EclectEcon

Daffodil in the Snow

I took this photo a few minutes ago. It's a bit sad, and I wonder how the peony shoots are doing under all the snow.



There are at least six inches of snow on the ground, forecasts of up to a foot more over the next day or so, and heavy drifting accompanying the snowsqualls that stream into this area off Lake Huron. I will be really upset, and the fun will be considerably reduced, if I have to get the snowblower out again.

One plus: if parents buy white eggs, they won't have to colour them to hide them really well!

Newmark's Door

Craig Newmark has good stuff every weekday at Newmark's Door, but today, April 6th, 2007, is truly exceptional. I won't provide links to the separate short items; just go there and read all four. The entries for today will likely be at the top of his blog for the rest of the weekend, since he rarely posts on weekends. Here are the topics of today's postings:

1. the value of soldiers
2. the British captives and the Geneva Convention [sadly, he has removed this one because the link didn't work. The point was that all the touchy-feeling leftists do not seem to be complaining about Iran's treatment of the British captives.]
3. variations on the "two cows" joke, and
4. fighting medieval religious fascists

If you are not familiar with Newmark's Door, you should bookmark it and read it regularly. It is the first blog I read each day. Craig provides very brief summaries (often just a sentence or two) of, with links to, items available elsewhere on the internet. He finds such interesting material that I follow over half the links.

Southwestern Ontario Mayors Are Anti-Pigouvian

From yesterday's London Free Press (aka "the Freeps"),

Mayors of Ontario's automotive cities are rallying to fight a recently announced tax on gas guzzlers they say will "decimate" the province's auto industry. ... Mayors from 13 Southern Ontario cities met in Woodstock to talk about how to help the province's auto industry.



... "This could decimate an entire industry," said Woodstock Mayor Michael Harding, who will co-chair a committee opposing the tax with Gray.



... The mayors oppose penalizing large fuel users, fearing Ontario will move toward adopting California standards for vehicles that, by 2012, would mean Ontarians would not be able to buy cars assembled here, Harding said.



... In its budget, Ottawa said some large gas users will be hit with a tax of up to $4,000, hurting primarily the traditional Big Three. Buyers of fuel-efficient vehicles will receive rebates of up to $2,000.



New cars contribute to only only one per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, yet the largest contributors, fossil fuel burned for electricity and the Alberta tar sands project, were ignored in the budget, the mayors point out.



... The only automaker to speak in favour of the federal government policy is Toyota, the company building a new assembly plant in Woodstock that will employ 2,000. Despite the fact Harding's hometown manufacturer supports the policy, it is still bad for the industry, he said.



"I appreciate that Toyota is green, but the Big Three are still the largest employers of auto workers. We cannot, as an industry, favour one automaker over another."

I had two reactions to this article:

• It seems like a clear case of NIMBY [Not In My Back Yard]. The mayors might all be in favour of reducing pollution or reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but at the same time they want policies that do not affect their constituents so directly.
• If, indeed, burning carbon fuels is so horrible, why tax the vehicles??? Why not just tax the fuel purchases directly (and reduce other taxes, so the programme would be revenue-neutral)? Then, if people want to burn a lot of fuel, they would be individually paying high taxes to do so. People who drive small cars a lot would be paying for all the negative externalities they generate, and people who drive humongous SUVs very little would be causing less total pollution and could easily end up paying less in total taxes, too.
  
  
  
  Taxing the vehicles is such an indirect way of doing this, involving ham-fisted taxes, when fuel taxes would be tied much more directly to the use of carbon-based fuels.

So while I am not at all thrilled with the mayors' position that the federal gubmnt shouldn't pursue policies that might hurt the auto industry, I agree that there is a better, more efficient way to pursue the same goal. I'm guessing the mayors' reactions to a big fuel tax would be less negative than would the reaction from the oil patch, even though it might have a similar (though smaller) effect on the demand for gas guzzlers. One reason is that it would appear to be a tax on oil, not on SUV manufacturers; another is that it would tax all fuel users according to how much fuel they use and would not be directed only to the purchasers and suppliers of gas guzzlers.

Team Canada Clinches 1st Place in the World Curling Championship Round Robin

... and, as a result, has some advantages heading into the playoffs. To celebrate the team's excellent performance, today I wore my curling cuff-links:

Team USA was the only team to defeat Canada in the round robin, and finished in second place. The two teams will meet each other at least once in the playoffs.

International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom

For nearly two years, I have been a member of the International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom. I am also a lifetime member of the Canadian group, the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS). One reason I so strongly support these organizations is that they promote competition in the marketplace of ideas. From this perspective, it is inefficient (not to mention offensive) to restrict this competition among academics by launching boycotts against certain academics because of their nationality, race, or location of their home institution. Groups like the IAB and SAFS continue to argue in favour of academic freedom, even if their members disagree strenuously about other political issues. I whole-heartedly support this effort.



There is some concern that once again this spring, the current academic union in the UK will propose a boycott of Israeli academics. I have written in opposition to such boycotts in the past (see, especially, this). But the issue just does not seem to go away despite resounding defeats of the boycott proposal by both the AUT and NATFHE.



The April issue of Engage carries what I see as one of the best responses to the boycott proposals. One of the reasons I like it is that it incorporates the fact that not all Israeli academics agree with the occupation of the West Bank, and yet they use the concept of academic freedom to argue and discuss their positions. This is as it should be.



Here is the abstract of the article by Michael Yudkin:

The principle of the Universality of Science and Learning – that academics do not discriminate against colleagues on the basis of factors that are irrelevant to their academic work (such as race, religion, nationality etc.) – is well established and almost universally respected. To boycott academics by reason of their country of residence breaches this principle and harms the interests of the academics concerned. Two kinds of argument speak in favour of maintaining the principle of the Universality of Science and Learning: 1) that undesirable consequences would flow from violating it, and 2) that to harm people who are innocent of wrongdoing is morally unacceptable. Those who wish to boycott Israeli academics attempt to defeat the second type of argument by claiming that these academics are complicit in discrimination against the Arab minority in Israel or the occupation of the West Bank, and/or that Israeli universities suppress dissenting voices. Analysis of these claims shows that they are without serious substance.

Please, please read the whole article. Here is just one portion of the piece, questioning allegations of discrimination against Palestinians in the Israeli schools:

[I]t is said that the Israeli educational system discriminates against Arab children, with the result that a smaller number of Arab students are admitted to Israeli universities than their proportion in the population warrants. The following is an excerpt from an article by Omar Barghouti (6), quoting a study by Human Rights Watch:



“Discrimination at every level of the Israeli education system winnows out a progressively larger proportion of Palestinian Arab children as they progress through the school system – or channels those who persevere away from the opportunities of higher education. The hurdles Palestinian Arab students face from kindergarten to university function like a series of sieves with sequentially finer holes. At each stage, the education system filters out a higher proportion of Palestinian Arab students than Jewish students.”



I have to say that I am sure this allegation is true. In all modern societies the chances that children have of progressing to higher education turns out to depend on the socio-economic status of the families they belong to; and groups of lower socio-economic status tend unfortunately to contain disproportionate numbers of people from ethnic minorities - whether the Arab minority in Israel, the North African minority in France, the Turkish minority in Germany or the African and Caribbean minority in the United Kingdom. The problem is universally acknowledged, and no country seems to have managed to deal satisfactorily with it - not Israel, not France, not Germany, and certainly not the United Kingdom. Let me repeat the piece but making certain changes.



“Discrimination at every level of the British education system winnows out a progressively larger proportion of African-Caribbean children as they progress through the school system – or channels those who persevere away from the opportunities of higher education. The hurdles African-Caribbean students face from kindergarten to university function like a series of sieves with sequentially finer holes. At each stage, the education system filters out a higher proportion of African-Caribbean students than white students.”



We know, unhappily, that this changed version is just as true as the original, but I have never seen anyone use these facts to justify an academic boycott of the United Kingdom. While the problem that Barghouti draws attention to is a real one, it is a widespread problem of modern societies and cannot possibly amount to a case for an academic boycott of one country.

Some Questions about the Release of the British Sailors

Rondi Adamson raises some interesting questions (in addition to making some other insightful comments):

I know the sailors were under duress, but did they need to be smiling and shaking Ahmadinejad's hand today? Even in those early film clips of them, I wondered about their training. I mean, it didn't look to me like they were in Camp 16 from Bridge on the River Kwai or anything. And why did they go so willingly with the Iranians in the first place? How did these people ever get such a spectacular empire?



Yes, yes, I know. We have only seen what Tehran wanted us to see, and I will be quite keen and open to hear what the sailors have to say.

Rondi's posting is more poignant than the others I have read so far. Be sure to read all her postings on this topic, here.

Frank Thomas (The Big Hurt), The Toronto Blue Jays, and Child Abuse

It is not what you might think:

Mr. Thomas, a designated hitter, is one of the club's new additions and a bona fide star. A former U.S. college football player who stands 6 foot 5 and weighs 275 pounds, he is one of baseball's top home-run hitters with 487 in his career.



In the original version of the 30-second commercial, one of a series promoting the start of the Blue Jays' new season, a smiling Mr. Thomas enters a bedroom where a couple of boys are jumping on a bed and engaging in a pillow fight.



"Hey, you guys are supposed to be in bed," he says. One of the boys then hits him with a pillow.



"Oh yeah?" Mr. Thomas responds, grabbing the pillow and striking the child with a mighty baseball-like swing. Feathers fly, and the child rockets backward off the bed and can be heard thudding to the floor.



The commercial cuts to a smiling Mr. Thomas trotting out of the room as he would around the base paths after hitting a home run. The fallen child pops his head up and proclaims, "Wow."



The Blue Jays and Publicis Toronto, the company that came up with the ad, felt the spot was innocuous. However, the Television Bureau of Canada, the watchdog that approves TV commercials for private broadcasters, thought otherwise.



TBC refused to approve the commercial until the part showing the child being knocked to the floor was edited out.

I've seen the ad many times (I guess the regulators didn't have to preview it). The commercial is in the same theme as some from last year, e.g. when Troy Glaus took a stick and hit some kid's party pinata over a fence, or when kids were throwing rocks at a beehive or wasps' nest hanging from a branch (nice kids, eh?), and Doc Halliday threw one so hard the hive smashed open, and the bees/wasps chased the kids. I thought this one with Frank Thomas was pretty dumb, whereas the one with the pinata was pretty funny. But all of them were sort of mean to kids, and didn't make me think much of either the Jays or their ad agency. Nevertheless, I'd rather the Jays suffer in the marketplace for dumb/mean ads than be regulated for airing such dumb/mean ads.

Why Do We Trade?

There are three distinct reasons that we engage in trade:

1. Different utility functions. E.g. I have a baseball glove that is worth $80 on the open market, and you have some software that is worth $80 on the open market. We both value what we have in the sense that we get some utility from having these things, but we both would value $80 worth of other things even more. So we sell them; or we trade with each other if doing so is less costly and if we have a double-coincidence of wants. There has been no production of goods in this example, no specialization, no division of labour, no comparative advantage. All that has happened is that we have realized that we have different utility functions and that we will both increase our utility by trading, either with each other or with others in the marketplace.
   
   
   
   
2. Comparative Advantage. Even if you are better than I am at producing everything, you cannot easily be self-sufficient. And even if you could be self-sufficient, you would be better off producing the things at which you are comparatively better and trading with me (and I would be better off producing the things at which I am comparatively better). Comparative advantage can arise from different productivities in labour, land, and/or capital, even though most of the examples we present in our classes involve only labour.
   
   
   
   
3. Specialization and division of labour. Even if there are no comparative advantages whatsoever, we might find it advantageous to specialize and trade. As an example, consider this question: why don't I produce my own food (assume I have the ability and knowledge to do so, and assume those who do produce food are just as capable of being economics professors as I am)? Furthermore, why don't we all produce our own food (assuming away the comparative advantage explanation)? The primary reason for this flows from indivisibilities, economies of scale, and high transaction costs. We don't rent 15 minutes on a combine to harvest the crop from the 1/4 acre of a wheat field that we might rent.... etc. etc. because the transaction costs to capture those economies of scale are just too high.

These are three separate and distinct reasons that people trade. We emphasize comparative advantage in our introductory economics courses because that is the most difficult for us to explain and needs the most time, but the others are equally important.



For more, see this at Cafe Hayek.

The Rosie O'Donnell Rant Advisory Schemata

Rosie O'Donnell apparently is well-known for her rants (via e-mail from Rondi).



Red - Deranged

Orange - Unhinged

Yellow - Adolescent

Blue - Naive

Green - Calm



The explanations and descriptions for each of these stages appear here.

Optimal Strategy for the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League haven't won the Stanley Cup since sometime before radio was invented. Or so it seems. In recent decades they have rarely placed well within their division, and they have missed the playoffs at times. These results are probably profit-maximizing for their team (and not unlike the Chicago Cubs in major league baseball).



When a team has tonnes and tonnes of die-hard fans — fans who love their team year after year and continue to buy tickets and merchandise no matter how well or how poorly the team does each season — the team has a strong profit motive NOT to finish first in their division. Why spend the money to do better if the extra revenue from winning more games is less than the extra costs?



Of course the strategy is probablistic, and sometimes the team gets lucky, winning more games than expected; and sometimes they are unlucky and win fewer than expected.



This year, the Maple Leafs seem to be doing just about right. They have been part of a massive play-off race, trying to qualify for the play-offs as the season draws to a close. Excitement among fans is high, and perhaps even higher than it would be if the Leafs had clinched a play-off spot by now.



It looks as if the optimal strategy is for the Toronto Maple Leafs to be good enough to be in a play-off race, to make the play-offs often, but not to finish at the top of their division.



The Leafs, like the Cubs, seem to be maximizing the net present value of their team by not winning. Teams that have more fickle fans have to do better to maximize their team value.

Carnival of Cats

The Carnival of Cats is available here.

UK Schools Dropping Holocaust and Crusades from history lessons

Melanie Phillips is reporting this story from the wire services:

Schools are dropping controversial subjects from history lessons - such as the Holocaust and the Crusades - because teachers do not want to cause offence, Government research has found. The way the slave trade is taught can lead white children - as well as black pupils - to feel alienated, according to the study by the Historical Association. And a lack of factual knowledge among teachers, particularly in primary schools, is leading to ’shallow'’ lessons on emotive and difficult subjects.



Some teachers have even dropped the Holocaust completely from lessons over fears that Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic reactions in class. And one school avoided teaching the Crusades because its ‘balanced'’ handling of the topic would directly contradict what was taught in local mosques.



The report, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, said: ‘Teachers and schools avoid emotive and controversial history for a variety of reasons, some of which are well-intentioned. ‘Staff may wish to avoid causing offence or appearing insensitive to individuals or groups in their classes. In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship.'’

Maxwell Naps with Ms. Eclectic