The Economics of HIV/AIDS in Low-Income Countries: The Case for Prevention

The Economics of HIV/AIDS in Low-Income Countries: The Case for Prevention

David Canning

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2006, 20(3): 121–142.
DOI:10.1257/jep.20.3.121


Abstract
There are two approaches to reducing the burden of sickness and death associated with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS): treatment and prevention. Despite large international aid flows for HIV/AIDS, the needs for prevention and treatment in low- and middle-income countries outstrip the resources available. Thus, it becomes necessary to set priorities. With limited resources, should the focus of efforts to combat HIV/AIDS be on prevention or treatment? I discuss the range of prevention and treatment alternatives and examine their cost effectiveness. I consider various arguments that have been raised against the use of cost-effectiveness analysis in setting public policy priorities for the response to HIV/AIDS in developing countries. I conclude that promoting AIDS treatment using antiretrovirals in resource-constrained countries comes at a huge cost in terms of avoidable deaths that could be prevented through interventions that would substantially lower the scale of the epidemic.

http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.20.3.121

The ESRC-Funded project below has a lot of associated papers and presentations that will be of interest to people here.

"HALCyon Healthy Ageing across the Life Course

• Start date: 15 September 2008
• End date: 14 March 2013

HALCyon brings together an interdisciplinary group of scientists working on nine UK cohort studies to understand three aspects of healthy ageing: physical and cognitive capability (the ability to undertake the physical and mental tasks of everyday living), psychological and social wellbeing (how people feel and how they function in terms of relationships and social activities), and the biology of ageing, including cortisol (one of the body's stress hormones), telomere length (the cell's natural clock that tells the body how old it is) and genetic factors.

The eight projects will investigate how individual factors such as early development, lifetime health, personality and nutrition, and characteristics of areas in which study members have lived influence these indicators of healthy ageing. These factors may explain why some older people live fulfilled and active lives and why differences exist between men and women, or between social groups. Some cohort members will be interviewed to find out how they understand their life history and experiences and their response to ageing.

Interactions between the scientists and experts in policy, practice and user involvement will ensure that the new knowledge gained will improve the lives of older people."  

Launch October 26th Thanks

Thanks to everyone who attended and presented at the research group on Friday. In particular, thanks to our keynote speaker Professor Stephan Lea. Our next Stirling workshop will be on February 22nd. Some further links and photos on Friday will be put up here soon.

Launch Week Links

1. College Students and Credit Card Debt: Parents Have a Powerful Influence On Their Children's Financial Behaviors - Science Daily article.

2. Guardian article on how to answer weird interview questions. 

3. Dean Karlan on behavioural economics and economic development 

4. Forbes piece on the future of online versus residential education. 

5. Evaluation of the Irish jobbridge internship programme. Long way from demonstrating the actual impact. 

6. INET article on rationality assumptions in the most commonly used graduate micro text. 

7. NYT article on early childhood intervention 

8. Freakonomics on what's wrong with punishing bad predictions

9. Adam Curtis BBC blog is really great 

Lectures on Behavioral Macroeconomics: Paul De Grauwe

Lectures on Behavioral Macroeconomics Paul De Grauwe New PUP title - summary below:

"In mainstream economics, and particularly in New Keynesian macroeconomics, the booms and busts that characterize capitalism arise because of large external shocks. The combination of these shocks and the slow adjustments of wages and prices by rational agents leads to cyclical movements. In this book, Paul De Grauwe argues for a different macroeconomics model--one that works with an internal explanation of the business cycle and factors in agents' limited cognitive abilities. By creating a behavioral model that is not dependent on the prevailing concept of rationality, De Grauwe is better able to explain the fluctuations of economic activity that are an endemic feature of market economies. This new approach illustrates a richer macroeconomic dynamic that provides for a better understanding of fluctuations in output and inflation.

De Grauwe shows that the behavioral model is driven by self-fulfilling waves of optimism and pessimism, or animal spirits. Booms and busts in economic activity are therefore natural outcomes of a behavioral model. The author uses this to analyze central issues in monetary policies, such as output stabilization, before extending his investigation into asset markets and more sophisticated forecasting rules. He also examines how well the theoretical predictions of the behavioral model perform when confronted with empirical data.
Develops a behavioral macroeconomic model that assumes agents have limited cognitive abilities
Shows how booms and busts are characteristic of market economies
Explores the larger role of the central bank in the behavioral model
Examines the destabilizing aspects of asset markets

Paul De Grauwe is professor of international economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including The Exchange Rate in a Behavioral Finance Framework (Princeton) and Economics of Monetary Union.

Endorsement:

"De Grauwe voices the concerns of many macroeconomists regarding the empirical plausibility of the rational expectations assumption. He shows how a parsimonious, boundedly rational approach can improve the fit of sticky price macro models to the data in a number of important dimensions."--John Duffy, University of Pittsburgh"

Stirling Research Group in Economics, Psychology and Policy

Stirling Research Group in Economics, Psychology and Policy

The Stirling economics, psychology and policy research group launches on October 26th 2012. The centre integrates insights from psychological science into economics in order to comprehensively gauge the impact of economic circumstances and better understand how people make decisions regarding their health, education, wealth and welfare. The centre aims to utilize this knowledge to inform the formulation of more effective public policy.

The center is coordinated by a core group of faculty within the School of Management and draws from many internal and external academic and non-academic collaborations. It is part of the wider Work and Well-Being research stream in Stirling. Some of our current work is funded by SIRE and the EU commission. We are currently developing a portfolio of projects around the area of behavioral economics and public policy. We welcome strongly suggestions for collaboration from organisations in academia, policy and industry.

The center has a weekly 2-hour session to develop work in this area and regular online journal clubs to discuss research. It runs a quarterly one day workshop for researchers and practitoners in this area. It also has a blog and twitter page. Full details of our events and evolving programme available at:

http://www.economicspsychologypolicy.blogspot.com

From September 2013, we plan to run an MsC in Economics, Psychology and Policy. We aim to attract strong students intrinsically motivated to explore topics at the intersection of economics and psychology. PhD students interested in this area will also find many potential funding and supervisory opportunities, including as part of Scotdoc SGPE and Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences. We also provide opportunities for postdoctoral fellows and visiting researchers. Undergraduate students also are involved through a dedicated undergraduate module and paid summer internships.

Students interested in internships, the MsC or PhD programme should contact:

stireconpsych@stir.ac.uk

Using cell phone data to curb the spread of Malaria

A great example of how the growing availability of data is providing new insights on very important health questions.

From the HSPH newsletter:

New research that combines cell phone data from 15 million people in Kenya with detailed information on the regional incidence of malaria has revealed, on the largest scale so far, how human travel patterns contribute to the disease's spread. The findings from researchers at HSPH and seven other institutions indicate that malaria, in large part, emanates from Kenya's Lake Victoria region and spreads east, chiefly toward the capital, Nairobi.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2012-releases/cell-phone-data-malaria.html

Article:

Quantifying the Impact of Human Mobility on Malaria

Amy Wesolowski, Nathan Eagle, Andrew J. Tatem, David L. Smith, Abdisalan M. Noor, Robert W. Snow, Caroline O. Buckee

Science 12 October 2012: Vol. 338 no. 6104 pp. 267-270
DOI: 10.1126/science.1223467 

Abstract

Human movements contribute to the transmission of malaria on spatial scales that exceed the limits of mosquito dispersal. Identifying the sources and sinks of imported infections due to human travel and locating high-risk sites of parasite importation could greatly improve malaria control programs. Here, we use spatially explicit mobile phone data and malaria prevalence information from Kenya to identify the dynamics of human carriers that drive parasite importation between regions. Our analysis identifies importation routes that contribute to malaria epidemiology on regional spatial scales.

 

 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6104/267

EconTalk Podcast on Education

Arnold Kling, economist and teacher, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about recent technological innovations in education and Kling's forecast for their impact on learning and how they might affect traditional education. Examples include the recent explosion of online lessons and classes, new teaching styles that exploit those offerings, and the nature of learning in various kinds of classrooms and student-teacher interactions.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/10/kling_on_educat.html

Multi-level data from European Social Survey released

The ESS Multilevel Data resource (ESS MD) has now been launched from the ESS Data Website at http://ess.nsd.uib.no/essmd/. The ESS MD was partly funded by the Descartes Research Prize awarded to the ESS in 2005.
 
The ESS MD resource contains data at the individual level (the survey data from ESS respondents), the country level and the regional level. It incorporates contextual variables on a number of themes, including demography, geography, economy, health, education and crime.

There are two main gateways to the multilevel data:

1) Online Browsing - where the individual level ESS survey data are linked to contextual data on the regional level.  This is according to the ESS regional variable, as well as to contextual country level data.

2) Multilevel Download - where the user can choose regional NUTS levels in addition to the ESS regional variable and create a bespoke dataset. Please note however that not all NUTS levels are available for all countries. For further information about the resource please seehttp://ess.nsd.uib.no/essmd/.

In addition, the ESS has now published an ESS EduNet training package on Multilevel Models which provides guidance about this type of analysis. Please see: http://essedunet.nsd.uib.no/cms/topics/multilevel/

Events Schedule

Just a summary of some up-coming events:

On October 26th, we will launch the Center formally during the course of a one-day workshop. Details here.

On November 30th, the 5th Irish Economics, Psychology and Neuroscience one-day conference will take place in Dublin. Having had keynotes in the past such as Arie Kapteyn, John O'Doherty and David Laibson, we are happy to say that this year's keynote will be Professor Bob Sugden of East Anglia. Further details will be posted here and emailed.

December 3rd will be the Christmas research conference for the School of Management in Stirling and will have a component relating to the new center.

The exact date for next year's Scottish Graduate School of Social Science Summer School will be announced later in the year. Details of this year's session are here. The reading list from the Economics and Psychology session is here.

Our fourth workshop will take place on February 22nd in Stirling

The schedule for our online sessions will be maintained on this page for now. Welcome suggestions for sessions.

Launch of Stirling Economics, Psychology and Policy Research

Launch of Stirling Economics, Psychology and Policy Research 

The third in our series of workshops on Economics, Psychology and Policy takes place from 9am to 5pm on October 26th in the Stirling Cottrell Building. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers working on a range of exciting topics spanning disciplines including economics, psychology, and mathematics. Details of the previous session are here. Our new Economics and Psychology Research Group will be launched on the day. Our preliminary webpage is here and twitter feed is here. We very much welcome suggestions for developing the group and ideas for collaboration. Please contact lennie.jing@stir.ac.uk to register. 

Schedule:

9.00am -9.30am: Liam Delaney (Stirling) "Measurement-Induced Behavioural Change"

9.30am - 10.15pm: Mirko Moro (Stirling). "Behavioural Economics, Labelling and Energy Decisions" 

10.15am - 10.45am: Marie Briguglio (Stirling and Malta). "Voluntary waste separation: policies, politics and promotion.".

10.45am - 11am: Coffee

11am - 11.45am: David Comerford (Stirling): "Polls apart: The Consumer Sentiment Index looks very different when perceived change is measured indirectly"

11.45am - 12.30pm: Michael Daly (Stirling); "Understanding the interrelations between self-control, education, and health behaviour"

12.30pm- 2pm: Lunch

2.00pm - 2.30pm: Launch of Research Center 

2.30pm - 3.15pm: Gary Lewis (Stirling) "Origins of social preferences: Insights from behavior genetics and neuroimaging"

3.15pm - 4pm: Alex Wood (Manchester). "Concern for social rank: An integrative account of money, happiness, anchoring, and purchase behaviour"? "

4pm: Keynote Speaker: Professor Stephen Lea (University of Exeter) 

Cohort effect of the great recession

I finished my undergrad in May 2008. Although my sense is that my cohort just about caught the end of the boom, things were far less pleasant for the year behind us. Certainly the gap in employment opportunities between '07 and '09 was large. Future generations will want to know how large.

Care of the Institute for Social Research, there is now data that can quantify these effects. Transition into Adulthood is a longitudinal survey from childhood through adulthood, and a new wave capturing the effects of 2008 has just been released:

Transition into Adulthood (TA) (release 1): 2011

The preliminary 2011 Transition into Adulthood data file (TA-2011) is now available.

This data file represents the fourth wave of the Transition into Adulthood Study (TA) which was introduced in 2005 to capture data on the developmental pathways and outcomes of children who participated in the PSID Child Development Study as they transitioned into young adulthood. This study fills a gap between detailed information about development up through adolescence, and detailed information on adulthood once PSID panel members assume the role of economic independence as heads and spouses in the main study. The module collects data on health and emotional well-being, time use, community involvement, self identity and perception, expectations for the future, family, peer, and romantic relationships, work, schooling, and more. The interview domains are coordinated with the CDS adolescent measures and the PSID employment and health measures, and additionally provide new questions unique to this developmental stage.

Economics Nobel

To Roth and Shapley for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design".

Journal Session on the Measurement of Well-Being

The online journal club is starting up again today at 2pm.

A link to the sessions from earlier in the year:

http://economicspsychologypolicy.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=journal+club
 

Todays session will focus on well-being measurement and examine recent papers aiming to validate the Day Reconstruction Method Survey - a retrospective measure of time use, social interaction, and emotional experience.
 

 

The four papers that will be covered are:  
 

 

Bylsma, L. M., Taylor-Clift, A., & Rottenberg, J. (2011). Emotional reactivity to daily events in

major and minor depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120(1),155-167.

 
 

 

Dockray, S., Grant, N., A. A., Kahneman, D., Wardle, J., & Steptoe, A. (2010). A comparison of affect ratings obtained with ecological momentary assessment and the Day ReconsctructionMethod. Social Indicators Research, 99, 269-283.

 

 

 

Kim, J., et al. (2012). Systematic comparison between ecological momentary assessment and day reconstruction method for fatigue and mood states in healthy adults. British Journal of Health Psychology. doi: 10.1111/bjhp.12000.

 

 

Miret, M., Caballero, F.F., Mathur, A., Naidoo, N,. Kowal, P., et al. (2012). Validation of a measure of subjective well-being: an abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method. PLoS ONE, 7(8): e43887. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043887

 

 

 

Some of the questions we will address are listed below:

What is well-being, why is it interesting?

- Evaluative, eudaimonic, affective components

- Increasing political & academic interest as a metric of progress

What are the main approaches to measuring well-being?

- ‘Objective’well-being measures– frontal lobe asymmetry, prevalence of risk genes, biological measures of stress.

- Quality of life encompasses a broader set of measures including environmental factors, education, social life and so on.

- Self-report questionnaires with various formats, contexts, protocols.

What is the Day Reconstruction Method and what does it add to existing measures of well-being?

- Time use and experience sampling

- Non-invasive, less burdensome than Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)

- Suitable for population use (across education levels)

- Continuous quantitative description of daily experience

Has the Day Reconstruction Method been validated?

- Test-retest reliability (Krueger & Schkade, 2008; Miret et al., 2012)

- Comparison with EMA (Dockray et al., 2010; Bylsma et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2012)

- Link to physiological activity (Daly et al., 2010)

Link to UK Behavioural Economics and Economic Psychology Research

Will develop this page over the course of the year. The links below are not in any particular order.

Suggestions welcome:

Durham Center for Behavioural Economics and Finance 

Behavioural Economics at Oxford

Warwick Business School Masters Degree in Behavioural Science  

Behavioural Insights Team Cabinet Office 

MsC in Behavioural and Experimental Economics Nottingham 

Experimental Economics University of East Anglia 

Behavioural Economics Module UCL 

Scottish Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Aberdeen 

Ranking of Psychology Programmes in the UK

Ranking of Economics Programmes in the UK

SES/SGS Talk on Unemployment and Well-Being References

I gave a talk on "Youth Unemployment, Behavioural Economics and Psychological Distress" at the GES-SES Policy forum. There was also a workshop afterwards and talks by Professor Ron McQuaid. Some references below.

General: 

Babcock et al (2010): Notes on Behavioral Economics and Labor Market Policy

Well-Being and Unemployment:

The work of Krueger and Muller is very important for connecting well-being, time-use and unemployment.

Krueger and Muller (2011): Job Search and Job Finding in a Period ofMass Unemployment: Evidence from High-Frequency Longitudinal Data

Krueger and Muller (2012): Time Use, Emotional Well-Being, and Unemployment: Evidence from Longitudinal Data

Krueger and Muller (2012) : THE LOT OF THE UNEMPLOYED: A TIME USE PERSPECTIVE

Bjarnaso, Thoroddur and Sigurdardotti Thordis (2003). Psychological distress during unemployment and beyond: social support and material deprivation among youth in six northern European countries. Social Science & Medicine, 56, 973–985.

Creed, Peter & Reynolds, Judith (2001). Economic deprivation, experiential deprivation and social loneliness in unemployed and employed youth. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology. Volume 11, Issue 3, pages 167–178.

Flatau, Paul, Galea,June, Petridis, Ray (2000). Mental Health and Wellbeing and Unemployment. Australian Economic Review, Volume 33, Issue 2, pages 161–181. 

Julkunen, Isle (2001). Coping and Mental Well-being among Unemployed Youth—A Northern European Perspective. Journal of Youth Studies
Volume 4, Issue 3.

McKee-Ryan, F. et al (2005). Psychological and Physical Well-Being During Unemployment: A Meta-Analytic Study. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 90, No. 1, 53–76.

Winefield, A. (2002). Unemployment, Underemployment, Occupational Stress and Psychological Well-Being. Australian Journal of Management, vol. 27 no. 1 suppl, 137-148. 

Unemployment Policy:

David Bell and Danny Blanchflower have written a number of papers on unemployment and its connection to well-being. 

Bell and Blanchflower (2011) What should be done about rising unemployment in the UK?

Bell and Blanchflower (2009) Youth Unemployment:m Déjà Vu?

Bell, David, and Blanchflower, David (2010). UK Unemployment in the Great Recession. National Institute Economic Review. 

Bell, David, and Blanchflower, David (2010). Youth Unemployment in Europe and the United States. IZA DP No. 5673. 

Fougere, Denis et al (2009). Youth Unemployment and Crime in France. IZA Discussion Paper.

Gomez-Salvador, Ramon, and Leiner-Killinger, Nadine (2008). An Analysis of Youth Unemployment in the Euro Area. European Central Bank Occasional Paper series No 89.

Roberts, Gareth (2011). Youth employment in South Africa and the persistence of inflated expectations. 

Coy, Peter (2011). The Youth Unemployment Time Bomb. Business Week. 

Banks, James et al (2010). Releasing jobs for the young? Early retirement and youth unemployment in the United Kingdom. IFS Working Papers. 

Scarpetta, Sonnet and Manfredi (2010). Rising Youth Unemployment During the Crisis: How to Prevent Negative Long-Term Consequences on a Generation? OECD Socoal, Employment and Migration Papers, no. 106. 

Matsuba, M. et al (2008). Employment Training for At-risk Youth: A Program Evaluation Focusing on Changes in Psychological Well-being.
Child and Youth Care Forum, Volume 37, Number 1, 15-26.


Scottish Work:

Subjective Well-Being in Scotland 

Youth Unemployment: Key Facts 

Weekend Links

1. Online resources for Erik Angner's textbook on behavioural economics available on this link 

2. Morgan Stanley's reading list for finance has a lot of useful links and resources

3. Harvard Business Blog by Robert Plan "Big Data Doesn't Work if You Ignore the Small Things that Matter"

4. Had posted this before but Angus Deaton's memoir of a life spent as an applied economist is a funny and insightful read. His description as to how he came to the work that propelled him to being one of the world's leading economists by working out practical problems in the estimation of models is particularly interesting. 

5. Brainpickings post on "From Ptolemy to George Eliot to William Blake, a Private History of Everyday Happiness"

6. Fascinating approach to public communications: "Social Norm Influences on Evaluations of the Risks Associated with Alcohol Consumption: Applying the Rank-Based Decision by Sampling Model to Health Judgments"

7. Recent piece in Nature news on Kahneman's plea to bolster the research on priming through more replication. 

8. Jean-Emmanuel De Neve's webpage has a number of videos of talks and lectures on behavioural economics

9. I have been reading again around the topic of the interaction of psychology, politics and the market over the 20th century. I think it is important to understand how previous attempts to bring psychology into large-scale policy making played out. Edward Bernays 1928 work on propaganda contains some memorable quotes. Bernays, Freud's nephew, is the figure at the center of the Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self (h/t to Ken McKenzie for making me understand the relevance of this to what I do). Among other things, the documentary credits him with the development of public relations and the creation of a rising trend in female smoking. Reading about him and understanding his influence and the ideas that drove him and made him famous is interesting in understanding some potential pitfalls in approaches that seek to control and shape human behaviour. I fundamentally dont believe the current integration of psychology leads to the more pessimistic extremes in previous attempts to do so. But it's clearly an issue people should read and think about. 

Modern Medicine and the Twentieth Century Decline in Mortality: Evidence on the Impact of Sulfa Drugs

Modern Medicine and the Twentieth Century Decline in Mortality: Evidence on the Impact of Sulfa Drugs

Seema Jayachandran, Adriana Lleras-Muney, and Kimberly V. Smith

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2 (April 2010): 118–146

Abstract

This paper studies the contribution of sulfa drugs, a groundbreaking medical innovation in the 1930s, to declines in US mortality. For several infectious diseases, sulfa drugs represented the first effective treatment. Using time-series and difference-in-differences methods, we find that sulfa drugs led to a 24 to 36 percent decline in maternal mortality, 17 to 32 percent decline in pneumonia mortality, and 52 to 65 percent decline in scarlet fever mortality between 1937 and 1943. Altogether, sulfa drugs reduced mortality by 2 to 3 percent and increased life expectancy by 0.4 to 0.7 years. We also find that sulfa drugs benefited whites more than blacks. 

(JEL I12, L65, N32, N72)

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.2.2.118

Ungated version:

http://www.econ.ucla.edu/alleras/research/papers/sulfa_final.pdf

SIRE Events

Below update sent by Gina Reddie:

Dear colleagues

As follows, a quick overview of SIRE events in October:

Health Economics Research Unit (HERU)  on 10 October 2012 In Aberdeen

·         Professor Geoffard will be delivering a seminar on the measurement of inequalities in health. This is a topic of specific interest to various research teams working in Scotland, and figures as a prominent area of interest in Aberdeen and Dundee amongst other departments and research centres.

Venue: University of Aberdeen, Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) Building, Level 5, Foresterhill, Aberdeen. AB25 2ZD from 1-3pm.

PhD Masterclass and Workshop: 25-26 October, University of St Andrews

·         A Masterclass on “Experiments in Industrial Organisation”, is held between 12.00-14.00, Thursday 25 October. Prof Hinloopen will run this training for PhD students and junior researchers who might be interested in this as a potential research tool. 

·         A Workshop on “Competition, Innovation and Competition Policy is scheduled for Thursday 25/10 (14.30-19.00 ) and repeated on Friday 26 October (09.00-13.00 ). Confirmed speakers are Jeroen Hinloopen (Amsterdam), Joe Swierzbinski (Aberdeen) David Ulph (St Andrews) & Prof Yannis Katsoulacos (AUEB), Alex Dickson (Strathclyde), Evgenia Motchenkova (Amsterdam) Georg von Graevenitz  (UEA), Luca Savorelli (St Andrews) and Jacob Seifert (PhD student St Andrews) with further slots planned.

REGISTRATION DEADLINE IS 12 OCTOBER; to book, visit http://ustacompetitionworkshop.weebly.com/

SIRE Young Researchers Forum: 31 October: Strathclyde

·         The next SYRF meeting will take place at the University of Strathclyde, with guest speaker Professor Farid Toubal (ENS Cachan and Paris 1) who will present the paper “Native Language, Spoken Language, Translation and Trade”.

Additional input will be from two junior academics from Stirling and Glasgow, names to be confirmed, including times and venue. For any information please contact Rodolphe Desbordes rodolphe.desbordes@strath.ac.uk

David Hume Institute: 13 November

·         Patrick Honahan, Governor, of the Central Bank of Ireland will give a talk on Tuesday 13 November 2012 at 6pm (Playfair Library, Old College, University of Edinburgh) providing his perspective on matters European and Eurozone, with all the insights of a genuine insider. 

This event is sponsored by SIRE and a number of free spaces are available to attend this event. Please contact gina.reddie@ed.ac.uk if you are interested.

All announcements are on http://www.sire.ac.uk/news/index.html

In addition to the above:

The Scotsman Conference 23 October: A Question of Independence: Scotland's Place in the World, 08:30am, 23rd October 2012 at The Scotsman Head Office, Edinburgh
What would independence mean for Scotland’s place in the world - for its international relationships, its global reputation and its exporters?

The conference will be split into two sections - Scotland on a World Stage and Doing Business With The World. Expert speakers will examine: foreign policy in an independent Scotland; EU and NATO membership; international development; exports; access to global & local markets as well as the challenges and opportunities Scottish business is likely to face.
Confirmed speakers include: Fiona Hyslop MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Culture & External Affairs; Peter Hughes of Scottish Engineering and Linda McDowall of Scottish Enterprise

Information & fees: Delegate rate: £99 + VAT (mention SIRE when booking and receive a 10% discount on your delegate place)
To book please email conferences@scotsman.com or call 0131 620 8656 or visit www.scotsmanconferences.com

All fees include refreshments, networking lunch and exclusive access to The Scotsman's Post Conference Reports 

Martin Luther King - Maladjusted

There has always been a debate raging in psychology and related literatures as to whether the striving for creating individual happiness is at odds with the desire to change society as a whole. One clip used in Adam Curtis's Century of the Self is the classic below by Martin Luther King. It's a powerful speech and reminder of the importance of this point.

Weekend Links

The main behavioural economics news this week is the launching of auto-enrolment in the UK (see DWP press release). This is historic in its way and aims to enrol up to 9 million UK workers into defined contribution pensions over the next few years with employer contributions and tax incentives.

1. Maria Popova points to the brilliant Jon Berger documentary "Ways of Seeing"

2. She also has a very nice description of Adam Curtis "Century of the Self". I cannot recommend this documentary highly enough. Ken McKenzie used to introduce students to it in his political psych courses. It is a masterpiece and brilliantly expounds on the links between psychoanalysis, economics, marketing and politics over the 20th century.

3. Good post by Crawford, Emmerson and Tetlow of the IFS on the potential impacts of autoenrolment in the UK

4. The STATA youtube channel has many useful tutorials on STATA and econometrics

5. "Mental health in context: the national study of work-search and wellbeing" Important study.

6. BBC article "Investment choices after auto-enrolment". Discussion of issues for workers to consider in new environment. 

7. MOOC's and the McDonalisation of Higher Education 

8. Preserving Access and Quality in an Era of Rising University Tuition Fees (RAND)

9. Maria Popova again on strategies to break creative block

10. The debate around the Finch report on publication access is worth keeping an eye on. Good post here on LSE impact blog. 

Department of Work and Pensions Reports

Several of the recent reports published by the Department of Work and Pensions will be of interest to readers of the blog. Most recently, they released a report on the mental health of job benefit claimants. They have also published a number of reports on retirement decisions, pensions autoenrolment and so on. The body of work is a good example of how work at the intersection of economics, psychology and related fields is having increasing influence on policy in the UK.

Malthusian Dynamics in a Diverging Europe: Northern Italy, 1650–1881

Malthusian Dynamics in a Diverging Europe: Northern Italy, 1650–1881

Demography
DOI 10.1007/s13524-012-0141-9

Alan Fernihough

Abstract

Recent empirical research questions the validity of using Malthusian theory in preindustrial England. Using real wage and vital rate data for the years 1650–1881, I provide empirical estimates for a different region: Northern Italy. The empirical methodology is theoretically underpinned by a simple Malthusian model, in which population, real wages, and vital rates are determined endogenously. My findings strongly support the existence of a Malthusian economy wherein population growth decreased living standards, which in turn influenced vital rates. However, these results also demonstrate how the system is best characterized as one of weak homeostasis. Furthermore, there is no evidence of Boserupian effects given that increases in population failed to spur any sustained technological progress.

Keywords: Economic history . Demographic economics . Malthus

http://www.springerlink.com/content/u451p72938072xg8/

Ungated version:

http://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/wpaper/201037.html

Michael Daly

Michael Daly began on the faculty of Stirling today and will be coordinating the research in this center. Some details of Michael's work below. Some details of his work and research interests below.

Biography

Michael Daly was an IRCHSS Government of Ireland CARA Fellow, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Marie Curie Programme for Co-funding Regional, National and International Programmes. During his transnational mobility fellowship he conducted research at the Health Services Research Unit (University of Aberdeen) and the UCD Geary Institute (University College Dublin). Michael has been a Trinity College Ussher Fellow (2007 – 2010), a 2008 Fulbright Scholar in Florida State University, and lecturer in the School of Psychology in the University of Manchester.

Research Interests

My research interests are in the following areas:

1) Specifying the bidirectional links between socioeconomic status/labour market outcomes and physical and mental health.

2) Examining the role of self-control in determining socioeconomic/labour market and physical and mental health trajectories.

3) Identifying the determinants of patterns of well-being from intraday variation to lifespan trends, and well-being measurement with a focus on integrating ecological and psychobiological measures and 'high resolution measures' of human welfare.

Publications
Contributions to Journals
Articles
Daly, M. 'The relationship of C-reactive protein to obesity-related depressive symptoms: a longitudinal study'. ' Obesity.
Daly, M., Hevey, D. & Regan, C. (2011). 'The role of perceived risk in general practitioners' decisions to inform partners of HIV-infected patients'. ' British Journal of Health Psychology, vol 16, no. 2, pp. 273-287.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1348/135910710X498714
Daly, M., Delaney, L., Doran, P. & MacLachlan, M. (2011). 'The role of awakening cortisol and psychological distress in diurnal variations in affect: A day reconstruction study'. ' Emotion, vol 11, no. 3, pp. 524-532.
Daly, M. & MacLachlan, M. (2011). 'Heredity links natural hazards and human health: Apolipoprotein E gene moderates self-rated health in earthquake survivors'. ' Health Psychology, vol 30, no. 2, pp. 228-235.
Kellaghan, T. & Daly, M. (2010). 'Opinions of the Irish public on the availability of information about schools'. ' Irish Journal of Education, vol 38.
Daly, M., Delaney, L., Doran, P., Harmon, C. & MacLachlan, M. (2010). 'Naturalistic monitoring of the affect-heart rate relationship: A day reconstruction study'. ' Health Psychology, vol 29, no. 2, pp. 186-195.
Daly, M., Delaney, L. & Harmon, C. (2009). 'Psychological and biological foundations of time preference'. ' Journal of the European Economic Association, vol 7, no. 2-3, pp. 659-669.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1162/JEEA.2009.7.2-3.659
Johnson, KA., Kelly, SP., Robertson, IH., Barry, E., Mulligan, A., Daibhis, A., Daly, M., Watchorn, A., Keavey, M., Lambert, D., McDonnell, C., Hawi, Z. & Bellgrove, MA. (2008). 'Impaired conflict resolution and alerting in children with ADHD: evidence from the Attention Network Task (ANT)'. 'Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, vol 49, no. 12, pp. 1339-1347.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.01936.x
Johnson, KA., Barry, E., Bellgrove, MA., Cox, M., Kelly, SP., Daibhis, A., Daly, M., Keavey, M., Watchorn, A., Fitzgerald, M., McNicholas, F., Kirley, A. & Robertson, IH. (2008). 'Dissociation in response to methylphenidate administration on sustained attention in a group of medication naive children with ADHD'. ' Neuropsychologia, vol 46, no. 5, pp. 1532-1541.
[ONLINE] DOI: doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.01.002
Bellgrove, MA., Barry, E., Johnson, KA., Cox, M., Daibhis, A., Daly, M., Hawi, Z., Lambert, D., Fitzgerald, M., McNicholas, F., Robertson, IH., Gill, M. & Kirley, A. (2008). 'Spatial attentional bias as a marker of genetic risk, symptom severity and stimulant response in ADHD'. 'Neuropsychopharmacology, vol 3, pp. 2536-2545.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1038/sj.npp.1301637
Johnson, KA., Kelly, SP., Robertson, IH., Barry, E., Mulligan, A., Daly, M., Lambert, D., McDonnell, C., Hawi, Z., Gill, M., Bellgrove, MA., Daibhis, A., Watchorn, A. & Keavey, M. (2008). 'Absence of the 7-repeat variant of the DRD4 VNTR is associated with drifting sustained attention in children with ADHD but not in controls'. ' American Journal of Medical Genetics. Part B, Neuropsychiatric Genetics, vol 147B, no. 6, pp. 927-937.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.30718
Grey, IM., Bruton, C., Honan, R., McGuinness, R. & Daly, M. (2007). 'An Exploration into the Effects of Co-operative Learning for Children with an ASD in mainstream and Special Class settings'. ' Educational Psychology in Practice, vol 23, no. 4, pp. 317-327.
Bellgrove, MA., Chambers, CD., Johnson, KA., Daibhis, A., Daly, M., Hawi, Z., Lambert, D., Gill, M. & Robertson, IH. (2007). 'Dopaminergic genotype biases spatial attention in healthy children'. 'Molecular Psychiatry, vol 12, no. 8, pp. 786-792.
Kellaghan, T. & Daly, M. (2005). 'Opinions of the Irish public on the goals of education'. ' Irish Journal of Education, vol 36, pp. 91-115.
Grey, IM., Honan, R., McClean, B. & Daly, M. (2005). 'Evaluating the Effectiveness of Teacher Training In Applied Behaviour Analysis'. ' Journal of Intellectual Disabilities, vol 9, no. 3, pp. 209-227.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1177/1744629505056695
Letters
Daly, M. (2012). 'The importance of accurately measuring spatial abilities'. ' PNAS, vol 109, no. 10.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1114883109
Daly, M. (2012). 'Are momentary measures of positive affect better predictors of mortality than recalled feelings?'. ' PNAS, vol 109, no. 18.
[ONLINE] DOI: doi: 10.1073/pnas.1201630109
Daly, M. (2011). 'Letter to the Editor: Poor childhood mental health may explain linkages between trauma, cannabis use, and later psychotic experiences'. ' Psychological Medicine, vol 41, no. 9, pp. 2012-2014.
Daly, M. (2011). 'Intelligence differences may explain the link between childhood psychological problems and adult socioeconomic status'. ' PNAS, vol 108, no. 27, pp. E251.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1106552108
Daly, M. (2011). 'Childhood psychotic symptoms: link between non-consensual sex and later psychosis'. ' British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 199, pp. 251-252.
[ONLINE] DOI: 10.1192/bjp.199.3.251a
Daly, M. (in press). 'Physical health differences may provide a general explanation for why happy people live longer: A Letter to the Editor regarding Wiest et al (2011)'. ' Health Psychology.
Daly, M. (in press). 'The midlife peak in distress amongst the disadvantaged and existing ideas about mental health inequalities over the lifespan'. ' Psychological Medicine.
[ONLINE] DOI: doi:10.1017/S0033291711002248
Daly, M. (in press). 'Childhood trauma may combine synergistically with stimulant use rather than cannabis use to predict psychosis'. ' Psychological Medicine.

Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings
Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
Baumeister, RF. & Daly, M. (2009). 'Social support and mental health'. '. in: Salem Health: Psychology & Mental Health. Salem Press, pp. 1838-1841.

Rationality, Behavioural Economics and Folk Wisdom

I asked people on twitter for examples of folk sayings that map to behavioural economics and rationality concepts. I think Marie wins this one with her list below.

It goes without saying… (though there's an exception to every rule)

Do we really need to teach economics, when some elementary revision of good old proverbs would do the job quite nicely?

From Neo-classical to Behavioural economics

First, some basic micro-economics. -classical economic wisdom features in “He who pays the piper calls the tune”, “Fair exchange is no robbery”, “You pays your money and you takes your choice”, “Beggars should not be choosers”, “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”  and “Money makes the world go round.”  The law of diminishing marginal utility comes through simply in sayings like “A change is as good as a rest”, “A little of what you fancy does you good” and “Enough is as good as a feast”. If that’s not sufficient, then consider these: “Enough is enough”, “Less is more”, “Moderation in all things” “Variety is the spice of life”, “You can have too much of a good thing”. 

There is a nod at the main findings from labour market economics in “Every man has his price”, “Jack of all trades, master of none”, “Time is money”, whilst the trade off with leisure is summed up in “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” and “Man does not live by bread alone“. Diminishing marginal productivity also features as “Too many cooks spoil the broth”.

There are sayings that inform portfolio management like “Don't put all your eggs in one basket”, and savings, like “A penny saved is a penny earned”.  Of course, the concept of opportunity cost is also summed up neatly in “There's no such thing as a free lunch” whilst the importance of letting “bygones be bygones” is put simply in “It's no use crying over spilt milk”.

The general neo-classical attitude towards preferences is summed up in “There's no accounting for tastes”. Concerns with equity are also brushed off quickly in the proverbial world - as they are in neo-classical economics with “One law for the rich and another for the poor”. Likewise legal instruments: “The law is an ass”

In what may be the strongest endorsement of behavioural economics to date, proverbs are particularly rich in describing the findings from this particular sub-field of economics. Several sayings suggest that rational economic behaviour may be less commonplace than suggested by neo classical theory, for instance: “There's nowt so queer as folk”, “A fool and his money are soon parted” and “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.

Salience, framing, attribute substitution..

There is a wealth of proverbs that warn against susceptibility to salience effects: “It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease”, “Out of sight, out of mind”, “Seeing is believing”, “What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over”, and “A picture paints a thousand words”. The tendency for people to substitute attributes is hinted at in “A drowning man will clutch at a straw”, “There are none so blind as those, that will not see”, and actually actively encouraged in “Cleanliness is next to godliness”, “Clothes make the man”,  and “Ask no questions and hear no lies.”  We are warned against framing effects in “All that glisters is not gold”, “Give a dog a bad name and hang him”, “Never judge a book by its cover”. A clue to priming effects could have been drawn from “A word to the wise is enough”, and “There's no smoke without fire”.  It is worth exploring whether and when “Actions speak louder than words” and whether people really do act on the heuristic that “Barking dogs seldom bite.”  Another possible field for a future research agenda is to what extent “Flattery will get you nowhere”.

Beyond self interest

The importance of pro-social behaviour also emerges clearly in folk-wisdom. From warm-glow effects - “Virtue is its own reward”, “It is better to give than to receive”, to reciprocity - “Do as you would be done by“, “One hand washes the other” “One good turn deserves another” and “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” Pro-social preferences are described as “Charity begins at home”, “Share and share alike” and “ Cold hands warm heart”. The importance of pro-social behaviour is summed up in “A volunteer is worth twenty pressed men”.

The reluctance to wield out altruistic punishment can also be explained by expressions like “People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones”. It seems we also knew the findings of ultimatum games all along, with sayings like “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face” and “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”. Likewise, knew all along that “Revenge is sweet” and that it is “a dish best served cold”.

Endowment, loss aversion, status quo and anchoring

Proverbs provide a succinct understanding of what people experience with endowment effects and loss aversion in sayings like “Count your blessings”, “Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't”, “You can't have your cake and eat it” and “You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs”.  Research findings are also confirmed in “Easy come, easy go”. This said, it would be interesting to invite further research as to whether “'tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”.  Status quo bias and anchoring effects should come as no surprise, considering sayings like And “A rolling stone gathers no moss”, “Don't rock the boat”, “Don't upset the apple-cart” , “Don't change horses in midstream”, “Better safe than sorry.” At the same time, the sentiments of the over-confident are summed up in sayings like “All's for the best in the best of all possible worlds”, “Every cloud has a silver lining”, “Faint heart never won fair lady”, “Faith will move mountains”, “Fortune favours the brave”, “He who hesitates is lost”, “Hope springs eternal”, “In for a penny, in for a pound”, “Lightning never strikes twice in the same place”, “Nothing venture, nothing gain”, “Third time lucky” etc etc. but even here, proverbs provide ample warning with “Don't count your chickens before they are hatched”. In an application to family economics, whilst proverbs recognize that many believe that “Marriages are made in heaven”, they warn that “Marry in haste, repent at leisure”.

Peer effects

As for the struggle with identification to find peer effects  - surely the sheer amount of proverbs are enough to suggest that these really exists? “A person is known by the company he keeps”, “There's safety in numbers”, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”, “If you can't beat em, join em”, “If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas”, and “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, although it could be a case of “Birds of a feather flock together” and “Great minds think alike”. An interesting research agenda would be whether peer effects are stronger in positive domains as suggested in: “Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone”

Time discounting, will-power

Everything in the proverbial world seems to confirm research on the human tendency for present focus, with may proverbs actively encouraging people to think of the future “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, “As you make your bed, so you must lie upon it”, “As you sow so shall you reap”,  “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, “A stitch in time saves nine”, “Everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die” ”Make hay while the sun shines”,  “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today”, “Procrastination is the thief of time“. Patience too is actively encouraged in sayings like “All good things come to he who waits”, “Patience is a virtue”. On the other hand, some proverbs do seem to advocate present focus, “There's no time like the present”, “Carpe diem”, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”, “Live for today for tomorrow never comes”, and “Shrouds have no pockets”. Recognizing the dilemma that presents itself proverbs offer other wisdom such as: “It's never too late”, “Time flies”, “Time is a great healer” and “Time will tell” and quite simply, “A watched pot never boils”.

The struggle with will-power receives a lot of attention in sayings like “Do as I say, not as I do”, “Failing to plan is planning to fail”, “If you can't be good, be careful”, “No pain, no gain”, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and “There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip” “Where there's a will there's a way”, and “ If at first you don't succeed try, try and try again” and “Rome wasn't built in a day”.

Recall, mental categories, emotion

The tricks our mind plays with recalling past events is evident in sayings like “All's well that ends well”, “distance lends enchantment to the view”,  and “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”,  though why proverbs suggest that “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty” is not yet clear (though it certainly is an assumption made in most studies). The joys of savouring are also explored in “It's better to travel hopefully than to arrive”.

That people have issues with mental categories seems evident in sayings like “A place for everything and everything in its place”, “Penny wise and pound foolish”, and “Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.”  Visceral effects are captured in sayings like “The way to a man's heart is through his stomach”, “Love is blind”, “Love will find a way”.

Happiness

Even happiness research found what proverbs had told us all along, that “Money isn't everything”, and “The best things in life are free”. We knew all along about relative effects as “comparisons are odious”, “Ignorance is bliss” and “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”.  The financial crises itself was forecast in “He that goes a-borrowing, goes a-sorrowing” and “Give credit where credit is due”.

System 1 and System 2

The notion of System 1 and System 2 thinking is captured so elegantly in “One half of the world does not know how the other half lives”, “There are two sides to every question”, “Every stick has two ends”, System 1 operates on sayings like “First come, first served”, “First impressions are the most lasting”; System 2 employs other sayings like “Doubt is the beginning not the end of wisdom”, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” “It's no use locking the stable door after the horse has bolted”, “Look before you leap”, The effect of distraction is also summed up in “When the cat's away the mice will play”. What remains to be researched is whether “No man can serve two masters”, or “Two heads are better than one”.

Demographics and Intervention

Some proverbs also reveal correlation between demographics and behavioural findings, such as:  “Boys will be boys”, “A good man is hard to find”, “Behind every great man there's a great woman”, “The female of the species is more deadly than the male”,  “The husband is always the last to know”, “There's no fool like an old fool” and “You can't teach an old dog new tricks”, seem to substantiate much of what peer-reviewed research has found to date. The nature vs nurture debate remains unresolved in proverbs as it does in the research. Is it “Like father, like son”, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”  or “is Life is what you make it?” Proverbs suggest that “The good die young”. To date, this runs counter to most findings in behavioural economics.  

The ethical debate on choice architecture is informed by “Give a man enough rope and he will hang himself”,  “A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client” and “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” Yet proverbs cast a pessimistic view on the possibility of de-biasing behaviour: “It is easy to be wise after the event”, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink”, and “A leopard cannot change its spots.” A glimmer of hope may yet exist, as suggested by “You are never too old to learn.” At least “fore-warned is for-armed.”  Ultimately “What can't be cured must be endured”.

An agenda for future research

Proverbs also provide us with a research agenda for behavioural economics. Do we use other – as yet under-researched - heuristics that lead us astray like “If you want a thing done well, do it yourself”, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”; “All you need is love”; “A new broom sweeps clean”; Is “All publicity is good publicity” or do we believe that “Still waters run deep”? Do we have different rules of what is “fair in love and war”? Do we behave as though “Blood is thicker than water”? Do we have a tendency to “Throw the baby out with the bath water”? Does “Early to bed and early to rise” really make a man “healthy, wealthy and wise”? Under what conditions is “Hard work never did anyone any harm” true? Does “Life begin at forty”?  Is “Necessity is the mother of invention?”, in risky decisions, are we “Once bitten, twice shy”?