Funniest dating ad ever?

I hate you all. I hate London. I hate books. I hate critics. I hate this magazine, I hate this column and I hate all the goons who appear in it. But if you have large breasts, are younger than 30 and don't want to talk about the novel you're 'writing' I'll put that aside for approximately two hours one Saturday afternoon in January. Man, 33. Box no. 7810.

--David Rose: Sexually I'm More of a Switzerland--

 

Econlinks: The applied maths edition

• Serious fight on evolutionary theory ground. The bulk of evolutionary theorists seem to be set on taking Nowak et al to the guillotine, but there is also a small minority of fans: among them, my former Tinbergen Institute colleague Matthijs van Veelen (see a picture of him from when he was older, wiser, sporting a big white beard; NB: yours truly is the junior black-and-yellow fellow at his left, learning on the job) and his co-authors have a nice correspondence in Nature supporting Novak et al. PS. Note also that one co-author of the controversial paper is Romanian mathematician Corina Tarnita (whom, allegedly, many girls would/should like to have as role model)
• The wave equation and tsunami propagation: a concise exposition by Terry Tao. Brings back nice memories of my maths classes at Utrecht University.
• Life arithmetic with (unavoidable?) implications: "Life is short. Have an affair".
• New chess strategies (more)? Now to the good guys: the latest (and seemingly, last) Amber chess tournament was clearly won by Aronian-- followed in the combined rankings by Carlsen and Anand: these three are in my view also the only consistent, long-run runners in the chess marathon. And related: Carlsen's bold decision to challenge a by-now-obsolete chess world championship format.  
• Greg Mankiw with the correct (and scary) budget arithmetic. 
• This is piece of cake, walk in the park: should have focused on predicting Burgundy 2011 vintage quality :-). But agreed, it was better than mine.
• A trip through a Mandelbox. Via Alex Tabarrok at MR.
• The science of stout foam. Or: the time of cheaper Guinness is nye! I confessed already that I had chosen a great Condrieu (relative to the other wines I had at Alinea, this was the one unforgettable) on St. Patrick's, but obviously I still fancy the good old Irish stout! 
• On continuous harmonic spaces (the original paper). Shows that consonance and dissonance  in music are to a considerable extent routed in nature and can be described/defined mathematically, beyond cultural or time relativism. We like it!

Econlinks: The Freudian interlude

• Seinfeld's spongeworthy Elaine, an unusual, limited-purpose --but very thorough-- option theory application, by the one and only Avinash Dixit.
•  All passé now, but hopefully you did pick your favorite Cupid. 
• New academic econ world order... but only if you fail to control for the quality of the journals  those papers are published in (my conjecture is that if you take only the top 5-10 journals, the US-EU average gap actually widened). Unfortunately, most European academic economists still believe that publishing  frequently into journals (almost) nobody can remember the names of, or reads, actually makes any difference (other than locally). Pretty Freudian, if you ask me.
•  Compensating wage differentials for sexual harassment? Via: Tabarrok's politically incorrect MR example. 
•  Ely has a good analysis of an (the?) ubiquitous situation arising in the econ (not necessarily  junior) job market. Hamermesh's post on Freakonomics is more related to that than you'd first think. 
• Finding the G-spot; next will be tasting it. 
• Massive reorganization of science funding in Europe... Something promised every four years or so; at least in that practice they are consistent. I don't really know why they aim to change these things ever so often, seemingly just to leave their mark, instead of making sure something actually works well, for once . Very European, and very Freudian...
•  Looks a bit shaky research-wise, but let's take it at face value for now: heterogenous effects of the scent of a woman (I guess Colonel Frank Slade had a simpler, yet practical, view of life). In all cases, a related (albeit equally shaky...) study reaches what looks to me like the right conclusions, which even Slade aka Pacino could adhere to: "Our investigation, however, demonstrates that implicitly preventing people from attending to desirable relationship alternatives may undermine, rather than bolster, the strength of that person’s romantic relationship" HT: Freakonomics.
  
  
  

Econlinks: On crises. And opportunities

• Crises and opportunities in Balkan science policy (start, more). A word of caution for my Romanian pals, among whom a new risk of self-denying optimism-- expected to turn into the usual complacency-- appears contagious: con calma, this is at best a mediocre start (though, granted, a start it is). Not to mention that before reaching (competing with?) the West, the East needs to tackle (be inspired by?) the more (and increasingly so) academically attractive South.
• ...in which it is revealed that crises may hide huge opportunities. Earlier on the Kseniya phenomenon.
• A wealth of economic ideas? Taxing prostitution in the Netherlands and witchcraft in Romania.  Good luck.
• Chess crisis: what did they give Magnus to drink/smoke in Holland?! In words.
• Opportunities? Best predictors of the number of heterosexual sex partners.
• Somebody save Maastricht, tourists will desert it. 
• In praise of reading and fiction: Mario Vargas Llosa like no other. Also, hopes that the Literature Nobel Committee has finally decided to do a Nobel Committee job.

Theory and practice, in theory and in practice

[...]

The playful mantras of our adolescence have become a way of life for later generations. At least in the ’60s we knew, whatever we said, that sex was about…sex. All the same, what followed is our fault. We—the left, academics, teachers—have abandoned politics to those for whom actual power is far more interesting than its metaphorical implications. Political correctness, gender politics, and above all hypersensitivity to wounded sentiments (as though there were a right not to be offended): this will be our legacy.

Why should I not close my office door or take a student to a play? If I hesitate, have I not internalized the worst sort of communitarian self-censorship—anticipating my own guilt long before I am accused and setting a pusillanimous example for others? Yes: and if only for these reasons I see nothing wrong in my behavior. But were it not for the mandarin self-assurance of my Oxbridge years, I too might lack the courage of my convictions—though I readily concede that the volatile mix of intellectual arrogance and generational exceptionalism can ignite delusions of invulnerability.

[...]

Superb historical/biographical account by Tony Judt, in "Girls! Girls! Girls!". A must read for all us elitists without scruples (some things will always be the same)... and anybody else who dares.

Weekend econlinks

• Sharing information in scientific research: yes/no/when. Interesting, but the analysis here is applicable only in the context of some sciences (arguably, not most). Moreover, sharing by means of co-authorship is discussed at best indirectly (if one is willing to expand on their repeated interaction game thread...). But my major "disagreement" has to do with their upshot: my conjecture is that know-how sharing is, ceteris paribus, over all disciplines, U-shaped in the degree of competition (and, since I also believe that, overall, very high competition dominates very low competition equilibria, you already know what my prior of the ideal is). Remains however an open empirical question for now.

• We are what we ate: Tony Judt's culinary autobiography. Reminds me that (fortunately) I have only got to know top Indian restaurants in London (in general, Londonese Indian cuisine is probably, up to now, my favourite in the world; though surely there is a variance): a lot must have changed.

• Stanford also jumped in Google's bandwagon of online (dissertation) publishing.

• David Brooks on "the other education": concise and well written. I usually call this second education "exposure". The vast majority of people I've met hardly had any.

• Hyperopia... as a concern.

• Cheaptalk on the election process of Econometric Society Fellows. Not extremely surprising or, for that matter, singular within Economics; after all, they almost forgot Hurwicz for the Nobel Prize..., for largely the same reason: most of the people who used to propose and lobby for him died at some point... I think Ely is right: focus on the young people-- at least that would be an attempt to solve the problem for the future... And yes, for potential candidates why wouldn't you just look to the Econometrica editions (Lones Smith's suggestion in the comments)...

• Music critic review: mode d'emploi, by John Adams.

• Sex toy research. Or Ariely in the quest for another Nobel Ig :-). Goes without saying that I am extremely interested in the results.

• Philip Greenspun on universities and economic growth; via Razvan, on Ad Astra. First impression: he writes much and he misunderstands a lot; particularly the Economics of it all (no, he is not qualified to understand what is clear and what is controversial in Clark's book, to give but one example). Also, doesn't seem to realize (not sure whether qualifying this as voluntary misrepresentation would be better or worse...) the difference between statistical and anectodal evidence. And, in general, he doesn't seem to have decided whether his target is to make people incensed at or interested in what he has to say. BUT, although he errs nearly everywhere else, I agree that a. much change is needed in the way teaching in most universities is done nowadays (see also the 3rd bullet point here on opinions on the value of college education & all that jazz); b. he has some very decent ideas there (others had/have them too) and c. these changes would not cost too much, with the benefit very likely to outweigh that cost. (Probably) Inadvertently, Greenspun is actually arguing for a "Japanese approach" (which the Japanese apply to both teaching and on-the-job training): give a rather broad ("customer-based", if you want some context) training, be able to/ focus on study/work in teams, always help the new/junior ones etc. etc. There is however a known problem with the (standard) Japanese perspective to (life-long) education that I am not sure Greenspun is aware of... Simply put, you really do not want to give no/wrong incentives at the very top of the ability distribution.

• One of the two prediction markets on the 2009 Romanian Presidential Election is now closed and cashed-out (the other one is also "closed", but waiting for the final results on Dec 6th), as the official First Round results of that election are out. Several participants won (virtual) money (yours truly included), but the congratulations go to Dan, as he is the one who won the most (a fortune!). Which means that he is obviously going to pay for the (very good: e.g. the French on this list?) wine, with the occasion of our next meeting :-).

Weekend Econlinks

• "Famous economists" easy quiz. In fact too easy, as presented, because you can see the questions before you start the clock. So, in order to seriously test yourselves, just start the clock and then read the questions (you have 3 minutes in total). Took me 1 min and 14 seconds to answer all questions correctly, because I needed three trials for one of them-- yes, yes, I admit I have not read at all that book :-). Cowen claims it took him only 49 seconds. By the way, in case you didn't know of it, here's a great resource on the history of economic thought.

• The Levitt vs. Heckman leitmotive (actually the rest of that Univ of Chicago Magazine article is more interesting; in general, I think people put too many resources into this sort of personalized academic fights). Earlier on the same topic (3rd bullet point). See also an essay on the economics-made-for-fun genre, kind of vague / unfocused, but some parts are well worth your time (such as the beginning summary of the books in this econ-made-for-fun area)

• The three (only?!) habits of highly irritating management gurus: very well written, welcome article from the Economist. We love it!

• A nice recap post of Terry Tao on the "no self-defeating object" argument in mathematical proofs.

• Kahn has an interesting argument, but I find him overly pessimistic. I also think Cowen is somewhat out of touch with what is really going on with academic Economics. Very briefly, here's what I think: nothing is amiss with the current direction of research in Economics (as long as these ideas/ forecasts do not turn into self-fulfilling prophecies...)

• Hwang got rather easily off this (un)scientific mess. The timeline of events and more. Sometimes the academe & research world in general are too forgiving, and wrong (/dangerous?) precedents are set.

• Battle of Agincourt (welcome) controversy.

• Best US cities for classical music, in '09. Worldwide, I would place London, Amsterdam and Vienna somewhere in top 5. Not sure about Tokyo yet, since I was for too little there (and still have to put my impressions on paper... well, blog).

• Pure selection of 100% go-getters, if you ask me.

• Don't forget about the Prediction Markets on the Romanian 2009 Presidential Elections-- some seem to be making already (fictitious) fortunes there! :-)

The connoisseur of prostitution

Likely no good economist, surely a bloody good writer. Gems:


3. "You lie to two people in your life; your partner and the police. Everyone else gets the truth."

2. "The problem with normal sex is that it leads to kissing and pretty soon you’ve got to talk to them."

and

1. "The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less."

Hmm... he might still turn into an Economist :-).

Weekend econlinks

• The other side of scientific publishing: the Editor's perspective. In this case nothing to complain about (au contraire: e.g., see earlier): if only most editors (cross-disciplinary) would follow on McAfee's steps... unfortunately, plenty of counterexamples around, such as the editors involved here

• Steven Shreve on working with models in the finance world. Shreve on a similar topic, earlier.

• Troubles in the adult entertainment industry...

• Econblogs doing great.

• One of the few things Romanians could/should copy from their Moldavian neighbours

• Bill Easterly reminding us about the gains from specialization.

• They might be having a slow, if any, economic recovery, but the Japanese are way ahead than anybody else technology-wise: Isaac Asimov would have loved this restaurant in Nagoya, Japan. Related, earlier.

• The hot waitress economic index.

• The Google Translate service: not a bad job (though things can be improved: e.g. "how are you, friend?" is translated in Danish "how are you, ven?" and in Hungarian "how are you, barátom?"; in most other languages I can check it seems to work fine :-)). See also a Google Research Blog recent article on the theme.


• The race to hire economists. Or statisticians. Or their combination?

• A new business hype (?): Investing in lawsuits.

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)

Broccoli, pornography, and Kant

Very interesting and well done Hoover Institute review by Mary Eberstadt, "Is Food the New Sex?", though my feeling is that Economics would have way better tools to address the questions raised here than Philosophy, Kantian categorical imperative notwithstanding...

Thanks to Fred for the link!

Econlinks for 06-02-'08

• Why we kiss, in case you were wondering... Not much to do with economics per se, unless you want to make the link to things some people consider related, such as when to say "I love you" (4th bullet point):-). And come to think of that, let's travel one year back in time and (re)consider the (neuro)science of love. Finally, keeping it assorted, you might also want to (re)check why you (don't) have sex (4th bullet point).

• 'Economics according to Google': a very interesting interview with Hal Varian, the currrent Chief Economist at Google. The interview was taken just a few days after Varian took over his new (full-time) job. Retain Varian's prediction: "I think marketing is the new finance".

• Sell illegal US immigrants the right to stay: wise thoughts (far too wise for any of the current US politicians) from Gary Becker; read also his former posts related to this topic: here, here and here).

• For those of you in any way interested in computing power, here's the most recent top 500 list of (commercially available) supercomputers (Nov '07), with all kinds of statistics available. Here's a PDF on the interpretation of the Top500 data.

Econlinks for 4-02-'08

• Greg Mankiw's birthday wish (with my "Happy Birthday", of course!). Among other things, I learnt I'd be young forever, despite being (aspiring to be?) an economist; here's why: "[...] you know you are old when you spend more time thinking about money than sex. If so, we economists must age prematurely. After all, it’s our job to think about money, both our own and other people’s." Apparently Mankiw forgot about the Solow-Friedman sex vs. money context (see page 3 of that PDF presentation; don't worry about the rest of the presentation in Romanian- unless you are Romanian, of course, in which case you might also want more background on that presentation).

• "[...] beware the one-armed economist; sometimes a good economist could use two or even three arms or more". This is the conclusion of a nice article by Tyler Cowen in the NYTimes.

• We all look forward to the Super Tuesday tomorrow; high time to remember some of the differences in the economics perspectives of the Democrat leading candidates and, respectively, of the Republican leading candidates (with Giuliani out, for better or worse...). For a brief account of their views on science see here: Clinton, Obama; McCain, Romney. Also see an excellent editorial by Donald Kennedy on why it is important to know the Presidential candidates position on science.

• When to say "I love you", in Tyler Cowen's perspective. I am particularly fond of the 'Proustian reminder' rationale in 4 (though I will strongly deny that was my only reason, ever, to utter those words) :-).

Quote for week 16th to 22nd of Dec '07

No one believes me, but comedy is better than muscles, money or looks. If you can make a girl laugh out loud, you're in there. It's almost like the pressure of the laugh makes her panties fall off.

Will Smith

Read the quote of the previous week.

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 14-08-'07

• Ken Rogoff says that we might be "better red than dead" in the long run. I doubt most Central-Eastern Europeans would feel any close to comfortable with that. And that despite that the Vikings (the present-day ones) are rather reddish and pretty well still. Link to Rogoff's via Greg Mankiw

• Invisible-hand "career", made visible by Nature. See also here. (second link via Tyler Cowen on MR)

• Eternal Danish love for bridges, Copenhagen-Malmo migration & more in this short article from The Economist

• Why do you have sex? If you can't give any answer to that, perhaps you should answer the "why don't you have sex?" question, but that in a future econlinks edition. All right, just bloody think of the first question formulated in the past tense... Among all the reasons these researchers compiled (far from exhaustive; the "I'm sick of lying to women" reason is, for instance, not among them- you complete the list), I think "the person had beautiful eyes" wins my prize :-).

The King of Bongo Bong

I am quite surprised to realize that I knew next to nothing about bonobos until recently, while an absolute bonobo frenzy seems to have been going on for quite a while out there, stretching far beyond scientific curiosity. Here's the gist of the discussions on the topic: many (possibly counting a majority of feminists, pacifists, gay-rights activitists etc.) see the bonobo as the non-combative, sex loving, supreme social, ideal species, while others believe the 'let's have sex (and what sex!), not war' bonobo hippy myth emerged without much evidence in the first place and has been maintained and amplified artificially since. The very interesting part is that divergent opinions (and full-fledged animosities) seem to reign also among the few scientists who have been or are currently studying these beasts (all right, homo sapiens' cousins if you really want). And the truth is that they (we) still don't know much about the chimp's closest relative.

Anyway, the following two articles should enlighten you somewhat on the real king (queen?) of bongo bong (these two articles are by far the best I could find on the topic so far, with the second a reaction to the first). Caveat lector: stop reading right now if you believe yourself to be a puritan and want to stay a puritan... Same thing if you don't believe in evolution :-).

Bonobos (take your time, this is 12 full pages long, worth reading for the impressions and reported facts of the reporter, not necessarily for his conclusions).

More bonobos (shorter piece; Frans de Waal concise and sounding convincing, as de Waal usually sounds)

Econlinks for 03-08-'07

• markets in everything edition: The Economist presents the black market for corpse brides in China; the truly nasty problem is that it comes with some scary incentives, given the scarcity of bridal corpses...

• 1028 is the number of US economists that signed the recent petition against the (expected) Congress protectionist moves (link with the Dems general race-to-the-bottom economic policies that I was recently blogging about). The same number of US economists signed a very similar petition, against President Hoover's trade policies, just before The Great Depression- I guess you know then how succesful that petition was... Via Greg Mankiw.

• talking about incentives: why would one have sex with a prostitute? Well, here's something I would call a decent (pretty honest?) answer: "I visited a prostitute for one obvious, practical reason and another less so: I'm sick of lying to women. Being single and in my 30s, I find it increasingly difficult to justify the lies and manipulation involved in having a sexual relationship with women who I'm not in love with." Read more.

• It did take him 36 years, but the former QUEEN guitarist still handed in his PhD dissertation before me ... though his is in astronomy, piece of cake in other words :-). In any case, it remains to be established whether Brian May's comparative advantage lies in music or in scientific research...

Cherchez la (les) femme(s)

This recent article in "Psychology Today" is not a bad research summary, despite that it has been written by social scientists other than economists :-). A user's manual on the evolutionary perspective applied to human nature, targeting a very general audience (and therefore, perhaps unavoidably, plagued by sensationalism; fortunately, the compromise does not appear to be critical). While I'd have some issues with some of the theory advanced to explain (particularly when claiming full explanatory power) the facts presented, the facts remain: and some of them are extremely interesting (eg. titles 5 and 6 below were news even to yours truly...)! Check below the headlines of the 'politically incorrect' decalogue Psychology Today chose to thrill its readers with. This intro functioned well as appetizer with me, hence I've already pre-ordered the book on which it is based (& I trust my appetite won't fade away with the main courses)

1. Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)
2. Humans are naturally polygamous
3. Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy
4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim
5. Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce
6. Beautiful people have more daughters
7. What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals
8. The midlife crisis is a myth—sort of
9. It's natural for politicians to risk everything for an affair (but only if they're male)
10. Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist

And here's one excerpt (under title 9 above) meant to further incite your curiosity; notwithstanding the fact that this is in no way a ceteris paribus 'analysis' and that Darwinism is literally stretched to extremes herein, I'd say it still uncovers part of the general truth; but do ask Bill if you want somebody with significant expertise in the area :-)

The question many asked in 1998—"Why on earth would the most powerful man in the world jeopardize his job for an affair with a young woman?"—is, from a Darwinian perspective, a silly one. Betzig's answer would be: "Why not?" Men strive to attain political power, consciously or unconsciously, in order to have reproductive access to a larger number of women. Reproductive access to women is the goal, political office but one means. To ask why the President of the United States would have a sexual encounter with a young woman is like asking why someone who worked very hard to earn a large sum of money would then spend it.

What distinguishes Bill Clinton is not that he had extramarital affairs while in office—others have, more will; it would be a Darwinian puzzle if they did not—what distinguishes him is the fact that he got caught.

Funniest moment of the week. No, wait, of the month!

Lovely Nicole is emailing me this link. And she thinks she's really "got it now", she believes she finally "understands all about men", she's convinced she's just had her Eureka! moment :-). Well, that's pretty funny, but guess what, I'd bet that the text above was written by a male and not by a woman (who tried some homosexual experience in order to have such an epiphany :-)), as its author claims. It's simply too direct, nada (at least a) Freudian detour or anything like that. Which implies that the (latent) intention comes forward as subtle as a Russian tank- though it's not fully rational, but I won't get into details. Still funny, though :-). And ok, true to some extent, I confess. BUT: there's much more to it than just that and, Nicole my dear, I'd contend that there is enormous heterogeneity among "guys", maybe more than among women, but, agree, that's an empirical issue at the very end of the day... Anyways, here's a relevant excerpt from Nicole's "Bible" linked above (& I have to say that I agree 100% with its conclusion, never mind the reasoning till there :-) )

So guys, I have seen into your world, and I can say now, you definitely have it tougher than we do. I feel your pain. And ladies, if you're reading this, go easy on them. If you want to get it on, just let them know. They're killing themselves trying to figure it out. And that's just getting in the way of some potentially good fucking.

PS. Nicole, did you actually try... you know...with another woman? Wow, my imagination goes wild already :-). You can tell me in private...