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Sibling Spillovers
Take three siblings equally spaced in age. Here’s an advantage the second child has over the third. When the oldest learns something new, the second will have a chance to learn a little of it...
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Migration and The Cost of Transportation
Here’s a thought I had over a lunch of Mee Goreng and Rojak. As the cost of transportation declines there is a non-monotonic effect on migration. Decreasing transportation costs make it cheaper to...
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Great Prelim Question: Wife Carrying
NEWRY, Maine — A Finnish couple has added to their victories by taking first place in the North American Wife Carrying Championship at Maine’s Sunday River ski resort. Taisto Miettinen and Kristina...
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Dividing Blame And Conquering Guilt
The NRA successfully lobbied to stop gun control legislation. Several Democrats sided with Republicans to defeat it. But the NRA seems to have spent more than necessary to defeat the measures because...
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Me and Sandeep on a Podcast about Sunk Costs
Download: sandeep092013.mp3 We were interviewed by the excellent Jessica Love for Kellogg Insight. Its about 12 minutes long. Here’s one bit I liked: We go around in our lives and we collect...
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Psychological Mechanism Design
Suppose you and a friend of the opposite sex are recruited for an experiment. You are brought into separate rooms and told that you will be asked some questions and, unless you give consent, all of...
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Economizing Rhetoric
Suppose you are writing a referee report and you are recommending that the paper be rejected. You have a long list of reasons. How many should you put in your report? If you put only your few strongest...
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Solidifying Bad Precedents
Suppose there’s a precedent that people don’t like. A case comes up and they are debating whether the precedent applies. Often the most effective way to argue against it is to cite previous cases...
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A Problem With Increased Surveillance
Any punishment designed for deterrence is based on the following calculation. The potential criminal weighs the benefit of the crime against the cost, where the cost is equal to the probability of...
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Regression Discontinuity in Chicago Restaurant Choices
Here is an article on the latest Michelin stars for Chicago Restaurants. The very nice thing about this article is that it tells you which restaurants just missed getting a star. As of yesterday you...
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