On the new / old economics building at Chicago

An interview with the architect from the University of Chicago Magazine.

The best bit:

Q. What's it like to work with economists?
A. Absolutely delightful.

Well, of course. And note that these are not just any economists, but Chicago economists!

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Congratulations to Robert Axelrod ...

... on winning the 2013 Johan Skytte Prize in political science. Axelrod is on the faculty of the Ford School at Michigan.

Axelrod, among many other things, wrote the famous book The Evolution of Cooperation, which was once (and perhaps still is) a staple of undergraduate reading lists for the engaging introduction it provides to behavior choice in iterated prisoner's dilemmas. I read it at some point in my own undergraduate days.

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I Am Watching You

The Atlantic describes a very cool study at the University of Newcastle in the UK wherein pictures of watching eyes deterred bike thefts.

That is cool enough, but the researchers also checked to see what happened to bike thefts at racks where they did not put the eyes. Put into econ-speak, they went looking for general equilibrium effects. Turns out the eyes displace bike theft to other racks but do not result in a net decrease in bike thefts on campus.

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Assorted links

1. Thought question: what is just compensation for being trapped for a half hour on "It's a Small World"?

2. How to make the porn industry move elsewhere.

3. From Hustler editor to criminal lawyer. I particularly liked this bit: "Because the magazine’s readers are primarily interested in the pictorials, we could write about whatever interested us."

4. The Guardian on the Hastings pier fire. I saw the remains, from a distance, when I was in Sussex a couple of weeks ago.

5. Where to go if you paid a bribe in India. They need some sort of spam filter ...

#3 via instapundit.

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Rebecca Martinson makes her parents proud

Rebecca Martinson, former member of the Delta Gamma sorority at the University of Maryland, has realized her 15 minutes of fame by writing a nasty email to her (now) former sorority sisters so over the top that one of them was moved to circulate it on the internet.

The Daily Mail (of course) has thorough coverage; there is also this bit about a shout-out on the Daily Show from the student newspaper at Maryland and this bit from Gawker.

Thought question: what is the effect of this episode on Rebecca's discounted lifetime earnings?

Hat tips: Charlie Brown and Jess Goldberg

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Trade Adjustment Assistance Act evaluation released

The Department of Labor's evaluation of the services and benefits provided under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act has finally been released.

I don't want to take away the fun of reading it, but if you want to form a prior about the findings, the following information might be relevant:

1. The report was released about nine months after the policy debate around reauthorizing the act.

2. The report was released at 5 PM on the Friday before the inauguration and Martin Luther King day.

3. The abstract on the DOL website says nothing about the sign of the findings.

Full disclosure: I consulted on the evaluation.

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Economics Moment of Zen #8

"Misbehavioral Economics"

- Charlie Brown

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