Elephantstrunk

David Cameron’s Scarman lecture
and the same in html. It can’t be bad news and I find little to disagree with, at least at face value, but it also means that Cameron is not content merely to copy Blair’s policies but will also imitate him in adopting policies previously owned but now neglected by his opposition.
Voting […]

Tyler Cowen has seven ways to diminish regret. Playing Hamurabi, am I supposed to be maximising welfare based on prior expectations or for a population well versed in the yoga of regret management?
Marginal Revolution: Trudie on kids and career
1. Practice major life shifts, so you get used to regret and thus can bear it more […]

From FT.com / World / UK - Brown to raise duty on 4×4s and air travel
A rise in air passenger duty is also expected to be announced in the wake of the Stern report on climate change, which called for urgent action to tackle global warming. The duty currently ranges from £5 for the shortest […]

Tory policy group moots scrapping school catchment areas
“If youre living on a rather poor estate, let us say, with one rather failing school on it, or one very unpopular school on it, then you dont really have a choice of good education unless you can go outside your catchment area,” co-chairwoman Baroness Perry said.
The peer, […]

Wrapping the internet with elephant pictures.
Somewhere on the internet somebody has written down any thought you might have and sometimes they’ve done it better. It’s just a matter of finding it.
This, for example, about James Bond is very good but undermines my claim that in Casino Royale, James Bond might as well be Alan Partridge.
Brad […]

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Letters - Hedge funds are designed to recognise and manage risk
From Mr Christopher Fawcett.
Sir, We must take Eric Anstee, chief executive of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, to task over his remarks about a possible hedge fund failure hitting confidence in savings (Letters, November 16). […]

More that 300 comments on “Economics and Ideology” at Crooked Timber show there’s something to talk about.
It would be disappointing if learning systematically about the economy for the first time didn’t inform a political outlook. Many young and left wing have only thought about the fairness of outcomes  and not the practicalities of achieving fair […]

Marginal Revolution: Microfoundations of slow European growth
European industries seem to have higher entry costs, and with them lower turnover rates: 50% of new pharmaceutical products in America come from firms less than ten years old, against only 10% in Europe; 12% of the biggest US firms by market cap at the end of the 1990s […]

Sat 04/11/2006 11:51 More than I can remember seeing for a while.

Tyler Cowen reviews a book that, he argues, counters Guns, Germs & Steel.
Marginal Revolution: What makes a nation wealthy?
What makes a nation wealthy?
Economists typically explain the wealth of a nation by pointing to good policies and the quality of a country’s institutions. But why do these differences exist in the first place?
Professor Greg Clark […]