tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-218881502026-02-06T00:12:13.479+11:00This blog is authored by Joshua Gans (Professor at the University of Melbourne) and is devoted to discussions of economics, strategy, occasional parenting and his own pop culture tastes.Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.comBlogger188125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149569349272011532006-06-06T14:46:00.000+10:002006-06-06T14:49:09.293+10:00

This blog started as an experiment. As with all experiments I chose the easy route: in this case, hosting by Google's blogger. After four months and 190 posts, this blog appears here to stay. So I am moving it to bigger digs.In the future, please visit the new Core Economics Blog at economics.com.au (a nice easy name to remember). All of the past posts and comments are there too. You can also

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149383716600140462006-06-04T11:08:00.000+10:002006-06-04T13:17:11.500+10:00

Yet another new way of renting movies has appeared in the US -- MovieBeam. (Here is the NYT write-up). But there is something much more profound that lies at the heart of that development. Something that gave me a radical idea about how to dramatically improve competition in our television markets. But first I need to explain just what MovieBeam does.From the user's perspective, you spend US$200

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149381106127847662006-06-04T10:31:00.000+10:002006-06-04T10:31:46.293+10:00

FYI: a short post today at Game Theorist: Hard choices.

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149288884815519912006-06-03T08:43:00.000+10:002006-06-03T16:25:39.713+10:00

[Link from Greeneconomics] Ed Glaeser advocates a form of congestion pricing for New York City traffic. This is similar to plans advocated by Stephen King and myself except that we don't see any reason why it can't be on all roads. (See my earlier post here and my Age op ed). Glaeser's piece makes a nice point about how the London system was actually progressive (favouring lower income commuters)

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149162824847347562006-06-01T21:51:00.000+10:002006-06-01T21:57:16.676+10:00

This comes from my brother, Jeremy. It is worthwhile following his guide in reading this blog post.Another remarkable web document with a twist, but this one isn't as amusing as the 'cab driver' expert.It's a blog about the recovery of a car accident victim in a coma. The blog is, as usual, in reverse chronological order, so the shock ending is at the top. You could just go straight to the key

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149141588226501582006-06-01T15:59:00.000+10:002006-06-01T15:59:48.396+10:00

Google have generated a funky tool for viewing graphs of correlations of world development indicators. It has several dimensions including correlation, scale and also animinations across time. You can even pick your scale -- linear or logs. Someone will find this useful for classroom presentations.

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149133786934054512006-06-01T13:49:00.000+10:002006-06-01T13:49:46.950+10:00

For those interested, I have a new post today at gametheorist on babies and getting them to sleep through the night. It is mostly reflections on personal experience.

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149107878764247012006-06-01T06:35:00.000+10:002006-06-01T06:37:58.776+10:00

Google have come out with some wonderful little programs of late. Let me plug just one: Google Notebook. This one requires a little download to your browser (Firefox on Mac or PC or IE) and then you have a notebook hosted by Google that you can put links, thoughts and 'soon to be blogged' items. Just with the click of the right button. It also has a little notebook icon on your browser that you

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149059674636174052006-05-31T16:51:00.000+10:002006-05-31T17:14:34.753+10:00

So the Opposition Health spokesperson, Julia Gillard, got thrown out of Parliament today for calling the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, a "snivelling grub." Yesterday, Mr Abbott was not thrown out for saying the exact same insult. Commentators have called it a double standard.Well sure, it is a double standard. But let me go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe it isn't a bad thing if the

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1149058077564306582006-05-31T16:47:00.000+10:002006-05-31T16:47:58.576+10:00

I have taken a little time to get around to this, but a couple of weeks ago the Productivity Commission released a report into waste management. The blaze of publicity centered around their conclusion that only 1 percent of all plastic bags used in Australia find their way into streams and such, potentially choking wildlife to death. The PC reached the conclusion that perhaps a blanket ban on

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148935894236738132006-05-30T06:50:00.000+10:002006-05-30T08:48:51.123+10:00

New research on the career paths of academic economists tells us pursuing careers in Australia something very important: consider starting your career elsewhere. Stanford's Paul Oyer has studied the career paths of economists conditioning on the status of their initial job placement. Now of course initial job is an indicator of quality but it also is driven by other factors; principally, the

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148867842263849042006-05-29T11:57:00.000+10:002006-05-29T13:12:29.856+10:00

Economists think alot about queues whenever they are standing in them. For example, Steve Levitt became preoccupied with Disneyland queues earlier this month.Today, my co-author, Andrew Leigh recounts his supermarket experience. He ponders the difficult issue of what line to stand in and concludes that it may be best to make your assessment, go to the nearest queue and stick to it. Queue picking

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148866768322627982006-05-29T11:35:00.000+10:002006-05-29T11:39:28.323+10:00

Earlier this month I testified before the Australian Parliament on the impact of the Reserve Bank's credit card reforms. For those of you who can't get enough of this, the transcript is now in Hansard. Click here to download the day. I start at about page 20 and blather on for about 8 pages.

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148866154961288832006-05-29T11:29:00.000+10:002006-05-29T11:29:15.120+10:00

It has been about 6 years since I have done this but I have redesigned by academic home page. Click here to see the result. The idea is to make it a more 'living document' than I had previously with more about 'what's new' than 'what's old.'

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148779510179200282006-05-28T11:25:00.000+10:002006-05-28T11:25:13.810+10:00

There is a new post today on GameTheorist (my original blog I started in 2003; I mentioned it in an earlier post).I decided to revitalise that blog in order collect together some of my longer posts on parenting issues. I have visions of a book -- did someone say Parentonomics? So GameTheorist contains some cross posts from this blog and I intend to continue to do that. I have more ideas to write

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148694740408922662006-05-27T11:49:00.000+10:002006-05-27T12:05:29.276+10:00

Lots of talk today on the web about an open letter proposal from Matthew Yglesias. He writes:I'll believe that this is all about altruism when I see an open letter from economists demanding that we scrap the complicated H1B visa system and instead allow unrestricted immigration of foreign college professors. Brad de Long and Greg Mankiw are happy to sign even if it might depress their own

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148692151216834672006-05-27T11:05:00.000+10:002006-05-27T11:10:03.073+10:00

Our paper on "The Millennium Bub" appears to have made the news today (page 3 of The Age no less, "Y2K proved a turn-on"). Obviously, the article focused on the conceptions result but did quote liberally and accurately from the paper.

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148686104500056642006-05-27T09:02:00.000+10:002006-05-27T09:47:07.050+10:00

When I picked up The Genius Factory by David Plotz, I was expecting something a little different. The book was subtitled: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank; speaking of the (in)famous experiment run by Robert Graham (the shatter-proof eyeglasses magnate) who supposedly recruited Nobel prize winners to 'improve' the world's human gene pool. Now whatever you think about the

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148549546754060402006-05-25T19:32:00.000+10:002006-05-26T15:40:40.873+10:00

Much was foretold about the problems that might have befallen us on the day of the Millennium (1st January, 2000). Little happened, of course, that was detected by the human eye. But it appears the statistics have uncovered a little something; perhaps a hint of optimism. Perhaps a way to remember the ages of your children. Perhaps a good time. Who can tell?Andrew Leigh and I have made a habit

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148532755956930842006-05-25T14:50:00.000+10:002006-05-25T16:15:38.020+10:00

Apparently, in a recent speech, Hillary Clinton said that "young people today think work is a four-letter word." I am not sure but was she implying that young people in generations past used to think work was something other than a four-letter word? If so, all those Spelling Bees in the US are paying off.

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148513493209460372006-05-25T09:31:00.000+10:002006-05-25T09:31:36.386+10:00

Nothing pleases me more than having a clever title for an academic paper. Some that myself, co-authors or others have suggested for my papers include "First Author Conditions," "Licensing the Gale of Creative Destruction," "Inside the Black Box: A Look at the Container," and, of course, "Knowledge of Growth and the Growth of Knowledge."[From Marginal Revolution] Hugo Mialon (Emory) has studied

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148445290072274352006-05-24T14:34:00.000+10:002006-05-24T14:34:50.223+10:00

[Via Boing Boing] This is as cool as it gets. Click here to see an 'infinite' photomosaic.

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148424298757685232006-05-24T08:35:00.000+10:002006-05-24T08:47:52.560+10:00

I normally like Tim Harford's analysis and conclusions about the frustrations of everyday life. However, this article in Forbes comes up short. Harford looks at the high level of executive pay and provokes us by suggesting that the pay is not for the exec's benefit but for the benefit of their underlings:The ugly truth is that your boss is probably overpaid--and it's for your benefit, not his.

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148422330991601212006-05-24T08:02:00.000+10:002006-05-24T08:12:13.573+10:00

In an earlier post, I noted that the television-ad game is a funny one. In order to get viewers to watch ads they don't like, broadcasters intersperse them with television programs they do like.Today, CBS have announced a new way to get people to watch ads. They are going to provide clues within ads that give viewers the chance to win prizes. This isn't such a new idea. Individual ads have often

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21888150.post-1148418439097922032006-05-24T06:55:00.000+10:002006-05-24T07:50:18.450+10:00

Scott Adams on The Dilbert Blog today has a provocative post (to me at least) entitled "How to Think Like an Economist." He says, very accurately:The most important skill you learn in business and economics classes is how to compare things. The average person can be forgiven for lacking those skills. It’s not a natural capability. Like most things, it helps to be trained. Economists do think alot

Joshua Ganshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13713171032343855718noreply@blogger.com0