This article defends payday lending, but is all the information disclosed? Can computers measure your happiness? Digital records of Victorian and Edwardian criminals … [Read more...] about Eight Friday links
Accountability and corruption
For a while I have been meaning to write a post on the impact of political institutions on corruption based on an interesting paper on municipal elections in Brazil. The paper shows that the reelection specter helps in disciplining corrupt politicians Mayors with reelection incentives misappropriate 27 percent fewer resources than mayors without reelection incentives. These … [Read more...] about Accountability and corruption
White elephants
John Kay’s column in the Financial Times is always an interesting read. In one of his last columns (ungated here) he pungently questioned the pertinence and value of Cost Benefit Analysis. His point: if the London sewerage system had been subject to present-day Cost Benefit rules it would never had been built. The Thames would still be a fetid cesspool and leisure walkers, … [Read more...] about White elephants
Opportunity costs
One of the things you first learn in economics is the concept of opportunity cost, and it is probably one of the things you forget fastest. So it is useful to have it explained in layman’s terms: … [Read more...] about Opportunity costs
If it rains less, will more kids die?
Just as you can’t use real rain to make movies, it turns out it’s not much good as an instrumental variable either: … [Read more...] about If it rains less, will more kids die?