity goes up by 100% (that is to say the elasticity of your electricity demand with respect to the price of electricity is -0.5), then the rebound effect in the case of the introduction of CFL is 50% which means, dont expect to reduce electricity consumption by 20%, most probably it would be less than that...perhaps only by 10%. Energy efficiency drives are not enough, policymakers still need to work with taxing and pricing policies to align the incentives of consumers to their policy goal of reducing energy consumption.

GW's crib

2008-06-23T18:48:00.002-04:00

Rode the bike again and we started early this time...8:30 am. Followed the Mt. Vernon trail along the banks of the Potomac, passed by the Ronald Reagan airport and watched a couple of planes takeoff. It was tough towards the end as we were going uphill on the last 2-3 miles. 18 miles in total to reach Mt. Vernon. It was a good workout. Problem was on the way back, my right knee started giving me trouble. I was basically powering myself with my left leg. We were able to reach Old Town Alexandria though and had a good lunch there. Right knee was killing me so we had to ride the metro at the airport to salvage my creaking right knee.

Lance Armstrong was once quoted as saying "pain is just weakness escaping the body"...boy was there a jailbreak...

But I am stubborn as they come so I'll hop on that thing again this weekend.

Computer crimes

2008-06-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

What's the real cost of theft? From a society's view point, the cost is not that somebody stole your bike because somebody stealing your bike is just a reassignment of ownership, the total number of bikes in the world didn't change and that your loss is totally offset by the gain from the theft. The real cost as identified many years ago by a Nobel prize winning economist is the waste that comes with you trying to protect your bike (i.e. checking it out from time to time, putting chain locks) and the waste that comes with a budding thief investing time and energy figuring out new and more efficient ways to steal (he could be doing something more productive for society).

Now what does that have to do with computers? With computer viruses and spams is the problem the same? I think it's greater. When your computer melts it does not get transferred to somebody else's cubicle (unless your information got stolen at the same time). When a virus wipes out your hard drive, not only the information lost counts among the costs but also the stuff that you need to be doing from now on (creating backups, firewalls, running virus checks from time to time). Is trying to learn how to hack a computer wasteful? probably not as much as we think if we think that skills learned to hack a computer is complementary to other supposedly productive skills (i.e. like being able to write code for a search engine).

An inefficient market

2008-06-16T22:13:00.004-04:00

I dont know what it is, maybe it has something to do with the Sex and the City movie but conversations of late with friends always touch on the issue of how hard it is to date. These conversations though end up with a bunch of explanations and theories and I dont think it ends resolving all the questions...maybe that's the point, just to talk about it.

The problem with "dating markets" is that it's pretty primitive. It's not as efficient say as the capital market. Do you know how many transactions take place at the New York stock exchange? Why is the dating market inefficient? Because it still operates exactly like a barter exchange. Trade in the barter system happens when there is what we call a "coincidence of wants" Trade happens when you have something I want, and I have something you want. Now doesnt that sound like the dating market?

So I am still amazed when two people actually get together. Some people will call it magic. It is quite hard to have this "coincidence of wants." But it does happen, happens often enough that we all believe it will happen to all of us. Then we wonder why not when it doesnt...

Biking again

2008-06-16T22:09:00.002-04:00

So I went on a bike ride again just this last weekend. The knees are feeling a lot better. No swelling, no strain, no pain. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this the morning after the ride. It's good to know that I can do this again without thinking about my knees.

Crescent Trail

2008-06-08T13:00:00.002-04:00

Got on the bike today and went to the Crescent Trail. The bike trail starts in Georgetown, DC and ends somewhere in Silver Spring, MD--about 12 miles or so one way. Although the heat index was somewhere in the low 100s, it wasnt too bad a ride because the trail is covered with trees. Now I got to ice my knee and sit on a donut.

2008-06-04T19:10:00.003-04:00

It's 7:10 pm and I am still at the office. Looks like it's still raining outside...would have been nice to either go to the driving range or ride the bicycle for a bit. I've been checking the bike routes around here and looks like it will be an interesting summer if I can cover all of them.

Arlington

DC and Maryland

Back in the saddle

2008-06-03T20:31:00.003-04:00

I decided to buy a new bike today. Just something to use on the bike paths here around DC. Last year I tried biking but was unfortunately injured and had to go to therapy to get the knee back in shape...not fun. Well, let's see if it will hold up this time. I went to see a knee specialist today and after looking at x-rays of my knee, he says it looks fine and biking shouldnt be any problem.

The comeback

2008-06-02T21:42:00.002-04:00

I am reopening this blog after a long absence. I'm not sure though if I would be able to find time to post as much and as often as I used to when I was still in school. There's definitely a lot to rant about...but I am also most definitely lazier this time to put them up here.

Let's see. I thought my earlier posts helped me with understanding more about economics as I was studying for the comprehensive exams around that time about 4-3 years ago. Lately, I have noticed that my sporadic posts have been about my various injuries haha.

Finite

2008-04-02T15:45:00.003-04:00

We live pathetically short lives. If I have about 40 years left, that's only about 14,600 days. Everyday we make conscious and unconscious decisions on how we should spend our day. Some things we choose to do, some we have no choice. I have learned not to waste a lot of my time worrying too much about the little things. As a result, I dont blow up when things dont go my way. Like last weekend, I was driving around a friend who was in town for a visit. We parked at a grocery store and when we came out my car was rear-ended by somebody who didnt leave a note. I shrugged my shoulders and told my friend that we should look for the nice restaurant I was telling him about so we could get some dinner. Time's a wasting.

End of the world

2008-01-27T19:18:00.001-05:00

So the Mayan calendar says December 21, 2012 is the end of the world. Should I consume rather than save? :)

Peak load

2007-11-07T09:25:00.001-05:00

I work in a building that houses about 5,000 people. It's nice that we have two coffee shops that serve us and save us from darting out to the Starbucks across the street. Problem is a very long line forms around 9am when most people come in. I was stading in line next to a manager and told him...maybe they ought to consider raising prices? Or start charging peak-load pricing. I bet some of these people in line would realize it's not really that important to get their coffee during that window of time.

Monday

2007-11-05T09:38:00.001-05:00

Finished reading "Waltzing with a Dictator" by Raymond Bonner the other day. Interesting read about the Marcos dictatorship. Most people of my generation already have a good idea about what went on during that time in the 70s and mid 80s. Reading...seems like it takes so much time now.

Imagine if I live in a house and have to take care of other stuff like things breaking down, mowing the lawn, and all other stuff that comes with home ownership. I understand now why some people give up the space and decide to live in condos.

Time

2007-11-02T18:21:00.001-04:00

Time. It's a funny thing. It's also relative. 20 minutes seems like a long time, while 2 years just flew by like that. It's been 2 years since I got out of grad school. I am better compensated now than when I was teaching three sections of stats but what I do now in terms of brainwork is nowhere near as demanding as grad school.

One thing I dont have a lot of these days is time. Time to read, time to do things I used to have time for. Right now I have four books that I am trying to read none of which I am making much progress on. Time.

Second opinion

2007-08-16T17:22:00.000-04:00

So I have been self-diagnosing myself for the last few weeks thru Google...bad thing. I have seen way too many pictures of how the knee works. I was getting impatient with the physical therapy so I went to see a sports medicine/knee specialist. He tells me that it is not my meniscus...that is something one would call "runner's knee"...something to do with might left thigh muscle not able to hold the knee cap in place when i went biking...so it was sliding all over the place. He did a rudemantary strength test for both legs...my right leg was indeed stronger. Now I have to go back to PT twice a week and he says it should get better in my case.

Lame excuse

2007-08-13T21:06:00.000-04:00

I hurt my left knee biking a month ago. It is still bothering me and has limited my activities this past month...that kills me because I am missing out on a lot of summer stuff. I saw a doctor already and a physical therapist. They think it is my meniscus. I wonder if it is a small tear or I really messed it up. Problem with the meniscus is only its outer parts are reached by blood flow so it wont heal on it's own if the tear is big enough...in that case, surgery is the only real option to get the knee working 100% again.

Limits

2007-04-29T21:49:00.000-04:00

I was walking back to my apartment the other night, maybe it was this Friday night. I was coming back from a party myself. Saw this girl getting sick on the side of a building...way too much to drink I guess. I'm glad I am passed that stage where I'm not able to control myself and realize my limits...but then again sometimes it's good to test those limits.

2007-04-18T23:16:00.001-04:00

The comeback

2007-04-10T18:58:00.000-04:00

One of my papers got accepted and will soon be published in an academic journal. Two more published articles and that would be it for all the material in my dissertation. After coming back from an academic conference two weeks ago, I am inspired to do academic stuff again. I almost forgot how I love doing it.

Something raw

2007-04-07T13:09:00.000-04:00

My neighborhood Japanese restaurant is having its annual cherry blossom festival sushi buffet promo. Some of my japanese friends tell me that this is the best sushi place in town. They are charging $35 for all you can eat sushi. The picture below shows they should have charged higher.

Relent

2007-04-06T15:37:00.000-04:00

I used to remember lent season as the hottest time of the year back home. Here in DC we are getting a cold reception. It gave me some incentive though to cut back on outdoor activities and go back to writing an academic paper. After coming from an academic conference and linking up with old buddies, I started thinking about getting published again. I havent given it up...yet.

Charleston in my mind

2007-04-01T20:21:00.000-04:00

Charleston, South Carolina...what a beautiful city. I enjoyed my stay and will recommend this southern gem to those interested in traveling this summer. I love the mixture of college town, old buildings, and southern charm. Not to mention, the city is home to the most number of attractive women this side of the U.S.

Deep South

2007-03-29T17:23:00.000-04:00

Just got here in Charleston, SC. The hotel is pretty decent though looks like they are still constructing the pool in time for summer vacationers. They cut my rate by $30/day can't complain.

I hope to see more of the old city. Let's see what's out there.

Road trip

2007-03-29T07:04:00.000-04:00

Since I moved to the city, I have not driven my car much...should make any environmentalist happy. But today, I will be doing some long driving, something I have not done in a while. It should be fun to have all that time to think. I am looking forward to linking up with my friends and visiting with them and knowing what's happened since we last saw one another.

Telecommute

2007-03-27T08:54:00.000-04:00

I've been showing up at the office late in the morning these past two days. Let's just say I am telecommuting early in the day. I check my work emails from home and then address some of these tasks I can do from home then show up at the office for meetings and actual face times with team members. I might get used to this.

DSHell

2007-03-26T21:39:00.000-04:00

Finally, after 5 days of waiting from the time it was supposed to be available, my dsl at home is now working. Verizon's service is kinda lousy. No more stealing lousy weak signals from the neighbors though. I have not yet set up my wireless...maybe tomorrow. So what does a more reliable internet access bring me? I guess now I would be more tempted to check work email at home and even work on those.

The value really for me is to check what kind of weather we are supposed to have that day. For some reason I dont have the patience anymore to wait for the weather man in the news to tell me about the weather. Hey, I can "work" from home now.

Swing time

2007-03-26T07:47:00.001-04:00

I was working until noon yesterday, I'm glad that was over. I decided not to waste the warm weather so I dusted off my golf clubs and went to the driving range. After that I decided to test the course, I still suck, so no surprise there. I think I hit a couple of good shots and that was it. The putting was pretty good too as I rattled off three straight one-putts in the opening holes.

It was still quite nice by the time I finished playing so decided to call a couple of friends and we all hang out at the national mall and watched tourists take pictures of buildings and themselves in front of it.

I can smell bacon

2007-03-23T14:50:00.000-04:00

I went out the on the deck of my apartment today and sat there for a while just taking in the sound of the city and enjoying the first warm rays of the Spring. It is here. I can smell the faint aroma of fried bacon escaping from the kitchen of the restaurant below my unit while I flipped through the pages of the magazine I am reading

Monday mornings, I can smell freshly brewed coffee from the neighboring donut shop. Then the shiny bright people start coming out of their also tiny apartments. They seem eager and ready to earn their wages for Friday and its possibilities are only a few winks away.

Forwarding Address

2007-03-22T00:24:00.000-04:00

I was sorting out all my accumulated junk mails over the past few years. I realized after seeing all the different addresses I've had that I've lived in 9 different places here already. The thing is I am also not done moving I think, I still have a few moves left in me.

Changes

2007-03-17T18:33:00.000-04:00

Looks likes I have to use my Google account now to access my blogger account...gives you an idea how active I have been blogging. It used to be a twice a day activity for me back when I was writing the dissertation. It seems to make sense that time since I was online almost 20 hrs a day anyway and it was a good break when you find yourself in the library yet another latenight. Do I miss being a student? Nah, there is a time for everything, that was the best time to do it. Now is the best time for something else.

70 in January

2007-01-07T12:27:00.000-05:00

This is some crazy weather we are having here in DC. It was 70 deg yesterday and that only means one thing: hit the golf course. I ended up playing in a foursome and since the weather was so good after nine holes, we all agreed it is too nice out there to not do another nine holes. Practice makes perfect in this game, and boy do I need more practice. The cold front is coming though and it would probably be a while before we see this temperature on a weekend.

Prospero Anno Nuovo

2007-01-03T09:35:00.000-05:00

Managers are going around the office greeting everybody a happy new year. There it is, direct from management, so I guess we better have a happy new year =) More than anything else, I think everybody is glad to be back in their respective offices after a couple of weeks of holiday season induced unproductivity.

I, Blog

2006-12-21T10:25:00.000-05:00

Year is almost over. Time flies, really. Last year around this time I was getting ready for graduation after writing the dissertation, defending it, and having to contend with format nazis in the graduate school office. Although I have done a lot of work this past year, it seems to me that 2005 was a more productive year. I got paid a lot less then, but put in more work. Welcome to the world of working I guess. I have not been blogging a lot this past year but maybe would have more to blog about this coming year.

Golf Weekends

2006-09-23T19:59:00.000-04:00

Been playing like mad lately. Weekends find me playing golf and trying to get all the games I can before it gets really cold. Play is getting better actually and majority of my shots are starting to find the center of the fairway not like before when I was spraying it all over the place.

Today I parred three holes, two of which actually had a chance to make a birdie! I'm starting to really love this game :)

The Swing

2006-07-20T23:50:00.000-04:00

The golf swing is starting to get better, actually i'm lucky that I didnt develop any bad habits yet and have not acquired the dreaded hook. It was a good decision to hire a teacher to build my swing. The golf pro is actually pretty good because he worked with the natural swing that I have, not some copycat version of somebody else's perfect swing.

I don't know how pretty it is but I am hitting it straight now. The maximum distance is not yet there but I can see the improvements now. I need to test it out on the course pretty soon. My putting is good and I actually impressed the instructor by holing 5 straight one time, I chip pretty well too holing again one shot after my first try after the pro told me how to do it properly. Not bad.

I hope I'll get another weekend of playing time and hopefully it wont be too hot as the last time we went golfing. This game is beautiful.

Fore!

2006-07-03T21:31:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to learn how to play golf. I got myself golf clubs, shoes, balls, and even lessons (still ongoing by the way). Needless to say I still royally suck at it. I might not even come to a stage where I might have a decent game. I understand though why some people are addicted to it. It's like the elusive (obsessive?) quest for perfection. Sometimes I will hit a good shot and hit it straight but most of the time it seems like I have not made any improvements but you just keep on plugging along. I have a stubborn streak that has served me well in other pursuits hopefully it will pay off here too.

Single Mocha

2006-06-15T16:09:00.001-04:00

Every day between 3 to 4pm I take the elevator all the way to the lobby of the office building to get my mocha. It's been like this for the last few weeks that I dont need to tell the barista what I want, as soon as she sees me lining up for coffee she starts making my single mocha, I also know how much it costs exactly with taxes, so I am ready at that end. Quick transaction without even uttering a word.

Phase

2006-03-18T08:10:00.000-05:00

Every morning now the subway spits me out into the city, winter is not giving up yet but I welcome the rush of cold air. I am greated by the sounds of blues coming from the solitary trumpet player as I reach the end of the escalator. The city is full of life, but I have yet to adjust my pace to it. I am energized though as I join the rush of daily commuters. I don't walk fast because I don't need to. Where I go it's not what time you get there that matters, it's what time you leave.

Hooded Bliss

2005-12-23T13:12:00.001-05:00

Done. Finished.

Me going back to my seat.

Stressful Cities

2005-12-07T12:23:00.001-05:00

Entering the job market is quite a stressful activity but I was surprised to find that a list exist ranking the stress level of residents in each city. Found the link below that lists the most stressful cities in the U.S. I was surprised to see some cities at the top of the list.

http://www.bestplaces.net/stress/stress_study3.asp

A is for...

2005-12-01T13:57:00.001-05:00

Last night I was merging the pdf versions of my dissertation chapters. Then I saw this one table and one of the numbers had an extra decimal point...fine it does not materially change anything anyway. But I can't just let it go. So what did I do? I reprinted the page and went to the printing and copying shop and had multiple copies of it done. I then took it to the bindery, fortunately the manuscripts were still there waiting to be picked up. The lady was kind enough to let me pull out the not so perfect page and insert the corrected ones.

Obsolescence

2005-11-30T13:07:00.001-05:00

I'm at the library right now...the last place I should be but I figured if I was going to move eventually I'd better get enough of this place before I go. I'll miss the resources here the most, it is really a big thing for an information junkie like myself.

I saw a group of students at the library coffee shop, they were all in one table and they have all their laptops fired up...and they don't have them plugged in! Gosh, I miss having a good battery. I don't want to buy my third battery though. On top of that I am already on my third charger. Dell needs to do a major redesign and I think they did with the new models that they are selling.

There is this theory in economics about planned obsolescence. Companies that have a monopoly on some product actually built in an expiration (or maybe self-destruct) date on their products. In a way they want them to go out of style real quick. Because they dont want to have a durable product that can compete down the road when it enters the resale market. Think textbooks, ever wonder why they come up with new editions so often?

Loose ends

2005-11-28T17:00:00.001-05:00

I paid the binding fees for my dissertation today and also the copying fees (for the copies to be binded)...set me back by a good amount of money. At this point...you dont want to complain anymore and just want to get it over with. Tomorrow I pick up the copies to dump it at the bindery.

Earlier I was trying to put some money in my university ID card, the one you can use to buy stuff from university stores. I discovered that I had $5 in it...all this time and I didnt know I was sitting on a pot of money :) Well, that was a good surprise and I quickly celebrated by treating myself to a mocha latte. Perfect for a gloomy, rainy day like what we are having today. We didnt even see the sun today.

Done

2005-11-21T17:54:00.001-05:00

Successfully defended the dissertation today. They grilled me pretty good in there, but got it done in the end.

D-Fence!

2005-11-07T16:52:00.001-05:00

Gosh, I must be nuts. I scheduled a defense of my opus sometime two weeks from now. What's the worst thing that can happen? Send me back to my office and rewrite it all up? I'll take those odds.

Wake me up when November ends

2005-11-04T19:27:00.001-05:00

Today I put together all the chapters of my dissertation. There are still a lot of bugs in there and I am sure I can rewrite whole portions of it to improve it. I gave a copy of it to my chairman with the caveat that it is still mutating. Some parts look rushed some not. I'm sure it will benefit from more adjustments and edits and I might just be doing that this weekend. I heard from somebody not too long that a good dissertation is a done dissertation. Anyway I have to put it at arms length right now because I am getting sick of reading and re-reading the same thing over and over again. Let's see if my chair would even consider that ream of paper worthy of a defense date.

Seeing the new crop of PhD students slave away at problem sets and worry about the comprehensive exams while they meet in the conference room make me feel a little bit better though :)

You want movies with that?

2005-09-30T11:26:00.001-04:00

There is this new automated dvd rental system owned by McDonald's it's called Red Box. It's basically a vending machine/video rental center. Well it is a red box with a couple of screens and a wall that has all the dvd it is carrying currently. The cost is $1 + taxes a night per movie, you can keep the dvd for as long as you want, for as long as you want to pay $1 + tax/day that is. The selection is not too bad with a lot of new releases and a sprinkling of kiddie movies. You don't see it yet in that many cities but in the Metro DC area alone they have about 120 of these machines.

I think it's cool. Imagine Blockbuster forces its consumers to rent the dvd for the whole week and charges you almost $4 for it. Netflix is better than Blockbuster, but you have to pay a monthly fee and be able to rent 6 movies in a month to come out ahead. For a person who's just got nothing planned for the night and want to catch up on movies he missed this is perfect. I am surprised they have not set it up on college campuses, I'm pretty sure there will be a market for it. I wonder if they sell franchises.

Private vs. Gov't Response

2005-09-23T10:03:00.001-04:00

The Katrina tragedy showed the difference in the speed of reaction by private sector compared with the government. Sure private enterprise has a profit motive but they get the job done efficiently. Everybody that was glued to the tv set has seen the footage of the Wal-Mart trucks on its way to disaster areas and also we heard about how FEMA got in the way when they blocked these same trucks. Wal-Mart's response is the cover story of the latest Fortune magazine issue. Below are some excerpts:

Wal-Mart employees arrived so early in the disaster area that they often wound up running their own relief efforts. "If the federal government would have responded as quickly as Wal-Mart, we could have saved more lives," says Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee. "FEMA executives were there, but they didn't do anything. They weren't up and running for four or five days." In one case, he says, FEMA actually made things more difficult for the retailer. Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks with water to a FEMA compound. "Much to my dismay, FEMA turned them away," Lee says. "They said they didn't need it.... [Wal-Mart] ended up giving the water directly to us." A FEMA spokeswoman disputes Lee's account.

But other local officials recall things similarly. Philip Capitano, mayor of Kenner, says Wal-Mart's trucks rolled into his city with supplies several days before the Red Cross and FEMA. "The only lifeline in Kenner was the Wal-Mart stores. We didn't have looting on a mass scale because Wal-Mart showed up with food and water so our people could survive," Capitano says. "The Red Cross and FEMA need to take a master class in logistics and mobilization from Wal-Mart."

Many evacuees decided that they were better off dealing with Wal-Mart than with the government. The company set up a phone bank in Bentonville to take calls from displaced employees who needed assistance. It wasn't long before Wal-Mart volunteers began receiving calls from nonemployees seeking help. They even helped a New Orleans couple find their newborn child, who had been moved from a city hospital to a Houston neonatal center in the chaotic evacuation.

As Adam Smith said many years ago, it is not because of the kindness of the butcher or the baker that we get our meat and bread, it's because of their self-interest, and the wonderful thing is when everbody is allowed to exercise their varied self-interest it results in the promotion of public interest as if led by an invisible hand even if this was not their main intention.

Sure sign

2005-09-22T00:28:00.001-04:00

Sign that the city is on its way back.

Playing into their hands

2005-09-06T20:48:00.001-04:00

The timing was curious when the french newspaper came out with an expose that Lance Armstrong might have used illegal substances back in 1999. First of all I thought the newspapers wanted to lure Armstrong back to the tour, as I would imagine who would watch the tour again after its greatest champion hangs up his bike.

Now we hear that Armstrong is not ruling out coming out of retirement?

"he's contemplating a return to competitive cycling in part because he knows how much it would rankle French media who believe his record of seven straight Tour wins is tainted by drug use"

Well that's what the french papers wanted him to do exactly!

Why on-campus food is bad

2005-08-31T13:54:00.001-04:00

I like to eat, and I like to eat good food and I don't mind paying good money for it. Personally, when it comes to food I think quality trumps quantity anytime. Sadly, when you are geographically bounded on campus the selection and the food quality is not so great, not that they are any cheaper either, any good food court in a mall can trump any of the so-called eating places here.

The question is why is the food on-campus bad compared to the selection off-campus? I don't think it's income differences of customers, not when you see the brand new cars that the new students brought to campus this semester. Most probably it has something to do with the monopoly provision of food services on campus. There is only one provider here, although you'd see that there are supposedly different food service outlets but they are all run by one company.

Everybody knows that when you have a monopolist (though not always bad) there is a tendency to ignore consumer demand sometimes, they just dont have enough incentives. They can choose to charge higher prices or decrease quality, either of the two reduces consumer welfare. They earn money from the sole contract alright, and my suspicion is the university splits this benefit with the contracted food service company. Why does the university do business this way? Is it costlier to negotiate with more businesses? (I'm sure a lot of food outlets out there would want to have a captive market of 20,000 customers not to mention access to low cost labor-students) Is it that the university finds it costly to say have tens of trucks delivering supplies on campus? Or are they motivated by the franchise fee the sole provider pays (but then again why not charge the same total amount of franchise fee among many players)?

Imagine if we had free entry into our food market here. I would imagine the competition for customers would spur eating places on campus to provide better service and better quality.

Corruption and Growth

2005-08-30T14:14:00.001-04:00

The chart below is from a recent working paper out of the University of Chicago (mentioned in the Becker-Posner blog). The author shows that indiosyncratic corruption (basically the part of corruption index/level that is not correlated with governance indicator) has a positive impact on growth specially in countries with low quality of regulations. In a sense, corruption that goes around inefficient government regulation can be growth enhancing. Very interesting result.

Source: "Bad Corruption, Good Corruption and Growth" a working paper by Maxim Mironov

Oh Katrina

2005-08-30T10:32:00.001-04:00

We got heavy clouds today in the horizon remnants of what's left of Katrina. I saw the videos of New Orleans today on TV and it reminded me of the monsoon season in Manila. Just like it's cajun counterpart, Manila also sits below the sea level, so you can imagine that water stays there for a while and does not drain into the bay very quickly after a storm dumps its rain. But experience would tell you that people who live in areas like these are resillient (if not outright stubborn), must be something to do with self-selection, they chose to live there because they know they can handle it. It can't be said of speculators who buy houses in an area so they can flip them a few months down the road.

A new hope

2005-08-24T11:12:00.001-04:00

First day of classes today. Lots of new students and you can tell them apart because they dont quite have that college student been here a couple of semester look. I am energized by the new semester, from fighting for a parking spot as everybody decided to drive to campus hoping their parking tags was an assurance of a parking space-they wish, to waiting for a computer terminal at the library, and looking for my printouts from the heap of papers the giant printer produced. I'm going to miss it all when I finally get out of here whether that be this year or never...

Fall rites

2005-08-23T16:59:00.001-04:00

Today I had to wake up early for an office appointment at an uncivilized time of 7:30 in the morning. What did I see? A bunch of "rushers" these new female college students seeking to be a member of some sorority. I didn't know they set "rush" activities this early. It was a good sight anyway to compensate for waking up after 3 hours of wink time. Then after my appointment I thought I ran into a Harry Potter convention, I forgot that today was the academic convocation that's why a lot of old people were running around in black robes. I think PhD students should be given a wand with the hood when they graduate.

Another semester

2005-08-22T13:30:00.001-04:00

A new semester is upon us and nothing reminds you of it than having three new students approach you for directions on your very short walk from your department office to the cafeteria. I wanted to be out of here by the start of the semester but things didnt work out that way so it's a moving target and hopefully before the year is out I would put my PhD studies behind me. Wanting it done and getting it done are two different things....but I'm getting closer...of course that's a relative term :)

Give me a break

2005-08-19T13:14:00.001-04:00

The media recently picked up the results of a study linking french fries consumption to breast cancer risk. Yeh right. If I run a regression of the life span of americans on the number of McDonald's franchises awarded from the year it started to the present I will surely find a positive relationship. Would that mean McDonald's had a positive impact on extending life expectancy?

70,000 miles

2005-08-16T16:35:00.001-04:00

It took that much usage on top of the milage it had when I bought it before my car finally succumb to the big breakdown. I was on I-295 somewhere in Virginia when the warning lights started to light up, oh oh. Then the cruise control disengaged, the cruise control light went out, then the speedometer just dropped to zero although I was still cruising at around 65 mph, then the engine starts losing power. I decided to get to the shoulder so I could figure out what's going on. I turned off the engine, bad idea. Engine wont crank up again although you can hear the sound of the starter trying to churn. Definetly not the starter, could be the battery. But I just got the battery two weeks ago! Oh oh please don't be the alternator. I called for a tow truck and was ready to wait for them when I tried to start the engine again. It starts! I cancelled the tow service and tried to drive my way to a service area. This part of Virginia is full of small towns with probably only a couple of mechanics around. I tried to push my luck and drove some more and was able to go 100 more miles all the way to Durham, N.C. All the way I had to stop every 5 miles or so as the engine kept on losing power. Took me almost 3 hours to travel 100 miles. Got to Durham finally and crashed into a hotel, by this time I have probably lost 5 pounds after sweating it out without air-conditioning for 100 miles. I figured a college town would be a better choice to get this thing fixed as there should be a lot of service centers used to students with tight budgets. I finally got it fixed and had a new alternator installed the next morning. I think I provided a not so trivial economic stimulus for Durham residents :) Flyingroc had a better ending to his car trouble story.

Unbreakable

2005-08-09T11:05:00.001-04:00

Today I brought my Samsonite luggage to a service center that does warranty for Samsonite. I thought these bags were indestructible. These things do have ten year warranties. The top handle on my carry-on luggage snapped and it was not even while I was really abusing it, I was just pulling it out of the car. Anyway I had to pay a $5 handling fee and it would be almost a month before I get to see it again. I guess it gets sent to a luggage infirmary who knows where. Maybe Latin America? Or someplace where such labor would be cheap.

Vice vs. Virtue

2005-08-01T11:17:00.001-04:00

Slate.com has this new column piece comparing the performance of so-called virtue funds (the Ave Maria Fund for example) and the vice fund. Guess which fund is performing better than the other? I followed the link to the chart they cited and here it is:

The red line is the Ave Maria, the blue line the Vice fund.

Magic Domain

2005-07-21T12:45:00.001-04:00

I just learned recently that due to a special Florida law, Disney actually is like an autonomous county in Florida. It sets its own zoning, road planning, and policing among others. Some websites look at this arrangement as something sinister, Disney being a giant company. But then again why wouldn't Disney opt for such an arrangement? Think of all the counties and towns and cities that have their own tax laws, police forces, and zoning and building codes. They don't appear sinister to me. Think of a store for instance, when you enter it the proprietor have certain rules for it. Think of Wal-Mart, employees abide by certain rules as do consumers foremost among this is not to take merchandise without paying for them. Isn't a State just like that? We surrender some of our personal rights to benefit from say returns to scale in some public good or service. Citizens of countries, cities, and counties do have an option if they don't want to be under such rules. They migrate, as one can choose to be in another theme park if they have an issue with its domain.

Bloggers need not apply?

2005-07-14T20:02:00.001-04:00

Give me a break. The story is from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

"What is it with job seekers who also write blogs? Our recent faculty search at Quaint Old College resulted in a number of bloggers among our semifinalists. Those candidates looked good enough on paper to merit a phone interview, after which they were still being seriously considered for an on-campus interview.

That's when the committee took a look at their online activity.

In some cases, a Google search of the candidate's name turned up his or her blog. Other candidates told us about their Web site, even making sure we had the URL so we wouldn't fail to find it. In one case, a candidate had mentioned it in the cover letter. We felt compelled to follow up in each of those instances, and it turned out to be every bit as eye-opening as a train wreck."

Summer Youth

2005-07-10T16:00:00.001-04:00

Eating at fastfood restaurants this summer one would notice that most of the crew look like high school students, and they are. When school is on, you would see that a good portion of these fastfood crews are much older, when summer rolls along though most of them get replaced by the adolescent workforce. One would rationally think that these older workers would only be willing to give up the work if they can find some work of equal value elsewhere during this warm season. I wonder where at and what that is.

Dog Days of Summer

2005-07-06T19:22:00.001-04:00

I did absolutely nothing of value today :) There's something about the summer, when the relative discomfort of working is even higher in relation to the pleasures of leisure.

Back to Classics

2005-06-25T02:00:00.001-04:00

I have decided to read again Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy.

Dolphins in air

2005-06-25T01:21:00.001-04:00

Testing Blogger's new picture posting. The picture was taken while at SeaWorld. It took a number of tries to catch these guys in mid-air.

When giving is just as good as receiving

2005-06-09T15:02:00.001-04:00

Florida A&M recently dropped from its payroll a law professor occupying an endowed chair. The really interesting part of the story is the said law professor was the same person who gave money to fund the endowed chair. When he donated $1 million to the University his main condition was for the university the appoint him to the very same endowed chair he financed (he is a lawyer from Kentucky). There's more, by law a $1 million donation apparently gets matched by the state with a $750,000 funding. According to news accounts, the donor having occupied the same chair he created draws a salary of $100,000/ year. Students and faculty were quoted as saying they have never seen the "professor" teach a class, attend faculty meetings, or other department functions.

I'm not too concerned about the amount of money the "professor" earned, the $1.75 million that his pledge brought in more than covers for it (say at 10% return on the trust). The disturbing issue here is the university went along with the scheme, I think they wanted the state's $750,000 too. The university came out ahead.

If universities can name departments, programs, and buildings after people who give money to the university why not an honorary "Professorship?" If the value of a label is important, you would also see graduate students funding their own named appointments: "2005 John Smith PhD student in Economics."

Summer Holiday

2005-06-09T14:28:00.001-04:00

It appears that when summer rolls along there is an unwritten rule around here at the University that workers can leave early. I needed a couple of stuff done through the office bureaucracy and it was a surprise to discover that by 3:30pm not a lot of people are around. The hope is with the cut in working hours the per hour output in the remaining hours they put in makes up for the lost hour.

Academic Cycles

2005-06-08T16:41:00.001-04:00

A saw a giant banner today at the student center welcoming the new students for their orientation. In a few more weeks they join the ranks of college students here. In the meantime, while operating below capacity the university is indulging in its other cottage industry that is summer camps, there are camps for almost everything there's a lady soccer camp, a baseball camp, a football camp, even get this: an economics camp for serious high school students!

After eating lunch yesterday a group of high school students who are probably attending a camp was trying to get my picture taken, apparently they wanted to take a picture of somebody who attends the university. Heck, I'm probably the least representative of this university's student body :)

Magic Kingdom Economics

2005-05-31T18:39:00.001-04:00

Back in 1971 an economist by the name of Walter Oi wrote a paper on two part pricing at Disneyland. A Disneyland Dilemma: Two-Part Tariffs for a Mickey Mouse Monopoly. Apparently back in those days when you enter Disneyland the fee for entering the park itself is separate from the fee to ride a particular ride inside the theme park.

On wonders why Disney decided to just have one access fee later on. We all know why lines are created because the price for the good or service is too low. If you raise the price high enough I bet some of the people in the line would stop thinking how great a ride Space Mountain is. Is it a desire to create an equitable world? where everybody has the same "purchasing power?" Imagine if prices were set according to the intensity of demand, there will be inequality in Disneyland! Rides for the wealthy and rides for the poor! That's no magic place at all.

My recent visit to Disneyworld shows that some innovations to manage the queues have been made. Disney calls it Fast Pass, you feed a machine your admission ticket and it spits out a ticket just for one ride and gives you an appointed time. This way riders self sort themselves into rides. The currency is really still your time. At Epcot, there is a line called "single riders" of course I told my group to just line up there, the only cost here really is you don't get to ride together but be treated as filler for seats not filled out by a party. In most rides we ended up riding together anyway, so a potential 65 minute wait was actually cut to 15 minutes.

Witching hour

2005-05-26T15:34:00.001-04:00

I read a paper by a Harvard graduate student on the relationship between witch trials, temperature, and economic growth. She found a robust relationship between temperature readings in Europe and the number of witch trials. It appears that as the average temperature becomes extremely low, witch trials spikes. She relates this to agricultural outcomes, when the weather is abnormally cold, crops fail and sources of food become more scarce, thus more incentive to blame certain segments of society.

An interesting tidbit in this study was that in Tanzania, a researcher has observed that supposed witches (often the oldest female household member) were executed not by the village, but by family members. These executions are also correlated with downturns in food production, which makes one think that it might be an attempt to eliminate the least productive member of the family with the accusation of witchcraft as cover.

Homo Politicus

2005-05-25T04:34:00.001-04:00

Politicians of all shapes and sizes are different forms of animals from the rest of us. I once met a campus politician around here, that was exactly one meeting. I run into him 4 more times after that and he still remembers me, my name, and what I'm doing. If that's not a gift you tell me. These political types have some comparative advantage over us non-political types, they are naturally people person and are trained to listen to anybody, and all points of view from all disciplines. I guess their talent is being able to insert themselves in all sorts of situations and fancy themselves as facilitator. The compromise consultant if you will. I think we need them, otherwise they wont exist, they lower transactions costs between parties of opposite sides of an argument. For the most part the end result of a compromise agreement is not satisfactory to both parties. That's where politician's usefulness comes again, we get to blame them.

Power Play

2005-05-19T16:56:00.001-04:00

I got a letter today from my power company with a new offer. They computed my total consumption of electricity last year and divided it by 11 and they said that this was going to be my monthly payment if I signed up for this new free service. Of course on the 12th month they said we will settle things up if I paid too much, I get a refund or if I paid too little I have to pay up the excess. How is this good for a customer? Of course at best this is a breakeven move for the company or a profit enhancing one, it's never in any company's interest to give away money for nothing. Suppose there is only one customer, and 3 periods. The consumer's total consumption for three periods let's say is $300, the power company's offer is pay $150 each in the first 2 periods and settle whatever's left in the 3rd period. Company just increased its cash flow in the earlier period from an average of $100 to $150 and of course they can put this money to profitable use. In fact if interest rate was 5% (per period), the present value of the company's revenue from the offer is $292, while if you refuse the offer the present value of the company's revenue from you is $285.7

A simple graph and thought experiment would also show that producer/sellers are better off when prices are stable, on the other side of the coin, consumers/buyers are ahead when prices fluctuates. The power company's offer looks similar to what the first President Bush offered to tax payers, no monthly tax deductions but as tax month comes you still need to come up with the money for Uncle Sam. They thought this way people would be encouraged to spend more money and stimulate the economy. They guessed wrong. I wonder how many people would sign the power company's offer and get fooled into using more electricity.

The last TA class

2005-05-18T05:31:00.001-04:00

I just got my teaching evaluations back this afternoon. Since last Spring was my last time doing the TA gig I was hoping the evaluations would cap off what turned out to be a very good experience for me. My students didn't disappoint as they wrote some really nice evaluations on my behalf. A sign of changing times and the language evolution was the comment: "I heart him" It's been a while since I tuned in on MTV so it took me a while to decipher that :)

I have always enjoyed interacting with students and found it satisfying when I sense the imaginary light bulb powering up above their heads. I'm going to miss it. I wish them all good luck with their other classes.

Inside the sausage factory

2005-05-12T16:52:00.001-04:00

I've been disecting a couple of papers that I'm heavily citing for a working paper I'm trying to finish. Thanks to google and other academic literature databases, it is now easy to trace the linkages and cross citations of papers. One would discover that an earlier paper of an author has a life cycle. Once a method of analysis is learned and the techniques developed and results get published in a major journal, the same technique and approach is then applied to a somewhat similar problem and in a different setting, these results are then published in second tier journal and so on. No surprise the ad hoc procedures used in the early papers are perpetuated as if an ad hoc procedure that was left to slide in an earlier article was a license to do it again. Some of the best social science papers I think are those whose procedures and results could be replicated by anyone in the discipline with ease. Unlike in hard science were replication of results is encouraged as a check of the validity of the approach, in the social sciences this is not a tradition.

Echoes of spring

2005-05-11T22:22:00.001-04:00

The university is not quite the same with all the students out. There is this two week deadtime right after the spring semester and right before the summer session begins. Everything is crawling to a slow pace. Short business hours for the cafeteria, the library and even for some professors around here. The only one left are those trying to finish some academic requirements. The graduate students mostly inherit the campus in the two weeks of interregnum. It used to be that around this time a number of international students newly arrive for a fall semester not yet to begin, start to wander around the campus. The INS has put a stop to that with the stricter rules. Sometimes when you sit in one of the benches on campus and you concentrate hard enough, you can hear the leaves moving to the breeze of summer...

Dead man walking

2005-05-10T03:41:00.001-04:00

Yeh, that's the man who knows his fate months or days into the future as he sits in death row. That's kinda like a PhD candidate I guess :) You and everybody else know what's gonna be in store for you. When I walk around the department building now there is alway that comment "you are almost finished right?" I wanted to reply "if you only know what i know" :) Of course no use scaring other students. Definitely the pressure starts to build once you are done with all the classes and qualifying exams, and of course the department looks at you as the budget equivalent of another student they could admit the next cycle. That's when you know you got to keep walking...

Terror Alerts and Crime

2005-05-06T21:18:00.001-04:00

The question of how the amount of policing affects the crime rate is often asked and investigated. The main problem of course is that the two variables of police levels and crime rates are determined simultaneously so one would naturally have a hard time disentangling the direction of causation. Do more police lower the crime rate or do more police increase the crime rate (since we observe more police in places with higher crime rates).

A recent article from the Journal of Law and Economics estimates the impact of police presence without having to suffer the problem of simultaneity. What the authors did was exploit the natural experiment provided by changing terror alert levels and they concentrated on one city which is Washington DC. The higher terror alert levels (a variable that is not related to everyday crime rates) leads to more police presence especially in the National Mall area of Washington DC this increased police presence it turns out leads to 2.6 less crimes per day in the National Mall area. So there, a clearer evidence that increase police activity lowers crime.

Tax Free Stripping

2005-05-06T03:18:00.001-04:00

Based on this news release, it appears that stripping is now VAT (value added tax) free in Norway. The argument was stripping can also be classified as art together with opera, ballet, and theater performances. I guess art really comes in many forms and shapes :)

Winter's Grip

2005-05-05T23:49:00.001-04:00

Looks like winter is not ready yet to let go, a quick glance at the weather channel shows a sprinkling of low temperature across the state. What's happening here? I'm supposed to be able to wear shorts now. I suppose the same trend is observed elsewhere, I hope summer and the warm weather would likewise be extended.

Philippine Crime Rates II

2005-05-02T22:23:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about the Philippine crime rate trend from the earlier post and trying to think of ways to explain it. I wonder how much of it is due to reduction in crimes in the city or Metro Manila in particular. The growth rate in the economy seems like a convenient explanation but I don't want to limit it to that effect yet. If that was true crime should have spiked up after the 1997 Asian crisis. I wonder how much of it is due to increasing use of private security services it is said that in Metro Manila alone there are 136,256 private security guards. The business district of Makati alone has 4,500 of these guards. To put this Makati security guards numbers in perspective, there are only 560 policemen in the Makati Police department. Here is my main source for these numbers.

Philippine Crime Rates

2005-04-29T15:03:00.001-04:00

Below is the crime trend in the Philippines for the period 1980-2003 as reported by the National Statisctical Coordinating Board. I think they made a typo on the y-axis label and it should read crime per 100,000 population. The surprising thing about this chart for me is that from 1980-84 the Martial Law years, crime rate actually went up. Despite a temporary uptick in late 1980s the general trend has been going down and seems to have stabilized at 100 from 1995 onwards. The early 90s were good growth years for the Philippines and might have something to do with the sharp downward trend. I would like to examine this data in detail and in its regional breakdown.

Crime Rate
1980 to 2003
(per 100,000 population)

LATEST: 103.2 (2003)
HIGH: 313.6 (1984)
LOW: 97.8 (1998)

Source: Philippine National Police (PNP)

Why are some former colonies poor?

2005-04-28T20:33:00.001-04:00

Economists have studied the above question extensively, a strand of literature on the subject point to differences in institutions to explain income differences in countries. One paper: The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development" An Empirical Investigation by Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (American Economic Review, 2001, p. 1369-1401) offers an answer at least for countries that were colonized by Europeans. The answer they said lies in the kind of institution that these settlers set up. Using a database on mortality by early settlers, they linked this information with the kind of institutions that settlers developed. For places where mortality is high and thus, the likelihood of long term settlement is nil, colonizers constructed more of an "extractive" institutional set up. In colonies that are more habitable, they started better institutions that endure today. A chart of the early settler mortality and income today shows a negative relationship. So better living conditions that resulted in better institutions in the past resulted in better outcomes today. Now how about the Philippines? Unfortunately Philippines was not included in the database.

Beauty and the Prof

2005-04-27T18:19:00.001-04:00

A recent article that came out of the Economics of Education Review (Vol. 24, p. 269-376, 2005) provides evidence on how attractiveness or beauty of the intructor might have an impact on teacher ratings. The authors (Daniel S. Hamermesh and Amy Parker) found statistical support pointing to the greater impact of good looks on men when compared with women, the importance of good looks seem asymetrical as well. Being below average in looks is penalized more than being of higher than average looks is rewarded. Now before professors start rushing out to get extreme makeovers, the link between beauty and teacher ratings might not be as direct, beauty might also coincide with unmeasurable attributes of the instructor. Perhaps, beauty also coincides with being well organized and prepared (as the authors speculated), or beauty would also coincide with greater confidence and ability to relate to more people.

Aborted Crime

2005-04-26T22:32:00.001-04:00

I just finished reading an article from The Quarterly Journal of Economics (Vol. 116, Issue 2, 2001). The title of the article is: The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime/John Donohue and Steven Levitt (authors). Their theory was interesting, the legalization of abortion in the United States following the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973 had the unintended consequence of resulting in dramatic lowering of crime rates in the United States. Even more interesting, they showed that five states the legalized abortion 3 years earlier than the rest of the US experienced crime declines in the 1990s faster and greater than rest of the nation.

The underlying story is that the legalization of abortion allowed women who would not have been able to provide a good environment for the child an alternative (in other sense, future criminals were aborted). The authors cited numerous studies that unwanted children belong to the group with the highest risk of criminal activity later in their life. Their findings cast doubt on popular explanations on why crime declined in the 1990s (these explanations included: aging of the population, growth in the economy, increase number of police, and improved policing methods).

One of the authors, Steven Levitt was the recepient of the 2003 John Bates Clark medal (awarded every 2 years to the best economist under 40 by the American Economic Association) he is also a co-author of a recently released bestseller: Freakonomics.

Lost in Memphis

2005-04-12T19:28:00.001-04:00

Finally back today. Conference and presentation went well. Flight back did not. It started with delayed boarding, then they we have to wait for a part replacement on the plane, then the air conditioning system on the plane failed to start, have to wait again for that air conditioner engine to start. Finally took off 35 minutes late. Some bad weather around Memphis International Airport, we landed with 10 minutes for me to get to the gate. We were getting close to a gate and for some reason had to turn around and go to the other side of the airport, wrong gate they said. Now we finally docked, had to run to my gate, and my luck-it was just closed as the plane is about to back off and take off. Went to the gate desk, lady tells me that since I bought my ticket at a discount they could not rebook me on a different airline, at this point I said "but it was still your responsibility to get me here on time for me to make my connection." In the end, they had to put me in an airport hotel for a night, gave me 35 minutes of free phone cards, 20 dollars worth of free hotel meals, 10 dollars worth of airport food coupons, and a discount on my next trip. The next morning, our flight was again 30 minutes late because we had to wait for a flight attendant. At least she got a full night's rest. I was glad to reach my final destination and drive my car. At least I finally have some control of my departure and arrival time.

Thinking about discrimination

2005-04-05T01:13:00.001-04:00

I was reading this recent dissertation, a chapter in it talks about how tipping a more attractive waitress a bigger amount is discrimination since the same service level of an unattractive server nets a lower tip. They got the data from a number of restaurants as customers leave the door. The customers were asked to rate the attractiveness of their servers and then together with other demographic variables it was matched with the amount of tip. I wonder though if this is really discrimination.

If we are willing to pay a little more for a red bicycle over a blue bicycle is it discrimination? Somehow in the dissertation, paying more for something that appears similar over an alternative is discrimination, the underlying belief here is the two goods/services are identical. But are they? Maybe a dining experience with an attractive server handing you your meal is a different bundle of goods than one were an unattractive server substitutes. It's not discrimination, its two different bundle of goods. As a consumer you should have the right to pay whatever it is you want to pay for it. Now having said that, how about employers discriminating (by paying a higher wage) among employees of the same skills and productivity? They lose money because they are unnecessarily paying extra for an input that is available cheaper. At the limit, market competition bids away input discrimination in the marketplace. This idea's been around for a while now.