Older entriesMarketplace worked with me to produce this video about the economics of signalling in the workplace. They did a fantastic job, and you even get to hear my David Attenborough impression. The video is loosely based on one of the Dear Economist letters. Enjoy!
Want to help? Then make life harder for the aid agencies
October 24th, 2009 1:14am
A club sandwich, a pair of trousers, a ticket to the movies – in a typical market transaction, I choose and pay for my own desires.
Sometimes, however, I might buy something for someone else, and here trouble begins. If I am buying something – a goat, an HIV prevention course, a bit of paved road – for a complete stranger in a far-off land, the risks that something will go awry are far higher. How am I to know what is needed, where to send it, even whether it has been stolen en route?
This may be why we have aid agencies. Aid agencies are popular symbols of national generosity – witness the Tory commitment to ring-fence the Department for International Development’s budget, even as they speak of inevitable spending cuts elsewhere – and in principle should make better-informed decisions because they are in a position to put expert decision-makers on the ground.
The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.
The joy of small numbers
October 23rd, 2009 6:55am
Michael Blastland, co-founder of More or Less, has a way with numbers:
The language of politics is billions. Billions up, billions down, billions more, billions cut. Feeling dizzy about the state of the public finances when one telephone number of pounds succeeds another?
Here’s a simple alternative, a language politicians seldom use, perhaps because it would be revealing… we’re talking shares here, or proportions. Not billions.
So two is about the percentage share of what the nation has each year that the government spends on defence. Two is also the percentage share by which defence has been cut in about the last 20 years…
Two is also roughly the extra percentage share of national income that the government put into health over about five years to provide those record quantities of billions we were often told about.
Research assistant wanted!
October 15th, 2009 3:42pm
I’m looking for a part-time research assistant… full details here.
Outside Edge: Learn to love that statistical feeling
August 8th, 2009 6:11pm
Maligned and misunderstood, statisticians have at last found a spokesman: the Chinese author of a poem celebrating a life swimming in data.
“Why is it that statistics/Put a calm smile on my face?” the poet writes, responding to a morale-boosting campaign dubbed “Statistical Feelings” organised by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. “Because of statistics/ I can rearrange the stars in the skies above.”
Hmm. Slightly awkward, that one. In a week when China’s economic statistics have earned more scepticism than usual, it might not be wise to talk about astronomical manipulation.
Even the state-controlled Chinese media have admitted that 91 per cent of citizens do not believe official Chinese statistics. Statistically speaking, that may not be too bad. Another survey, published in Insight China, reckoned that 7.9 per cent of respondents think prostitutes are trustworthy. This figure seems low, but places prostitutes as the third most trusted group in China, well above politicians and scientists, let alone what China Daily describes as “the least credible category which consists of real estate developers, secretaries, agents, entertainers and directors”.
If you are following the statistical argument, Chinese statisticians are more trusted than its sex workers. Or perhaps I am relying on one of the 82 per cent of statistics invented on the spot. Or one of the 46.79842 per cent of statistics that claim an unjustifiable level of precision.
China’s official statisticians are not the only ones facing scepticism. In the UK, only 36 per cent of people believe that official figures are generally accurate. This is, however, an official figure, so 64 per cent of us would hesitate before placing much confidence in it.
“Some mock me for doing statistics/ Some loathe me and statistics”, writes China’s poet-statistician, but our relationship with statistics is more complex. We feel that no argument is complete without a gesture towards the data, yet few of us understand how they are compiled. We sense – rightly – that statistics are often abused through ignorance, or manipulated.
I am a non-statistician who deals with statistics and statisticians frequently, and in my view statisticians are unsung heroes. Statistics are essential to understanding the world, but statisticians get little credit. We accept the numbers in the news as fact, without considering the skill in producing them from small, non-representative samples.
The most striking statistical story I came across this year was that adding statistical information to a charitable appeal reduces donations. It seems that merely reading a statistic makes us meaner.
This is the kind of obstacle statisticians must overcome. So sing out, poet-statisticians of China. Bean-counters of the world, unite!
The writer is an FT columnist and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s statistical programme, More or Less. His new book, ‘Dear Undercover Economist’ (Little Brown) was published on Friday
Why England Lose…
July 15th, 2009 1:41pm
…in football, that is, not cricket. If you want to find out, economist Stefan Szymanski and the FT’s excellent sports columnist Simon Kuper explain here:
As another season comes around minds turn to why England always lose the games that matter, how big a club Newcastle really are and whether John Terry will ever score in a penalty shoot-out. All these questions and more will be answered by the authors of the superlative Why England Lose Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski at our eve of season party on Thursday 6 August.
The event is on the City Road in London, details here. I read an earlier draft of the book and enjoyed it a lot: a well-written, statistically-driven yet somehow very funny analysis of pretty much everything in football.
Green innovation
July 6th, 2009 9:49am
I’m presenting Radio 4’s Analysis this week, and asking: “Given that so many people think the government should encourage low-carbon technologies, what should the government actually do?” We talk to Professor Sir David King, Suzanne Scotchmer, Eric Beinhocker, James Cameron, Mark Williamson, David Rooney and Cameron Hepburn. Also, there are Spitfires and John Harrison’s clock. I learned a few things…
The program is tonight on BBC Radio 4 at 8.30pm BST, repeated on Sunday evening, and should also be downloadable here for a week.
Assorted links
June 12th, 2009 2:03pm
I’ve had my head down, working on a new book - sorry for the low traffic. Meanwhile:
The Economic Naturalist returns
Against intellectual monopoly reviewed
Make way for ducklings (Hackney edition)
Fungible goats
May 15th, 2009 8:14pm
Stephanie Flanders puts her finger on an important point about the MPs’ expenses farce:
if you give someone £100 to buy a chair, you can’t say for sure that he bought a chair with your money - even if he shows you the chair, and a receipt. All you can say for sure is that you made him £100 better off, and he has bought a new chair…If, like so many MPs, your MP has claimed the full amount - around £24,000 in the most recent year, then the point to note is that he or she has had £24,000 a year more to spend…David Cameron could be spending his allowance on underground swimming pools and platinum cycle helmets. All we know is that he has utility bills and mortgage interest to pay of more than £20,000 a year…”When you give $1bn to a developing country”, a World Bank economist once said to me, “you may think you’re giving $1bn to your pet project, but the reality is you’re giving it to the president’s.”
Well put. In other news, Stephanie is in a play about goats.
Holiday specials
May 4th, 2009 5:38am
A rare sight in these straitened times. A banker who is both smart and ethical. (How To Make A Difference)
What Mamma Mia tells you about writing novels. (Dirty White Candy)
How to get things done. (Remember the Milk)
Tim writes about the economics of everyday life. His 