when academics need to take a step back

Ivory towers are well known to have a distorting effect on academics' relationship to reality. Even so, the occasional study seems so distorted it deserves special note:

Trial by Battle, Peter Leeson, Journal of Legal Analysis, Spring 2011

Abstract: For over a century England's judicial system decided land disputes by ordering disputants' legal representatives to bludgeon one another before an arena of spectating citizens. The victor won the property right for his principal. The vanquished lost his cause and, if he were unlucky, his life. People called these combats trials by battle. This paper investigates the law and economics of trial by battle. In a feudal world where high transaction costs confounded the Coase theorem, I argue that trial by battle allocated disputed property rights efficiently. It did this by allocating contested property to the higher bidder in an all-pay auction. Trial by battle's "auctions" permitted rent seeking. But they encouraged less rent seeking than the obvious alternative: a first-price ascending-bid auction. (italics mine)

Why, oh why, Peter would you bother to argue such a thing?

recent research

Keeping up with Kevin Lewis' log of recent research:

• Our sacred values - like other rules - are generally not up for sale.
• It really is the thought that counts - whether we're punishing free-riders, condemning the schadenfreuders, or enjoying the sweet taste of a gift.
• The loser's paradox: take a losing strategy, add in some fear, and you get more losing strategy.
• We're better at predicting others' behavior than our own.
• You're not imagining it: people are more likely to remember "that one time" you messed up.
• Raising money for a worthy cause? You may want make it hurt. Or get prospective donors to think of their childhood. Or be sure to focus on the somewhat rich and forget about the mega-rich. Or get them to do something exceptional or odd first. And don't forget to give your donors public recognition.
  
• Money changes everything - even if you're in kindergarten.
• Do people give to charities for the "warm glow" it gives them - or because they feel uncomfortable saying no? It's not the warm glow.
• Not sure why you would do this, but if you're ever thinking of subsidizing sharing, think again.
• More evidence that we're not really good at assessing our politicians' performances.
• Good news from the campaign front! We're more likely to hear positive campaign themes.
• Want to cut back on pork? Try term limits.
• Do voters prefer professionalized legislatures? Depends on their ideology.
• High voter turn-outs are great - unless you don't like budget deficits. Then again, deficits may not be a risk if voters are electing highly popular parties.
• Want to be smarter? Stop all that thinking and go with your gut. Pour yourself a drink.
• If life is a box of chocolates, we should live each day as if we're eating the last truffle.
• Groups are often thought to stifle creativity - but that may depend on how creative the groups are.
• Need to persuade someone? Try asking them to pretend to support some other random proposition first.
• How to get crowds to be wise about complex problems.
  

nice guys vs. jerks and representativeness

"Nah, I can't wear my glasses out. They make me look nice - and everyone knows girls don't want to date nice guys. Women like the bad boys."

This is my neighbor Andrew giving me that tired, woeful explanation for the seeming success of jerks that so many New York men (nice and not nice) take as gospel. After recovering from the profound despair such misconceptions hurl me into - I pulled out a pen, grabbed a napkin and marshaled the teachings of Daniel Kahneman to set Andrew straight. I thought it a worthwhile service for the single women of New York to likewise educate other men:

Women don't like jerks. They do like cool, confident. Ask any woman. This is god's truth.

What confuses men off is what Kahneman calls the Representativeness Heuristic. Men (and, yes, women) don't tend to think like statisticians; instead we make categorizations based on correlations. (In their most insidious forms these categorizations are called prejudices, but usually they're less harmful.) Andrew, like many of his sex, was categorizing "bad boys" (or "jerks" as I'll call them) as "cool" and "nice guys" as "uncool."

Andrew's View

Now, Andrew isn't necessarily wrong about this categorization. Let's even say he's right: jerks do tend to be cool and nice guys uncool.

But that still doesn't mean women like jerks. What happens is that nonconfident, uncool guys (the kind of guys women don't, in fact, like) almost always are nice. This is so because they don't really have a choice; if you're unconfident and a jerk, you don't even get a first date. Cool, confident guys, however, have a choice: they can be nice guys or jerks.

Let's say that the world is made up of 50% confident guys and 50% nonconfident. To keep our model simple, assume all of the uncool guys will be nice guys, but that 50% of the cool guys will be nice and 50% will be jerks. You get the picture below.


You can see that most of the nice guys, yes, do happen to be uncool, while virtually all of the jerks are confident. Thus the misleading heuristic of "nice=uncool".

But don't be fooled, gents. Ladies will put up with the cool, confident jerks, but what we all want - and what I humbly recommend you aspire to be - is the cool, confident, nice guy.

recent research

(Still) Catching up with Kevin Lewis' listing of recent research:

• If you're going to take away someone's freedom and not get flack, do it absolutely.
• Why some countries leave social welfare in the hands of the government vs. nonprofit organizations: it's a matter of individualism and trust.
• Go ahead, delude yourself - it's evolutionarily advantageous. As is social-emotional pain (although that's more advantageous to the group than to you personally.
• Happy people are helpful people.
• One way to reduce prejudice: get people to wash their hands. Another: make sure to mention the negative as well as positive traits of the "out-group".
• Are people defined more by their language or their race? It depends on whether the definer is a 5 year old or a 10 year old.
• US politics may have become more polarized over the past four decades - but political donors themselves have not.
• Could there be no connection between money and lobbying success? One researcher had a hard time finding one.
• Past presidents were just as partisan as today, but perhaps in an under-stated way.
• More evidence that the powerful are a little too sure of themselves.
• False memories are not only easy to make - but hard to fade. Yet we'll shift our memories when they disagree with anothers.
• How face to face interactions build faith in fellow man (especially if you're a man).
• Taking a moment to reflect makes Utilitarians of us all.
  
• We not only feel kinship with people who hail from our nation - we also are more likely to warm up to American robots.
• The uninformed: the gullible who are easily manipulated by passionate extremists? Maybe not.
• Worrying about disease may not only make us more prejudice (see "washing hands" above), but more conformist.
• We are all Zeligs.
• It still may not be clear why yawns are contagious, but it definitely has something to do with empathy - at least judging by how how much more our friends and family make us yawn.
• Are some people staying home on election day 'cause they're not sure their ballot is secret? Could be. But maybe there's no re-assuring them.
• Close elections aren't just good for turnout - they actually make us learn and think more.
• More evidence that larger voter turnout doesn't really change much. And an argument for why it's not a problem.
• Two studies on the modest - and variable - benefits of mail-in voting.
• Politicians' tweets can make them more likable - but only among the socially reserved.
• Democracies are, indeed, more transparent.
• Evidence that public participation initiatives can instill faith in local government - but primarily for those who aren't sure how they feel about government in the first place.
• Power corrupts - or makes us less self-interested - depending on a little thing called morality.
• Genes, personality and political preferences: another attempt to map their relationship.
  
• Daron Acemoglu and friends take on another momentous project: modeling the evolution of democracy.
• Murtin and Wacziarg, meanwhile, look at national stats going back to 1870 to find that primary education, more than anything else, predicts who will democratize first.
• As advice seekers know, it's easier to be an idealist when giving advice.
• We're motivated to uphold and justify the status quo - except when we think we can do better.
• A new theory on what's caused political polarization in the US: our global standing.
• One of the popular explanations for polarization is gerrymandering (the political process of carving up election districts; Masket et al say gerrymandering is not all that.
• Alvarez and Sinclair advocate a different way to counter polarization: blanket primaries.
• Pragmatists just like us: politicians try to appeal to their ideological base and swing voters at the same time.
• Advice to the newly elected politician: don't enact any policy if you want to get re-elected.
• Even more papers about polarization.
• From the persuasion files: triggering "loss aversion" is effective in political persuasion too.
• Media attention can put policy initiatives in the legislative fast lane, but more often it'll slog those initiatives down.
• It's not just a myth: people avoid political conversations in (politically) mixed company, though that's less true for some personality types.
• Maybe it's a European thing? Study shows that opposition parties do better when they moderate their positions, while incumbents win by going more extreme.

recent research

(A lot of) Catching up with Kevin Lewis' log of recent research:

• "Social Proof" says we like to do what everyone else is doing, but sometimes we're more likely to try something if we think it's a rare opportunity.
• Our brain has distinct processes for understanding gains vs. losses - which might explain why some of us are more in debt or have more assets.
• Citizens may be happy to let the state spend more, as long as they trust it.
• Tolerance may be a good thing in itself, but it's not necessarily good for growth.
• Thanks to cable, presidents ever more so are preaching to the choir.
• Barack's political capital problem may just be the latest example of a trend in declining presidential political capital.
• Evidence of a savvy electorate: we vote for divided government when it spends beyond its means (presumably to rein in spending) but for unified government when economic times are bad (to empower the state).
• In politicians' tension between voting with their constituents or voting with their party - it all depends on how unified their constituents are.
• Another reason parties matter: they keep last-term politicians doing their job.
• What improves our faith in democracy? Winning an election, for one.
• More evidence that humans can't stand randomness: we assume big consequences had to have had non-trivial causes.
• Politicians are more likely to persuade the opposition - by repulsion - than they are their own party-members by attraction. Experts, similarly, get more scrutiny when they contradict ones beliefs.
• Socially and fiscally mixed up liberals and conservatives are less likely to be politically involved.
• Values increase how much we process information - especially if they are cued up. Ditto extreme language.
• A model on how trust builds.
• Even though it tends to be distrusted itself, government may engender trust in society.
• Political economists explain why sometimes citizens may vote away checks and balances - and it all has to do with when politicians are easier to buy.
• More evidence that smart and happy do not go hand in hand.
• Social networks communicate in bursts and small groups.
• Even three-year-olds know they need to pay attention to the guy everyone else is paying attention to.
• Two studies show the development of equity aversion in kids.
• It takes so little to make us feel like we belong.
• Be assertive in your advertising! As long as you're advertising a guilty pleasure.
• We reevaluate our strategies when we lose; not so much when we win.
• The MIT explains how it won the DARPA balloon treasure hunt.
• We believe what we read, regardless of the credibility of the source.
• Citizen input isn't a drag on bureaucracy - rather it's a boon.
• Running for office? It helps to be a celeb.
• Whatever political orientation we get from our parents, we get through their genes.
• Another Disgust = Conservatism study. This time looking at worm-eating and gay marriage.
• Bipartisan friendships are possible, but less likely.
• The path to identification with conservatism or liberalism is sometimes more about repulsion than attraction.
• Our responses to financial and moral scandals depend on how much they're also about abuses of power.
• Although spouses usually share political views, daters don't advertise their political leanings - at least not on dating sites.
• Teenage boys are more likely to learn about politics when it gets competitive, but girls learn more where there's consensus.
• Much as in other parts of life, women only like to take charge in politics when they know what they're doing.
• Even after accounting for biases in previous studies, there's still evidence that education makes us more politically involved.
• Looking at youth political participation over the past 30 years; not much has changed, although youth today are more civicly rather than politically engaged.
• Your over-all sense of control in life says a lot about whether or not you vote.
• The rise of political talk radio may be due to two things: deregulation and iTunes.
• Another argument for how we're not less politically engaged today - but rather we're differently engaged.
• Partisans may disagree on policy issues, but they pretty much agree on civic values.
• It doesn't take much to make us feel - and act - like an inferior minority.
• We write off our group's flaws as "human nature", but don't cut our enemies the same slack.
• Even anti-social teens can become better citizens with small nudges. Progressive education also makes kids more civic minded.
• Studies that typically suggest humans are naturally altruistic may just be showing that humans like to appear altruistic.
• Want to turn someone into a do-gooder? Get them do something nice and make sure it costs them.
• Too many choices not only make consumers put off choosing - it also makes potential volunteers put off volunteering.
• We tend to look "up" to leaders.
• We may be loss averse when it comes to our survival, but in love we become risk seekers.
• Why ignorance may breed ignorance.
• Political contributions reward politicians for their beliefs rather than try to change their beliefs - and politicians' daughters can prove that's so.
• Another reason nothing gets done in DC: negative lobbying is 3.5 times more effective than positive lobbying. But not so with ballot initiatives: pro and con spending have equal pay-offs.
• We can thank high advertising rates for the rise of an independent media.
• Not what a libertarian would necessarily expect: big legislatures lead to smaller government.
• Lawmakers may not know much about policy, but - given the right institutional incentives - that might not hinder their ability to make good policy decisions.
• Newspaper subsidies may not lead to improved journalism.
• Interest groups may do just as well fueled by volunteerism as fueled by donations.
• Lobbying is effective - especially when citizens aren't paying attention.
• Reports of diminishing social networks may be premature.
• See the evolution of human cooperation in action.
• Lying comes easier online.
  
• Policy experts, save your breath: those in power aren't listening.
• Fancy yourself as an analytical gal? You may just feel out of control.
• A sociologist explains why "accidents happen."
• When we get to compare, we become more certain.
• Want to make a convincing case? Present your evidence in dribbles.
• Naive Realism (the belief that we see reality objectively) shows up in collaborations with peers.
• More evidence that politics is genetic.
• As Americans polarize, our cross-Atlantic cousins are de-polarizing.
• Another reason politicians like divisive politics: it makes them less likely to be held accountable.
• The impact of the economy on the voter is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing.
• 527s, as visualized as part of party networks.

my new favorite toy

Santa came early this year, pointing me to Gapminder, where international development geeks can visualize global economic and social trends til the heifers come home.

But it can also be fun for Ameri-centric users like me who are idly curious about, say, the average age women married in the US since 1800 or how much Americans drink compared to others...

To play too, be sure to click "visualize" next to your favorite indicators and then "play" the timeline. Enjoy!

curmudgeons for democracy

Popular dissatisfaction with government is usually taken as a sign that democracy is dysfunctional.

But a new study by Edward Miguel and his colleagues, as he reports in Foreign Affairs, suggests just the opposite; critical citizens are the foundation of democratic government.

Miguel was trying to figure out what might be the connection between education and levels of democracy in developing nations. (Even though there's a correlation between the two, no one agrees if what the causal link is between the two - if any.) His research team set up a randomized study, giving education incentives to one a set of girls schools in Kenya, leaving another set with no incentives. After a number of years and a clear increase in test scores at the first set of schools, they went in to see how the young women's political attitudes may have differed. Most of the obvious assumptions didn't pan out: the better educated girls were not more pro-democratic and neither were they more likely to vote or be involved in civic organizations. There was one difference: they were more critical of their government.

The study of course didn't find (or even search for) evidence to demonstrate the other half of the causal link - that is, that more critical citizens are more likely to bolster democracy - but it makes intuitive sense and is fodder for more research. At a very basic level, citizens who don't question their government aren't going to push for any change, let alone democratic change. Of course, more than dissatisfaction is needed to propel people to become politically active (usually those characteristics are bundled together into what social thinkers call "political capital"). And, of course again, too much dissatisfaction can lead to complete disaffection (of the Ted Kazcinski or couch-potato variety). But Miguel's experiment is a good reminder to us in old, creaking democracies that a critical citizenry should never be wished away.