Dumbing things down at the Olympics….

As reported in the New York Times, the Olympic pentathalon will now have 4 events…. Does this mean that pentagons are now quadralaterals?

Thanksgiving economics

Catherine Rampell, at the NYT Economix blog, has a very nice post today containing a collection of links to articles and papers on economics topics related to Thanksgiving.

Decline of OPEC?

The New York Times has an interesting article on the tensions that OPEC is experiencing under conditions of falling demand and rising supply from non-OPEC producers. Unless OPEC’s efforts to reach agreements with non-OPEC suppliers is successful, OPEC’s influence may very well decline.

Tivo economics

Justin Wolfers, at the Freakonomics blog, offers a great example of consumer surplus. He suggests that his Tivo is bringing his household $240,000 in benefits at a cost of $200. This is a great example to use in an introductory micro class.

Freakonomics / Marginal Revolution photo caption competition

The Freakonomics and Marginal Revolution blogs are each offering “caption the photo” contests on a photo of George Bush congratulating Paul Krugman on his receipt of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Paul Krugman has agreed to decide on the winner of the Freakonomics competition. This should be interesting.

Externalities in transportation

ScienceToday has an interesting article on a study of the health hazards associated with transporting broiler chickens. In this stidy, Ana M. Rule, Ellen K. Silberbirg, and Sean L. Evans examined bacterial concentrations on cars that drove 2-3 car lengths behind a poultry truck for a distance of 17 miles. These vehicles were found to have significantly raised levels of pathogenic antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the air  inside the vehicles. This was true for cars that had closed windows and air conditioners in use as well as for cars with open windows.

This study provides two nice examples of negative externalities for classroom use:

• the external costs associated with antibiotic use in factory farms, and
• the external costs associated with transporting the chicken.

Personally, I mostly stopped eating chicken once I discovered that it tastes like rattlesnake…

Most trusted news sources

A recent Zogby poll indicates that the internet is the most trusted news source. Among TV news sources, Fox news is the most trusted (by a large margin).

This represents a decided victory for truthiness and the campaign to save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. (Note that a survey of 7th graders found that 24 of 25 would recommend the Tree Octopus web site as a useful resource to another class that was studying endangered species.)

Christina Romer at CEA

It appears that Christine Romer will be the new chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.  It seems that Obama is meeting his promise to bring back the best and the brightest back to the government, even though they might disagree with some of the policies that he has proposed. This is a very refreshing change.

Forgetting the past? Maybe we are doomed….

Economists are often troubled when we hear politicians arguing for policies that, based on all available evidence, would result in outcomes that are antithetical to the goals that they espouse. Many of these policies have been tried, and failure has been well established. We are all familiar with George Santayana’s claim that: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In this light, a recent study by the Intercollegiate Studies Institutute is particularly troubling. This study indicates that politicians (and most Americans) receive failing grades in a test of U.S. history, politics, and economics.

The general public received an average score of 49% on this 33-question multiple choice quiz, but politicians scored worse with an average of 44%. Some of the more troubling results from this quiz:

• 20% of politicians believe that the electoral college “was established to supervise the first Presidential debates.”
• 40% believe that the President has the power to declare war (this may seem less surprising since several Presidents seem to have been confused on this issue as well…)
• 40% of college graduates could not define profit as: “revenue minus expenses.”
• 20.7% of the public believe that the Federal Reserve can increase or decrease government spending.
• Only 16% of the public and 11% of politicians (the lowest score on any question) was able to answer one of the basic economic questions. (Note that purely random guesses should result in a score of roughly 20% since this question has 5 choices.)

Try the test yourself and see how you do. I took it last night and missed one question (on the Lincoln-Douglas debates, but I was close on that one…). Some of the questions may be a little difficult, but it is troubling that politicians scored so much lower than the general public.

(A discussion of this appears at The Marginal Revolution.)

Long-term learning and the timing of study sessions

ScienceDaily provides a nice summary of a Psychological Science study. The authors of the study, Hal Pashler and John Wixted, find that:

• “cramming” is not conducive to long-term learning, and
• larger gaps in time between study sessions slows the rate at which material is forgotten.

Repeated exposure to the same concepts over longer time intervals substantially increased recall ability.