In Honor of the Super Bowl
Favorite papers from the 2008 AEA in New Orleans (all PDF, ungated):
Emily Haisley on lottery tickets and perception. I heard about this paper before reading it. Such a simple idea, such a direct experiment.
Michele Tertilt: Women’s Liberation: What’s in it for Men (with M. Doepke). The next step is to figure out why so many rulers started having a significant number of female children. But that’s for sociologists, whose work is harder than that of economists.
Dean Yang and Sharon Maccini: Under the Weather: Health, Schooling, and Socioeconomic Consequences of Early-Life Rainfall. The paper that convinced me that Economics really is a good field in which to work.
Marcellus Andrews, “Risk, Inequality, and the economics of disaster.” This was much better live, where he prefaced it by taking about coming the hotel as an insurance inspector and pointed to the “sh*t line.” After the presentation, people were coming out, talking about how if they had wanted a sermon, they would have gone to church. Only person I went out of my way to thank for his talk, interrupting him conversation with Jamie Galbraith in the process.
Acemoglu and Finkelstein, Input and Technology Choices in Regulated Industries: Evidence from the Health Care Sector. Two future Nobelists collaborate. What’s not to like?
Dani Rodrik, Second Best Institutions. The best of a set of presentations.
Ken, thanks for posting these links—great stuff.
On the use of lotteries as motivators, how about giving each voter a lottery ticket for voting? That should improve voter turnout, especially among poorer voters. š
Now, which political party would oppose that idea. š
Min, a sure sign of desperation? “…how about giving each voter a lottery ticket for voting?”Ā Buying votes???Ā the Chicago way??? How do we get the dead voters their tickets???Ā š
I think my husband captured the motivation or attitude of someĀ low wage workers at the local mini-mart. A conversation was going on in the line about retirementĀ plans and the clerk behind the counter announced that the lottery was her retirement plan.
I think retirement savings that can be accessed, even with penalties, are a problem for people in jobs that tend to be lower wage, subject to frequent layoffs, and offer no benefits. One of the reasons Social Security works is because it is not accessible in periods of cash flow problems and provides a progressive payout to people who wouldĀ considerĀ the lottery as theirĀ retirement plan.
Anna Lee scores!!
Hell, yes, buying votes. It’s the American way. We don’t want any stupid regulation requiring people to vote, do we?
How do we get the dead voters their tickets? We hand it to them at the polls.
What about absentee ballots? They get absentee tickets. We notify them if they win anything.
BTW, the lottery also acts as a check against dead voters, given a reasonable percentage of winners. If a dead winner does not collect, there is a big clue. (OC, fraudulent collection is also possible, but not undetectable. š )
“Everyone in the station was approached unless they were sleeping, talking on the
phone, about to board, unable to speak English, or exhibiting signs of psychosis.
”Ā Not including Teabaggers certainly skewed the sample !