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I have noted before that Foxtel curiously likes to keep things that might sell subscriptions secret. I discovered another one today that is seriously cool. Foxtel has its guide on the web. If you register and have a Foxtel IQ (their DVR), you can remotely set it to record from anywhere. And what is more this is done without the need for an internet connection (that is required for my Tivo). I tried it and it worked instantly. This is very neat but it is a shame they told no one about it!

This great cartoon appeared at xkcd. I have amended it below:

This is one terrific story. All of us remember the ads for Ribena saying that blackcurrents have four times the Vitamin C of oranges. That turns out to be true but the question is: how much Vitamin C does Ribena, a blackcurrent juice have? Read more

Ian McAuley misrepresents my views in New Matilda when he writes: Read more

A long long time ago, I wrote an article with George Shepherd on rejected classic articles in economics (here is the JSTOR link to the Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1994, for those with access). I had often been told that economics had a much higher rejection rate than the natural sciences. Well, it seems that the natural sciences are not immune. This paper [HT: Organizations & Markets] documents many cases in the natural sciences. Here is a typical entry:

The same Journal of Biological Chemistry also declined to publish the Nobel Prize winning work of Paul Boyer, as he recognized in an interview to his University magazine [Olney, 2000]. The work awarded with the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was the description of the molecular motor that creates cellular energy and the biochemical pump that transport such energy across membranes in cells. However, scepticism remained even after Boyer first published his theories in 1971 [Smaglik, 1997].

The economics incidents appear to be more prevalent in comparison to the list from the natural sciences but a definitive study is yet to be done.

Interestingly, the author of this paper — Juan Miguel Campanario –proudly advertises that the paper has been rejected from six journals and is still looking for a home. Ironically, thanks to the Internet, it has found one; something not available to the scientists of old.

This is a good idea. Apparently, Apple are considering allowing people to purchase albums at a discount after they have purchased individual songs from that album (click here). At the moment, if you buy a song and then want to get the album, you pay the same price for the album regardless. This will soften that and, in the process, likely stimulate both song and album sales. (Apple could do the same thing with TV shows and season passes). Of course, this just shows what the internet can do for music sales. After all, the same problem exists for traditional forms of music distribution. No one ever got a discount for an album when they bought a single from it.

I found out yesterday that my identity had been stolen. Someone had allegedly managed to obtain my Medicare card and use it for fraudulent claims. They have also opened bank accounts in my name — for what purpose I do not know. It was allegedly part of a large scamming operation and there has been an arrest made. I was given permission to let others know that this could occur.

To the credit of our authorities, apart from having to make a statement, this has not impacted on my in other ways (not yet anyway). But apparently how it may have worked was this. My name is out there — as are many academics with personal information on-line — and my CV is on line. My CV does not contain much information but it did, until half an hour ago, contain my birthdate (CVs have that). So someone could get my name and my birthdate. They could look up the phone book and get my address. Then they would call Medicare and say that they were at the doctor’s and forgot their card and could they give it over the phone, etc. And that was it.

This is all very creepy but I wanted to post about it as bloggers and academics appear to be vulnerable to this sort of thing. It is worthwhile to do an audit of what you have out there and perhaps in this day and age being in the White Pages is not a good idea. Others apparently have their home address and children’s ages and birthdates on the sites. This would make things much easier for a would be identity thief.

I took the kids to see Walking with Dinosaurs today. If you are interested, my thoughts are over at Game Theorist.

Ross Gittins has an article today about Bruce Chapman’s work on income-contingent loans. It does a nice job of articulating the possibilities, including for housing …

Another, highly pertinent application would be to use income-contingent loans to help low-income households facing eviction or mortgage default because of a temporary shortage of income due to job loss. As they found employment and their income recovered they could begin repaying the loan.

You see how these various applications involve tiding people over when they’re hit by sudden but temporary shocks. You see, too, how much of what governments do involves helping people manage and minimise the risks attendant on daily life.

Much better than subsidising landlords.

An article in The Republic (subscription only) has provoked some reaction. It suggests that Freakonomics-style work has encouraged young economists to pursue work that values “ingenuity above usefulness.” I have got news for you observers of academic economics out there: academic economics has always valued “ingenuity above usefulness.” Being clever with economics is what drives academic success in economics and it just so happens that the cleverness has become more widely accessible during recent years thanks to Steve Levitt. Just look at the recent list of top young economists in the NYT to see this trend

But there is reason behind this seeming madness. It is easy to evaluate cleverness right away but usefulness often requires the test of time. That is why the work of Nobel prize winners seems far more obscure. It is obscure precisely because it is used by others more than consumed for itself.

Those of you who read blogs (rather than write them) may not realise that when someone else links to you, it comes up on the blogger’s dashboard (in my case, WordPress). That is how I found out about some strange reactions to my broadband views. But today, this interesting post appeared by Andrew on a blog called The Salmon Conversations (some reference to Douglas Adams I think). Anyhow, it will be pretty clear why I am commenting on this one here: I like half of it, alot. The other half was intriguing. Anyhow, I posted a lengthy comment on it and because this is one discussion others may have views on I thought I’d point to it here.

The Productivity Commission have released their study into the public support for science and innovation (click here). I have previously blogged about this study here and here. From what I can gather it is not that much different from the draft report and, in many respects, does not appear to say much that is too radical or harmful to the status quo.

A new paper by David Levinson and Andrew Odlyzko (whom I have raved about before) looks at the reasons why efficient pricing — either congestion pricing or other usage-based pricing — is not adopted in many cases where it seems obvious. In previous posts, I have pointed to roads, water and bandwidth as possibilities.

Levinson and Odlyzko point to the costs imposed on users of such pricing. These costs are mainly cognitive but when coupled with concerns for behavioural economics, may provide an explanation. They might be right although I suspect that the issue is one of getting used to something and so something that is “too expensive to meter” might become less so as habits form. Anyhow, their historical examples make very interesting reading.

Alan Mitchell looks at the justification for Labor’s broadband policy in the Australian Financial Review (26th March). He writes: Read more

[Cross posted from Game Theorist] This weekend, although it was kept relatively secret for some reason, daylight saving time ended in most states in Australia and we started spending it again. We will do so until the daylight deficit grows too much and will in one sharp shock go back into surplus in October.

Regardless of whether it is the beginning or end of daylight saving time, that day and a week after, is generally good news for parents. We are no exception. The problem we face is that young children are particularly disrespectful of time standards. They are set in their old ways and many rise with the sun and also refuse to sleep until it has gone down. Now effective ‘within room’ light management can give you a measure of control but it is rarely perfect. Read more

I have noted earlier the dubious value of Apple TV in Australia given that iTunes Music Store in Australia does not sell television or movies as it does in the US (and costs US$50 more to boot). That has made promotion difficult to say the least.

This week, www.apple.com.au announced that Apple TV was now shipping. The web page as different from the US one as you can see here. (The US one is on the bottom). Read more

For some classic YouTube with Ricky Gervais, click here.

The thing that I have learned over the last 48 hours is this: if you even hint that giving money to broadband might not be a good idea, you are the equivalent of the devil. Well, maybe that is strong but I have been called a short-sighted economics professor, a ‘rightie‘ and, this is the best one, ‘an internet monkey.’

Anyhow, I thought I should recap on my position(s), since it is the aggregate of many posts: Read more

According to this Wall Street Journal article, theoretical economists — of which I am one — peak in their mid-40s. I am not sure what the source of this pronoucement is but I regarded it as good news. I may have more than 14 years in me. I am productive now and won’t fall back to this level until my early 50s (assuming the rise and fall are symmetric of course).

Of course, the more interesting thing about the article is that people peak in their ability to make financial decisions when they are 53. This finding is based on actual research. It seems to me to suggest that you do not want to make your early life savings decisions on your own but outsource them to a 53 year old. It also suggests that 53 year old financial advisors or fund managers earn the most money. But how do you find out who is managing your mutual funds, let alone their age? Also, if your fund is beating the market, chances are it is being run by someone of the right age which also means that you should switch funds soon.

For me, the good news is that at the time I am becoming less competent to practice theoretical economics, I will be poised to have a super career in financial advising.

I have an opinion piece in today’s The Courier Mail on broadband (you can access it here or over the fold). In retrospect, if I knew more about World of Warcraft I am sure I could have extended the analogy further. Read more

Terry McCrann points us to the idea that there are lots of free variables in Labor’s broadband plan. While the rhetoric about why we need this and why we need to spend vast amounts of government money eludes me, if all this is a commitment to high speed broadband with government facilitation, then there might be hope.

The issue for me is this: to get a cost effective network we need competition. To get consumers to actually use it, we need competition. And to make sure we only really build it where people and businesses might value it, we need market forces. A plan that put out a tender for one network operated by one firm and just to the node, would not do it. But what if we localised it? Read more

This week, This American Life — celebrating its own new TV show — looked at the impact of television (click here). Ira Glass suggested that television is currently in some golden age. Upon reflection, I think he might be right. Read more

A new site — Self Made Minds — has been launched which provides a window into making money from content provision on the net. It is founded by the folks responsible for Coolest Gadgets which is a relatively minor player in that space but will make US$100,000 in profit this year. The site outlines how that was done in very interesting detail. It should produce a nice resource for case-writers on entrepreneurship.

As promised, I am now going to turn my attention to the issue how the financial arrangements in Labor’s broadband plan. From what I can gather, the nationwide broadband infrastructure will be a public-private partnership — effectively a joint venture with (I think) the Federal government holding a 50 percent stake in the venture. It will also be subject to a regulatory regime.

Such partnerships have the benefit of not requiring the government to put up all of the capital for infrastructure. They also may have the benefit of injecting more commercial concerns into the mix. But the talk today is that this is some form of departure from Labor’s current Telstra policy. That Labor will use (and I presume divest) the government’s remaining 17 percent stake in Telstra to fund their part of the deal. Read more

Following up from my earlier post on Labor’s broadband plan, I have got a hold of their actual document. It is no stronger on details of the actual plan than the news reports. Still $4.7b designed to give 12Mbps ‘true’ broadband to 98% of homes in a public-private partnership. It will be fibre to the node. I will follow up later on whether such PPPs as they are called are a good idea. For the moment, I want to deal with the background to Labor’s policy: why they think all this is required and the justification they give. Basically, they are perpetuating lots of myths about what ‘true’ broadband can really deliver. Read more

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