This is Interesting

I ran into this via the Green, Inc. blog. Basic idea: which states offer tax breaks for housholds that get renewable energy fixtures for their own use? Find your state and see what's out there.

Economic Humor

At some point it had to be done at the AEA meetings. Maybe better to save economic humor for the recovery, though?

International Education

I didn't actually know that the proportion of international students at US universities were fewer in proportion to the total enrollment than it is in other developed countries. But why should universities pay intermediaries to recruit more students, as the article suggests? It seems like many students are being turned away from the best schools, and the students already in the schools (especially foreign-born students) are reasonably well-qualified. It seems that if there is a greater number of applications from qualified students the thing to do would be to price things better, especially for out-of-state and international students, with generous subsidies for highly-qualified in-state students who do not benefit from a mountain of trust-fund wealth. Let the international students come, but also let them pay full price for the high level of enrollment demand.

Taxes and Spending

Note to Hardball: In this segment your Republican and Democratic guests are arguing over an economic point that is theoretically moot. Maybe that's the beauty of it. In terms of economic impact of a tax cut (in both the "liberal" Keynesian and "conservative" neoclassical schools of thought) is the same as an increase in transfer payments (consumption subsidies). Similarly, an increase in transfer payments is the same as a tax cut. Spending is only "spending" (in terms of having different multiplier effects) if it involves a direct government purchase of goods and services, which transfers/tax cuts/negative taxes do not. Even better if those goods and services have some theoretical possibility of being "public goods" or generating "externalities" or "network effects" as investments in education, infrastructure, or even the military and health care, might.

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Today's Reason the Fence won't work.

If Japan's restrictions on immigration are leading to rising illegal entries, what makes Lou think his border fence will work (hint: Japan is an island nation for the geography-impaired)?

Economists in the Economist

Summary of the Economists list of rising stars in the field (sorry, my name won't be found):

Jesse Shapiro: Some information is bad.
Roland Fryer: Cultural roots of black underachievment.
Esther Duflo: Test projects (with treatments and controls) for empirical studies of development.
Amy Finkelstein: Annuities and private information of life expectancy.
Raj Chetty: Longer unemployment benefits are optimal because people find better job matches.
Ivan Werning: Progressive subsidies for inheritances ("death subsidy," higher for small bequests).
Xavier Gabaix: Explaining "Rank-Size" and "Power Rules."
Marc Melitz: New-new trade theory on international business networks.

Name these Protectionists

Inferior Good?

Are New England Ski Resorts "inferior goods?"

Madoff

Here's Madoff's indictment: 

http://clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/bernie-madoff-the-indictment

Governor Bag-o-Tricks

The downstate Illinois nickname for Blago. Thought I'd post a link to the text of the complaint. Most of what they actually might get him for isn't even the alleged "Senate for Sale " scheme. Those of us from Illinois know he was dirty shortly after he took office. Trouble is, when he was elected, then-governor George Ryan (a Republican) was also on trial for corruption. His deeds lead to the illegal licensing of criminals for commercial truck licenses, which ultimately (allegedly) lead to fatal accidents involving those criminals who proved to be inept and irresponsible about their driving.

Here's G-Rod's Complaint and affidavit:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8759869/Blagojevich-Complaint

Cyclical Migration

More good news for Lou Dobbs. Not only are fewer illegals coming, more are returning. Hooray for a bad economy?

De Facto or Dejure?

Trade's shrinking. But it's unclear whether the shrinkage is because of rising protection, or because of overall declining economic activity. In particular, China is exporting less, but at the same time there are stories of increased availability of consumer goods within China, partly due to a natural decrease in demand. The Economist warns of possible increases in protectionism. They can cite for evidence is an increase in antidumping cases, but in this economic environment it may be more likely that firms will engage in actual dumping, so I'm not sure that's a good measure. I'd like to see them tell me of specific cases of actual increases in direct protection before I get too worried. Hopefully, economies will recover from the downturn before resorting to new tariff increases.

So, uh, yeah..

I just can't resist putting this up.

The Democracy Tax

Democracy is expensive, and the Economist reminds us of it in last week's special report on India. Administering the necessary bureaucratic and legislative apparatuses that make the thing go costs a lot of and usually leads to a certain amount of disappointment. In this sense, many note that an iron-fisted despot, if "benevolent" so to speak, is a more "efficient" form of government because what gets done gets done quickly and without too much hemming or hawing. Unfortunately for these regimes, the principle applies equally to good and bad ideas.

But if you were beginning to think that our own system was hopelessly corrupt, it could be worse. Even though, "every five years, over a period of a few weeks, India holds a
reasonably orderly and fair election,"  the article goes on to state that:

[India's] politicians are mostly an unsavoury
lot. Of the 522 members of India’s current parliament, 120 are facing
criminal charges; around 40 of these are accused of serious crimes,
including murder and rape. Most Indian politicians are presumed to be
corrupt...

So, mere "pay to play" schemes and cash in a freezer is actually pretty tame!

Thanksgiving Fun, A Little Late

In Thanksgiving Tradition, Bush Pardons Scooter Libby In Giant Turkey Costume

Bad things that Came out of the Seventies (other than Disco)

I heard this on "All things considered" yesterday.

We used to have this urban-planning idea that we'd have these pockets of pure-residential areas that had a buffer from almost purely commercial areas known as "drivable suburbia" or "edge cities." In the seventies,people wanted to live in little cul-de-sacs of living and concrete jungles of shopping, commerce, and bigass parking lots somewhere else. I remember in the late eighties our neighborhood had huge opposition to the building of a new commercial area near our housing development because it would bring noise and crime and (gasp!) more people.

I wish I could say this is the way the market had things turn out, but that would be hooey. (I like to say hooey now because the word I really want to say makes the little green men cry.) It was carried about using subsidies and political lobbies that worked to have things zoned the way they thought best suited their views. Some might call that democracy or "majority rule" but that would be of equal portion of hooey, since most people who thought it to be a bad idea probably didn't care as much to organize and petition the local government as the "nimby"-ites (Not In My Back Yard, "nimby").

Now, some folks are having buyers remorse. Now, we want shorter commutes, closer access to jobs, groceries, routine shopping, and even public transportation (?) and people aren't so sure that driving 20-30 minutes is the best way to go about it. Maybe in fifty years when we have flying cars that run on banana peels and composted garbage we'll want to go back to our edge cities.

I couldn't resist...

If you like recycling, and you like elephants pooping, this is for you.

Michelle Malkin, Ahead of the Learning Curve

Usually it takes a family of immigrants a few generations before they really adopt the slam-the-door-shut xenophobe-nationalist-conservative ideology of the Pat Buchanans and Lou Dobbses of the world. Michelle Malkin, Conservative columnist, TV commentator and blogger is there as just a first-generation daughter of Filipino parents who came here on student visas.

...and she blames the entire financial meltdown on Mexican immigrants, mostly the illegals. In a September 24 column, she opines,

It’s no coincidence that most of the areas hardest hit by the
foreclosure wave — Loudoun County, Va., California’s Inland Empire,
Stockton and San Joaquin Valley, and Las Vegas and Phoenix, for
starters — also happen to be some of the nation’s largest illegal-alien
sanctuaries. Half of the mortgages to Hispanics are subprime (the
accursed species of loan to borrowers with the shadiest credit
histories). A quarter of all those subprime loans are in default and
foreclosure.

Regional reports across the country have decried
the subprime meltdown’s impact on illegal-immigrant “victims.” A July
report showed that in seven of the ten metro areas with the highest
foreclosure rates, Hispanics represented at least one third of the
population; in two of those areas — Merced and Salinas-Monterey, Calif.
— Hispanics comprised half the population.

I don't even know where to go with this! Who'd like to point out the logical fallacies with me? Composition, post-hoc-ergo-proptor-hoc? This is completely off the deep end, and hypocritical toboot! Yes! It's illegal-alien mango pickers buying million-dollar McMansions! What? Someone get me off the deep end, and Ani, remind me to smack you next time I see you for elevating my blood pressure with this.

Immigrant quotas as a tax equivalent

This story on Morning Edition (NPR) got me thinking. Some folks are opposed to "selling" work visas (economists among them). Well, I'll tell you this: A quota (which is how we work it now) ain't much different. Just ask the illegal immigrants. Only difference is this: The people who get the hypothetical "tax revenues" aren't the US treasury - they're the people who are lucky enough to get visas (after about a 15 year wait for some source countries), and the coyotes who smuggle illegals over for a fee (which can run in the thousands of dollars per immigrant smuggled). That doesn't even touch on the laundry list of other externalities that quantity restrictions bring, and the fact that we spend billions of scarce treasury dollars enforcing the quota instead of collecting revenues from the auction/tax/fee.

Good News, Lou!

Louie Louie (Dobbs) must be thrilled about the recession: Check this out!