Different meanings of the word ‘replicate’

In the rough-and-tumble world of science, disputes are usually settled in time, as a convergence of evidence accumulates in favor of one hypothesis over another. Until now.

On April 10 economist John R. Lott, Jr., formerly of the American Enterprise Institute, filed a defamation lawsuit against economist Steven D. Levitt of the University of Chicago and [...]

Time is too short …

… to post excerpts. Here are the links anyway:

FT’s review of Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom”

Tyler Cowen’s latest NYTimes column on gastronomical economics.

Daniel Gross on why businesspeople love to quote Chinese proverbs.

Tim Harford on why some people cheat, and others don’t.

Stuart Jeffries on why happiness is overrated.

Sociophysics

After writing this post about economics, physics and econophysics, I was poking around the web, looking for Philip Ball’s articles. Ball is the author of the piece that I linked to in my post, and has written quite enthusiastically about “sociophysics” which seems, to me, to be mostly simulations in which independent entities (particles, [...]

Punishment and altruism

An interesting paper in Science (a publicly available summary is here; link via Brain Ethics) shows that human beings’ propensity to punish (unfair acts by others) is correlated with their altruism. This finding is based on a pretty large scale study involving populations in no less than 15 different societies or tribes. The implication is [...]

Corruption and New Delhi’s dangerous drivers

An academic paper by Marianne Bertrand, Simeon Djankov, Rema Hanna, Sendhil Mullainathan examines this issue with drivers in New Delhi. Here’s the abstract:

We follow 822 applicants through the process of obtaining a driver’s license in New Delhi, India. To understand how the bureaucracy responds to individual and social needs, participants were randomly assigned [...]

Just how do economists reach their conclusions?

Here’s a primer:

Let’s start with how economists reach our conclusions. Non-economists might be forgiven for presuming that we construct our arguments in the same way that they do: apply their preferred mixture of values and interests in order to decide whether or not they like a policy, and then assemble arguments to support that position. [...]

Illusory link between income and happiness

Ttwo Princeton professors, economist Alan B. Krueger and psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, in collaboration with three others from other universities (psychologists David Schkade of the University of California-San Diego, Norbert Schwarz of the University of Michigan and Arthur Stone of the State University of New York-Stony Brook) are reporting something quite interesting:

While most [...]

The Ward Churchill case

Jon Wiener, professor of history at the University of California at Irvine, recounts the story of the investigation by a faculty committee into allegations of academic misconduct by Ward Churchill, “Native American activist and professor of ethnic studies at [the University of Colorado at Boulder]“. It appears to be a balanced story, and there are [...]

Is Economics the ‘New’ Physics?

For a long time, physicists have had a reputation for boldly venturing into other disciplines. Indeed, in a recent Physics Today article recounting the history of physics since 1931, Spencer Weart specifically mentions the rise of ‘hyphenated physics’ (bio-physics, geo-physics, etc) during this period as a key development.

The natives of the other disciplines, of course, [...]

Fryer and Levitt on “Racial differences in the mental ability of young children”

Roland G. Fryer and Steven D. Levitt (2006): Testing for racial differences in the mental ability of young children. Here is the abstract:

On tests of intelligence, Blacks systematically score worse than Whites, whereas Asians frequently outperform Whites. Some have argued that genetic differences across races account for the gap. Using a newly available nationally representative [...]

Can economic models ‘prove’ anything?

This has something to do with the little ‘just-so’ theory I indulged myself in yesterday. Though my intention was totally non-serious (but not frivolous!), one still has to wonder if serious economic models can ever be said to ‘prove’ something — in fact, anything. This question was triggered recently by the NYTimes obiturary ofJohn Kenneth [...]

John Kenneth Galbraith

Two links:

The first, to a profile in Guardian, is from several years ago.

The second, to a NYTimes op-ed by Robert H. Frank, goes into some of the possible reasons for why he didn’t get the Nobel.

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Here is the link to the NYTimes obituary. I have collected a few quotes here.