Seth Godin’s email checklist:

1 Is it going to just one person? (If yes, jump to #10)
2 Since it’s going to a group, have I thought about who is on my list?
3 Are they blind copied?
4 Did every person on the list really and truly opt in? Not like sort of, but really ask for it?
5 So that means that if I didn’t send it to them, they’d complain about not getting it?
6 See #5. If they wouldn’t complain, take them off!
7 That means, for example, that sending bulk email to a list of bloggers just cause they have blogs is not okay.
…
10 Have I corresponded with this person before?
11 Really? They’ve written back? (if no, reconsider email)…

The list goes on to 36 and almost all of the advice looks good to me.

Beyond the practicality of the checklist, it raised a question in my mind. Some of Seth’s advice was routinely flouted in the early days of mass email (I’m thinking 1995-1999). For instance, many people forwarded jokes and virus warnings. These days they are rare, especially as a proportion of all the email that is sent. Other advice (such as, “don’t admonish people not to print this email”) would have been superfluous ten years ago and is now very widely ignored.
So my question is, what determines why some bad email habits die out and others thrive and multiply? Or is this just the unpredictable outcome of a mysterious process of evolution?

That’s the name of a new book by economist Don Thompson. The subtitle is “The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art and Auction Houses”, but in fact there is not much pure economics in the book. It’s all about the business and culture of contemporary art, is well-written, well-informed and not a little sceptical of the whole marketing enterprise.

Recommended, if you are interested in such things. I wrote a blurb for the book.

Photo: Kecko

Ouch:

I don’t have a proper pension and was counting on using my home to raise money for my retirement. Many of my friends are doing the same. Are we in trouble?

Yes, you are in trouble and not because of the housing market. You are in trouble because you haven’t thought properly about the risks and rewards of long-term savings. Because you haven’t put money in a private pension, you have lost out on very generous tax relief. Moreover, you have missed the most basic rule of risk mitigation in investment: diversification. Betting your entire future on the performance of a single home sounds like a particularly poor approach to long-term investment.

That was Norma Cohen in a Q&A in Friday’s FT. I know who to draft in to write Dear Economist if I ever go on sabbatical.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on how the American Economic Association is investing its portfolio. Intriguingly they took steps towards reducing home-country bias only a year ago. The discussion:

So the intellectual stakes were presumably high when the ad hoc committee — which included Martin S. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors during the Reagan administration — made its recommendations last April. According to the minutes of the association’s budget committee, the meeting provoked “a lengthy discussion about whether economists should use economics to guide investment decisions.”

The result:

As satisfying as it might be to see economists fail at this endeavor, we’re obliged to report: The portfolio gained 10.2 percent in 2007, easily beating the S&P 500 index, which gained 5.49 percent.

HT: Greg Mankiw.

I’m reading Stefan Klein’s excellent “The Secret Pulse of Time“. Recommended - Klein’s style is charming, if rather German, and his grasp of the science is strong. He covers the biology, psychology and physics of time and yes, it really is all relative. One observation that struck home was that we do not remember time as a continuum but as a series of events; that is why a fortnight recuperating in bed seems like an eternity (because we have no events to observe) but almost vanishes from the memory (because there are no events to remember). That is also why a wonderful day’s sightseeing can fly by, yet when looking back over an evening drink, that morning’s coffee can seem impossibly distant. Much to enjoy.

The Bastiat prize for journalism, 2008, is open to entrants:

IPN’s Bastiat Prize for Journalism was inspired by the 19th-century French philosopher and journalist Frédéric Bastiat.

The prize was developed to encourage and reward writers whose published works promote the institutions of a free society: limited government, rule of law brokered by an independent judiciary, protection of private property, free markets, free speech, and sound science.

The prize fund (a total of US$15,000) will be divided between First, Second and Third placed authors. Entries for 2008 will be accepted from 1 April 2008 with a deadline of 30 June 2008.

More detail here; I was fortunate enough to share the prize with Jamie Whyte in 2006.

The technology is here, HT Seamus:

TimeMachiner is a new mini-app that lets you email people in the future. Use it to remind yourself to do something that you’ll more than likely forget, keep your future self on the straight and narrow, even wish your friends happy birthday…

Useful for reminding yourself of last year’s resolutions, but beyond that, what economically-interesting applications can y’all suggest?

Update: A loyal reader comments:

I can suggest one interesting experiment. Put up a website which provides this as a service. On the front page, put an easy-to-use form. Make the service free and open. Then have no privacy policy at all, so you can do what you like with all the email addresses you harvest. Then all the helpful bloggers will do your marketing for you. (Step 3: Profit!)

Good point…

I’ll be debating with Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational) on Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog. After all, our books do seem to contradict each other. Sadly, we’re both far too nice to tear strips off each other, but I suspect there will be a few disagreements…Dan’s first post is here; the Omnivoracious introduction is here. My first reply will be going up tomorrow, or perhaps Friday. And in case you were wondering, the photograph didn’t come from me: perhaps Dan was overly impressed by tales of my economics-based exercise regime.

You will all know that by sending your emails to economist [at] ft.com you will reach me in the guise of “Dear Economist“, where I offer advice on romance, odd socks and intimate waxing, all using the latest economic theory. All perfectly rational.

Now Dan Ariely proposes to offer irrational advice - or advice for the irrational? - instead… check it out here. I am looking forward to seeing the results. It all depends on whether you want to pander to your inner Homer Simpson or your inner Mr Spock!

Yoram Bauman is coming to the UK as part of his “supply side” world tour. Don’t miss it: Old Fire Station, 19 April 2008. (HT: Knackered Hack, and Yoram himself too.)

Videos from Yoram here; I am also speaking in Oxford twice in April, but that’s a lot less exciting.