Lynne Kiesling The ever-clever Jonathan Rauch has a Reason column today in which he makes a provocative proposal to President Bush: Here is the idea: Propose an international treaty whose signatories would agree to eliminate gasoline from their transportation systems by a date certain—say, in 30 years. Seek initial support from Europe and Japan, but …
Imagine There’s No Gasoline (No Demand for It, That Is) Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Over at the Sports Economist Brian has a post with three recommendations to improve international soccer: post-match review and penalties for diving and melodrama, more granularity in penalties around the penalty box, and two more officials on the field. I chuckled when Brian referred to “Sepp Blatter and the FIFAcrats who seem to …
Institutions Matter: Rules, Outcomes, and the World Cup Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Mike Munger’s new essay on rent seeking is superb. Mike is a fluid and persuasive writer, so he does a great job of explaining some of the hardest-to-understand aspects of rent seeking. In particular, the competition for politically-distributed resources means that people will use up resources to get the political goods. That competition …
Lynne Kiesling Technology Review has an interview with Kara Kockelman from the University of Texas about transportation technologies, pricing, and other ways of reducing congestion. When asked about the effect of new technology like cameras, she observes that But while information is helpful to those seeking to avoid some congestion, these basic technologies are not …
Don’t Like Congestion? Then Maybe You’ll Like Pricing Better Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I’ve made my first foray into prediction markets, at Inkling. The market is Will Ronaldo Still Play for Manchester United Next Season? I was looking for such a contract at TradeSports, but no such contract exists, so I made my own. The Telegraph reports gossip from tabloid newspapers that includes a claim that …
A Prediction Market: Will Ronaldo Still Play for Manu Next Season? Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Gene Expression has an interview with Steven Pinker that is an interesting read. Thanks to Catallarchy for the link.
Lynne Kiesling Have you noticed those AMD processor ads in airports, magazines, etc., that say things like “this processor saves enough power to steam the milk for 1,000 lattes”? I am fascinated by the fact that AMD sees value in a general marketing campaign focused on energy saving features of processors! We would see more …
Lynne Kiesling Chris Anderson’s Wired article on peer production is a good, short read. My favorite part is his closing comment: But it’s a mistake to equate peer production with anticapitalism. This isn’t amateurs versus professionals; it’s each benefiting the other. Companies aren’t just exploiting free labor; they’re also creating the tools that give voice …
Peer Production, Mutual Exchange of Value, and Capitalism Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Greg Mankiw beat me to it yesterday by linking to and excerpting Michael Salinger’s commentary on price gouging in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required). Salinger, who is currently at the FTC (on leave from BU), draws his commentary from a recent FTC report on “price gouging” (I haven’t read it yet, maybe …
Lynne Kieslingj Ghana has beaten USA and advanced in the World Cup. In addition to the satisfaction of well-played football and national pride, can there be economic incentives motivating the players? Yes. The 23 members of the Ghana squad get bonus pay for each victory, and that bonus pay doubles in the round of 16: …
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