Twitter: Joshua Gans- @jodiecongirl Actually, it says more about you that you've heard of them!
- @jodiecongirl I think it says that economists don't just assume rational agents but are attracted by them too. Talk about a value conflict.
- @jodiecongirl Why uninteresting? Think of Alex P. Keaton, Quark , Sheldon and Dogbert.
- RT @freakonomics: Freakonomics Movie is released via iTunes tomorrow: http://bit.ly/9YveA3 [I'm gathering the kids for a Friday night movie]
- Am I to understand that we are now in the path of a Hurricane? http://bit.ly/daitO9 This aint the tropics.
Readership
Dec
28
Using your iPhone to jump queues
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Apple has filed for a patent for a service (or something) that would allow you to do the following:
Customers might tap a button to order their favorite drink, say a double-shot mocha, as they stroll up to the nearest coffee shop. When the drink is ready go to, the device–such as an iPhone–would chime or blink to let the thirsty one know it’s time to scoop up the order at the counter.
In effect, iPhone users would be able to jump queues at Starbucks and go straight to the ‘waiting for the order’ queue.
What interests me is that this technology would impose a negative externality on coffee consumers without an iPhone. In that situation, you would go into a Starbucks expecting, say, a relatively short wait for a coffee only to find that the ‘payment’ queue did not reflect the real wait time as determined by the ‘wait for order’ queue. That is likely to leave some customers upset. Notice that this will occur even if the Starbucks makes the ‘payment’ queue more efficient with a touch screen ordering system.
The moral of the story: these types of technologies are interesting but it is only by working out the kinks in the overall system that we will really see something that is adopted widely.
Dec
28
British Journal O’ Laughs
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
After being caught out by one of the articles in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal, I decided to flip through the others. Some are more obvious than others but this article entitled “Excuse me!” let’s you know what is going on while your out on the operating table:
Sneezing etiquette and the efficacy of masks in the operating theatre remain a subject of debate. Standard teaching dictates that one must face the wound when sneezing, so that droplets escape backwards, via the sides of the mask.
And many shouldn’t look past “Sex, aggression and humour: responses to unicycling,” and you can prepare yourself for when doctors tell you how long you have to live here. And if this year isn’t enough for you go back in time for “Sword swallowing and its side effects” and this implausible piece of experimentation.
On a related note, the Wii study has spread far and wide picking up such noted journalistic outlets as the Chicago Sun Times and the BBC (up since 21st December without correction). As of the writing of this post, the news.com.au report is also still up.
Finally, if you like this sort of thing you can now get it free all year around with the Annals of Improbable Research, online.
Dec
27
A Wii little weight loss?
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments
A new study published in the British Medical Journal was reported under the headline “Wii is not a fat burner.”
PARENTS are fooling themselves if they hope Nintendo’s Wii, which uses a wireless handheld controller to replicate athletic movement, will stop their youngster becoming obese, a study says.
This was based on the result that using a Wii for an hour rather than an X-box burned 51 percent more calories but this was less than one quarter of a Mars Bar. But hang on a minute does that not also mean that an hour’s worth of using the Wii would burn off three quarters of a Mars Bar and an hour worth of X-box time would burn off one half? That seems like much more than one would expect.
Turns out that that is the case. The following chart from the study compares caloric burn-off from various activities including doing bugger all.
Now it is instructive to compare the 180 odd calorie burn from Wii with other activities. This guide helps that: turns out that Wii using is on a part of slow Ballroom dancing, light cleaning of the house, surfing, a friendly volleyball game, a slow bike ride, playing with a frisbee (the generic outdoor activity), and a walk carrying an infant! Indeed, playing other video games will get you much of the way there too.
What the Wii’s potential seems to be that if done more vigorously it can burn off many more calories. Look at some of the kids getting up to 250kj off. That’s a good hour long walk. The X-box didn’t get that potential.
On this basis the headline should have read: “Burn your way through fat with a video game rather than reading this newspaper.” I guess we are not really going to see that one.
[Update: Well, I only looked at the one article in that issue but as you can see from the comment below, the BMJ has a Christmas tradition of spoof articles of which this is one. Got me. I guess the suitable headline should have been: "Journalists should get off their arses and check some facts." By-line and perhaps bloggers should too!]
Dec
26
Anti-piracy ads on DVDs
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments
I have remarked about this before, but those anti-piracy ads that are on legitimate store-board DVDs in Australia are intrusive and annoying. They are also inconsistent. They are on some DVDs and not others. So what do you think: would you expect to see them on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Mr Men? And before you answer, here is clue: the ads are directed clearly at teenagers.
Well of course they are on Mr Men and not Buffy. So my kids have to spend a couple of minutes being educated that there is such a thing as downloading movies rather than buying them at a store. Good one, content providers.
The bigger issue is this: when I buy a DVD, I do not expect them to have ads. There are no warnings that they have ads. Nothing of the sort. This lack of transparency seems to me to be misleading consumers. Surely, the government or ACCC could step in to see that people are buying something they paid for. I have no objection on priniciple to there being ads, I just expect people to know before they watch something whether it will be there or not.
Dec
26
Game Theorist: Holiday Posts
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
More holiday posting on Game Theorist with some radical parenting advice, a conversation on Santa’s reality and a review of Enchanted.
Dec
26
Holiday Wars
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
In 1978, TV had the Star Wars Holiday Special. Click here if you dare and here or here if you are truly brave.
Dec
23
Game Theorist: Weekend Post
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
On Game Theorist, I look at the incentive properties of Santa.
Dec
23
Apple TV in Australia
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
It has been a while since I checked up on the Apple TV stuff on Apple Australia’s website. You will recall that initially at least their presentation seemed to be misleading about what content was available to play on Apple TV. Well I am pleased to report that they have no got there act together. If you click here you will see a clear disclaimer that “TV shows and Movies are currently not available for download from the iTunes Store for Australia.” It is not just the selected countries that emerged a little while after my March post.
Interestingly, the recent removal of NBC programs from iTunes caused me to wonder whether the US site had been updated to reflect this. If you look here right at the bottom of the page, Battlestar Galactica is shown as something that will play on Apple TV. Well unless you already have previous iTunes stuff that isn’t the case. Slight oops.
Dec
21
The merger
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
A ‘hypothetical merger’ between the Kennedy School and Government Department at Harvard; in the style of The Office. Classic. [HT: Dani Rodrik]
Dec
21
A moral divide?
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
In the New York Times, David Pogue argues that there is a generational divide in copyright morality. His basis is informal polls of his audience. Turns out few people think doing this is ‘wrong’:
“I *meant* to record an HBO movie, but my recorder malfunctioned. But my buddy recorded it. Can I copy his DVD?”
But that amongst the college-aged none of them think this is ‘wrong’:
You want a movie or an album. You don’t want to pay for it. So you download it.
Pogue is aghast as he sees this last action as black and white even if other actions he polls have greater shades of grey. He concludes that copyright law has a problem and is wildly out of accord with the majority of the younger generation.
To be clear, we are not talking here about what is illegal but instead about whether someone should feel ‘guilty’ about an action. The presumption is that simply taking something from someone — in this case, money from copyright holders etc. — is wrongful. At the beginning of DVDs I purchase, young people are told that “you wouldn’t steal a handbag, why download a movie?”
The question is: is downloading a movie or album considered stealing in a moral sense? Let’s take the easy case. If, absent a download option, you were going to buy an album, then your action has denied the copyright holder revenue. Looks like stealing in that you have appropriated something (money) that others legally could have.
One way to rationalise this is that people see it as incomplete. The money might be returned in other — perceptively more efficient — ways such as purchases of merchandise, concert tickets and friends getting into an album. The copyright holder’s response is that what they have a right to is to determine not just how much money flows back to them but how it flows back to them. Legally that may be the case but morally it is not clear that that right is a good one. Indeed, even legally we have partially abandoned it with parallel import laws and restrictions on resale price maintenance.
But, of course, the issue Pogue is worried about is that people might think it is OK just not to pay for this stuff. They do not agree that a copyright holder has a moral right to determine how much money flows back to them. Indeed, they put stuff out there on the internet all of the time that others consumer for free; even though they could charge for it.
Let’s be clear, this view is not without precedent. On Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David gets in trouble from putting rubbish in a neighbour’s bin. His neighbour argues that it is his bin and that only he has a right to determine how it is use. David counters that it is more convenient this time, for minor use, and he would be OK if his neighbour used his bin that same way. I think most people, of many generations, would with David’s morality on this one. But as a matter of principle there is little difference to the view on copyright.
To get to the heart of the issue, Pogue needed to ask young people this:
Do you think we should abandon copyright laws tomorrow even if it may mean less investment funds available for movies and music?
And compare it to their answer to this:
Do you think that only those who don’t have computers and internet access should be required to pay for music and movies?
An affirmative view to the former would give this a moral basis (although no comfort to copyright holders) while one to the latter would reveal moral dubiousness.
Dec
20
Winding down the year
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
As the year groans to an end, some little snippets of interesting activity:
- Ken Arrow confronts climate change ‘do nothingners.’
- Nick Gruen highlights the case for emission trading in an international context.
- Paul Krugman does economics!
- Andrew Leigh wants school report cards.
- The ACCC’s petrol report is out with unsurprising results except that price transparency could get us as much as 1.9 cents per litre off. Seems to me that this is a good opportunity to get people use to higher petrol taxes in a straight transfer from corporations to the public purse.
And I set a record for Facebook friends — now adding someone I went to kindergarten with but had lost track of since then (that is ‘they new each other from ages 3 to 4′!). My previous record had been primary school.
Dec
17
Universities and firms
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
In the New York Times today, a review of recent trends of corporations allying with universities on more basic research with investments in the hundreds of millions. This has drawn some criticism:
CRITICS of corporate-university partnerships fear limits on academic freedom or, worse, that companies might censor results that go against their interests. The risk of such interference seems small, however. Despite the large amount being offered by BP, the money will be divided three ways; of Berkeley’s annual research budget of $500 million (nearly all from the federal government), BP will be contributing less than 3 percent.
Under the terms of the partnership, meanwhile, Berkeley professors are free to publish results of BP-funded research. The university also will own the rights to any resulting intellectual property. BP would even have to license that intellectual property, though payments are capped and the company would get the first look at promising results.
The alternative to corporate funds is for universities to rely even more on government funds. And that raises parallel issues in the minds of some academics. The idea that government funding plays no role in prioritizing research “is completely at odds with reality,” says Michael Crowe, the president of Arizona State University.
With weak rights like these, it can hardly be said that this is some drain on academic freedom. The surprising thing is that corporations are happy to spend the money given the freedom they are allowing.
Dec
17
Game Theorist: Recent Posts
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
Some recent posts up on Game Theorist. I review Stephen Hawking’s children’s book and Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie. I also take a look at taxes and punishment. Finally, my son and his fiance hold a joint event.
Dec
14
Google enters Wikipedia space
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Google are testing a new thing: ‘knol.’ It will provide topic-based information authored by individuals. The individuals will own the web-page associated with the topic and will receive comments by others as to how to improve them. But the associated page will be owned by the authors. And there may be competing knols on the same topic.
It is ownership that distinguishes this from Wikipedia. And it is this that will give an incentive for authors to maintain quality. This is going to be an interesting development; especially in terms of sorting out quality on the Internet.
Dec
13
Electricity privatisation in NSW
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
There is lots of angst at the moment about the potential privatisation of electricity generation in NSW. I must admit that given that we have a national electricity market and good retail price regulation, moving from a corporatised to a privatised structure seems to be a positive one in this industry (cf: telecommunications).
One of the issues that has arisen is whether this would be good for the environment: the theoretical idea being that a strategic private firm might create more emissions. Turns out that Erin Mansur has examined just this issue (in the December 2007, Journal of Industrial Economics). The result [abstract over the fold]: oligopolists — especially, strategic ones, seem to be reducing emissions relative to others. It would be interesting to see a similar study to indicate whether the same happened in Victoria.
Dec
13
Messonomics
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
Turns out Steve Levitt is a down-winger. What is a down-winger? Read here.
Dec
13
Journeyman
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Journeyman starts its Australian run tonight at 8:30 on Ten. This is a next generation Quantum Leap although with a less random quality to it. I got to see it during my travels and can highly recommend it as a light and slowly building series in the addictive television genre. The first few episodes set the scene: you know, how to you lead a normal family life when you randomly are taken away to travel back in time and fix other people’s problems before you can return? Also, how do you deal with the fact that your iPhone doesn’t seem to work in the past? These are issues that will get you thinking (but not too much).
Dec
13
Petrol on the 7:30 Report
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
I was on The 7:30 Report last night talking about the upcoming Petrol Inquiry report from the ACCC. You can watch it here and read a transcript here. My bottom line is that petrol price fluctuations are driven largely by international factors, that there is concern about shopper dockets but that the case for an on-going Petrol Commissioner is weak and policy-makers should consider beefing up the Trade Practices Act and offering petrol price information direct to consumers.
Dec
11
iPhone v Blackberry
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
For the last week, I have had the opportunity to use an iPhone rather than my Blackberry. Suffice it to say, the differences are marked although I can imagine that the iPhone might not be for everyone.
Let’s start with the disadvantages of the iPhone. Put simply, it is not connected with Microsoft exchange in the same way as a Blackberry. That means syncing is a deliberate act for contacts and calendar items (there is nothing for to dos and notes). I don’t update these too often but if you do, the iPhone will be an issue. For email, Gmail IMAP works well but does not have the real time updating that the Blackberry has. For me that took some adjustment but when it comes down to it, I found it a bit more controlling to pull email rather than have it pushed to me.
But the advantages of the iPhone are considerable. Leave aside the fact that you can carry around an iPod in your phone, the winner items are:
- Browsing: the browser works. It is the only mobile device short of a laptop that lets you read web pages properly. Add to that the iPhoned pages such as Google, WordPress and Facebook and it is all the better. This is a phone I can blog from (although I still need to do it in html).
- WiFi: 80 percent of where I am, I have WiFi access. It is nice to use it. It makes browsing easy and downloading email attachments a breeze. Although even on GPRS/Edge, it is not too bad; especially for email.
- Typing: typing and word recognition works well, especially for emails. I haven’t found the keyboard a problem but you have to believe that it will work as you type or it can be slow. But I like that the keyboard is not constantly there and you have the screen otherwise.
- Screen: the screen is a joy to look at. It is as nice as a Mac; something that no other mobile device can get close to.
- The Phone: I love the phone. It is so easy to use and the contacts integrate perfectly. This really is the killer application of the iPhone even without visual voice mail.
The iPhone is going to be a big hit when it comes to Australia. Business folks may well stick with the Blackberry but I won’t.
Dec
10
Where’s my T-Shirt?
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 6 Comments
So I co-author this best selling book with Stephen King and Greg Mankiw.
And then I visit amazon.com and these are for sale …
Where’s my T-shirt? Wait a second …
Dec
9
Private v. public schooling
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Andrew Norton and Andrew Leigh have engaged in a week long debate as to whether public schools should be privatised? You can read the entire thread here. Near as I can tell, they both reach the conclusion — no — but would be happy to see more market forces applied to work out the appropriate mix. Andrew Norton argues to fund private schools on the same basis as public schools. Andrew Leigh points out that this would remove the ability of the private system to actually save the public system money. He favours progressive funding to private schools on the basis of actual parental income rather than average income based on postcodes.
In economic terms, Andrew Leigh is more on the ball here; although he doesn’t take the possibilities as far as I would like. The key benefit of better aligned funding is transparency and a removal of distorted choices. It also recognises schools as a ‘club good’; something that wasn’t raised in their debate. Stephen King and I outlined a complete proposal in our book Finishing the Job. You can read a summary here. Bottom line: so long as funding is at the student level adjusted for parental income, the public v. private debate is largely irrelevant.
Dec
9
Broadband is back
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Broadband had some pre-election runs in the media but was largely absent in the election run-up itself. This week it is back. First, Minister Conroy closed the Broadband Expert Taskgroup (I was a little sad about this as the group itself seemed sound and independent and I would have liked to have known what they had come up with. Of course, hopefully, they did get to communicate that to the Minister). Second, Telstra came out philosophically opposed to Labor’s public-private partnership approach. This turned out to be the same thing as saying, “now we are not talking with the new Government either.” Third, the G9 said the opposite. They are ready to work with Labor on the PPP.
The likely outcome of all this is pretty interesting. The government is now pretty much forced to use a non-Telstra model to build a broadband network. Since that is what we wanted anyway, this is good news. But, Telstra, true to form, can be expected to duplicate that network. This will mean that we will have infrastructure based competition in broadband. Again, more good news.
The only downside is that the government will likely have to bear a greater level of the costs of providing the infrastructure in the PPP but can also afford to be ruthless with Telstra on interconnection access. The reason why that too is OK, is that, if they do it right, we can correct the structural mistakes of the past in telecommunications and use broadband as a platform for telecommunications competition across the spectrum — voice as well as Internet. This is a major opportunity that I hope the new Government exploits to the fullest.
Dec
6
Why did Seven stop short?
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Seven and Ten had been going so well this year with ‘fast tracked’ shows broadcast right after screening in the US. But then, with Heroes, Seven stopped short and had a ‘season final’ two episodes short of where the US had got to (before the writers’ strike dried the rest up). Is this part of an experiment to see what happens to bit torrent downloads? If so, I wonder what happened.
Dec
5
A proud Aussie tradition
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
This made me think of lots of stuff from our DVD region code to our highly regulated ‘free’ television episode guides …
In 1923, radio was introduced to Australia, complete with a scheme for “analog rights management” that presaged the dumbest anti-copying/anti-use schemes of the modern day. In the early years of Aussie radio, the radios were sold permanently tuned to a single frequency, sealed shut to prevent their owners from changing the channel. Each broadcaster had its own model of radio that it sold to the public, one that could only receive its programmes, and this was how the stations made money. The system lasted less than two years and was a complete failure.
Would that our modern day equivalents last so short a time. [Here is some more.]
Dec
4
The name game is worth it
by Joshua Gans | Filed Under Uncategorized | 8 Comments
Rita Panahi is the latest in a series of opinions I have seen in the Australian media commenting on women keeping their ‘maiden’ name. She thinks it is bad because they end up with a different name from their children. As usual, she fails to understand that that need not be the case if women’s children get her surname. In any case, the criteria is a value judgment that seems ridiculous to propagate. Indeed, I recall one father — whose wife had kept her name — once telling me that he wanted his children to have his name so there would be a part of him with them. I guess he was not expecting to have much of a role in their lives apart from that.
Let’s be very clear: keeping one’s own name is (a) convenient; (b) allows more options should things not work out; and (c) is exercised by almost every man. For those reasons we should look on the practice or call for women to keep their original surname with suspicion.
That said, what to do about the children? Hyphenated names last a generation at the most while new surnames can be difficult to arrive at and lose two convenience points. I have heard of some parents alternating their children’s surnames. But that only gets you into siblings not having the same surname which seems to me to be very problematic.
So let’s approach this logically. There are three core assumptions that many couples face: (1) All siblings should have the same name; (2) Children should have an equal chance of having either parent’s surname; (3) Neither parent wants to change their surname.
In this regard, there is only one logical outcome: you need a random device to decide the surname of the children. And it seems to me that the best and most poignant such device is a gender lottery. There is a roughly a 50:50 chance of your first born being a boy. Prior to the birth you agree and announce a rule — if the baby is a boy, they will take the mother/father’s surname. You then just have to decide with a boy is associated with the mother or the father. But that is an arbitrary choice. The key is to do it upfront. In this world, 50 percent of children with have their mother’s surname.
My partner and I worked this one out on our second date — showing it was all meant to be. If the firstborn was a boy, the children would get her surname. We announced this during the pregnancy and stuck to the choice. Of course, our firstborn was a girl, so any demonstrable social non-conformity did not occur. But nor should that be what arises here. That is the point of having an announced rule.