Tag: tim-harford
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Choice Architecture of Organ Donation
The supply of organs suitable for donation is vastly smaller than the demand. To try and increase the pool of potential donors a number of options have been tested: Redefining death so ‘living’ organs can be taken from donors who have died through brain death (via Link Banana), provide incentives for potential donors, or employ…
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I, Toaster and The Economies of Production
Doing away with the division of labour and most other economies of production, Thomas Thwaites’ Toaster Project is an experiment to “build a toaster, from scratch—beginning by mining the raw materials and ending with a product that Argos sells for only £3.99”. Many have mentioned this already (Jason Kottke, Tyler Cowen on Margin Revolution, Radley…
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The Mars Bar Unit of Account
The fluctuating weight of the Mars Bar is quite a contentious issue here in the UK. Answering a query as to whether economists take this into account (and not just price fluctuations) when calculating inflation using the Retail Prices Index, economist Tim Harford offers some entertaining information regarding the Mars Bar unit of account. The Mars…
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The Problems with Saving
In 2007 the average American saved 0.6% of their income. By February of this year that had risen to more than 4%, but in the 1980s it was 10%. With this in mind, Tim Harford asks why are we such awful savers, and what can we do to improve the situation? Behavioral economists […] have…
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Can Technology Solve Our Climate Problems?
After reading Cambridge physicist David MacKay’s much lauded Sustainable Energy (free download available), the FT Economist Tim Harford worries that we are “too complacent about technological fixes for the twin problems of climate change and finite oil and gas reserves”. Harford suggests that if we contemplate the idea that technological progress may not solve these…
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Grade Inflation
With news that Cambridge University is to demand A* grades at A-Level as a prerequisite for entry (a grade that currently doesn’t exist), there is much in the news about ‘grade inflation’. However “grade inflation” is actually the answer; the problem is “grade distortion”: True grade inflation would mean each grade was equally devalued, with…
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Unlikely Events Influenced by Financial Incentives
With the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, proposing that alcohol should cost a minimum of 50p per unit, many opposers are arguing that the increase would “punish ordinary drinkers without deterring the winos, brawlers and wife-beaters”. However, as Tim Harford notes, it may well work as the unlikeliest of events are influenced by…
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Models of Racial Segregation
Tim Harford—the FT’s ‘Undercover Economist’—has produced a video demonstrating Thomas Schelling’s theory of racial segregation, in 2 minutes. Schelling, who was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics for “having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis”, showed with his Models of Segregation that even a mild preference for the colour of…
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Planning for the Worst Case Scenario
Eliezer Yudkowsky on planning for the abyssal. Never mind hindsight on the real-estate bubble – there are lots of things that could potentially trigger financial catastrophes. I’m willing to bet the American government knows what it will do in terms of immediate rescue operations if an atomic bomb goes off in San Francisco. But if…
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The Inefficiency of Christmas Gifts
A letter to Tim Harford (The Undercover Economist) asks, What’s the best Christmas present? Your letter obliges me to disinter the influential research of the economist Joel Waldfogel on the “deadweight loss of Christmas”. Fifteen years ago, Waldfogel published an academic article demonstrating that the recipients of gifts would not generally have been willing to…