andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-630 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Reviewing a research article by Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo about globalization (a paper with the sobering message that “higher-paying jobs [are] likely to follow low-paying jobs in leaving US,” Tyler Cowen writes : It is also a useful corrective to the political conspiracy theories of changes in the income distribution. . . Being not-so-blissfully ignorant of macroeconomics, I can focus on the political question, namely these conspiracy theories. I’m not quite sure what Cowen is referring to here–he neglects to provide a link to the conspiracy theories–but I’m guessing he’s referring to the famous graph by Piketty and Saez showing how very high-end incomes (top 1% or 0.1%) have, since the 1970s, risen much more dramatically in the U.S. than in other countries, along with claims by Paul Krugman and others that much of this difference can be explained by political changes in the U.S. In particular, top tax rates in the U.S. have declined since the 1970s and the p
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1 Being not-so-blissfully ignorant of macroeconomics, I can focus on the political question, namely these conspiracy theories. [sent-4, score-0.866]
2 I’m not quite sure what Cowen is referring to here–he neglects to provide a link to the conspiracy theories–but I’m guessing he’s referring to the famous graph by Piketty and Saez showing how very high-end incomes (top 1% or 0. [sent-5, score-1.024]
3 1%) have, since the 1970s, risen much more dramatically in the U. [sent-6, score-0.153]
4 than in other countries, along with claims by Paul Krugman and others that much of this difference can be explained by political changes in the U. [sent-8, score-0.348]
5 have declined since the 1970s and the power of labor unions have decreased. [sent-12, score-0.15]
6 The argument that Krugman and others make on the tax rates is both direct (the government takes away money from people with high incomes) and indirect (with higher tax rates, there is less incentive to seek or to pay high levels of compensation). [sent-13, score-0.943]
7 And there’s an even more indirect argument that as the rich get richer, they can use their money in various ways to get more political influence. [sent-14, score-0.424]
8 I mean, whatever Grover Norquist might be doing in a back room somewhere, the move to lower taxes was pretty open. [sent-16, score-0.07]
9 According to Dictionary,com, a conspiracy is “an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot. [sent-17, score-0.659]
10 I might be missing something here, though; I’d be interested in hearing more. [sent-23, score-0.07]
11 At this point I’m not sure if Cowen’s saying that these conspiracies don’t exist, or whether they exist (and are possibly accompanied by similar conspiracies on the other side) but have been ineffective. [sent-24, score-0.699]
12 Also I might be completely wrong in assigning Cowen’s allusion to Krugman etc. [sent-25, score-0.242]
13 This discussion is relevant to this here blog because the labeling of a hypothesis as a “conspiracy” seems relevant to how it is understood and evaluated. [sent-26, score-0.208]
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same-blog 1 1.0000001 630 andrew gelman stats-2011-03-27-What is an economic “conspiracy theory”?
Introduction: Reviewing a research article by Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo about globalization (a paper with the sobering message that “higher-paying jobs [are] likely to follow low-paying jobs in leaving US,” Tyler Cowen writes : It is also a useful corrective to the political conspiracy theories of changes in the income distribution. . . Being not-so-blissfully ignorant of macroeconomics, I can focus on the political question, namely these conspiracy theories. I’m not quite sure what Cowen is referring to here–he neglects to provide a link to the conspiracy theories–but I’m guessing he’s referring to the famous graph by Piketty and Saez showing how very high-end incomes (top 1% or 0.1%) have, since the 1970s, risen much more dramatically in the U.S. than in other countries, along with claims by Paul Krugman and others that much of this difference can be explained by political changes in the U.S. In particular, top tax rates in the U.S. have declined since the 1970s and the p
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Introduction: This post is by Phil Price. A paper by Wood, Douglas, and Sutton looks at “Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories.” Unfortunately the subjects were 140 undergraduate psychology students, so one wonders how general the results are. I found this sort of arresting: In Study 1 (n=137), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed she was murdered. In Study 2 (n=102), the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. Special Forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive. As the article says, “conspiracy advocates’ distrust of official narratives may be so strong that many alternative theories are simultaneously endorsed in spite of any contradictions between them.” But I think the authors overstate things when they say “One would think that there ought to be a negative correlation between beliefs in contradictory accounts of events — the more one believes in
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Introduction: In a discussion of Paul Krugman and his critics, Noah Smith compares two styles of argumentation: Way #1 is to put your complete thought process on a page – to lay out both sides of an argument, and explain why you arrived at a conclusion. This is what [Tyler] Cowen calls the “Humean” method, after David Hume. As I [Smith] see it, the Humean method is what you use if you want to get the most out of a discussion with a well-informed but fundamentally disinterested interlocutor. . . . But not all interlocutors are disinterested. Some have political agendas. Some have strong personal biases. And not all interlocutors are well-informed. . . . In this situation, it may provide the most social benefit to adopt a more Hegelian method of argumentation. . . . two people argue their cases as strongly as possible, and observers can pick and choose the best points of each. This is how our court system works, for example. In the context of econ blogs, using a Hegelian approach means saying “
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Introduction: Tyler Cowen links to a blog by Greg Mankiw with further details on his argument that his anticipated 90% marginal tax rate will reduce his work level. Having already given my thoughts on Mankiw’s column, I merely have a few things to add/emphasize. 1. Cowen frames the arguments in terms of the “status” of George Bush, Greg Mankiw, Barack Obama, and their proposed policies. I hadn’t thought of the arguments as being about status, but I think I see what Cowen is saying. By being a well-known economist and having a column in the New York Times, Mankiw is trading some of his status for political advocacy (just as Krugman does, from the opposite direction). If Mankiw didn’t have the pre-existing status, I doubt this particular column would’ve made it into the newspaper. (Again, ditto with many of Krugman’s columns.) So it makes sense that arguments about the substance of Mankiw’s remarks will get tied into disputes about his status. 2. Neither Cowen nor Mankiw address
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Introduction: Reviewing a research article by Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo about globalization (a paper with the sobering message that “higher-paying jobs [are] likely to follow low-paying jobs in leaving US,” Tyler Cowen writes : It is also a useful corrective to the political conspiracy theories of changes in the income distribution. . . Being not-so-blissfully ignorant of macroeconomics, I can focus on the political question, namely these conspiracy theories. I’m not quite sure what Cowen is referring to here–he neglects to provide a link to the conspiracy theories–but I’m guessing he’s referring to the famous graph by Piketty and Saez showing how very high-end incomes (top 1% or 0.1%) have, since the 1970s, risen much more dramatically in the U.S. than in other countries, along with claims by Paul Krugman and others that much of this difference can be explained by political changes in the U.S. In particular, top tax rates in the U.S. have declined since the 1970s and the p
Introduction: Given Grandma Mankiw’s hypothetical distaste for Sonia Sotomayor’s spending habits (recall that Grandma “would have been shocked and appalled” by the judge’s lack of savings), I expect she (the grandmother) would be even more irritated by the success of Sotomayor’s recent book: Now that Sotomayor has a ton of money coming in, in addition to a well-paying job and pension for life, that would almost seem to validate Sotomayor’s foolish, foolish decision to enjoy herself in middle age rather than sock hundreds of thousands of dollars into a retirement account she likely would never touch during her lifetime. One interesting thing about this example is that Mankiw apparently holds within himself a descriptive and normative view of economics. Descriptively, he models people as “spenders” or “savers.” But, normatively, he seems to attribute higher values to the “savers.” (He also seems to be confused about the relation between saving to intertemporal preference (see my long p
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Introduction: Reviewing a research article by Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo about globalization (a paper with the sobering message that “higher-paying jobs [are] likely to follow low-paying jobs in leaving US,” Tyler Cowen writes : It is also a useful corrective to the political conspiracy theories of changes in the income distribution. . . Being not-so-blissfully ignorant of macroeconomics, I can focus on the political question, namely these conspiracy theories. I’m not quite sure what Cowen is referring to here–he neglects to provide a link to the conspiracy theories–but I’m guessing he’s referring to the famous graph by Piketty and Saez showing how very high-end incomes (top 1% or 0.1%) have, since the 1970s, risen much more dramatically in the U.S. than in other countries, along with claims by Paul Krugman and others that much of this difference can be explained by political changes in the U.S. In particular, top tax rates in the U.S. have declined since the 1970s and the p
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