Query:
How much would it be worth to the U.S. Open and its television partners to have Agassi progress to at least the quarter finals?
Enough to make large enough “side payments” to other players to let him win?
(note: I am making no allegations. I am just wondering about the possibilities.)
If you like to listen to podcasts (I do, during my twice weekly commute to the university), you might want to check out Science and the City, sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences:
Science & the City delivers a podcast featuring interviews, conversations, and lectures by noted scientists and authors. You can subscribe to our podcast feed so that our latest audio presentations are brought to your desktop, or you can preview individual presentations.
If you like to listen to podcasts (I do, during my twice weekly commute to the university), you might want to check out Science and the City, sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences:
Science & the City delivers a podcast featuring interviews, conversations, and lectures by noted scientists and authors. You can subscribe to our podcast feed so that our latest audio presentations are brought to your desktop, or you can preview individual presentations.
I have long been perplexed by the growth in sales of bottled water. And yet I have bought it, in the rare instance, most notably when I wanted to buy a cold, caffeine-free, calorie-free drink.
Mostly, though, I just use a water bottle and refill it from the tap at home or from a water fountain at work. I confess to having a filter on our drinking-water tap, in part to reduce the amount of chlorine in our water, upped considerably since the Walkerton tragedy, an hour’s drive north of here.
According to Lester Brown, [h/t to Jack]
“There are places in the world where safe bottled water is important,” Brown notes. “The United States is not one of them.” [EE note: neither are Canada or England]
“It’s an example of conspicuous consumption,” Brown says. “Reasonably well-educated people have been convinced that water in plastic bottles is better for them than water that’s in their tap.” In fact, most U.S. states regulate tap water much more stringently than they do bottled water, he adds.
Conspicuous consumption? Gee, when I refill a water bottle from the tap, I don’t really feel the same way I would if I’m put cheap scotch in an empty bottle that once held expensive scotch; it sure isn’t conspicuous consumption on my part, and it probably isn’t some overbearing concern about the environmental impact of using too many plastic bottles.
Maybe it’s just because I’m cheap.
At the David Laidler Festschrift, John Crow, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, pointed out how the rising price of oil has put upward pressure on the Canadian dollar. He further pointed out that while the oil patch is primarily in the western provinces, the rising international price of the Canuck buck has reduced world demand for other Canadian goods and services, which has particularly inflicted some economic pain on firms in the eastern provinces.
What if there were two different currencies, one for eastern Canada and a different currency for western Canada? The western currency would certainly appreciate relative to the eastern currency, and this led Clark Leith (who was presenting a paper about currency unions) to reply to John Crow’s comment,
Canada is not an optimal currency union.
At that point David Laidler interjected that labour mobility is important. Within a given country, differential shifts in demand induce considerable labour mobility, which tends to attenuate the shifts that would otherwise occur; if there were two different countries with two different currencies and with barriers to labour mobility, a currency union would have much more difficulty.
In that sense, it is easy to understand how crucial it was/is that barriers to labour mobility be reduced within the Euro community in order for the Euro to survive as a common currency across different countries.
Related: David Laidler also pointed out that the US treatment of Canadian softwood lumber producers indicated that when a small country signs an agreement with a very large neighbour, it has little recourse if the very large neighbour abrogates the agreement. He used this example to argue against forming a currency union between Canada and the United States.
At the David Laidler Festschrift, John Crow, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, pointed out how the rising price of oil has put upward pressure on the Canadian dollar. He further pointed out that while the oil patch is primarily in the western provinces, the rising international price of the Canuck buck has reduced world demand for other Canadian goods and services, which has particularly inflicted some economic pain on firms in the eastern provinces.
What if there were two different currencies, one for eastern Canada and a different currency for western Canada? The western currency would certainly appreciate relative to the eastern currency, and this led Clark Leith (who was presenting a paper about currency unions) to reply to John Crow’s comment,
Canada is not an optimal currency union.
At that point David Laidler interjected that labour mobility is important. Within a given country, differential shifts in demand induce considerable labour mobility, which tends to attenuate the shifts that would otherwise occur; if there were two different countries with two different currencies and with barriers to labour mobility, a currency union would have much more difficulty.
In that sense, it is easy to understand how crucial it was/is that barriers to labour mobility be reduced within the Euro community in order for the Euro to survive as a common currency across different countries.
Related: David Laidler also pointed out that the US treatment of Canadian softwood lumber producers indicated that when a small country signs an agreement with a very large neighbour, it has little recourse if the very large neighbour abrogates the agreement. He used this example to argue against forming a currency union between Canada and the United States.
At the David Laidler Festschrift, John Crow, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, pointed out how the rising price of oil has put upward pressure on the Canadian dollar. He further pointed out that while the oil patch is primarily in the western provinces, the rising international price of the Canuck buck has reduced world demand for other Canadian goods and services, which has particularly inflicted some economic pain on firms in the eastern provinces.
What if there were two different currencies, one for eastern Canada and a different currency for western Canada? The western currency would certainly appreciate relative to the eastern currency, and this led Clark Leith (who was presenting a paper about currency unions) to reply to John Crow’s comment,
Canada is not an optimal currency union.
At that point David Laidler interjected that labour mobility is important. Within a given country, differential shifts in demand induce considerable labour mobility, which tends to attenuate the shifts that would otherwise occur; if there were two different countries with two different currencies and with barriers to labour mobility, a currency union would have much more difficulty.
In that sense, it is easy to understand how crucial it was/is that barriers to labour mobility be reduced within the Euro community in order for the Euro to survive as a common currency across different countries.
Related: David Laidler also pointed out that the US treatment of Canadian softwood lumber producers indicated that when a small country signs an agreement with a very large neighbour, it has little recourse if the very large neighbour abrogates the agreement. He used this example to argue against forming a currency union between Canada and the United States.
There has been quite a bit of discussion in the media and around the blogosphere during the past couple of days about labour income and about conditions for the U.S. poor. Here’s more from The Economist, “Richer for Poorer” ($):
[E]ven though poverty is in retreat more slowly than anyone would like, there is still some encouragement for advocates of welfare reform. The poverty rate is over a percentage point lower than it was when Mr Clinton signed the infamous bill. Child poverty has fallen even more dramatically.
… Some critics of the government’s poverty figures argue that the impression they give is too gloomy. Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market think-tank, points out that official poverty calculations exclude taxes paid and government benefits received as well as non-cash income such as fringe benefits or the rent saved through homeownership. …
Mr Eberstadt points out that while nutrition, adequate shelter and health care were big problems for the poor when America’s poverty measure was devised, the picture is different today. Obesity is now the chief nutritional woe facing America’s poor. And those under the poverty line now have nearly as much house space and amenities as the average family in 1980. This does not mean that the poor are leading lives of plenty but it does indicate that their lot is getting steadily better, an improvement not reflected in official figures.
As Dave Altig says about the Census Bureau study,
Conclusion? If you are poor and not working — which is the most common circumstance for those under the poverty line — the reasons are not obviously related to the state of the labor market.
Update:As expected, Krugman piles on, paying no attention to the details.
There has been quite a bit of discussion in the media and around the blogosphere during the past couple of days about labour income and about conditions for the U.S. poor. Here’s more from The Economist, “Richer for Poorer” ($):
[E]ven though poverty is in retreat more slowly than anyone would like, there is still some encouragement for advocates of welfare reform. The poverty rate is over a percentage point lower than it was when Mr Clinton signed the infamous bill. Child poverty has fallen even more dramatically.
… Some critics of the government’s poverty figures argue that the impression they give is too gloomy. Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market think-tank, points out that official poverty calculations exclude taxes paid and government benefits received as well as non-cash income such as fringe benefits or the rent saved through homeownership. …
Mr Eberstadt points out that while nutrition, adequate shelter and health care were big problems for the poor when America’s poverty measure was devised, the picture is different today. Obesity is now the chief nutritional woe facing America’s poor. And those under the poverty line now have nearly as much house space and amenities as the average family in 1980. This does not mean that the poor are leading lives of plenty but it does indicate that their lot is getting steadily better, an improvement not reflected in official figures.
As Dave Altig says about the Census Bureau study,
Conclusion? If you are poor and not working — which is the most common circumstance for those under the poverty line — the reasons are not obviously related to the state of the labor market.
Update:As expected, Krugman piles on, paying no attention to the details.
Brian Ferguson and Steve Levitt have similar postings on related topics. Brian Ferguson points out how restrictions on firing workers has led to higher unemployment among young people in France; Steve Levitt points out how restrictions on firing workers has led to less employment of persons with disabilities.
The crux of the two postings is this: making it difficult to fire workers or lay them off in essence raises the average, expected costs of hiring those workers. Hence employers choose not to hire them if given a choice.
People respond to incentives. Or as Brian Ferguson concludes,
[T]here is considerable entrepreneurial dynamism in France. It just happens to be devoted to rent-seeking: to demanding that the government give you whatever you want as a matter of right. And it’s hardly surprising that there would be heavy reliance on such an approach, given the way the government folds in the face of opposition. One might, if one were being unkind, say that France doesn’t really need a Council for the Diffusion of Economic Culture. One might say that what France really needs is a Margaret Thatcher.
