New blog March 30, 2008

Created a new blog for research notes and less well-formed thoughts. All the inchoate stuff that has been appearing here of late now will go there instead.

Schelling quotes, part 1 March 30, 2008

From Micromotives and Macrobehavior by Thomas Schelling. (Thanks BMP.)
I like to believe that I can present significant ideas without formal models or mathematics. (3)
Well-said. You have to be smart to understand academic discourse, but you have to be even smarter to explain it in clear and accessible terms. (And Schelling did win a Nobel prize.)
I [...]

Concepts I Like: Structural equation modeling March 30, 2008

Wikipedia says:
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a statistical technique for testing and estimating causal relationships using a combination of statistical data and qualitative causal assumptions. This view of SEM was articulated by the geneticist Sewall Wright (1921), the economists Trygve Haavelmo (1943) and Herbert Simon (1953), and formally defined by Judea Pearl (2000) using a [...]

Institutional economics — first pass March 29, 2008

It turns out there’s a whole school of thought dedicated to answering my question from the other day. The question was this:
Has anyone done a comprehensive study on how state policies and regulations form the substrate for the effective operation of markets? (My guess on this one is: yes, probably.)
The answer is yes; in fact, [...]

Restaurant: Good Enough to Eat March 29, 2008

Good Enough to Eat, a down-homey restaurant at 83rd and Amsterdam, serves delicious American-style food for breakfast and dinner. Both are a trifle pricey (it is the upper west side) but worth it if you’re in the mood for some home cookin’. The atmosphere, from the whitewashed picket fence outside to the cartoon cows on [...]

New models of finance March 29, 2008

The interesting thing once you start delving into this whole formal modeling business is that it all starts to seem the same — after all, when it comes down to it they’re all just abstracted structures. They’re highly useful as conceptual tools to organize and understand data, and modern economics in particular couldn’t get very [...]

GooOS, web operating systems, etc. March 28, 2008

This is a relatively old but very important and insightful post from Kottke regarding Google and, more broadly, the future of the web. It’s entitled “GooOS, the Google Operating System.”
Great post about what Google is up to by Rich Skrenta. He argues that Google is building a huge computer with a custom operating system that [...]

Bonfire of the Vanities, 2008 edition March 27, 2008

Via Andrew Leonard of How the World Works:
It’s a gift that keeps on giving — the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune suffered by the obscenely rich when they are on the wrong side of a financial markets hiccup. I just wonder how Reuters reporters Kristina Cooke and Chelsea Emery were able to restrain [...]

Quote of the Day: Leadership in international institutions March 27, 2008

Ernesto Zedillo:
Today the international system and its institutions are under unprecedented stress. Deep disagreements have emerged over the best way to combat new threats to international peace and security and over how best to preserve and extend prosperity. It is time to stop blaming the institutions and recognize that they are no better or worse [...]

Malthus strikes back March 26, 2008

There was always a little niggling worry in the back of my brain when in high school we discussed Thomas Malthus’ gloom-and-doom predictions for Britain’s livestock that never came to pass. Aha! we said. Britain escaped Malthusian doom by engaging in trade with other nations.
But what’s the logical extension of that? Enter Free Exchange, the [...]