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Do women attorneys dress too sexy?
According to this recent report by Slate staff writer Amanda Hess, a lot of judges (most of whom are male, by the way) apparently seem to think so. But as Ms Hess notes in her report, the dress code for … Continue reading
Economists are not scientists
Sorry Professor Mankiw, but economics is not really a science. Economics is politics and normative value judgements all the way down, and you yourself end up admitting as much in your most recent essay in the Sunday Times. So why do … Continue reading
NBA “pass probabilities” (San Antonio Spurs edition)
Read Kirk Goldsberry’s excellent report on the growing role of mathematics, statistics, and probability theory in the NBA here.
What’s the probability that Russia will annex additional Ukrainian territory?
We think it is high, very high. After all, Russia has already annexed the whole of the Crimean peninsula without a real fight. Why won’t she annex other pro-Russian regions too, especially the eastern oblasts of Ukraine? Like Adolf Hitler after the 1938 … Continue reading
Do infants have preferences or utility functions?
This seemingly intractable question is easy enough to answer if you are an academic economist. All you need do is simply assume your answer is yes. But is this any way to search for truth? Doesn’t the economic approach fail … Continue reading
Why isn’t the Crimean peninsula worth defending?
She is certainly worth stealing and taking by force, which is what the Russian Federation appears to be doing as we write up this pithy blog post … If you were an advisor to Oleksandr Turchynov, the new (and unelected) prime minister … Continue reading
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Tagged Crimea, Current Affairs, Economics, Laws of War, Strategy
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“Something New”
That is the title of this new song in this creative video by Tom Fletcher …
A quick critique of Nate Silver’s new website
The new FiveThirtyEight website, which launched last Monday (17 March 2014), purports to offer data journalism in a wide variety of fields, not just politics (the original focus of the original FiveThirtyEight website), but also economics, science, sports, and (our favorite) “life”. … Continue reading
Fair or foul? Bayesian reasoning and Flight 370
Note: this post was revised and expanded during the morning of 20 March 2014. What happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370? Specifically, do you have any “priors” about what may have happened, e.g. sabotage, terrorism, pilot error, mechanical failure, an electrical … Continue reading
Stephen Hawking wins theoretical physics bet …
Or has he? Prof. Hawking had bet Neil Turok, the director of the Perimeter Institute in Canada, that gravitational waves from the cosmic big bang would eventually be detected. But according to this report in The Guardian, Dr. Turok refuses to pay up … for now. … Continue reading
