The last in this series of More or Less: Radio 4, Friday at 1.30pm BST and Sunday at 8pm BST. You can also listen online, subscribe to a podcast, and read more at the More or Less website here.
This program: is the world cooling down?; Andrew Gelman on why beautiful people (like me) have daughters (like mine) - or, sadly, maybe not; Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian; and the mathematics behind the Beatles.
More More or Less this week: Radio 4 today at 1.30pm BST and Sunday at 8pm BST. You can also listen online, subscribe to a podcast, and read more at the More or Less website here.
This program: Why England Lose, an interview with the new National Statistician, dubious numbers on the prevalence of piracy, and Simon Singh on how mathematics is being prostituted in the name of advertising.
More More or Less this week: Radio 4 this Friday at 1.30pm BST and Sunday at 8pm BST. You can also listen online, subscribe to a podcast, and read more at the More or Less website here.
This program: lies, damned lies and statistics on rape, the value of a degree, the Ashes, CCTV and much more…
More More or Less this week: Radio 4 this Friday at 1.30pm BST and Sunday at 8pm BST. You can also listen online, subscribe to a podcast, and read more at the More or Less website here.
This program: the Royal Statistical Society queries the government’s statistics on swine flu; we enlist a dynamic programming expert to try to win the Ashes for England (sorry, non-English readers), we ask whether A-Level standards are rising, falling - or whether the question even makes sense. And we interview Terri Duhon, one of the whiz-kids behind credit default swaps.
More or Less is back! It airs on Radio 4 this Friday at 1.30pm BST and Sunday at 8pm BST. You can also listen online, subscribe to a podcast, and read more at the More or Less website here.
This program: the Pythagorean comma, the truth about a YouTube video on muslim immigration that has notched up ten million hits, and we revisit our statistical projections of the final matches of last season’s Premier League. We’ll also look at a striking new claim from the Home Office: that people arrested and then released without charge, or found innocent, are as likely to commit a future offence as those then convicted of a crime. Can it be true? Find out on More or Less.
Having just read the chapter on game theory in your book, The Undercover Economist, I discovered that Michael Jackson fans (circa 800,000 of them) are being offered the chance to receive their concert tickets as a memento, in place of a refund. I presume the future value of any one ticket will depend almost exclusively on the choices of the other 799,999 fans. To the non-nostalgic fan, who wishes only to see the best financial outcome, what would be your advice based on a game theory analysis?
Patrick Hudson
Dear Patrick,
I think it is safe to assume that if 799,999 fans take the memento ticket, the remaining fan would be better off taking the refund, while if 799,999 fans take the refund and one fan takes the ticket, the ticket will be very valuable. (We must also assume that the concert promoters will not then flood the market with the other 799,999 unwanted tickets.)
From a game theorist’s perspective, the equilibrium solution is clear. Let us say that memento and refund are equally valuable if 100,000 take the memento and 700,000 take the refund. In that case, each fan should independently adopt a “mixed strategy” with a one-eighth probability of taking the memento. (A nerdy hint: roll three dice; there is a one in eight chance that the total is exactly 10.) Every fan will be happy to randomise, because every fan will know that either way, he or she will get something of equivalent value.
I realise all this sounds implausible, and it is. Game theory makes demanding assumptions about human rationality that may not apply to grieving fans. I would pay closer attention to research in economic psychology that suggests people are very unwilling to part with an item once they feel a sense of ownership. A non-nostalgic fan should go for the refund.
Questions to economist@ft.com
More or Less airs on Radio 4 today at 1.30pm BST and Sunday at 8pm BST. You can also listen online, subscribe to a podcast, and read more at the More or Less website here.
This program is the last in the series, but a new series is already on the horizon: we’ll be back in August. Until then:
Do please tune in or listen online.
More or Less airs on Radio 4 today at 1.30pm BST and Sunday at 8pm BST. You can also listen online, subscribe to a podcast, and read more at the More or Less website here.
This program: we return to Kate Bush - did More or Less get it wrong? Surely not. We investigate a mutating pandemic - not swine flu but the statistics on domestic violence. Why the newspapers have been publishing misleading statistics on unemployment (et tu, Financial Times?) and what happens when Noel Edmonds meets a mathematical mindset.
More or Less airs on Radio 4 this Friday at 1.30pm BST and Sunday at 8pm BST. You can also listen online, subscribe to a podcast, and read more at the More or Less website here.
This program: Kate Bush, Paul Simon and Bob Dorough are among the songwriters to be subjected to our ferocious mathematical test; the maths of cancer; Gerd Gigerenzer on intuition; and why listening to More or Less makes you a meaner person.
My partner and I have well-defined boundaries to our relationship; they are already liberal, and we are now considering permitting liaisons with others. The benefits for my partner are enormous, as she is an attractive young woman interested in men and women alike.
I, on the other hand, am an awkward wallflower of unremarkable appearance, who has trouble attracting women. Or at least I was until I met my partner. In the years we’ve been together, I’ve received a startling amount of unsolicited attention from women who would not have looked at me twice when I was single.
Can economics explain why I’m unappealing as a singleton, but hot property when with a stunning girlfriend? More importantly, will I still be hot property in a non-monogamous setup? As a consumer I seem to be able to have my cake and eat it, but as a commodity, can I both be had and eaten?
Confused, Paradise
Dear Confused,
Your sudden attractiveness does indeed have an economic explanation: your new admirers are rationally inferring information about you from the behaviour of your partner. She is vivacious, beautiful and intelligent, and yet she dates you; ergo you have hidden assets.
I am not sure an open relationship is wise. You are right to point out that your partner has much to gain from such an arrangement. Onlookers would rightly conclude that her commitment to you has few downsides for her, so doesn’t convey much of a signal that you are a hidden gem. There is another risk. Through her experiments, your partner may discover an alternative lover who insists on a monogamous relationship. Monogamy may be a price worth paying, given that she is currently dating “an awkward wallflower of unremarkable appearance”. You currently live in paradise; don’t risk being cast out.
Questions to economist@ft.com
Tim writes about the economics of everyday life. His weekly columns for the FT Magazine are: "The Undercover Economist" and "Dear Economist". He also writes editorials for the FT, presents Radio 4's More or Less and is the author
of "The Undercover Economist" and "The Logic of Life" . To learn more, visit: timharford.com
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