One Possible Take on the NPR Hoo-Hah

One take is that this is the gotcha moment where the right finally proved the liberal bias of NPR. Maybe.

But, as conservative Heather MacDonald points out:

I fail to see the relevance of an NPR employee’s off-air criticism of
the Tea Party to the question of NPR’s federal funding or its liberal
bias. Conservatives can easily prove liberal bias by analyzing the
content of the programming.

I have no doubt that there is a significant over-representation of
democrats and "liberals" among the employees  who work and report for
NPR, but that in and of itself does not imply that they are anything other than
professional and fair in their coverage of the news. In fact, on average, although there is liberal bias in the media overall, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting seems to be among the most scrupulously centrist news organizations out there, according to a study by Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo (2005, Quarterly Journal of Economics):

Our results show a strong liberal bias: all of the news outlets we
examine, except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times,
received scores to the left of the average member of Congress.
Consistent with claims made by conservative critics, CBS Evening News
and the New York Times received scores far to the left of center. The
most centrist media outlets were PBS NewsHour, CNN’s Newsnight, and
ABC’s Good Morning America; among print outlets, USA Today was closest
to the center. [Emphasis added.]

Furthermore,

Conservatives frequently list NPR as an egregious example of a liberal news outlet. However, by our estimate the outlet hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet.

PBS NewsHour is a CPB production. So, (1) according to Ms. MacDonald personal political views of the executives shouldn't matter; (2) also according to Ms. MacDonald bias should be proven through an analysis of the content; (3) statistical analysis of the content shows little or no bias by several major public broadcasting programs. What does this mean of Mr. O'Keefe's video? One conclusion might be that it only weakens the case against NPR and CPB as "left-wing liberal media."  In fact, given the widespread (and probably correct) notion that public broadcasting mostly employs bleeding-heart liberal hippies, the fact that NPR's and PBS's content is demonstrably unbiased relative to other media (not to mention lack of influence by corporate advertisers) only strengthens the case for its continued public support.

Some Links on International Econ, and other stuff.

Trade, integration, and political reform in MENA (VOX)
Really? Do we have to block everything? How bout you pass the pro-market stuff, Republicans? (NYTimes)
More people latching onto Uwe Reinhardt's flawed characterization of international economists (World Trade Law)
JLR for now, Tata for later? (Economist)
Second-generation immigrants - problem? (Economist)
Finally, some music. A few seconds from every chart-topper since 1956 (ECC)

Crock Pot Pork Butt

Excellent crock pot pulled pork tonight:

15 oz can tomato sauce
15 oz can pineapple, crushed
3 Tbsp brown sugar
3 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 Tbsp dried minced onion
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
salt & pepper to taste
4-5 pound boneless Boston Butt pork shoulder, halved
15 oz can mandarin oranges
Combine 1st 8 ingredients. Add meat. Cook 10 hours on low. Add oranges in last hour. Pull apart with fork.

The liquid makes a nice carolina-esque vinegar-based barbecue sauce (if it weren't for the tomato sauce). The meat falls apart. This is a variation on a recipe intended for chicken, but the combination of flavors seemed perfect for pork shoulder. Plus, cooking chicken breasts all day in a crock pot usually means dried out chicken, so I went with a bigger hunk of meat.

Some Links, Including the Benefits of Holding "it" In

We make better long-run decisions on a full bladder. I can't wait to share this with my 75-minute classes. (APS)
Wage gaps and education. Some of this seems contrary to the recent evidence of stagnating education wage premia. (Krugman and Cowen - separately, of course!)
Given these structural changes, structural change is not welfare-neutral, even in the long run. (Rodrik)
Even (especially?) informed voters just really don't have beliefs about politics and policy that are consistent with reality. (Caplan)
Is controlled immigration better for welfare programs? This seems to assume a lot about the effectiveness of the controls.  (VOX)

Wage Struggles of Men (and a Link on Helping the Homeless)

Wage struggles of men? (Economix) Forgive me for being cynical, but looking at earnings per capita instead of earnings per worker and concluding that there is some sort of tide against men in the labor market seems hypocritical and sexist. A paper on the gender gap scarcely gets published unless it looks at female earnings on a per worker and per hour basis. This, of course is because many say there is "voluntary" selection into (and more importantly out of) the work force. How concerned should we be if more men are beginning to voluntarily select out of the work force (or begin working fewer hours), as more of their wives work full time? For thirty years women were told that their hours-worked choices were "voluntary" and the bar for showing evidence of a culture of discrimination was set almost impossibly high. Now that things are changing, why are we so quick to feel sorry for the men?

Direct transfers are often better than paternalistic in-kind ones (Jason Kottke)

An Interesting Take

I hadn't seen much relation of the Wisconsin protests with international trade, but here's an interesting point from the international economic law and policy blog.

The right to collective bargaining is one of the so-called "core labor rights" that the U.S. uses for GSP conditionality, and the 2002 TPA required labor rights to be a negotiating objective in U.S. PTAs.  ...  Article 6 of the US-Jordan FTA, for example, ... requires that each party "strive" to ensure that its laws incorporate freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.

Will this make us hypocrites? I guess not if you consider the fact that we probably already are, but it won't help.

Links on Arguing for Free Trade and Other Stuff

A simplistic argument for free trade by NG Mankiw; a simplistic response from Uwe Reinhardt; a better response here and here.
The other stuff. Can't resist a few links on the union stuff.
Matt Yglesias on Swedish labor unions:

Swedish labor unions could use their dominant labor market position to increase workers’ compensation by making Swedish firms less profitable than non-Swedish ones, but that would be bad for everyone. What you get instead is a kind of Mirror Universe version of the Chamber of Commerce, a politically powerful institution interested in maximizing the income growth of the median Swede rather than the median Swedish CEO.

This only works because a really high percentage of workers in Nordic countries is unionized.
Menzie Chinn on the fiscal non-problems in Wisconsin.
Finally, Chinn on, well, let's say buyers' remorse:

"I am going to make an effort to speak for myself, and every member of the Wisconsin State Patrol when I say this ... I specifically regret the endorsement of the Wisconsin Trooper's Association for Gov. Scott Walker. I regret the governor's decision to 'endorse' the troopers and inspectors of the Wisconsin State Patrol."

That's Chinn quoting Tracy Fuller, president of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association. To this I say, "Really?" I mean they guy campaigned against public sector unions when you supported him. Then again, I can understand a little surprise at a politician who does what he says he'll do.
In other news, it seems as if the governor is testing the water for having the National Guard take over for the bastard union prison guards (at what cost I wonder?).

Two Links on Pay Gaps

Seems the gender wage gap varies a lot by industry. Kind of mirrors some results in a working paper by Bang and Basu, 2010 (not Atin). If only the jerks fine and distinguished peers who review for journals would publish it. (Economix)

Public vs. private pay gap: it's not what you think, union-haters. (Econbrowser)

On the Future of Democracy in Egypt and China

Dictators, it seems, are increasingly facing a conundrum. Stifle growth and be thrown out now, or foster it and be thrown out later. I've made the same prediction Barry Eichengreen makes here many times over (and I doubt that I'm alone): That is, as a country ruled by an authoritarian regime becomes more prosperous, more and more of the population rises into a growing middle class; it then begins demanding more legal protections for their savings, wealth and property; next, it demands more voice in how the country's politics are administered, along with greater civil liberties; eventually, the authoritarian regime collapses. In the best of worlds, democracy might emerge. I still think China will undergo this sequence, although there is no telling how long the process might take or how long the regime will be able to forestall the endgame by controlling who is able to benefit from the boom and by buying off the small but growing middle class. Egypt is a good example, but whether the end result there is a democracy is yet to be seen.

Some Links on International Economics

I wonder if my students are having trouble finding news articles on international economics for their blog assignment. I'm not.
Trade in intermediate goods and underestimating the gains from trade (Vox).
More on measuring trade flows (WTI).
Opening Japan (again?) (Economist).
Germany's great decade through trade (Economist).
Should the EU ban on seal products be lifted (WTI)?
Somali piracy (and trade costs?) (Economist).
Trade liberalization in South Asia (Vox).
Barriers to remittances (lost gains from migration?) (Peoplemove).
Leaving Tunisia (Reuters).

Another Interpretation of Payroll Numbers

There's been a lot of chatter about the new unemployment numbers. This Free Exchange post talks about some of the methodology, and why, when it's said and done, the unemployment drop is for real.

Sentences of the Day

Via Free Exchange:

Imagine a world in which technology has advanced to the point that
robots can build robots that operate at basically no cost at basically
no cost, such that people can have anything that want anytime for free;
the only constraint on consumption is the time available. That would be a
cashless economy, and as a result, debtors would be totally unable to
pay creditors. But does that matter?

Maybe we in the US are rationally accumulating debt in perfect foresight of costless robot production. That or we don't give a shit because the rapture's a-comin in 2012 and it won't matter.

A Couple of Trade-Related Links

Gains from trade? (The Economist)
Gains from trade talks? (Vox)

Confused Libertarians Arguing Against Free Press?

Market Power is a pretty libertarian economics blog, if you happen to read it. Today's post seems a little confused about the difference between the micro and the macro, though.

Is internet access a right?  I'd say "no" ... Saying that someone has a right to scarce resources means
someone else has an obligation to give the same resources up without
compensation.

And yes, this is in the context of Hosni Mubarak's decision to cut off the internet for the entire country of Egypt. There is a difference between saying "internet access is a right" at the micro level of thinking the government should subsidize it for individuals who do not have it and saying that "internet access is a right" at the macro level in the sense that the government should not restrict it wholesale. In the first context it is NOT a right; in the second context it IS a right because it represents a medium for free press. Also, according to a theoretical paper by Basuchoudhary and Razzolini (2010) communication reduces splintering and conflict escalation; according to a paper by Basuchoudhary, Bang and Shughart (2011), there is empirical evidence to support this hypothesis.

Commodity Prices

I generally don't read Krugman much anymore. This post, on commodity prices, seems reasonable. Specifically, on food prices (which some have pointed to as evidence that QE has been inflationary):

this is straightforward supply and demand. Demand may be up to some
extent because of that emerging-market boom. But if you look at the FAO reports
it becomes clear that the key thing for cereals prices is that
production is down in advanced countries, largely owing to terrible
weather.

But if it were coming from monetary pressure, it would likely be a demand-side pull rather than a cost-side push. Also, it might be temporary, since it has to do with weather (unless it is also linked to longer-term climate change).

What about those gas prices? Tyler Cowen is saying that this time it is different, and that there will probably be a change in the long-term trend in energy prices in the coming years. (Note: the long term trend in real resource prices has been negative since about the start of the 20th century.) Yglesias largely agrees. The theory is that during previous increases in price, growth in demand was led by technological innovation, which made us richer, but also better able to pull stuff out of the earth. During current price increases, growth in demand has been led by countries catching up (China and India, for example), and therefore less likely to be accompanied by adjustments on both supply side (better extraction) and demand side (enhanced efficiency). 

They may be right, especially in the short and medium run, but I'm skeptical for a few reasons. First, we've heard the Malthusian trap story before, and it's turned out to be false each time so far. Second, I'm not entirely convinced that their history is spot-on; during previous spikes there was also considerable catch-up growth in Southeast Asia (in fact, the 60s and 70s are a textbook example of "catch-up" growth for countries like Japan, South Korea, and other "Asian Tigers"). Third, prices are incentives, and thus if there is a significant increase in the real price of resources, there is likely to be a supply-side adjustment of some sort, including a shift to new sources of energy (nuclear?). Policy will also play a role in incentives (carbon tax?).

Reflections on a Bumper Sticker

There's a red minivan in my neighborhood that has a bumper sticker that reads, "Socialism isn't Cool." What didn't occur to me until today is that this person also has a special license plat that says "Keep the Lighthouses Shining." I'm pretty sure the irony is lost on her.

Some links, including some drunken research

I can imagine a situation where I might do research after a beer or two. All that would lead to is miscoding of data. These jackwagons made a breakthrough on superconductors.
Coffee in meetings: good for women, bad for men.
The costs of the war on drugs; cartel wars.
A couple of links on education and inequality.
Why seniors should favor immigration (legal or otherwise).
A couple of links on commodidty prices and growth: Econbrowser and The Economist.

Huh?

A couple of articles from this weeks Economist have me puzzled. There seems to be a bit of contradiction or confusion in their editorial office.
First, we have the Economist lending credibility to the idea that the "redback" might become a player as a reserve currency. I'm skeptical.
Seocnd, hedge funds are shorting China (i.e. betting on the notion that their boom is about up). On the one hand, this might be self-fulfilling; on the other hand it might explain the US-China trade deficits in terms of the standard inter-temporal current account macro model (if you expect the US to grow in the future, our running trade deficits today is optimal; if you expect China to shrink in the future, their running of trade surplusses today is optimal).
More on the Yuan from Econbrowser.

The Deficit We Want

Via Economix:

Herein lies the political problem. We want to cut spending. We just don’t want to cut the benefits that the spending pays for.

We want to cut the vague notion of spending ahead of raising taxes, but when given the choice between cutting specific spending (on the "big three" - Medicare, Social Security, and Defense - for example) versus funding it with higher taxes, people choose higher taxes in each case.
Cognitive dissonance?

Some links: Climate, China Trade, and Inefficiency

Exchange rates (if relevant in the first place) aren't the whole story with China (Economix)
Rebalancing (Brookings)
Green energy won't create jobs (Economix)
Green energy shouldn't be used to create jobs (Free Exchange) Right. A carbon tax (or if an international mechanism can be designed, cap and trade) would nudge the market to do the job with fewer unintended consequences.
Inefficiency in the tax code; good for somebody (Economix)