"Forced to wait for fifteen minutes at the airport luggage carousel leaves many of us miserable and irritated. Yet if we'd spent the same waiting time walking to the carousel we'd be far happier. That's according to Christopher Hsee and colleagues, who say we're happier when busy but that unfortunately our instinct is for idleness. Unless we have a reason for being active we choose to do nothing - an evolutionary vestige that ensures we conserve energy.
Given that being busy makes us happier but that our instinct is for idleness, Hsee's team say there is a case for encouraging what they call 'futile busyness,' that is: 'busyness serving no purpose other than to prevent idleness. Such activity is more realistic than constructive busyness and less evil than destructive busyness.'
...
The researchers proceed to argue that, unfortunately, most people will not be tempted by futile busyness, so there's a paternalistic case for governments and organisations tricking us into more activity: 'houseowners may increase the happiness of their idle housekeepers by letting in some mice and prompting the housekeepers to clean up. Governments may increase the happiness of idle citizens by having them build bridges that are actually useless.' In fact, according to Hsee's team, such interventions already exist, with some airports having deliberately increased the walk to the luggage carousel so as to reduce the time passengers spend waiting idly for luggage to arrive."
From: British Psychological Society Digest
Comment: I am not sure about the government doing us a favour by wasting our time. It depends on the opportunity cost. When you get off an aircraft there is not much else to do airside so I can see the merits of a good stretch of the legs. Pretty much anything beats spending time in the ghastly baggage hall in Dublin Airport. But when there are alternatives, I would rather decide for myself how to spend my time. And what will the housekeeper or even the parlour maid think when they discover that you have deliberately let vermin in just to keep them busy? The butler will never hear the end of it.
Hsee CK, Yang AX, & Wang L (2010). Idleness aversion and the need for justifiable busyness. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21 (7), 926-30
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Persuasion
This is a really remarkable piece of footage on the BBC website of an armed robber being persuaded not to take the proceeds of the register at a shop in America. The woman behind the counter initially captures the man's sympathy and reflection by invoking Jesus and eventually completely wins him over by pointing out that she just works in the shop and might be liable for the money he steals. He eventually leaves after giving a series of almost tearful apologies. As social psychologists have been showing for a long-time it is hard for most people to inflict damage on someone else when it has to be done up close and in person. The majority of the coverage links his refusal to take the money down to the woman's invocation of religion but it looks to me like he really cracks when he thinks that she might have to pay the money back herself.
Friday, July 30, 2010
UCD Library - Handbooks of Economics
Below is from an email from UCD Library. Very useful for Economics PhD students here.
The complete series of Handbooks in Economics from Elsevier Science are now available online through findit @UCD Library. This is a valuable resource comprising 28 vols and of relevance to many schools.
Content:-
Agricultural Economics
Computational Economics
Defense Economics
Development Economics
Econometrics
Economic Growth
Economics of Arts & Culture
Economics of Education
Economics of Finance
Economic Forecasting
Economics of Giving, Altruism & Reciprocity
Environmental Economics
Experimental Economics Results
Game Theory with Economic Applications
Health Economics
Income Distribution
Industrial Organization
International Economics
Labor Economics
Law & Economics
Macroeconomics
Mathematical Economics
Monetary Economics
Natural Resources & Energy Economics
Population & Family Economics
Public Economics
Regional & Urban Economics
Social Choice & Welfare
The complete series of Handbooks in Economics from Elsevier Science are now available online through findit @UCD Library. This is a valuable resource comprising 28 vols and of relevance to many schools.
Content:-
Agricultural Economics
Computational Economics
Defense Economics
Development Economics
Econometrics
Economic Growth
Economics of Arts & Culture
Economics of Education
Economics of Finance
Economic Forecasting
Economics of Giving, Altruism & Reciprocity
Environmental Economics
Experimental Economics Results
Game Theory with Economic Applications
Health Economics
Income Distribution
Industrial Organization
International Economics
Labor Economics
Law & Economics
Macroeconomics
Mathematical Economics
Monetary Economics
Natural Resources & Energy Economics
Population & Family Economics
Public Economics
Regional & Urban Economics
Social Choice & Welfare
John Frain - STATA with Econometricians in Mind
Thanks to Enda Hargaden for sending on this useful link to a recently released guide on STATA for Econometrics written by John Frain. Recommended for beginners in particular.
Abstract
This paper is an introduction to Stata with econometrics in mind. One aim of the proposed methodology is the keeping of appropriate records so that results can be easily replicated. These records should meet the requirements of management and internal audit functions in policy making bodies and be sufficient for submission to journals that require such material. The paper describes the Stata desktop, shows how to organise an analysis, how to read and transform data and covers the OLS regression command in detail. It includes details of various post-estimation commands, specification tests, model verification procedures, calculation of elasticities and other marginal effects, forecasting and the use of various statistics used by Stata during the estimation procedure. As all estimation commands in Stata share a common structure the detailed study of the OLS command will assist in the use of other commands.
Abstract
This paper is an introduction to Stata with econometrics in mind. One aim of the proposed methodology is the keeping of appropriate records so that results can be easily replicated. These records should meet the requirements of management and internal audit functions in policy making bodies and be sufficient for submission to journals that require such material. The paper describes the Stata desktop, shows how to organise an analysis, how to read and transform data and covers the OLS regression command in detail. It includes details of various post-estimation commands, specification tests, model verification procedures, calculation of elasticities and other marginal effects, forecasting and the use of various statistics used by Stata during the estimation procedure. As all estimation commands in Stata share a common structure the detailed study of the OLS command will assist in the use of other commands.
Harvard Open Scholar Websites Programme
Colm has been talking about Harvard's Openscholar programme as a potential resource for some of our projects. I went through the material today and it looks like a remarkably efficient way of generating a good academic website quickly and without technical knowledge. If anyone is using this and would like to swap notes let us know. The video on the website is very useful.
Socio-economic predictors of breastfeeding in Ireland
When a child is born the first investment decision a parent makes is whether to breastfed the child. This usually occurs within the first hour. Of course decisions taken beforehand, like diet, also have an important role. Since breastfeeding is generally considered to have important physical and other benefits for both child and mother, understanding who is more likely to breastfeed (& ultimately why) is important. This is particularly the case in Ireland where breastfeeding has a relatively low incidence.
It might be conjectured that social class has some role to play. High SES mothers may have access to better information (or be better able to process the information) as well as support networks. They have less of a need to return to work. On the other hand, the opportunity cost of their time may be higher.
The graph below shows the proportion of children breastfed by socio-economic class (where there are two adults in the household, it is the highest of the two classes).
There is a very striking gradient with children from manual backgrounds being much less likely to be breastfed.
Of course, one can't be sure what the reason for this link is. Class is correlated with education, income and other factors. Looking at the gradient with respect to the primary carer's education one finds:
Again there is a strong pattern with children of more educated mothers being much likely to be breastfed. What happens if we put both factors together in a model? Well both play an independent role although education seems to be the dominant factor. Interesting, household income does not have a significant role to play given social class & maternal education.
One can find other predictive factors: younger mothers and those from rural areas are less likely to breastfed. But these factors seem to have a fairly small role compared to social class and education.
If we look at mother's behaviour during pregnancy for clues as to whether they breastfed one comes across an interesting anomaly. Those who smoked during pregnancy are about 9% less likely to breastfeed, other things being equal, whereas those who consumed alcohol are about 3% more likely.
It might be conjectured that social class has some role to play. High SES mothers may have access to better information (or be better able to process the information) as well as support networks. They have less of a need to return to work. On the other hand, the opportunity cost of their time may be higher.
The graph below shows the proportion of children breastfed by socio-economic class (where there are two adults in the household, it is the highest of the two classes).
There is a very striking gradient with children from manual backgrounds being much less likely to be breastfed.
Of course, one can't be sure what the reason for this link is. Class is correlated with education, income and other factors. Looking at the gradient with respect to the primary carer's education one finds:
Again there is a strong pattern with children of more educated mothers being much likely to be breastfed. What happens if we put both factors together in a model? Well both play an independent role although education seems to be the dominant factor. Interesting, household income does not have a significant role to play given social class & maternal education.
One can find other predictive factors: younger mothers and those from rural areas are less likely to breastfed. But these factors seem to have a fairly small role compared to social class and education.
If we look at mother's behaviour during pregnancy for clues as to whether they breastfed one comes across an interesting anomaly. Those who smoked during pregnancy are about 9% less likely to breastfeed, other things being equal, whereas those who consumed alcohol are about 3% more likely.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Long Run Effects of the Tennessee STAR Experiment
The Tennessee STAR experiment (where school children were randomly assigned to different class sizes) is one of the most well known RCTs in social science, and is frequently referenced on this blog. On his site, Greg Mankiw links to an article in the NYT which discusses new research by Chetty et al. Up to now STAR was mainly used to examine the effects of class size on test scores, with the conclusion generally being that the treatment (of smaller class size) had a contemporaneous positive effect on test scores, however this effect did not last beyond a couple of years. This phenomenon will be familiar from other early intervention studies such as the Perry Preschool programme, where test scores in the treatment group showed an initial jump before returning to the same level as the control group. The following graph is taken from James J. Heckman & Dimitriy V. Masterov, 2007.
So if you are just looking at school test scores, the impact of these types of interventions can be debatable. However the authors of this recent research are able to examine more long run effects by linking data on STAR participants (now adults, it was conducted in the 1980s), to tax records. Their conclusions appear to be (the link above is to a presentation, I look forward to reading the full paper) that the contemporaneous rise in test scores is a good measure of the effect of the treatment on adult outcomes. According to their analysis, class size and teacher quality have an important impact on adult earnings. Again, this mirrors the findings from the Perry Preschool programme (shown below), where despite the same "fade out" in test scores, a significant positive effect was found on adult outcomes.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Income Contingent Student Loans
The High level Strategy Group, chaired by Colin Hunt, is due (over-due, in fact) to report on a strategy for Higher Education in Ireland. One issue that may be confronted is the question of the re-introduction of fees. Rather than a return to the old system a more likely scenario is some form of income contingent loan. The Strategy Group lacks any expertise in the economics of education, as far as I can see, and it is unclear that they consulted anyone with such expertise. The paper below would be a good start though.
Income Contingent Loans for Higher Education: international reforms
Bruce Chapman
Handbook of the Economics of Education, vol 2, chap 25
It is well known that higher education financing involves uncertainty and risk with respect to students' future economic fortunes, and an unwillingness of banks to provide loans because of the absence of collateral. It follows that without government intervention there will be both socially sub-optimal and regressive outcomes with respect to the provision of higher education. The historically most common response to this market failure – a government guarantee to repay student loans to banks in the event of default – is associated with significant problems.
Income contingent loans offer a possible solution. Since the late 1980s ICLs have been adopted in, or recommended for, a significant and growing number of countries, and it is this important international policy reform that has motivated the chapter.
An ICL provides students with finance for tuition and/or income support, its critical and defining characteristic being that the collection of the debt depends on the borrowers' future capacity to pay. ICL have two major insurance advantages for borrowers over more typical arrangements: default protection and consumption smoothing.
With reference to countries with both successful and unsuccessful ICL, the chapter illustrates that the operational and design features of such schemes are of fundamental importance with respect to their potential efficacy. It also seems to be the case that in many institutional and political environments there is not yet the administrative sophistication to make ICLs viable, although for reasons documented this is unlikely to be the case for the vast majority of OECD countries.
For one country, Australia, there is now a significant amount of research into the consequences of an ICL, and the evidence is explored in some detail. The investigation into the Australian experience helps in the development of a research agenda.
Income Contingent Loans for Higher Education: international reforms
Bruce Chapman
Handbook of the Economics of Education, vol 2, chap 25
It is well known that higher education financing involves uncertainty and risk with respect to students' future economic fortunes, and an unwillingness of banks to provide loans because of the absence of collateral. It follows that without government intervention there will be both socially sub-optimal and regressive outcomes with respect to the provision of higher education. The historically most common response to this market failure – a government guarantee to repay student loans to banks in the event of default – is associated with significant problems.
Income contingent loans offer a possible solution. Since the late 1980s ICLs have been adopted in, or recommended for, a significant and growing number of countries, and it is this important international policy reform that has motivated the chapter.
An ICL provides students with finance for tuition and/or income support, its critical and defining characteristic being that the collection of the debt depends on the borrowers' future capacity to pay. ICL have two major insurance advantages for borrowers over more typical arrangements: default protection and consumption smoothing.
With reference to countries with both successful and unsuccessful ICL, the chapter illustrates that the operational and design features of such schemes are of fundamental importance with respect to their potential efficacy. It also seems to be the case that in many institutional and political environments there is not yet the administrative sophistication to make ICLs viable, although for reasons documented this is unlikely to be the case for the vast majority of OECD countries.
For one country, Australia, there is now a significant amount of research into the consequences of an ICL, and the evidence is explored in some detail. The investigation into the Australian experience helps in the development of a research agenda.
Pete Leeson
Freakonomics blog has a nice post on the work of Pete Leeson, who has conducted very interesting research on piracy, the mediavel trial by ordeal and now Gypsies. We talked about the trial by ordeal work before. Leeson's basic skill is to transform mysterious institutions into logical structures for regulating complex societies. I hope he considers looking at the psychic octopus at some stage.
The effect of terrorism (the 9/11 attacks) on well being in the UK.
The 9/11 attacks in the US are memorable for all the wrong reasons. Just as an older generation remember where they were when JFK was assassinated, most of us will remember the events in the US as it unfolded. This paper quantifies the effects on well-being in the UK.
Destruction and distress: using a quasi-experiment to show the effects of the September 11 attacks on subjective well-being in the UK
Robert Metcalfe,Nattavudh Powdthavee,Paul Dolan
Using a longitudinal household panel dataset in the United Kingdom, where most interviews are conducted in September each year, we are able to show that the attacks of September 11 resulted in lower levels of subjective well-being for those interviewed after that date in 2001 compared to those interviewed before it. This quasi-experiment provides one of the first examples of the impact of a terrorist attack in one country on well-being in another country. We value this effect through a cost of illness approach, which is estimated to be between £170 and £380 million.
Destruction and distress: using a quasi-experiment to show the effects of the September 11 attacks on subjective well-being in the UK
Robert Metcalfe,Nattavudh Powdthavee,Paul Dolan
Using a longitudinal household panel dataset in the United Kingdom, where most interviews are conducted in September each year, we are able to show that the attacks of September 11 resulted in lower levels of subjective well-being for those interviewed after that date in 2001 compared to those interviewed before it. This quasi-experiment provides one of the first examples of the impact of a terrorist attack in one country on well-being in another country. We value this effect through a cost of illness approach, which is estimated to be between £170 and £380 million.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Online Social Psychology Lectures
The Open Culture website is a great way to whittle away hours at the weekend. It primarily provides links to free cultural media as well as online lectures in a variety of subjects. Berekeley's social psychology course is available via the site.
R&D and Ireland - Links: 27th July
1. Comparing Academic Entrepreneurship in Europe: The Case of Sweden and Ireland (Magnus Klofsten and Dylan Jones-Evans: Small Business Economics 14: 299–309, 2000)
2. National innovation policy and performance: Comparing the small island countries of Taiwan and Ireland (Grace T.R. Lin, Yung-Chi Shena and James Choua: Technology in Society Volume 32, Issue 2, May 2010, Pages 161-172)
3. Contribution of basic research to the Irish national innovation system (Arnold E. and Thuriaux B.: Science and Public Policy, Volume 28, Number 2, 1 April 2001 , pp. 86-98(13))
4. Ireland's National Innovation System: An Exploratory Study of Supporting Institutions and Dynamic Actors (Dimitrios Pontikakis; Thomas McDonnell; Will Geoghegan: Prometheus, Volume 24, Issue 1 March 2006 , pages 37 - 58)
5. Science: Celtic Strength: Science in Ireland
6. Paul Tansey: Productivity: Ireland’s Economic Imperative
7. Publicly Funded R&D and Economic Development in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Economic Council: Report 133: December 1999)
2. National innovation policy and performance: Comparing the small island countries of Taiwan and Ireland (Grace T.R. Lin, Yung-Chi Shena and James Choua: Technology in Society Volume 32, Issue 2, May 2010, Pages 161-172)
3. Contribution of basic research to the Irish national innovation system (Arnold E. and Thuriaux B.: Science and Public Policy, Volume 28, Number 2, 1 April 2001 , pp. 86-98(13))
4. Ireland's National Innovation System: An Exploratory Study of Supporting Institutions and Dynamic Actors (Dimitrios Pontikakis; Thomas McDonnell; Will Geoghegan: Prometheus, Volume 24, Issue 1 March 2006 , pages 37 - 58)
5. Science: Celtic Strength: Science in Ireland
6. Paul Tansey: Productivity: Ireland’s Economic Imperative
7. Publicly Funded R&D and Economic Development in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Economic Council: Report 133: December 1999)
Monday, July 26, 2010
Job stress and satisfaction amongst Irish primary school principals
A recent article in the Irish Independent pointed to difficulties that primary schools in Ireland were having in attracting applicants for vacancies "Longer working hours, increased bureaucracy and poor rewards are thought to be the main causes of the poor take-up of jobs" it concluded. If so this is a serious problem. Interestingly, the Sunday Business Post recently carried an article suggesting that Irish public sector workers, including primary teachers, were comparatively well paid.
So what evidence do we have ? Growing Up in Ireland actually has some very good data on this and related issues. The principals in which the 9 year olds were pupils were asked about their stress levels. This is not a random sample of principals note: in schools where there are more than one study child then that principal will be counted more than once. But since these will tend to be in bigger schools this makes sense. So it should be reasonably representative of the population I think.
So what did they say? The graph below gives the responses and indicates fairly high stress levels. Almost 68% were "very" or "fairly" stressed.
The principals were also asked about job satisfaction. The results there suggest a different picture.Over 95% are "very" or "fairly" satisfied by their job. So based on this criterion, it would seem that our principals are not doing too badly and it is harder to understand why there might be recruitment difficulties. It may well be the case that it is particular types of school that are experiencing problems retaining or recruiting principals. It would be an interesting task to use this rich data source to explore what are the predictors of principals' (& teachers') job stress and satisfaction.
So what evidence do we have ? Growing Up in Ireland actually has some very good data on this and related issues. The principals in which the 9 year olds were pupils were asked about their stress levels. This is not a random sample of principals note: in schools where there are more than one study child then that principal will be counted more than once. But since these will tend to be in bigger schools this makes sense. So it should be reasonably representative of the population I think.
So what did they say? The graph below gives the responses and indicates fairly high stress levels. Almost 68% were "very" or "fairly" stressed.
The principals were also asked about job satisfaction. The results there suggest a different picture.Over 95% are "very" or "fairly" satisfied by their job. So based on this criterion, it would seem that our principals are not doing too badly and it is harder to understand why there might be recruitment difficulties. It may well be the case that it is particular types of school that are experiencing problems retaining or recruiting principals. It would be an interesting task to use this rich data source to explore what are the predictors of principals' (& teachers') job stress and satisfaction.
Getting to the Top of Mind: How Reminders Increase Saving
New NBER working paper
Getting to the Top of Mind: How Reminders Increase Saving
by Dean Karlan, Margaret McConnell, Sendhil Mullainathan, Jonathan Zinman - #16205 (AG)
Abstract:
We develop and test a simple model of limited attention in
intertemporal choice. The model posits that individuals fully attend
to consumption in all periods but fail to attend to some future lumpy
expenditure opportunities. This asymmetry generates some predictions
that overlap with models of present-bias. Our model also generates
the unique predictions that reminders may increase saving, and that
reminders will be more effective when they increase the salience of a
specific expenditure. We find support for these predictions in three
field experiments that randomly assign reminders to new savings
account holders.
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W16205
Getting to the Top of Mind: How Reminders Increase Saving
by Dean Karlan, Margaret McConnell, Sendhil Mullainathan, Jonathan Zinman - #16205 (AG)
Abstract:
We develop and test a simple model of limited attention in
intertemporal choice. The model posits that individuals fully attend
to consumption in all periods but fail to attend to some future lumpy
expenditure opportunities. This asymmetry generates some predictions
that overlap with models of present-bias. Our model also generates
the unique predictions that reminders may increase saving, and that
reminders will be more effective when they increase the salience of a
specific expenditure. We find support for these predictions in three
field experiments that randomly assign reminders to new savings
account holders.
http://papers.nber.org/papers/
Evidence on how the quality of professors matter
Applied economists have become enthusiatic users of natural experiments to generate exogenous variation in key independent variables although it has been argued that this approach has severe limitations: particular instruments may not identify parameters of interest (see Heckman passim). The paper below I think is quite an imaginative use of a "natural experiment" from a dark period in history to see how the quality of professors matter for their graduate students.
Quality Matters - the Expulsion of Professors and Ph.D. Student Outcomes in Nazi Germany
Fabian Waldinger
I investigate the effect of faculty quality on Ph.D. student outcomes. To address the endogeneity of faculty quality I use exogenous variation provided by the expulsion of mathematics professors in Nazi Germany. I find that faculty quality is a very important determinant of short and long run Ph.D. student outcomes. A one standard deviation increase in faculty quality increases the probability of publishing the dissertation in a top journal by 13 percentage points, the probability of becoming full professor by 10 percentage points, the probability of having positive lifetime citations by 16 percentage points, and the number of lifetime citations by 6.3.
Quality Matters - the Expulsion of Professors and Ph.D. Student Outcomes in Nazi Germany
Fabian Waldinger
I investigate the effect of faculty quality on Ph.D. student outcomes. To address the endogeneity of faculty quality I use exogenous variation provided by the expulsion of mathematics professors in Nazi Germany. I find that faculty quality is a very important determinant of short and long run Ph.D. student outcomes. A one standard deviation increase in faculty quality increases the probability of publishing the dissertation in a top journal by 13 percentage points, the probability of becoming full professor by 10 percentage points, the probability of having positive lifetime citations by 16 percentage points, and the number of lifetime citations by 6.3.
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