by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics

Today's Wall Street Journal includes an editorial arguing that high taxes cause people to move, and low taxes help determine where they go. What caught our eye was they reported data showing that it is more expensive to move from a high-tax city with declining population (Philadelphia and Los Angeles are given as examples) to cities in low-tax states with increasing population (Nashville, Dallas, Austin and Las Vegas are given as examples).

The Journal says "the eight states without an income tax are stealing talent from other states." Do differences in the cost of moving by direction of the move provide supporting evidence of this hypothesis? More...

3 Jan 2008

Where to Have a Cardiac Arrest?
Answer: not in the hospital

by Richard Belzer

in Information Quality, People & Institutions, Regulatory Science

New York Times reporter Denise Grady previews a research report due to be published in today's New England Journal of Medicine that says many hospitals do not respond quickly enough to cardiac arrest. Leslie Saxon, who wrote an accompanying editorial, delivered the money quote: “You’re better off having your arrest at Nordstrom, where I’m standing right now, because there are 15 people around me.” More...

31 Dec 2007

Immigration Economics and the Wall Street Journal:
A marriage with irreconcilable differences

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics

Policy debates about illegal immigration almost always can be illuminated by careful data collection and analysis. Sometimes, data are nice but aren't necessary because elementary economic theory is sufficient to predict the direction (if not the magnitude) of effects. Today, the Wall Street Journal editorializes that new "data tell a very different story" than the picture emerging from "[t]alk radio hosts, cable newscasters and Presidential hopefuls." We're not sure which of these claims the Journal is seeking to refute, but we can show that it has failed to achieve its objective. More...

5 Dec 2007

Why Is Blood In Short Supply?
Anecdotal evidence of highly precautionary (but discretionary) donation policies

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics, Regulatory Policy, Regulatory Science

Recently Neutral Source managing editor Richard Belzer attempted to donate blood, but was declined. Although the story is anecdotal and not empirical, it suggests good reasons why this particular blood bank seems to always be in short supply. More...

24 Nov 2007

How Not to Save Money on Gasoline
Spending money to save money

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics

Gasoline prices exceed $3 per gallon almost everywhere in the U.S. In some isolated locations, retail prices now exceed $4 per gallon. The Los Angeles Times relates how some people take seeming irrational steps to "save money." More...

6 Nov 2007

The Economics of Cell-Phone Jammers:
A case study in government misallocation of property rights

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics, Regulatory Policy

New York Times reporter Matt Richtel seems to have set off a pandemic news stories and commentaries with his profile of "otherwise respectable people" who use jamming devices to illegally obstruct the cell phone conversations of people nearby. Based on groundswell of support that appears to have formed for jammers, this looks like a problem worthy of a small amount of economic analysis.

As it happens, there are simple market-based solutions. The real problem is that the federal government has preempted them by disallowing market forces to work. One thing should be clear: jammers have appeared on the market because there is considerable consumer demand for them. That means there used to be a "market failure," and this market failure will persists as long the federal government insists on sustaining it.

4 Sep 2007

Trouble in the Carbon Offset Market:
Double-counting and other econ 101 errors

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics

We've posted several times on "carbon neutrality" -- how it's defined, how environmentalists are split between CO2 Puritans and Pragmatists, and further ramifications of their conflict centering on the nascent market carbon offsets (see here and here). Supporters say buying offsets is an effective and justifiable way to compensate for CO2 emissions. Opponents liken carbon offsets to the indulgences sold by the pre-Reformation Roman Catholic Church.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Alan Zarembo examines two specific aspects of the controversy:

1. Do offsets purchase new reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, or do they merely transfer wealth from buyer to seller>
2. Do sellers claim credit for more than the amount of greenhouse gas reductions they actually achieve?

16 Aug 2007

The Continuing Battle Between CO2 Puritans and Pragmatists, Part 2:
Carbon offsets come under increasing scrutiny

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics, Regulatory Policy

The battle between CO2 Puritans and CO2 Pragmatists continues. More...

29 Jul 2007

Differential Pricing of College Education:
Charging more for certain majors

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics

It is an anomaly of the higher education market that there are widespread differences in price both across and within colleges and universities, but historically a student's choice of major has not been a pricing criterion. Universities are beginning to experiment with differential pricing, though apparently with considerable apprehension. More...

23 Jul 2007

Peer Reviewers as 'Gatekeepers':
Barry Gewen of the New York Times Book Review

by Richard Belzer

in Peer Review

Scholarly peer review is a quality control exercise in which a journal editor decides which competing scientific papers should be published in the limited number of pages available. The number of scholarly journals has increased, in part, to accommodate the much greater (and rising) number of scholarly manuscripts that meet a broadly accepted minimum quality standard for publication. In science, publication is essential for having one's research taken seriously.

But some peer review activities are motivated by other considerations. Colloquy, the quarterly review published for alumni of Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has published a cover article on Barry Gewen, a GSAS alumnus (history of American civilization, 1972) who is a preview editor for the New York Times Book Review. For 17 years, he has decided which books in foreign policy, history, economics and current events are sent out for review. He describes his job as bing a "cultural gatekeeper." More...