To the Map of the (financial) Market, it’s a thrill to add a new brilliant graphic, this map of the market for goods and services. (The latter loads faster, too.)
Economics graphics
May 5th, 2008Injustice on Stage in Stratford
April 26th, 2008I’ve needed the several weeks since the Friday, April 4, show to achieve sufficient composure to write about the Royal Shakespeare Company’s current incarnation of The Merchant of Venice in Stratford-upon-Avon. The play of course is inherently incendiary. I have nothing to contribute to the longstanding debate about whether the Bard was Anti-Semitic. But I left the Courtyard Theater that night horrified at this production’s choices, with only one possible source of redemption for it in sight (and, I fear, lost to near all the inattentive audience).
This production matter-of-factly illustrated every evil of a calculating Shylock. He was unfair and unsympathetic in his business dealings; he loved his daughter little, and his gold much; he would never share a table with a Gentile. Beyond the text, in the courtroom, when Shylock is about to use his knife to extract his pound of flesh, he perches above a prostrate Antonio who has his arms outstretched. This image, with Antonio as Christ, invokes the most pernicious of the historical calumnies against Jews.
After the lamb is saved, and Shylock’s level (pointed?) “Is it the law?” is answered affirmatively, the production lightly carries on to Portia’s and Nerissa’s practical joke and the standard comedic ending of multiple nuptials. Shylock appears again only in the musical reprise, interrupting a bit of the dancing to angrily twist arms with his new son-in-law.
What do director and cast hope to achieve with–what could be redemptive about– this portrayal of an irredeemable Shylock? My best speculation is that they wish to offend as thoroughly as Borat.
In contrast to John Peter of The Sunday Times, I didn’t find the production “sloppily directed,” but rather distressingly directed. In contrast to Michael Billington of The Guardian, I found nothing to “enjoy” about this excruciating production. I’m not sure I could find anything enjoyable about any production of this play. But many wisely directed productions could give me leave to depart with faith in what humanity has learned, rather than fear about what it may have not.
Monetization
February 19th, 2008A weekend trip to Cornwall included an efficient stop at Land’s End… where we chose NOT to pay real money to get our picture taken with their signpost. The Brits are pretty impressive at monetization of their assets.
The Justice of Tax Progressivity
February 11th, 2008In all the voluminous academic and political debates about optimal taxation, I think one argument should get considerably more attention. People who have higher earnings derive greater benefits from government. Social stability, provided in the form of police, defense, and the legal system, preserves property rights and makes productive activity and wealth accumulation possible. For this, the high-income and high-wealth people who benefit most should pay most.
Before you all go back to talking about incentive effects of taxation, do recall that reference points may matter, and talking about fair benchmarks may help to set them justly.
Yes We Can
February 4th, 2008Priorities
January 23rd, 2008At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, construction plans for a library were influenced by an unusual consideration: the shadow the building might cast. Established in 1876, the Morrow Plots are the longest continuous agricultural demonstration plots in the world. Since it would have been unfortunate to interfere with their sunlight, the UIUC library was built adjacent to them but out of the way–underground.
Principled Resignations?
January 15th, 2008One of many disappointments I’ve had during the current administration is the dearth of principled resignations. No small number of Bush appointees have left their posts, but most have wanted “more time with their families” rather than a fire of vitriol.
Two examples are particularly obvious. Christine Todd Whitman was sidelined at EPA, reduced from Republican moderate stardom to whining “it’s my party, too” after playing chief apologist for anti-environment crusades. And Colin Powell’s four years as Secretary of State were an extended exercise in quietly suffering humiliation.
Would that they and others departed with flourish, perhaps even with the words of this brilliant, unsigned Time magazine piece from the pre-Watergate Nixon era channeling Nathan Hale: “I am sorry that I have only one job to give for my country.”
A Missing Uproar at Oxford
January 2nd, 2008Statistics on undergraduate admission rates at the University of Oxford ought to be a scandal. First, examine Table 5. The racial groups designated White or White&Other represent 84.2+0.4+0.3+2.2 = 87.1% of applicants. Despite this overwhelming share (comparable to the share in the general population), the combined admissions rate for these groups substantially exceeds the admissions rate for the combined pool of non-white applicants.
Table 6 implies the even more astonishing fact that gender disparities are also exacerbated by the Oxford admissions process. Even though 2% more men apply than women, the overall acceptance rate for men exceeds the acceptance rate for women by 2.3%. In the sciences, where the applicant pool is nearly 3/5 male, the acceptance rate gap is even larger, 3.1%.
Likewise, only 5 out of the 30 colleges listed in Table 8a have higher three-year average admission rates than application rates from “maintained” high schools (ie, the equivalent of “public schools” in the US, which are maintained by the state).
I am not claiming that these statistics imply Oxford admissions officers practice discrimination. Despite the numbers, it could be the case that the marginal racial minority, female, and maintained school applicant is less distinguished than the marginal white, male, prep school applicant.
However, these numbers imply that disparities in applications expand during the Oxford admissions decision process, contrary to diversity’s recognized essentiality for education in a modern, interconnected world. Oxford should lead the way in extending opportunity to underrepresented groups, and consequently the Oxford admissions statistics should be a scandal. The central administration may only partially be to blame, since admissions decisions are made by individual colleges. Non-discrimination rules may be applied in the UK in the way that opponents of affirmative action would interpret the equal protection doctrine in the US. Nevertheless, I hope to see fast action to raise application rates of qualified members of underrepresented groups, and equally fast rises to statistical parity in acceptance rates.
Hop on Pop
January 1st, 2008… throughout Africa, says a wise former teacher in The Gambia, would make a world of difference. Why not flood schools with Dr. Seuss?
Reporting on Fed Policy and Stock Indices
December 14th, 2007Usually press reports sound celebratory when increases in stock prices follow cuts in interest rates. However, there may be no reason for celebration: interest rate cuts may cause expansions in real output, but they also may increase inflation rates. Since stock prices and the indices computed from them are nominal, interest rate cuts could increase prices and indices even if the rate cuts have no expansionary effect on real output.
In fact, we shouldn’t be at all surprised if a rate cut increases market indices.
If the opposite happens, and a rate cut spurs a fall in market indices, we should probably be very worried. That scenario signals likely falls in nominal output, which imply even larger reductions in real output.
With these comments I don’t mean to question Fed policy, but rather to suggest what I perceive to be a misconception common in reporting about Fed policy.