Economic Eye

Friday links

2010-07-30T08:47:00.004+02:00

1/ Foreign investors crowding out African producers. Not sure how much I agree with the sentiments behind this article. Given that this talks mostly about agriculture and given that land is clearly a limited resources, the preposition is likely to be true. But the tone suggests that this is necessarily a bad thing, which I'm not sure I agree with. If foreign investors are likely to increase agricultural yields, then there can be a learning effect and there can be more food for everyone, which the right deal can ensure everyone benefits from. The aim of farming is to produce food for everyone regardless of who controls the factors of production. Creating the right incentives to do this is important, as is the repartition of the food. But no or low food production necessarily means no or little food for everyone - not everyone wants to be a Mugabe...

2/ Is philanthropy killing business in Africa? One I've got more sympathies with. Again, production matters. No production, no consumption - unless someone else gives it to you... But then again, maybe aid can actually revive business... Again, I have some sympathy - contradictory though it may seem. The 'right' aid can help...

3/ Changes of religious affiliation between birth and death in the US. A great graphic.

4/ Interviews with atheist preachers.

5/ The disingenuous anti-Tory press.

6/ Global executions.

7/ Football fouls more likely to be given when play heads left. Seems strange, but yet another thing to show how we may (i) be less 'individual' than we often like to think and (ii) have less free will than we might like. Also, if you want a free kick, run left - I wonder if footballers have already intuitively picked this one up...

8/ Smarter people drink more. Not that that will come as a surprise to anyone who has spent any time in an academic institution. So do left-handed people. Again, lefties seem to be over-represented in academia... I'll let you think about causality... Oh, and both candidates at the last US presidential election were lefties...

9/ Social ties boost survival

10/ How can you control your dreams?

11/ People start by over-estimating their abilities, then underestimate them.

Fake HIV/AIDS treatment or The Devil went down to Pioneer Mall

2010-07-26T10:44:00.003+02:00

READ about the encounter I had with The Lady V with a man selling multi-vitamins that "increase the number of CD4 cells (immune cells) in your body and lower the amount of HIV virus in your body".

Xenophobia in South Africa

2010-07-26T08:33:00.002+02:00

A fellow ODI Fellow based in Pretoria has written two great blogs about xenophobia in South Africa. They are beautifully entitled: A is for Ayoba, B for Bafana... W for Waka Waka, X for... Xenophobia?! and Leaving loopholes (referring to the above image)

As always, Hayibo also has a great take: Xenophobia all in the minds of delusional hysterical pathetic foreigners.

Why do we work for charity?

2010-07-24T21:31:00.003+02:00

I'm just watching Mary, Queen of Charity Shops. A fashion person tries to improve a charity shops. Improve in the sense of 'sell more' and 'make more money'. Alternatively put, improve in terms of selling things people actually want or maybe, providing a service people actually want.

There is a target amount of money to raise of Save the Children and changes have to be made in order to meet the target.

It seems that - sometimes at least - people who work there don't care much about the charity - or raising money for the charity. Rather, they prefer that things be as they want to be.

I wonder if NGOs and other donors might be able to learn something. Is everyone really doing things to help 'development'? Or are they in it for themselves (only?)? Are beliefs and preferences dogmatically applied or are choices practical? Do we care more about dogma being correct than people? That is, would we rather see something we are 'uncomfortable' with fail in order to prove ourselves correct or would we change our minds?

Regular subscribers to this blog

2010-07-24T09:38:00.002+02:00

I've been using Feedburner for about a year now. Whilst eating my breakfast, I just decided to download the number of subscribers trend and the below graph is what I got (I added the trend line). I must admit, I don't totally understand what all the ups and downs mean, but I am a big fan of graphs.

Friday links

2010-07-23T08:19:00.003+02:00

1/ ODA, Philanthropy and Remittances - which are more important by country.

2/ We are happier when busy but our instinct is for idleness.

3/ People living on different income levels in different regions in 2000.

4/ What interventions cause long term improvements in people's lives? A very readable academic paper by IFPRI by a former colleague of mine at Bath. Apparently, agricultural interventions in Bangladesh have little long run impact... Wonder if we could learn something in Lesotho from that...

5/ Faith and foolishness. The National Science Foundation every year produces a report on the public's understanding of science. For the first time, in many years US adults are more likely to accept the Big Bang and evolution. But they dare not publish the report. More pandering to religious lies?

6/ The marginal impact of violent acts in the Middle East.

7/ The number of birds killed by BP compared with those that die in other ways.

8/ Top secret America.

Give me money.

2010-07-22T16:51:00.004+02:00

THIS story makes me want to cry. It also makes me amazingly angry.

The English FA come out to Lesotho and run a workshop to assist people administering local/grass-roots football/soccer in Lesotho. Very nice. I am sure all of the people who attended did so because they would like to go back home with some new skills that would help them organise and promote better sport in Lesotho. Sport has the power to do amazing good.

As well as acquiring new skills to go and help people, participants at the workshop got bags, pens, notepads and certificates. Although, you might think that they didn't require any of that to attend.

You might think that, but you'd be very wrong. In fact the participants got pissed off because they were not given t-shirts too.

Well f**k me - I have no words.

I am glad the newspaper called it an 'embarrassing episode for local football'.

(BIG HT to MM)

Payments to girls in poor countries can slow spread of HIV

2010-07-20T08:48:00.002+02:00

The full article is available here.

This makes sense. Younger girls often have sex with older men, both for cash and to ensure that potentially useful men are in their social circle. Having wealthier people* in one's social circle means you can call on their support during times of trouble.

By giving girls cash, a *potential* result is that sex is sold less and that girls feel more independent and are less likely to require assistance from older men if their economic circumstances decline.

*Or indeed, those whose income patterns not perfectly correlated with your own.

Comment s'est détruit notre monde?

2010-07-16T09:41:00.003+02:00

C'est l'an 2222 et l'humanité s'est détruite. Sauf dans quelques enclaves où vivent des humains de façon pré-historique la terre se trouve en ruine:

"Des champs dévastés. Des paysages en ruine. Des routes défoncées, rongées par les ronces. Des immeubles éventrés où se terrent des rares humains prêts à tuer pour s'approprier la moindre nourriture"

Dans l'une des enclaves, un vieillard s'adresse à des enfants attentifs pour leur expliquer l'histoire du désastre de ce monde:

J'ai tiré ces paragraphes d'un livre de Bernard Werber, Nous les dieux. En générale, je suis fan, de Werber mais ce livre ne me plaît pas trop jusqu'à là. Pourtant, j'ai trouvé bien intéressants ces paragraphes et je voulais les partager.

Why is Frank Lampard playing for England?

2010-07-16T08:54:00.003+02:00

My answer is Bayesian inference / updating.

Human beings can't re-learn everything each day so, throughout our lives we formulate opinions and ideas about 'how the world' is. Some people call these prejudices, and they are correct, but they are very useful. We apply these every day of our lives and are constantly testing our pre-conceived ideas.

Sometimes we get evidence that our ideas about 'how the world works' might be wrong, but we don't instantly change our minds. After all, we are constantly bombarded with such ideas, and changing our minds every day would not be efficient. Instead, we wait for a mass of evidence to prove that we are wrong, before changing our minds.

What has all this got to do with Frank Lampard (and others) playing for England? Frank Lampard is usually pretty good for his club, Chelsea. England mangers thus have the pre-conceived idea (prejudice) that he is good. Unfortunately, he is not actually very good when he plays for England.

My own opinion is that there is a massive amount of evidence for this, but apparently, not yet enough for England managers (successive) to change their minds (not sure why - some sort of extreme risk aversion maybe???) and not play him.

He keeps on missing free kicks for England - wasting loads of scoring opportunities (yes, I know that was a goal against Germany - I was there, and yes, I know that the Jabulani ball has come under loads of criticism), but that doesn't take away from the fact that Fat Frank (as he is affectionatly (?) known by fans) keeps on f**king up when he pulls on an England shirt.

Now, not only does Frank miss free kicks, but, if you like to trace goals back to their route cause - as I do - his awful free kicks are actually resulting in England conceding goals. The third goal England concended against Germany was a painful one.

Sorry Frank, you're great for your club, but, for whatever reasons (not necessarily all your fault), you are rubbish for your country. Time to pick someone else...

Friday links

2010-07-16T08:25:00.003+02:00

1/ Was poverty in Africa determined in 1000BC? (HT: MM) and here is a nice technological innovation timeline (not much out of Africa in the last 3000 years...)

2/ Don't knock China in Africa. I agree - I think the Chinese do far more good than bad in Africa.

3/ Africa's young changing sexual habits.

4/ Young children use statistical reasoning.

5/ Profiting from the poor. I've no problem with it; you can only make a profit if you provide a service people value (try running a business that provides something no one wants). If you make a profit, you must necessarily be doing something good. I'm a huge fan of Prahalad's book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Bringing people into the global economy is a good thing.

6/ How our brains outwit cruel gods. God is good, right? Well, check out some of the things God has sanctioned in the Bible or Koran. How do people who believe God is good deal with that? A perspective from neuroscience.

7/ Online dating lies.

8/ Ten facts about the UK unemployment statistics.

9/ Monkeys have a sense of fairness.

10/ Get a week-long trial at Stirling Albion for 225 quid! (HT: MM)

I've got a new paper out...

2010-07-15T19:39:00.003+02:00

... in Journal of the Family and Economic Issues.

It's called: What Motivates Gifts? Intra-Family Transfers in Rural Malawi

Below is the abstract:

This paper uses Family Transfers Project data collected in rural Malawi during 1999 to ascertain the motivation for gift-giving using discriminating hypotheses. The study models monetary and monetized gifts sent and received between the survey respondents and their parents, their children, and their siblings as a function of sender and receiver characteristics. Individual analyses are compared with household level models to reveal that both individual and household characteristics can matter in different cases. OLS, Probit and Tobit models are compared to conclude that, as with other similar studies, a wide range of motivations exist including altruism, (co-)insurance, and an inheritance motive. Motivations differ slightly depending upon the relationship between the sender and receiver, however, no single motive can be attributed to any given relationship.

The article is available here.

'Laziness or liveliness has a cultural basis'...

2010-07-07T09:14:00.002+02:00

... but cross-breading between groups with different cultures and the fact that it is possible to assimilate into another group's behavour mean that such behaviour is 'unlikely to have a genetic basis'.

I wonder if meerkat culture can teach us anything for human 'development'?

Dodgy World Cup Statistics

2010-07-02T08:06:00.002+02:00

South Africa is "really happy" that Lesotho nationals top the visitor list to South Africa during the World Cup. What great neighbourly relations.

Except that is should be pointed out that:
(1) most of these people probably live and/or work in South Africa and would have been there anyway;
(2) the right to travel over the border using 'temporary travel documents' was unilaterally banned by the South African Government just before the World Cup resulting in long queues at the passport office (there is already a several year wait for a new passport) and preventing many people who work in South Africa from going to work. Many are likely to have lost their job as a result and the impact on rural Lesotho (where most workers come from and to where most remittances are sent) is likely to be harsh.

All this means that cross-border travel would *normally* have been much higher;

(3) Previously, 6-month passes allowing people to cross the border without stamping/being recorded were used. This practice was also discontinued during the World Cup - resulting in very long queues at the border.

The result has been a decline in the number of people crossing (due to the hassles), but likely an increase in the number of people being recorded crossing.

This practice has also made life more difficult for businesses in Lesotho - who rely on supplies coming in from South Africa and professionals to work for them who live there. It has surely reduced the number of Basotho/Lesotho residents spending money in Ladybrand - a nearby South African town - making life more difficult there.

A fellow ex-pat blogger captures the problem rather well.

So all-in-all, meaningless statistics and, well, rather less than great neighbourly relations.

What football fans really value

2010-06-26T20:15:00.002+02:00

It's not victory or progressing through a competition - at least, not only.

Until the dying seconds of the USA-Algeria match, England topped their group. The USA scored a last-minute goal and, in doing so, passed Slovenia and England (the latter on goals scored) to finish top of the group. The result was that England were likely to be handed a rather difficult game against Germany in the next round of the World Cup, instead of one likely to be easier against what turned out to be Ghana (although we didn't know that for sure at that stage).

But I cheered the USA goal. And so did all England fans around me. Why did we do that?

I did it because I had (rather expensive) tickets to the England-Germany game. I knew it was more likely to be a more difficult match for England, but some how, I considered that to be a price worth paying. In addition, I didn't particularly want to see a Slovenia game - which is where we were headed until the final seconds of the games.

I don't imagine that anyone cheered the USA goal back in England - so I was going against the general wisdom of English football fans (and against my own pure-football preference). But the fact is that I prefer to attend a more difficult game that we are more likely to lose, than have us advance but not attend. This is probably partly because I think we will go out in the next round anyway - why not be there and experience a great game? Seeing England go out on penalties would, in fact, be an amazing experience!

COME ON ENGLAND!

Britain's austerity budget - Part 2

2010-06-23T08:18:00.004+02:00

George Osborne presented his first Budget to Parliament yesterday.

The key points are summarised well by the BBC and also by the Guardian. The Guardian has the entire speech and also some case studies of the impact for 'typical households'.

My favourite commentary - as so often, in fact - comes from Martin Wolf at the FT, who describes it as 'a bloodbath none were prepared for'. The Guardian's 'what the experts say' is, as often, quite interesting.

I was impressed by Harriet Harman's pretty rousing response to the budget too. Mostly, I love the way that (mostly) non-economists were arguing different economic view-points with such gusto, presumably without great knowledge - there were some intelligent questions raised from the back benches afterwards though, I thought.

There are all sorts of interesting articles on the specifics too - for example:

- Public sector faces huge job losses and War declared on public sector
- Federation of Small Businesses attacks tax changes
- Business leaders back bold statement
- Benefit cut threatens child poverty
- The budget as Thatcherite ideology

Happily, Overseas Development Aid has not been cut. And, interestingly, Government capital expenditure has not been cut either. I say 'happily', but I am far from convinced that any spending should automatically be 'ring-fenced'.

The Government has faced a difficult budget. It is risky cutting expenditure (and increasing taxes) - we don't know what the impact will be. But then, it is risky building up a large amount of public debt too. My overall opinion is that, in this case, spending was getting out of control and cuts had to be made. I think that it was a case of making the best of a bad job - and it could have been done a lot worse.

Britain's austerity budget

2010-06-22T13:36:00.003+02:00

You can follow it live with Guido.

The Guardian reports that the FTSE falls ahead of it.

The BBC has an article on it.

You can bet on the buzzwords Osborne uses.

My opinion: painful but necessary. Necessary in the sense that the alternative is worse. The coalition will receive little thanks for it, but they are choosing between two bads. If the budget is reasonably done, they will have done the country a huge (but painful) favour. Even if it hurts, give them credit for having guts and know that things would be worse without it in the medium term.

I think that the quote below sums up the situation we find ourselves in rather well:

“There is nothing progressive about a government that consistently spends more than it can raise in taxation and certainly nothing progressive that endows generations to come with the liabilities incurred with respect to the current generation.”

Sexual attitudes and risk in Lesotho

2010-06-20T15:43:00.002+02:00

I've recently been working on a small survey on sexual attitudes amongst university students in Lesotho. I am part of the way verifying the quality of the data which have been entered into Excel and have noticed an interesting phenomenon.

One of the questions we have asked is:

Do you believe that condoms decrease the chance of catching HIV? Most people have answered 'yes' and then explained their answer by talking about the mixing of bodily fluids or touching of sexual organs. But a significant* number of people have responded 'no'.

Almost all reasons offered for responding 'no' are similar; something along the lines of 'condoms are not 100% effective' or 'condoms do not always work'. Either the question has been mis-interpreted (although not sure how) or else there is a lack of (intuitive) understanding about risk. That is, a significant number of people don't seem to be able to grasp the impact on the probability of infection of using a condom - they understand only that they are not 100% effective, and therefore decide that this is reason enough not to bother using them (always).

It would be interesting to know if a similar attitude could be called 'significant' in Europe/North America. Is anyone aware of any research to this effect? What could be done to change this mis-understanding?

*I don't yet know if this is statistically significant - the data are not yet completely verified or cleaned yet.

Clowns without borders

2010-06-20T13:07:00.006+02:00

I can't decide what side of amazing-genius and amazing-stupid this is.

I had heard of Clowns Without Borders before - probably from this BBC article - and I was very happy to see them live at the Bushfire Festival in Swaziland a few weeks ago.

As far as I can tell, they go around war-torn/flood-or-drought-hit places and perform clown shows for children and adults. There appear to be lots of groups of them that do it - a sort of franchise. The group have a facebook group too.

Why am I confused as to which side of the genius like these fall on? Firstly, I have two initial emotional responses - firstly, I think - that is great! Make unhappy kids smile! But then I think - cheer up, kids! You might not have enough to eat and may be recruited as child soldiers at any time, but look! I've got a red nose!

But really, we should think a bit less emotionally and a little more logically - if we actually care about doing good, that is.

Like every good economist, I think that a good rule-of-thumb for whether or not doing something is a good idea is whether happiness* in the world increases (or unhappiness minimised). Does Clowns-without-Borders increase happiness? At first sight, yes. But closer inspection will require us to look at the alternatives - that is, what is the correct counter-factual?

If the clowns are motivated by a feeling of doing good, and they would do nothing otherwise, then CWB are increasing the amount of effort in the world to make people (in poor places) happier. That has to be a good thing. But what if some of these people would otherwise be doing other things to help the 'development' effort, and these things would, in fact, increase happiness more than donning a red nose and funny shoes? In that case, CWB are actually reducing the amount of happiness in the world.

That might be unlikely because, presumably, the clowns are specialised in, well, clowning. If they have a comparative advantage in that, rather than other 'real' 'development' work, then maybe they can be more useful with CWB than in other areas. That is a big thumbs-up for CWB.

An additional point is related to the clowns' decisions themselves. If there is a clown who could do something better to aid development and increase happiness more than clowning, and knows it - should s/he be in CWB? It would be an indication that the clown is not only interested in increasing others' happiness, but also his/her own. I've got absolutely nothing against that at all - I am probably 'guilty' myself - and I think it is perfectly reasonable - my own happiness matters too, so I reserve some degree of selfishness. So long as I don't pretend like I am only doing things for other people.

Finally, I am curious - I love Bushfire, but the festival is almost entirely frequented by reasonably well-off people. Is that the audience CWB should be performing for?

* The main 'currency' economists use is in fact happiness (utility, we call it) - not money.

A dangerously emotional article on Lesotho

2010-06-11T09:28:00.002+02:00

THIS is one of the most stupid and dangerous things I've ever read. The simplistic idea is that there is lots of water in Lesotho, but that it is being 'exported' to South Africa (and, rumour says, maybe soon Botswana) whilst people in Lesotho don't always have easy water availability.

This is really stupid because:
(1) the water would flow into South Africa anyway and international treaties say that you are not allowed to stop it by capturing it and then selling it to somewhere where it would flow naturally anyway;
(2) the water is not naturally in an easy-to-access form for most people. Instead you have to spend a lot of money building dams. Thankfully, there are dams, which capture the water and re-direct it. The idea that Lesotho could or would have built dams by itself in order to use the water is crazy. Instead South Africa financed most of the cost of building the dams and pays Lesotho a water royalty for the purposes of re-directing the water to a different place in South Africa to where it would naturally flow;
(3) There is lots of water apart from that which is captured by the dams;
(4) the project has actually resulted in Lesotho having all sorts of things that it otherwise would not have: hydro-electricity for example, new roads, potential new tourist destinations, fishing,... This has not come at the cost of the water since the water would not otherwise have been captured and used anyway;
(5) the project has had a demonstration effect to show that such dams can be useful in order to provide water for the Basotho. This has resulted in the beginning of construction of the Metolong Dam which will provide water for low-land areas of Lesotho for both households and industry. Lesotho has probably actually gained useable water as a result of the scheme - despite the fact that some is now re-directed to a different place in South Africa to that which it would otherwise have gone to;
(6) Lesotho actually gets royalties from the re-direction of water (in addition to all the other benefits). These can be used to improve water supply (or anything else that may be more of a priority) elsewhere.

Overall, this project has had a multitude of positive effects on Lesotho, and the rather simple view posted here should not not discourage expansion of the project into Phase II - it will enhance the lives of many Basotho and South Africans.

Friday links

2010-06-11T08:46:00.006+02:00

Football
1. World Cup Interactives

2. Africa's 9th development goal

3. The Germans really are better at penalties.
4. World Cup fever in the South African Treasury.
5. World Cup and behaviour change.
6. Historical football kits (here are Southampton's and here is our new historically-inspired kit) (HT:MM - not even a Saints fan!)
7. World Cup takes water from chronically thirsty in Lesotho.
I have to comment on this one - it is one of the most stupid and dangerous things I've ever read. The simplistic idea is that there is lots of water in Lesotho, but that it is being 'exported' to South Africa (and, rumour says, maybe soon Botswana) whilst people in Lesotho don't always have easy water availability.

This is really stupid because (1) the water would flow into South Africa anyway and international treaties say that you are not allowed to stop it by capturing it and then selling it to somewhere where it would flow naturally anyway; (2) the water is not naturally in an easy-to-access form for most people. Instead you have to spend a lot of money building dams. Thankfully, there are dams, which capture the water and re-direct it. The idea that Lesotho could or would have built dams by itself in order to use the water is crazy. Instead South Africa financed most of the cost of building the dams and pays Lesotho a water royalty for the purposes of re-directing the water to a different place in South Africa to where it would naturally flow; (3) There is lots of water apart from that which is captured by the dams; (4) the project has actually resulted in Lesotho having all sorts of things that it otherwise would not have: hydro-electricity for example, new roads, potential new tourist destinations, fishing,... This has not come at the cost of the water since the water would not otherwise have been captured and used anyway; (5) the project has had a demonstration effect to show that such dams can be useful in order to provide water for the Basotho. This has resulted in the beginning of construction of the Metolong Dam which will provide water for low-land areas of Lesotho for both households and industry. Lesotho has probably actually gained useable water as a result of the scheme - despite the fact that some is now re-directed to a different place in South Africa to that which it would otherwise have gone to; (6) Lesotho actually gets royalties from the re-direction of water (in addition to all the other benefits). These can be used to improve water supply (or anything else that may be more of a priority) elsewhere.

Overall, this project has had a multitude of positive effects on Lesotho, and the rather simple view posted here should not not discourage expansion of the project into Phase II - it will enhance the lives of many Basotho and South Africans.

South Africa and Lesotho
8. Racial tensions in South Africa
9. Could South Africa and Namibia go the way of Zimbabwe?
10. Border problems between South Africa and Lesotho and the impact.

Other Africa
11. Trends in how well Africa is Governed

UK Politics
12. Quote of the day:

“There is nothing progressive about a government that consistently spends more than it can raise in taxation and certainly nothing progressive that endows generations to come with the liabilities incurred with respect to the current generation.”

13. She's back!

14. Ousted Labour MP signs on to the dole.

Finally
15. Iran spends almost the equivalent of Lesotho's GDP* on making everyone's lives a little more miserable. Well, after all, there's no fun in Islam according to the Ayatollah Khomeini.

* Yes, I know, it's not a fair comparison (apples and pears).

The World Cup and behaviour change

2010-06-10T08:28:00.003+02:00

I noticed very early on after my arrival in Lesotho, that people's understanding of time is very different to mine. Quite simply (a) time is less important and (b) thinking about the future appears to be less, well, clear. I've blogged about it in the past here and here.

Interestingly, the World Cup appears to be sufficient incentive for people to think well in advance. There have been very long queues for the last two weeks in order to pay the TV - people are thinking that they must pay their TV in order to watch the World Cup.

This morning, whilst driving into work, I heard and interesting report on RFI. There was a report on a township near Durban - KwaMashu - that felt 'left out' of the World Cup - apparently it is not having an economic impact there. But it is having another impact; in this high-crime area, the crime rate has fallen. Young men are not committing crimes because they don't want to be in prison during the World Cup.

If you read French, the report is available here.

I am not sure what to make of the fact that Basotho are clearly thinking well ahead for the World Cup. On the one hand, it is good; it shows that the concept exists - which has positive implications for the future. On the other hand, despite the fact that the concept exists, it is highly under-employed. In fact, it seems that a very, very good incentive needs to exist. Is it that the right incentives don't exist, or is it that the strength of the incentive needs to be very strong - indeed 'sub-optimal' in order to compensate for a very high discount rate (large discounting of future benefits compared with current costs)? What other reasons might there be?

Some other interesting World Cup facts:
1/ The economics of the World Cup
2/ The stadiums of the World Cup

Friday links

2010-05-21T08:26:00.004+02:00

1/ Let me google that for you passive aggressively helps your friends... (HT: MM)

2/ How should 'development workers' live? and this poem defines 'development work' wonderfully.

3/ What should World Bank economists do? (I'm going to be a World Banker soon...)

4/ International Development Meetings defined.

5/ George Osborne, the UK's new Finance Minister, gives u p the power to forecast. I approve.

6/ This isn't quite true any more, but I like it anyway:

7/ Plans to attack the Danish and Dutch football teams during the World Cup to avenge the drawing of Muhammed cartoons. Unfortunately, no big protests from Muslims that those who plan these attacks are soiling Islam. Apparently no problems organising large-scale protests and banning Facebook in Pakistan (and creating Facebook pages) against a Draw Muhammed Day (or here or try it cached if it is blocked) though.

8/ Terrorist attacks 1970 to 2010.

Restaurant where you pay what you think it is worth

2010-05-20T08:26:00.003+02:00

See the link here.

Lots of restaurants have pay-what-you-think-it-is-worth evenings occasionally, don't they? I've been to a few at any rate. Really, if people pay what they think it is worth, usually the restaurant should get more money since whatever you pay for something, you must think it is worth *at least* that amount. But you may think it is worth more. It is described by the concept of consumer surplus.

It should work providing (a) people don't consistently mis-judge a restaurant's quality, (b) people are honest, and (c) people are not anchoring their prices to similar restaurants.

I reckon that (c) is probably the most risky one here. Plenty of economic psychology research suggests that people are very bad at judging 'worth' without some anchor. Dan Ariely's book, Predictably Irrational has some nice examples of this. If other restaurants seen as similar (type of food, geography, style,...) tend to be cheap, people will pay less, even if they would otherwise have valued the food more highly.

If I were a betting man though, I'd bet this restaurant would work.

(HT: VL)

Economics proves England will win the World Cup!

2010-05-18T16:44:00.003+02:00

Just like at cricket :)

See the proof here.

Is there any need to actually play the tournament now?