Sunday night econlinks

• This Science piece on leverage being "the root of all financial turmoil" is interesting (will follow up on it), though a). I doubt leverage is "the" (only) root of the problem; b). we all know that leverage had a large impact, within classical Economics--see, e.g., Bob Solow's discussion on that, in his critical review of Posner's recent book. But well, Science prefers to cite econophysicists.

• Socially adjusted captchas, from the Google Research Blog

• Cheaptalk on something we're all interested in: Why she does and why she doesn't...

• Crisis, what crisis?! Petairways! For every pawsenger.

• The Susan Boyle case: A rush of dopamine?

• Total literary fusion: "And the pursuit of happiness", by Maira Kalman. (I am sure that Ana Pauper will also love this)

Econlinks for 20-01-'08

• I made a mistake last time when I mentioned Gelman and Cai's recent research on whether the US political parties would gain from shifting their position on the economic axis, focusing on the Kerry vs. Bush former election. In the paper they did have more electoral dimensions (they analysed the case with one, two and three dimensions), which makes it very very interesting, so my comment concerning analysis done on solely the economic dimension was not very sound :-). But see below the most interesting parts, from my point of view, of that study. Self-explanatory. I think they both confirm and complement one of the 5 myths of ballot-box behavior in Bryan Caplan's recent short article, which I mentioned here.

"Democrat's views of Bush's position on social issues is negatively predicted by self-perceptions on economic issues, with self-perception on social issues not coming into the equation at all. In contrast, Democrats' views of Kerry's positions on social issues are entirely predicted by self-perceptions on social issues. Now we look at the coefficients for Republican respondents: to predict their views of Bush's position on social issues, only their self-perception on social issues is relevant, but when predicting Kerry's position on social issues, only their self-perception on economics is relevant. To summarize: voters appear to characterize their own party's nominee's positions in a way consistent with their self-perception on each issue dimension. But their views of the other party's nominee, in both dimensions, is predicted (with a negative coefficient) solely based on self-perception of economics"

and

"We also see that the coefficients for idelogical distance are greater for Democrats than for Republicans, which is consistent with the idea that Democrats are more diverse in their political preferences (so that conservative Democrats are more likely to vote for Bush than liberal Republicans were to vote for Kerry)."

• Read Brian Snowdon's excellent interview with Oded Galor, the artisan of the unified theory of economic growth. This (very informative!) article takes you very briefly through Galor's research in this context; for the details you should start reading his many papers in the area (taking into account that Oded Galor comes up with two-three new papers before you finish reading one of his older ones :-)).

• the complete index of the 'markets-in-everything' section on Marginal Revolution, so far. Now you know where from to get your exotic entrepreneurship ideas.

• Romania apparently has the same total GDP as Delaware. Now, if you recall that Delaware has less than 1 million inhabitans, while Romania counts over 22 million, you have an idea where we stand in terms of the more appropriate GDP-per-capita comparison :-).

• Harford, Rodrik and Cowen discuss further--- here's the whole summary of that by Tyler Cowen on MR-- on what do we owe the losers from free trade, with the initial article by Landsburg (which I mentioned as last bullet point here). I think Cowen concludes this nicely with "Tax the pollution, not the trade".

Econlinks for 16-01-'08

• Alessina, Ichino and Karabarbounis arguing for gender based taxation, on VoxEU. This recent CEPR working paper has the details. Their modelling is very basic (one obvious extension to make this more realistic-- probably requiring a lot of effort-- should be to allow for frictions in the search & matching of agents on the marriage market), but still makes for super interesting research with (potential) serious policy implications. I guess female readers of this blog can only agree with their idea? :-).

• 5 myths about ballot-box behaviour (works very well also beyond the USA, if you're in any way worried about external validity :-)) from the author of the excellent "Myth of the Rational Voter...", see also a related, older entry of mine.

• voor degene die Nederlands begrijpen, een heel interessant video-interview met CPB directeur Coen Teulings (ja ja, hij is ook mijn promotor...) op de BNR: deel 1, deel 2 en deel 3. Inter alia, het interview gaat over de eventuele effecten van de kredietcrisis, handelen met China en India, de situatie in het zorg sector, de arbeidsongeschiktheidswet voor jongeren, het onderwijs en nood hebben aan toptalent daarin-- alle in de context van de Nederlandse economie.

• the exotic entrepreneurship edition today, again with a great example from one of my favourite reads last year (read here the previous entry on exotic business ideas): 'mud spray to cover license plates'. Somewhat illegal this time :-), but seems to work:

"Many markets are designed to help people avoid or circumvent lawful regulations. One British entrepreneur sells squirt bottles of spray-on mud for license plates. It is ostensibly so the buyer's vehicle can "look rugged", but more realistically it is used so police cameras cannot record the license plates of speeding vehicles. The mud is from Shropshire, and it contains secret ingredients so that it sticks to the license plate longer".

• an excellent article in the NYTimes on whether we ought to compensate the losers from free-trade (answer preview: NO), by Steven Landsburg (remember, he's the author of a book I've previously recommended for those who do not necessarily have a formal training in economics, but are, more seriously than the average person, interested in the topic; I am currently reading his latest book, will inform you of my final assessment once I am done with it:-)). You're my guests to offer counter-arguments; I couldn't.

Econlinks for 27-12-'07

• How to avoid recession in USA: Greg Mankiw's answer. Gary Becker and Richard Posner advocate a similar perspective (the argument is centered, of course, on the subprime housing mess). Former Fed boss Greenspan already said that one should do absolutely nothing and wait for the bubble to break on its own, just as the people above (e.g. in Mankiw's words: "Sometimes, bed rest and wait-and-see are the best we can do"), see my previous post on that. This also takes me to a link by Mankiw on 'bad press for Ben Bernanke ", the new Fed chair; while I think some of that criticism is valid, I'd say there is really no reason to panic and that one should trust the Fed and its chief governor, with handling this. After all, the great Milton Friedman already said Ben Bernanke is a great choice and is expected to do a good job (& remark here: this youtube clip linked above is almost one hour long wisdom from Friedman; no second of that is expendable).

• "Morality matters for economic performance": A very interesting summary of recent research plus the agenda for further research in the context, by Guido Tabellini, on voxeu.org. Tabellini already presented (part of) this in the 2007 EEA-ESEM conference from Budapest (more precisely, as the EEA Presidential Address, from the 30th of August), for those of you who have also been attending.

• "Lawsuit investment" as the new hype: "Juridica will make investments in ongoing legal claims, mostly in the US, and loans to law firms to finance their costs in pursuing claims."

• Markets in everything, one more exotic episode from Tyler Cowen's book, "Discover your inner economist" (read here the previous one). Today about the 'business of renting wedding guests':

A report from India tells of a firm that rents out wedding guests, so that the wedding and the party do not look empty. The "guests" will wear either traditional Indian dress or Western clothes, depending on what the customer dictates. They are told to dance and make small talk, and show a knowledge of the marrying couple,without letting on that they are hired. The firm's owner, a Mr. Syed, told one newspaper: "The breaking up of joint families and lack of affection among relatives also creates a demand for paid guests". The Best Guests Centre, at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, is looking to expand. To each his own: I would pay some people to stay away from my wedding.

Econlinks for 21-12-'07

• Larry Summers on the state of the US economy, a 19th of Dec speech (PDF, 8 pages). The gist is that he recommends fast and aggresive monetary and fiscal stimulus (the latter, mainly through tax cuts), just like (but more detailed than) Martin Feldstein, see my previous post on that. There are some very good ideas in Summers's proposal, though a few of his recommendations are falling too far on the 'leftist' side, to try a catch-all term (and I bet that many US economists would also agree). An example of the latter is for instance a proposal to increase the portfolio limit of the government sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  



• L'embarras du choix: Romanian 'manelists' might have to choose between hot women and hot cars :-)
  


• Since tomorrow is the Global Orgasm Day (see also my last year's posts about that, here and here), I'll pick an assorted topic among the more exotic entrepreneurship cases discussed in Tyler Cowen's book, 'Discover your inner economist" (last one was in this post). Today about the hymen re-attachment hype:
  
  

  For her 17th wedding anniversary Jeanette Yarborough wanted to do something special for her husband. In addition to planning a hotel getaway for the weekend, Ms. Yarborough paid a surgeon $5000 to reattach her hymen, making her appear to be a virgin again. "It's the ultimate gift for a man who has everything" says Ms. Yarborough.
  
  This is reported to be one of the plastic-surgery industry's fastest growing segments, and yes, that is in the United States.

  
  
• An excellent article by Aaron Edlin on Microsoft's latest OS.
  


• I think Szekelys should indeed follow Andy's free advice on marketing Dracula. Somehow connected, see also an older post of mine touching on Stoker's book (including a link to the whole book online).
  

Econlinks for 13-12-'07

• An article by James Surowiecki on the subprime crisis and the "band-aid" Paulson (partial), J.P. Morgan-like, solution. This while Greenspan thinks the bubble should first break on its own (and certainly differs here from Martin Feldstein, who advocates for a fast, two-act intervention, see my previous post on that)

• Here's a very interesting post of Andrew Gelman (based on this co-authored article of his) on whether the Democrats should move, as an electoral strategy, more to the left on the economic policy axis. His answer says that no, au contraire, they could gain if they moved moved a bit to the right (indeed, how on earth could the Democrats move more to the left than where they are already, economic-wise?!) , but certainly keeping to the left of the Republicans. The analysis is quite insightful, but I think it ignores other dimensions that would/will play a big role in the electoral strategies; i.e, the left and right discussed herein are purely the economic ones, while probably the Democrats can win much more from positioning strategically on the political axis, where most Republicans are not what they should/could/ought be (beats me why...), libertarians that is... (e.g. think for instance of the 2-dimension political compass I've talked about a while ago). Also, linked to left-right economics opinions in the USA (and, in fact, in general), see a concise analysis from Greg Mankiw: he tackles the divergences in this context among the experts, so to speak...

• Meet the Isaac Newton of biology (so says Esquire, but read on: they might well be onto something here), also known as Dr. Franziska Michor. Blonde, 25 years old, very good looking (that is already my opinion, not Esquire's). That she's got an impressive number of top publications, a PhD on the 'evolutionary dynamics of cancer' from Harvard at 22, or that she was a theoretical biologist at the Institute for Advanced Studies at 19, is certainly meritorious :-). But what's really killing is that she's also got a licence to drive 18-wheelers (part of a family-induced education that included two other essential chapters: cake baking and ballroom dancing): we love it, we love it!

• and finally for today, from the markets-in-(really)-everything cycle, another example from Cowen's "Discover your inner economist" (read about the previous example here): business ideas capitalizing on the fear of being buried alive:

Taphephobia (or "taphophobia", depending which spelling convention you follow) is the fear of being buried alive. A Chilean cemetery will build an alarm into a coffin for only $462. In 1995 entrepreneurs marketed a $5000 Italian casket with an emergency signal beeper and a two-way microphone/speaker to the outside world. The accompanying survival kit includes a torch, an oxygen tank, and a heart stimulator; don't ask who will administer the latter.

Econlinks for 06-12-'07

• very sad for this country's people, but otherwise a very concrete first level econ lesson for everybody. One can only hope that any other government passes 'introductory economics' before experimenting with policies (samples of which, for the same country, were featuring on my blog a while ago as well)...

• female leaders and what comes and what doesn't, with that (with further links to very interesting recent PDF articles within the text)

• from the 'exotic entreneurship' stories cycle, another example mentioned in Tyler Cowen's very well written book, Discover Your Inner Economist (see also my previous example from there). Today: "the crying bar" (since I have some relatives that own a bar in Romania, this might be particularly of interest as business strategy for them; it's high time we copied the Chinese:-)):

" The truly regretful in the Chinese city of Nanjing can visit a "crying bar". There's a sofa, some tables, and a great deal of tissue paper. For about $6 an hour, customers can sit and cry. The owner, one Luo Jun, claimed he hit upon the idea from customers of a previous bar. They wanted to cry, but they had no venue for this desire. The crying bar solves their problem by making the show of maudlin emotion socially respectable and indeed socially expected. I hope I don't see you there"

• very wise words from Tom Sowell on "that top 1%"


• What are the odds of a recession in the USA (& related items)? Answers are given by a. Larry Summers in a short 'debate' with John Snow: Summers calls the shots, Snow very much agrees to everything (11 minutes .mp3); b. Martin Feldstein, who comes forward with a 2-part strategy expansion: combine lowering interest rates further by the Fed + a bold fiscal stimulus; c. Eddie Lazear, debriefing the newly released economic forecast of the White House; d. finally, two very funny chaps on YouTube who make clear the subprime problem (and its solution!) for everybody. Hat tip for all a.-d. links here to the one and only Greg Mankiw.

Econlinks for 27-11-'07

• Becker and respectively Posner, on tax evasion. Why is tax compliance higher than one would expect (with a reservation here: it also follows from Posner's argument than in fact tax evasion isn't necessarily lower than rationally expected...) and is that mainly due to the rational fear of punishment or to the taxpayers' feeling of moral duty/ fairness etc? For me Posner wins this argument (they do oppose each other on the essence herein, which after all rarely happens on the Becker-Posner blog...): it is much more the deterrence effect of the fear of punishment plus the costs associated with getting to know how to evade the taxes 'properly', than a feeling of moral duty or fairness, particularly when no other individual is directly involved; after all Posner's got the comparative advantage in this area and it is very very difficult to beat that...

• From now on (until I'll exhaust all notable examples), I'll present within the 'econlinks' posts my favourite examples of 'markets in everything' from Tyler Cowen's recent book, "Discover Your Inner Economist"-- one of my best reads this year (that does not mean that its chapters cannot be ranked: there are very good and also not so good, parts). Check for instance some quotes from it previously taken over for my quote-of-the-week rubrique, here or here. For today about the drinking-and-dialing-problem and equally exotic market solutions to prevent it (and from a more personal perspective, I think there is scope for a drinking-and-emailing-problem resolution as well :-)).

We have all known people who make phone calls when they shouldn't, especially when they are drunk. A survey of 409 people by Virgin Mobile found that 95 percent had made drunk calls, mostly to ex-partners (30 percent), 19 percent to current partners, and 36 percent to others, including their bosses. Fifty-five percent of those people looked at their phones the next morning to see whom they had called-- similarly, someone is waking up in the world this minute and checking to see who it is he or she is sleeping with.
To alleviate the drinking-and-dialing problem, a phone company in Australia started offering customers blocked "blacklist" numbers, which they select before going out to drink. In Japan they sell a mobile phone with a breathanalyzer, to see if you are really fit to drive home, or for that matter to make a phone call. If a bus driver fails the test, his location is sent immediately to his boss by GPS.

• Some wisdom from the one and only Milton Friedman. More actual than ever (in fact I recalled this old interview with Friedman after mentioning the very recent one with Richard Freeman in a previous post and disagreeing with some details in Freeman's address). The most spontaneous and brilliant economist you've ever heard, I promise. So listen and relisten and... relisten. To all of it. And learn. About 30 min clip on YouTube.

• And finally, I will be a millionaire (albeit in DK Kroner, but after all one has to start somewhere) for the next two years. I have been awarded (mange tak!) a prestigious (and generous, academe-wise) independent postdoctoral research grant of The Danish Social Science Research Council (Forskningsrådet for Samfund og Erhverv) for my project "Wages, Productivity and Firm Sizes in Imperfectly Competitive Markets", submitted for the grant applications' contest last August. So yes, you can congratulate me :-). And no, they won't let me buy Belgian beers for all that money. Though I guess that some top wine for research inspiration is allowed :-). Cheers!

One hour conversation with Richard Freeman (on YouTube)

Shortly after having posted a link to an IZA clip about Richard Freeman among a recent 'econlinks' post, I discovered, via Greg Mankiw, this other link to a very recent (October 31st) whole one hour interview with Freeman on YouTube, within the "Conversations with History" series, having Harry Kreisler as host. Richard Freeman talks, inter alia, about his own career path and decision to become a labour economist, about globalization and its implications, about the 'feminization' of the labour market, about the relationship institutions-market and the role for governmental policies etc. Very clear talk, aimed to a general audience, hence if you want to learn more about all these topics (although the discussion is mostly within a US context, it is generally applicable everywhere), the easiest thing you can do is take some time and watch this video (tip: watch it in more sessions, as I did, that way you don't have to allocate a full hour in one shot...).

Now, inasmuch as my opinion is concerned, I agree 95% with the views of Prof. Freeman expressed in this interview and I think he is one of the current best labour economists able to explain them clearly also to a non-specialist audience. The disagreement arises in some of the details (precisely where a general audience- including his otherwise witty and sympathetic host- would in all likelihood feel lost): namely, a. with respect to Freeman's (seemingly uncritical) support for a raise in the federal minimum wage (see here a sequence of posts I had on that debate), though he stated previously that he strongly favours the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)- well, so do I, and I see that that as the best alternative to the raise-the-national-minimum-wage policy- and b. regarding the possible implication of his saying that there is a lot of scope for governmental intervention in 'leaning against the wind' inasmuch (potentially 'heavy') corporate regulation is concerned (suffice to say that US has one of the highest corporate taxes in the world: I am not sure whether Freeman hinted to anything in this regard, but I can hardly see how you can eventually make that even higher or enact similar measures...). With respect to this latter point, maybe we should all remember- and once again give the last word to the one and only Milton Friedman- that "corporation conscience" is not possible (and neither desired...). Come on, join the Milton Friedman choir: "Freedom to choose, says Friedman, or you will lose, says Friedman, freedom is freedom, says Friedman..." :-).

Econlinks for 30-07-'07

• reasons not to be a lazy (...lousy) editor-- from Steven Levitt's (JPE editor) experiences
• Hill against Bill, on globalization. Not difficult to guess whom I prefer (yes, he still made perfect sense when addressing globalization in this recent speech I've attended, hence I think that the "marital disorder" in that couple is permanent)... In fact that is old news by now, since lately all the prominent Dems are really having a race to the bottom in terms of basic economics know-how.
• Bernard Salanié sur l'autonomie des universités (comparaison entre les États-Unis et la France), dans Le Figaro.
• an interesting series of short articles in the NYMag on money-making in the Big Apple.

Econlinks for 09-04-'07

• YouTube's favourite clips: an interesting report on what are the de facto most popular clips and why Viacom (and others with similar interests) might have less leverage than they think they have
• Mercer's top 50 highest quality of life cities for '07. I am happy with position 13 for Amsterdam and I guess Dan Anghel will be quite happy with Lyon on 36... Apparently however, nothing compares to living in Switzerland, Zurich or Geneva to be more precise. I shall think about it :-).
• Here's a wiki list of companies' names etymologies. The most 'shocking' for me (read: had really no clue about this!) is Audi: Latin translation of the German name 'Horch'. The founder August Horch left the company after five years, but still wanted to manufacture cars. Since the original 'Horch' company was still there, he called his new company Audi, the Latin form of his last name. In English it is: "hark!"
• Edmund Phelps again with a very interesting article in the WSJ (last time I talked about a previous article of his also there) about entrepreneurship and why this is central to any economy and the corrolary "why European economies lag behind the U.S. ". I think he is missing the bit about the Scandinavian countries, but for the rest I tend to agree: entreprenorial culture is at the very heart of the differential in dynamism...

10 out of 10 for Easterly's "Africa's Poverty Trap"

This is the best short econ article I've read in the last couple of days: "Africa's Poverty Trap", by William Easterly, published in the WSJ on March 23rd (yeah, I'm reading things with a time lag...). Since you need a subscription to read the article directly on the WSJ site, here's a PDF version on Easterly's site. Some representative excerpts:

"There is a sad law I have noticed in my economics career: the poorer the country, the poorer the economic analysis applied to it. "

"There has been progress in many areas over the last 50 years -- ... yet the same poor economics on sale to Ghana in 1957 are still there today. Economists involved in Africa then and now undervalued free markets, instead coming up with one of the worst ideas ever: state direction by the states least able to direct. "

"Despite these reality checks, blockbuster reports over the last two years by the U.N. Millennium Project (led by Jeffrey Sachs), Mr. Sachs again in his book "The End of Poverty," the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), the Tony Blair Commission for Africa, and the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) have all reached what the UNDP called "a consensus on development": Today Africa needs another Big Push. Do they really think nobody is paying attention? "

"Africa's poverty trap is well covered in the media, since it features such economists as Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Bono and Brad Pitt. But even Bill Gates ... expressed indifference to Africa's stagnant GDP, since "you can't eat GDP." Mr. Gates apparently missed the economics class that listed the components of GDP, such as food. "

with a great 'grand finale':

"The free market is no overnight panacea; it is just the gradual engine that ends poverty. African entrepreneurs have shown what they are capable of. They have, for example, launched the world's fastest growing cell phone industry to replace the moribund state landlines. What a tragedy, therefore, that aid agencies have foisted the poorest economics in the world on the poorest people in the world for 50 years. The hopeful sign is that many independent Africans themselves are increasingly learning the economics of how to get rich, rather than of how to stay poor." [my emphasis in bold]

PS1. I wrote a bit about my excellent impression of Easterly's recent book a while ago. I had also read his earlier book and thought it was simply great! If you want to read competent development economics forget about anything else and read Easterly's books and articles.

PS2. I have a deep appreciation (for some of them, superlative!) for artists like Jolie, Pitt, Madonna, Bonno, or for business (and not only) guru's like Gates. I just don't think their competitive advantage is in economic reasoning or rather (not to speculate too much :-)), not always (certainly not when, in a trully amazing 'irrational exuberance', they all believe they can save the world with one- more- big push and thus rally around Jeff Sachs, an economist who's been rather busy lately with increasing his 'popularity' among non-economists, rather than making sure he gets credit among his fellow economists first, they being the only ones who have the expertise to verify his economics advices...).

Econlinks for 05-04-'07

• Greg Mankiw, the most popular Econ teacher in Harvard, having fun on April Fool's Day. A classic one . No wonder he is so popular :-). In any case, part of the secret is: give some attention to your students!
• One older excellent article on entrepreneurship by the most recent Economics Nobel Laureate, Edmund Phelps, in the WSJ Editorial Page. It is entitled "Dynamic Capitalism" and was published on October 10th, last year. Reminds me of a great quote from another Nobel Laureate, in Literature this time (known even better as a statesman, of course), Winston Churchill: "Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look at it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart". Amen!
• Is Freakonomics ruining Economics? An interesting discussion of Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen on MR. I tend to agree with the "Levitt and Heckman" rather than "Levitt vs. Heckman" part but only as long as the freakonomics is simply not wrong (chances are- and the temptation is high- that one extrapolates those results and most often that is not possible) and does not claim to be anything else than... freakonomics. As I mentioned previously on my blog, Heckman, Rubinstein or Rust certainly have different opinions than the guys from George Mason University and much more extreme than mine :-).

"Ant scam" worth 3 billion yuan...and a death sentence

I don't think anybody will start an 'ant business' in China any time soon. Not after this. Link via Tyler Cowen.

Ernst & Young's "Southeast Europe Attractiveness Survey 2007"

...places Romania first in the investors' ranking. See here a summary of the SE investment "attractiveness survey" results, in English (or the same, in Romanian). I think a lot of attention should be devoted to the indicators where we lag behind (and this report should probably have emphasized those to start with, Romanians tend to read the first pages and skip the rest...). Namely, we are doing bad (or in some cases, really bad) in the following dimensions:

• infrastructures (telecom and logistics)
• political environment stability
• quality of life
• R&D

So I think there's a lot to do, rather than fight among the various decision-making institutions, nonsense which has been going on ever since our entry in the EU (before that there was sheer chaos; now at least you know who bullies who). But do we have in power any people that "know things", quoting Larry Page? You judge it.

On Larry Page's address at the AAAS Annual Meeting 2007 and more from that event

Excerpts from Larry Page's address at the AAAS Annual Meeting of this year are in the third part of this recent Science podcast (in .mp3 format) from the 17th of February (his talk starts from around min 14 in the podcast). Some very good points that particularly draw my attention (with my summary and further comments):

• There is a serious marketing problem in science, in general and much more should be done to remedy that. Page explains this state of facts by the typical lack of any expert in marketing in the scientific environment - you can't expect people who are paid to do research, to think of how to sell research ideas to the public (in particular, Page gives as example the enormous time and effort it took him and Brin to even come up with the name 'Google' for their venture).
• It is necessary to have people in power who "know things" (inter alia, to have some idea about science and technology), which is so hard to come by with respect to current political leaders, for instance
• Linked to the first point, society should be encouraged to think that 'things are possible', that scientific research has attainable and desirable goals. If people have a positive attitude about this, the rest comes easier. Page underlies that the media is to play a much bigger role in this.
• Science and engineering should be much more integrated; the scientists should use the engineers' insight in what are the problems requiring priority and what are feasible solutions to them, while the engineers should use the scientists' depth of knowledge and level of abstraction and generalization etc.
• On scientific publishing, articles and working papers should be made readily accesible (free of charge) for the public, it is in the best interest of both parties. And obviously the issues with the time lags in publishing and all that should be given priority.
• On USA: USA has a marketing problem in general, in the eyes of the rest of the world, in the opinion of Page. Much more attention should be given right now to making more friends in the world.
• Creating and taking advantages of great opportunities is a very important part of any succesful strategy and the scientist- entrepreneur should be the model. Page gives the example of the 'cyclicality' between Silicon Valley and Stanford University, a place where interaction of "brains" was at its best (people starting Silicon Valley after leaving from Stanford, others returning to Stanford after having had succesful entrepreneurship spells etc), which could and should be followed in other places.
  
  

I also found very interesting the short interview with Stanford's Robert Sapolsky (starts around min 8 in the Science podcast linked above) about the influence of stress on health and general well-being, with the clear difference between short-term "good stress", which can have positive outcomes on the subject, and the severe problems (starting from high blood pressure, to malfunction of the reproductory organs, to nervous breakdown etc.) that can be caused by the chronic, "bad stress". Reminds me strongly of the discussions in the 'stress at the workplace' workgroup that I was part of when attending, years ago, a "Generation Europe" Summit on the Role of Business in Society, in Bruxelles (I must say that I was then thinking much more about the positive role of (short term) stress- alert stimulus, for instance- than of its negative outcomes on, eg., job productivity, but Dr. Sapolsky is obviously right - the hazards of chronic stress are not at all negligible).

Our Bulgarian neighbours and their bus stations or How to make buses popular again, as transport means? :-)

'We wanted to give the passengers something to take their minds off the cold and to pass the time while waiting for a bus". Only 'soft' porn (duh...), but I guess it'd warm them up a bit anyway: Bulgarian invention. I would not worry a bit on 'moral' grounds (absolute nonsense), but probably it should come with a curfew for children (or individuals below a certain age- I will not get into a debate about what that age should be)- and I am very curious whether any of our southern neighbours has actually thought of how on Earth to enforce such a thing.

Google back in 1997

Stephen Dubner has this excellent post about how Google looked like 10 years ago. Pretty amazing, isn't it? And you can also see the webpage of a young PhD called Sergey Brin, full of ideas (and- most likely without knowing it- with a very succesful career just years away). See more on Freakonomics.

Netvibes and Politics 2.0

I've read an interesting article in the latest Economist print edition (Feb 3rd- Feb 9th) about Netvibes and Tariq Krim, its founder and CEO. Find below some excerpts from the article, dealing with the (unavoidable) political capital that comes with his very succesful (so far) enterprise. It looks like the new marketing guru has still got good ideas and I am sure we haven't seen the best of him yet- in entrepreneurship or politics...

France's politicians have also noticed Netvibes, and have courted Mr Krim. Speaking in December at a conference in Paris, Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right candidate in France's forthcoming presidential election, cited him as one of the country's examples of “exceptional talent” in the internet realm. Not to be outdone, Ségolène Royal, Mr Sarkozy's Socialist rival for the presidency, is using Netvibes to distribute news about her campaign.

Since the grim blocks of Paris's banlieues, best known for the car-burning riots of 2005, are far from Mr Krim's soigné background, he has resisted attempts to make him a mascot for successful beurs—French slang for people, such as the footballer Zinedine Zidane, of North African descent. He is, however, making his own political use of technology, bringing together 1,000 French business people and activists in an invitation-only online think-tank called Digital Catalyst. “There's a lot of people like me in France, but we don't know each other,” he says of the group. “It's key that the right people meet one another. If this works, we could have Politics 2.0.”