America Doesn't Like Game Theory (at least in game-shows)

Arthur Chu has received some interesting responses to his Jeopardy strategy of seeking out "Daily Doubles" he is not confident of answering correctly, which he does in order to prevent his competition from taking advantage of the free bet questions.

See below:

1. The Washington Post 

2. The Daily Mail

3. Yahoo (which dubbed Chu "The Mad Genius")

The story broke from ABC here...apparently he's from the Cleveland too. Finally, our city can sport a winner -- at least for now.

Mr. Chu, if you ever happen to read this, please just promise not to take your academic and economic talents to South Beach. The Cleveland public school system already has historical problem with brain drain and budget utilization.

People Like Me

While browsing some papers on AEA's Review (what else would a college student do on a Saturday afternoon?), I came across a particularly relevant one following my recent post on Swiss immigration restrictions. Richard Freeman and Wei Huang's working paper No. 19905, "Collaborating With People Like Me: Ethnic co-authorship within the US" is an attempt to quantify success in research papers in correlation to name-ethnicity.

The two set out and used a program that determined the likely ethnic relationship with a full name, alongside metropolitan statistics to help estimate where people of certain backgrounds live. In case you were wondering, ethnicity was divided into 9 categories: Chinese, Anglo-Saxon/English, European, Indian/Hindi/South Asian, Hispanic/Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Vietnamese. Controlling for particular variables (such as resources limiting one's ability to travel and meet other scholars), the study goes on to show that the percent of English names has decreased between 1985-2008, and that papers produced by individuals of the same background had lower "impact factors" and fewer citations than those with mixed ethnic authors.

From the paper itself:

Going beyond homophily, our analysis has also found that two variables that reflect diversity of authors and the knowledge they use in a paper – the number of addresses and the number of references are strongly associated with publishing in a higher impact journal and gaining more citations. A reasonable interpretation of this pattern and that for homophily is that greater diversity and breadth of knowledge of a research team contributes to the quality of the scientific papers that the team produces.

Freeman and Huang's conclusions are perhaps what we might expect in most other settings, but not necessarily academic research - which is what surprised me when first came across the paper. Two heads is better than one, right?

Although we cannot necessarily make synonymous having different ethnic backgrounds with having "diversity in perspective," I believe most people would argue that individuals with different family histories and upbringings would bring about "intellectual diversity" in some context. However, an alternative proposed in this paper could be a dominant factor in the results: those who have the financial capability to travel much more and participate in many conferences with scholars from all over the globe will be more likely to find research partners from varying backgrounds with specialized skill sets.

All things considered, Freeman and Huang's research is one more bit of evidence that has convinced me that globalization is certainly a good thing (or, grrrreat!).

As the man who inspired this blog is attributed of saying, "Where goods do not cross borders, armies will."

Steps backward for Switzerland and immigration

Switzerland narrowly voted in favor of a referendum that would put "strict limits" on "mass immigration" on February 9th. Accordingly, their government now has three years to create and administer tighter immigration rules - potentially including a quota on how many foreign scientists can be employed at the country’s universities and research institutes. We've already heard about brain drain - so why would Switzerland want to limit the economic benefits foreigners can bring to the country?

From a 2011 research paper by Michael Clemens:

"The gains from eliminating migration barriers dwarf—by an order of a magnitude
or two—the gains from eliminating other types of barriers. For the elimination of
trade policy barriers and capital flow barriers, the estimated gains amount to less
than a few percent of world GDP. For labor mobility barriers, the estimated gains are
often in the range of 50–150 percent of world GDP." [Italics added]

If people cannot be persuaded by data suggesting that a removal of labor mobility barriers could lead to a doubling of the world's GDP, I wonder what it will take for the anti-immigrant paradigm to shift. How do we consider the fundamental human ability to move?

Thanks to a friend (and former colleague) Brett Gall for the link.

Read the full report here:
http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.3.83

The War on Drugs and Notre Dame

Hi there everyone - and welcome to the CMPB's second official blog post! 

While the today's central topic does not necessarily follow our introduction published a few days ago, the war on drugs is one critical reason Jerry and I wanted to start up a blog. So in a sense, discussing what we have seen in our own lives on the issue might breathe some inspiration for dialogue and deliberation into various posts throughout our time here.

By this time, if you haven't heard of the "failure of the war on drugs," I'm going to guess you haven't heard of Miley Cyrus or twerking - but then again, that might actually be a good thing. Journalists (who offer suffer unintended consequences of the war), economists, non-profits, and even social conservatives like John Boehner and Eric Cantor (as described by HuffPo) have been either advocating for outright legalization of marijuana (and/or other illegal drugs), or have at least committed to cutting some of the federal budget allocated to enforcing the war. 

Marijuana has a vast independent black market - for people who want to use it medically, recreationally, or just sell a product. As Radley Balko has reported, pot and other drugs create incentives for aggressive police behavior and "zero tolerance policies" in schools or other public institutions. If you get caught smoking marijuana, you can lose your job or your property, but if you harass overweight airplane passengers or steal from civilians in another public-official capacity, chances are you won't even be put on leave.

So, how does the drug war influence life at Notre Dame? Take a look at http://norml.org/laws/ - then open a tab for Ohio and Indiana respectively. In Ohio - my home state (and locale of The Ohio State University - Jerry's alma mater) - carrying under 100 grams of simply requires a $150 fine. Since I had no idea what 100g looked like before writing this blog, I came across this photo - assuming it is not photoshopped, you could be walking around with a big tupperware container's worth of marijuana and get off relatively easy in the Buckeye State. Compare that with Indiana - where 30 grams or less could result in a one year incarceration or $5,000 fine.

From Notre Dame's du Lac (student life handbook):

"Students found responsible for possession or use of illegal drugs or controlled substances, the unauthorized possession or misuse of prescription drugs, or the possession of drug paraphernalia may face temporary dismissal from the University. Students found responsible for distribution of illegal drugs and substances, including the illicit redistribution of prescription drugs, may face permanent dismissal from the University."

Smoke alone, get suspended for a semester. Give a joint to a friend, get expelled. Hmm.

I am not sure why ND is so stringy on marijuana but not alcohol, especially considering the stronger negative effects of alcohol on the student body. We receive emails about sexual assaults or students sent to the hospital from stomach poisoning, but when have we heard about a mental or physical assault that involved marijuana? This leads me to believe that Notre Dame simply wants to comply with Indiana's (tough) state laws and is complacent to respect those rules. From an article I wrote last year about ND's marijuana policies:

"This article is not written to persuade others to try marijuana or to sanctify THC; it is meant however to bring Notre Dame’s inconsistent drug policy back to light. Hopefully the student body and student government will continue to work with the administration towards making a more just policy towards marijuana – does one offense really justify a mandatory suspension, if not expulsion?

...As a private institution, Notre Dame has the right to create its own standards and define violations of its own school policies, and the school, of course, has to enforce federal and state law. However, with the rapidly changing climate of marijuana policy, Notre Dame should reconsider the way its strict rules can turn a 20-year-old’s life upside down for making a mistake in the eyes of the law and make its policies more equal across the board."

It pains me to imagine a scenario where one of my friends might end up in one of these situations. I don't know all of their personal habits and certainly wouldn't judge them if I did. However, kicking out students from Our Lady's University because they sat on a couch smoking a plant seems like a ludicrous way to spend resources when there are seemingly thousands of better things the police could be doing with their time. It's comforting to know that times are changing amongst the states and federal government are relaxing their policies against nonviolent drug users. Some politicians such as Rand Paul are seeking to remove mandatory minimum sentences which disproportionately affect minorities and lower income families.

If Notre Dame wants to teach peace and simultaneously become a "top research university for the 21st century," it should definitely seek out policies that will help those who need it with their addictions. However, it need not enforce its harsh penalties for marijuana use and actively seek to vilify those who choose to do so - especially when the legal framework that influenced du Lac is transforming so rapidly. Instead, why not start educating students about the abusive drinking that goes on before Thursday nights at Finny's? Why not enlighten freshman girls who think it's a good idea to take way too many shots of Kamchatka before going to a football game? 

There are many great reasons to go to the University of Notre Dame. It is one of the top ranked universities in the country year after year, has the best college cathedral in the states, FOOTBALL, has tons of research opportunities, boasts intramural sports from soccer to battleship (look it up, trust me), and has one of the most renowned alumni networks in the country. This is a truly special university and has so many reasons to be proud of its fabled history; I hope we will be able to look back and see Notre Dame being more positive with its response to marijuana use too.

Have you experienced any of the ancillary consequences of the drug war? How do you see the states changing their laws in response to social pressure in the next 10 years? 20? 50? What's the best way to deal with this issue? Is it even a problem? Should smoking marijuana be stigmatized as it has been? Is there a role for government (or private institution's) paternalism? If so, who decides, and how do we determine if it is a just decision?

There are so many questions to ask and each one must be carefully analyzed individually. It is incredibly hard to quantify how people have suffered from the drug war (and perhaps, how we have collectively benefited) - but from what I've seen firsthand at Notre Dame, I am not at all convinced that the war has brought about positive value equal to what the nation has spent on enforcing it. That number, sadly, is likely not even close at all.




 

Current plans and goals

Hello world! And welcome to the Candlestick Makers' Petition Blog!

Without restraining ourselves from potential growth in time, the team behind CMPB would like to delineate our current plans for discussion along with contemplating some goals for the future. This blog's objective is to discuss relevant issues in the economic, financial, and political realms with an empirical perspective. We hope to provide provocative social commentary on top of analyzing unintended consequences in these spheres for the reader's (and our own) benefit, pleasure, and as an attempt to better understand the world.

For those unfamiliar with the story of the candlestick maker and his petition, I'd highly encourage you to read the whole thing here. Written by Frédéric Bastiat in 1845, "The Candlestick Makers' Petition" is one parable within Economic Sophisms which mocks French lobbyists seeking to block out the sun - in addition to forming protectionist policies to limit foreign competitors. In this satire, Bastiat shows his true colors as not only an early advocate of free-trade or as a critic of lobbying, but most clearly as a wonderful artist with the pen.

History has shown how persuasion can often bear more fruit in promoting human progress than violence, and in the marketplace of ideas Bastiat surely has quite an influence.  A libertarian-leaning Congressman - who also campaigned for president in 1988, 2008, and 2012 -  recently reintroduced Victor Hugo's famous verse "No one can resist an idea whose time has come" back into the public sphere. Frédéric Bastiat certainly bought into that belief while he was boldly writing The Law, critiquing not only contemporary merchants trying to gain a legislative advantage in the market, but also the members of the French Parliament who considered facilitating such action with the law's monopoly of force. We are convinced by many of Bastiat's arguments and the power of putting ideas out in the open for debate and discussion - and we hope further discourse will provide a platform for learning more about humanity and raising the quality of life for all people across the world.

What better time to start up a blog than during ISFLC 2014?

Until next time!