But it is not hopeless yet. It is still possible to be happy in this corrupt world. We just need the magic bullet:
Friday, March 28, 2008
Some intresting correlations
Corruption is the most annoying thing anyone has to live with. Not only is it the most important impediment to growth, it makes people completely unhappy. But it is not only because of corrupt socities in poor countries, it is also because of rich countries's companies bribe payers. So Transparency International, a think tank specialized on corruption, has this bribe payers index, to determine where these evil people are from. Here's my point, these people are just not educated. If you were educated, you wouldn't act in such a stupid way. Here's my correlation graph that, of course, doesn't mean anything. But it is not hopeless yet. It is still possible to be happy in this corrupt world. We just need the magic bullet:
But it is not hopeless yet. It is still possible to be happy in this corrupt world. We just need the magic bullet:Thursday, March 27, 2008
Unhappy seeds
I did not know that Bulgarians were big consumers of sunflower seeds. I came to know this by chance the other day, while discussing over breakfast with my classmate's girlfriend the other day. So I went on Internet and checked some data. Here is table of the top world producers.
The data are from wikipedia. I came to know that production originated along the Mississippi river, and were brought to Europe by the Spanish conquistadores. Ok, what's special about the seeds? Well, apparently there is some problem associated with their production.
From the graph there seems to be a quite strong association between the percentage of people reporting unhappiness according to the World Value Survey, and the per capita production of Sunflower Seeds. Why do we find such a correlation? I thought about some possible explanations.
The data are from wikipedia. I came to know that production originated along the Mississippi river, and were brought to Europe by the Spanish conquistadores. Ok, what's special about the seeds? Well, apparently there is some problem associated with their production.
From the graph there seems to be a quite strong association between the percentage of people reporting unhappiness according to the World Value Survey, and the per capita production of Sunflower Seeds. Why do we find such a correlation? I thought about some possible explanations.
- Psychological: the first person that comes to my mind when I think about sunflower is the supreme genius of Vincent Van Gogh, who managed to create masterpieces out of this flower. As we know, Van Gogh was not extremely happy, and suffered from lot of hardships in his life. But is it that unhappy people love sunflowers, or the reverse is true?
- Botanical: any type of crop requires one period for plantation, one period for harvesting. In the period in between people may very well get bored, and if someone from the World Value Survey (WVS) asks the peasants "are you happy?" what do you expect the answer will be? "Let's wait for the f** harvests and see if I am happy!!" But this of course, implies we should find unhappiness also for other type of crops (corn, soybean..)
- Nutritional: sunflower seeds are extremely healthy, because they have many different vitamins, linoleic acids, fibers..but they are also extremely caloric: 576 calories per 100 grams, and 50% fats. So you start eating and enjoying them, then you finish a whole pack while watching a movie, you realize that you have eaten 800 calories, you are still hungry, your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wive complains you are getting fat then the guy from the WVS comes and asks you "are you happy?" and imagine what the answer will be...
- Globalization: sunflower seeds do not have the same consideration everywhere. What I also learnt from my flatmate is in fact that, when english people go to Bulgaria and see they eat sunflower seeds they start laughing: "Oh, do you that? For us, that is bird-food!" How would you then feel if somebody from another part of the world starts laughing about your own favourite food?Maybe it's a reason to be pissed, but if the guy from the WVS asks you "are you happy?" then you say "no I am pissed!" then he says "no, you have to tell me if you are happy" "no I am not, I am pissed!" and then you are classified as unhappy...is unhappiness a good proxy for being pissed anyway?
Monday, March 24, 2008
Easterly on development
William Easterly has two new accessible articles. One in the American Economic Review, on institutions and economic development, and another one on what should a perfect aid agency be, in the refreshing Journal of Economic Perspectives. I have to admit I really enjoy reading the latter journal. As its website mention, it “attempts to fill a gap between the general interest press and most other academic economics journals”. It does this by offering “readers an accessible source for state-of-the-art economic thinking” that is easy to read.
Anyway, back to development. Institutions, as many instrumental variables have proved, cause growth and development. In other words, fix your institutions and you’ll grow. But how do you impose good institutions? Bottom-up or from the top-down? This is what Easterly tries to address (not answer, of course) in his AER paper. He concludes, as expected, that no clear answer exists. The imposition of a new set of laws by top-down shock therapy? Think of Russia and forget about it. It can indeed have nasty, destructive effects. So what about a bottom-up process, such as giving subsistence farmers land titles, as suggested by De Soto? Well, as Easterly explains, it didn’t really work in Africa, and that’s because these are of no use when there’s no rule of law. So doesn’t this mean we should start with imposing the rule of law, from the top? Oh no, I forgot, that doesn’t work.
In his other paper he complains about the poor quality data on foreign aid and about the fact that so much money goes to corrupt countries. He also complain that “aid tying, the use of food aid-in-kind, and the heavy use of technical assistance persist in many aid agencies, despite decades of complaints about these channels being ineffective”. As for which are the best agencies, he writes that “development banks tend to be closest to best practices for aid, the UN agencies perform worst along each dimension, and the bilaterals are spread out all along in between”. To me, the UN development agencies do look incompetent. He explains why by writing mockingly: "UN announces new agency to combat excessive bureaucracy in foreign aid"
Anyway, back to development. Institutions, as many instrumental variables have proved, cause growth and development. In other words, fix your institutions and you’ll grow. But how do you impose good institutions? Bottom-up or from the top-down? This is what Easterly tries to address (not answer, of course) in his AER paper. He concludes, as expected, that no clear answer exists. The imposition of a new set of laws by top-down shock therapy? Think of Russia and forget about it. It can indeed have nasty, destructive effects. So what about a bottom-up process, such as giving subsistence farmers land titles, as suggested by De Soto? Well, as Easterly explains, it didn’t really work in Africa, and that’s because these are of no use when there’s no rule of law. So doesn’t this mean we should start with imposing the rule of law, from the top? Oh no, I forgot, that doesn’t work.
In his other paper he complains about the poor quality data on foreign aid and about the fact that so much money goes to corrupt countries. He also complain that “aid tying, the use of food aid-in-kind, and the heavy use of technical assistance persist in many aid agencies, despite decades of complaints about these channels being ineffective”. As for which are the best agencies, he writes that “development banks tend to be closest to best practices for aid, the UN agencies perform worst along each dimension, and the bilaterals are spread out all along in between”. To me, the UN development agencies do look incompetent. He explains why by writing mockingly: "UN announces new agency to combat excessive bureaucracy in foreign aid"
Friday, March 14, 2008
What I've been saying for a while
if guys are better in math and geography, girls are definetly better at languages. Here's a study that confirms it.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Politics this week
The economist now makes a video version of Politics this week. You know the little paragraphs that explain everthing that happened everywhere in the World. You can view them at http://audiovideo.economist.com/. It's like an "english lesson" video! Weird but cool...
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