:Fixed Point

Checking email posting. Apologies for this admin intrusion.

Our group at work is divided into three separate sections, because of the building layout rather than representing any commercial rationale. Consequently loose social groupings form around these ‘pods’. In my pod, the absense of myself and a senior partner has led to an overall reduction in social networking opportunities and a general feeling of […]

What is the greatest misunderstanding about economics and business in general? For me, it’s the commonly perpetuated view that “for-profit” and “for the public” are necessarily divergent and opposite viewpoints. Or it put it another way, that self-interest can’t lead to a common good.
That Smith’s central message, 200 years later, is still poorly misunderstood is […]

trying to blog by email.

Don Boudreaux writes
I must be explicit that I have long been skeptical of “green.” Unlike “green” folks, I am not especially inspired by nature. Yes, often nature is pretty and soothing to visit. But to get my blood pumping with excitement and awe you must show me a cityscape — Manhattan’s skyline, […]

Steven Landsburg thinks they might be, and that’s why we don’t see many top female executives.
If his argument is to apply in the corporate world, it means that the decisions and actions of top executives really are marginal, in the same way that fighting over a match point at Wimbledon is. Of course, the really […]

A nice voluntary wealth redistribution story. Can’t solve the whole problem but what I’m wondering is whether tourists now will be more or less inclined to toss a coin into the Trevi. I can see few scenarios:

Neutral: most people don’t give a damn and continue as before
Less money is thrown in because individuals thought they […]

Baby Boot is two days late. And we discovered last week that apparently my wife and I don’t agree on a middle name for a girl (and still have a disagreement of the ordering of the names should it be a boy). Perhaps we can take inspiration from this list of the most popular celebrity-inspired names in Britain, […]

I’m not sure if I’m in. I don’t have a problem with the first two requirements, but to say that motivations and intentions are irrelevant is a bit too far for me.
This is equivalent to saying any choice from a menu need only be internally consistent; because motivations and the like are external to the […]

I’m often struck by how our purchasing behaviour appears inefficient. There are many instances where we appear to either mispredict the utility we would derive from a product, or are apparently attributing a high option value to owning the product. These two interpretations can broadly be seen as behaviourist or rational.
Take car ownership. I’ve often […]

The Nobel Peace Prize was won by Muhammed Yunus of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The Bank pioneered the use of microcredit. Amazingly, the story in the Times reports that 96% of the borrowers are women and 98% of the money is repaid.
In a Stiglitz-Weiss model, a higher interest rate increases the average riskiness of projects, […]

The BBC reports that Google’s acquisition of You Tube may not be the advertising bonanza they expected.
Should Google lose a major YouTube court case and its share price suffers as a result, the company will have to brace itself not just for a deluge of lawsuits from copyright owners but disappointed shareholders as well. No […]

Some years ago I came up with the idea of writing a frivolous book applying economic theory to analyse religions. Of course, work commitments intruded but I thought I’d share some of the ideas.
Are there increasing returns to religious affiliation?
To the extent that an individual will place a higher value on a larger network than […]

Goes to Edmund Phelps. Here is a typically thoughtful analysis of tax rates and labour participation, in an article that warns of the dangers of economists pursuing ideas incompletely and without sufficient evidence.
His name didn’t appear on most lists. What does that tell about the reliability of economists’ predictions?
And how quick on the ball was […]

I read in this morning’s Metro (yes, I admit it) that Boris Johnson is proposing that students be given cash incentives by universities to learn. This, he suggests, would encourage greater efforts on behalf of the students, and also limit the grade inflation in universities (because presumably, they would not want to pay out too […]

Francisca Kellet writes in the Daily Telegraph about Venice’s proposal to introduce a tourist tax. Given the enormous year-round overcrowding in Venice, I have a better solution: introduce an entry fee to stay on the lagoon. After all, is Venice any different from Disneyland? Like Disneyland, it’s an enclosed space with a range of accomodation […]

Tesco announces half-year profits of £1bn and makes no secret of its plans to get even bigger. Cue image of Terry Leahy sneering and stroking a white cat.
The growth and success of the supermarket industry is a cause of great angst in England. We are not good with commercial success anyway, but when it comes […]

Chris Dillow ruminates on executive pay. I’m not sure if there is one theory that is suffiicient to explain this. Not long ago, the cult of personality appeared to be everything. In a zeitgist of deal-driven corporate growth, individuals with a reputation for successful deal-making (which could be a proxy for performance) enjoy the top […]