Quickie: Changing hosts June 17, 2010
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After having a ton of trouble with my previous web host (and having a lot of downtime as a result), I switched over to WordPress.com’s domain mapping service. Hopefully this will be a lot more reliable.
Signalling and For-Profit Colleges February 2, 2009
Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.Tags: economics, Economics haiku, higher education, human capital, Sheepskin effect, Signaling, Signalling
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Signalling in economics is the idea that, given imperfect information and a cost to disseminate that information, there are ways for high-quality agents to show (signal) others of their high quality.
This fellow doesn’t know it, but he’s trying to break signalling theory. Can he succeed? I don’t think so. My reasoning (second-order signalling) and a haiku behind the cut.
Afterthought: "Undue inducement" January 25, 2009
Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.Tags: bioethics, ethics, microeconomics, organ donation, price theory
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In the previous post, I mentioned the Singapore government’s fear that too high a level of compensation for kidneys would provide an “undue inducement” for a citizen to sell a kidney. I assume this means that the government doesn’t want to set a price so high that it will cause an unethically high influence on a person’s decision to donate an organ.
In microeconomics as we know it, however, the market-clearing price of a widget is the point at which its supply curve intersects its demand curve – that is, the price where suppliers want to sell exactly as many widgets as customers want to buy. Price theory doesn’t take ethics into account. From the academic standpoint, it’s impossible for a price to be an undue inducement because price is based on the indifference point of the supplier.
Can a price be an unethical inducement to action? How can that be determined? Is it right, ethically, to set price controls under certain circumstances?
The Market for Kidneys in Singapore January 25, 2009
Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.Tags: bioethics, Economics haiku, market creation, microeconomics, organ donation, price discrimination, price theory, Singapore
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Singapore is lifting its ban on compensating kidney donors. Behind the cut, I’ll analyze some of the effects, examine the welfare generated by such a policy, and include a summary in the form of an economics haiku.
The point value of a passivity November 19, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.Tags: economics, research project ideas, sports, sports economics, wrestling
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Sports are weird. Sometimes the things that determine the winner of a contest aren’t the on-field scores, at least not directly. Clock management, penalties, and other intangibles often end up determining the winner. How can we properly value those sorts of events? I’m going to post a brief analysis of an easy case, passivity warnings in international wrestling.
In memoriam November 11, 2008
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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.— Lt.-Col. John McCrae
Stever Robbins on Allocating Blame October 10, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.Tags: economics, mortgage meltdown, personal finance, Stever Robbins
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I love Stever Robbins. He’s undoubtedly one of the smartest guys around, and he helps me stay motivated and Get It Done on a regular basis in his Quick & Dirty Tip-giving persona. Today, he wrote up a blog post that I’m not sure I agree with entirely. I’d like to make an attempt to tackle this one and share some thoughts.
I’m sure he’ll be gentle.
Things I spend a lot of time thinking about August 3, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.Tags: beer, brewing, economics, Mets, Research, sabermetrics, Yankees
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Baseball generally, the New York teams specifically, applied economics, sabermetrics (wait, those two are the same thing), Canada, Canadian politics, rational choice theory in professional sports, homebrewing, the hop shortage, torbie cats named Samantha, US politics, Brewery Ommegang.
