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Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol
How much cheating goes on (in soccer)?
Alan Burdick, a writer for The New Yorker (one of my favorite English-language weekly magazines), summarizes some recent research in this area conducted by Chris Stride, a psychologist at the University of Sheffield: First, [Stride] had to define cheating. In soccer, all … Continue reading
World Cup auctions?
Why not use auctions or some other market mechanism to allocate the right to host such sporting events as the World Cup, the Olympics, or the Super Bowl? Or do you think FIFA’s corrupt selection methods, or the IOC’s opaque multi-stage selection process, or … Continue reading
“Beautiful Game Theory”
That is the title of this book which explores the relation between economics and football (or soccer, for sportifs in the US) and which we will be reading in the coming days … between first-stage matches, that is. “Beautiful Game Theory” was written by Ignacio … Continue reading
When beautiful models go wrong
No, not those types of models! We mean abstract, mathematical models. Celebrity economist Paul Krugman writes: Suppose you’re making a prediction — and every assertion about how the world works has to involve at least an implicit prediction of something, … Continue reading
Open-source patents?
Elon Musk — co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors — has this to say about Tesla’s proprietary patents: When I started out with my first company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. And maybe they were good … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Elon Musk, Innovation, Law, Property, Strategy, Tesla Motors
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“The Economics of the Undead”
That is the title of this fun collection of essays edited by Glen Whitman and Jim Dow, which you can pre-order here. To our loyal readers, click here, if you dare, for a tantalizing and sexy preview (the chapter titled “Buy or Bite?”) from … Continue reading
Will Baghdad fall next?
Solve for equilibrium …
Is Alice Goffman the new Margaret Mead?
Why are ethnographers so gullible and so easily fooled? For example, just as Margaret Mead was duped by several Samoan girls on the island of Ta’u when she wrote her classic book Coming of Age in Samoa, it appears that Alice Goffman … Continue reading
Turing test bet
Alan Turing’s simple machine intelligence test has been in the news lately. It is worth noting that there are many possible versions of Turing’s test. One version of the test, for example, is currently the subject of a $20,000 bet between Ray Kurzweil … Continue reading
“The evolutionary path of the law”
That is the title of our review of Nature’s Oracle, Ullica Segerstrale’s recent biography of the life and work of W.D. “Bill” Hamilton. Please enjoy responsibly …
prior probability 