Tag Archives: Academia

What is Finding Welfare?

By Robin Hanson · February 6, 2012 4:40 pm · Comments (7)

My last post suggested that we survey economists to choose between three descriptions of what they are doing when they make policy recommendations:

  1. Morals – Entering into larger conversations on what actions are right and moral.
  2. Deals – Helping groups find mutually-beneficial deals, by suggesting deal parts.
  3. Showing Off – Doing hard things like analysis, so we can be credentialed as impressive.

Bryan agrees that #2 would be more popular, but suggests adding two more options (slightly reworded by me):

  1. Social Welfare – Identifying policies that are best for society as a whole.
  2. Partisanship – Identifying ways to advance political goals we identify with.

I agree with Bryan that #4 would now be more popular, but are these new options different concepts, or phrases popular in part because of their vagueness? The three options I presented seem more clearly conceptually distinct. Do economists seek “best” policies to help people argue about which actions are moral, to help encourage political and other group deals that include these better policies, or to show off their abilities to do clever analysis? My proposed three part question seems to me better suited for digging to this deeper level.

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What Is Econ Advice?

By Robin Hanson · February 6, 2012 2:35 pm · Comments (5)

Saturday I said:

I see two rather different ways to think about what economists do when we recommend policies:

  1. Morals – We enter into a larger conversation about what actions are right. … While for our ancestors such discussion was often a prelude to concrete group action, today we more often argue about morals without such ways to coordinate in mind. …
  2. Deals – … Conflicts … can be resolved at least in part via deals, both implicit and explicit. Finding and making such deals can be aided by neutral outside advisors, … Economists have a reputation for developing analytical tools useful for making suggestions about parts of deals. …

Academics who lean toward a sci/tech style tend to favor a deals view, while those who lean toward a humanities style tend to favor a morals view.

Bryan Caplan responded:

Fact #1: Robin has spent decades proposing unconventional policy deals. His track record is an abysmal failure. … Zero Hansonian deals have been embraced by any normal person. His proposals appeal almost exclusively to fans of economics, libertarianism, futurism, and science fiction. … Most human beings are far too conventional and stubborn to even consider Robin’s suggestions. And instead of trying to overcome this hurdle, Robin habitually raises the hurdle by criticizing conventional attitudes. …

Fact #2: People often have a very good reason to ignore deals: They have better ways to get what they want. Such as: persuasion, moralizing, trickery, and bullying.
Fact #3: The effectiveness of deal-making varies widely by person. …
Fact #4: The effectiveness of deal-making varies widely by situation.

I’m happy to admit that deal-making isn’t the only way we get what we want, and that its effectiveness varies by person and situation. Though I do think we make a lot of implicit deals. For example, asking “I’m in a hurry; would you mind if I cut in line” is offering supplication, and an owing of return favors, in trade for a favor.

I’m also happy to admit that much of what I do intellectually isn’t very directly targeted at promoting specific deals. Though neither is it very directly targeted at labeling specific acts as moral or immoral. To the extend that I do either of these things, I do them indirectly, which makes my acts harder to categorize. My work in prediction markets, however, has led to some voluntary mutually-beneficial changes in corporate practices, and I hope for lots more.

Imagine that economists were surveyed and had to choose how they’d best like to describe economic policy recommendations, as:

  1. Morals – Arguing for the morality of actions,
  2. Deals – Helping groups find and make deals, or
  3. Showing Off – Academics do hard things in order to be certified by other academics as impressive, so that students, patrons, and readers can gain status by affiliating with them. Economic policy analysis is such a hard thing.

I’d bet that at least 25% would choose option #2, and even more among those whose style leans sci/tech. And #2 seems to me a better public face for economists to present to the world – economists will prosper more overall if they say this is what they are doing.

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Deals Near, Morals Far?

By Robin Hanson · February 4, 2012 10:45 pm · Comments (8)

Unlike most social scientists, economists publish papers whose main conclusions are normative, not just positive. That is, we explicitly recommend policies, rather than just predict the consequences that follow from choices. Moral philosophers are the main other academics who explicitly focus on making recommendations. Compared to philosophers, economists are more standardized and structured, allowing more specific recommendations.

I see two rather different ways to think about what economists do when we recommend policies:

  1. Morals – We enter into a larger conversation about what actions are right. As language let humans enforce social norms, we evolved strong moral feelings and a rich practice of arguing about forbidden and required actions. While for our ancestors such discussion was often a prelude to concrete group action, today we more often argue about morals without such ways to coordinate in mind. Economists mainly join this larger argument about what actions are right, and only incidentally induce specific people to take specific actions.
  2. Deals – Groups of all sizes, from families to planets have conflicts that can be resolved at least in part via deals, both implicit and explicit. Finding and making such deals can be aided by neutral outside advisors, especially advisors who can suggest changes that might benefit all conflicting parties. Economists have a reputation for developing analytical tools useful for making suggestions about parts of deals. Economists mainly develop such suggestions for deal components, and only incidentally join larger conversations about morality.

My closest colleagues seem to mostly take a morals view, but many of my students like a deals view. I think I see a correlation whereby academics who lean toward a sci/tech style tend to favor a deals view, while those who lean toward a humanities style tend to favor a morals view. Sci/tech styles tend more toward math, precision, and local incremental contributions toward specific things and plans, while humanities styles tend more toward bigger pictures, wider-ranging applications, broader interpretations, and joining larger conversations.

In sum, how you think about economic recommendations may depend on whether your thinking leans near or far. It seems deals are near, while morals are far, and sci/tech folks lean near, while humanities folks lean far. Precise formal analysis is more near, while flexible more-metaphorical discussion is more far. Particular suggestions for particular conflicts of particular groups is more near, while general more accessible discussion about what choices tend to be good or bad is more far.

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On School’s Function

By Robin Hanson · December 16, 2011 10:30 pm · Comments (13)

Is school more for helping students learn about the world, or more for showing and encouraging good behavior? This NYT oped by Yoram Bauman gives a hint:

When students went online to register for classes each quarter, they were asked if they wanted to donate $3 to support WashPIRG, a left-leaning activist group. Students were also asked if they wanted to donate $3 to Affordable Tuition Now (ATN), a group that lobbied for “sensible tuition rates, quality financial aid and adequate funding.” …

About 5 percent of economics majors donated to WashPIRG in a given quarter, compared with 8 percent for other arts and sciences majors. A similar divide — 10 percent versus almost 15 percent — occurred with respect to donations to ATN. … Taking economics classes [had] a significant negative effect on later giving by students who did not become economics majors. …

Our research suggests that economics education could do a better job of providing balance. Learning about the shortcomings as well as the successes of free markets is at the heart of any good economics education, and students — especially those who are not destined to major in the field — deserve to hear both sides of the story. (more)

So econ teaching should be changed because after taking econ classes students donate less to leftist political groups? Bauman does not bother to argue that econ classes teach falsehoods. He probably accepts the usual econ analysis suggesting that selfish folks might rather keep their money and hope others donate to worthy causes. No, apparently Bauman thinks it sufficient that he disapproves of the net effect of teaching truths — fewer donations go to political groups he favors. That must be stopped!

(Free market shortcomings are beside the point here. Most econ classes talk plenty about those, and they aren’t very relevant to the private vs. social value of donations.)

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Literature Research

By Robin Hanson · December 6, 2011 9:00 am · Comments (14)

In my hand I have a hefty article on a canonical English poet, published 10 years ago in a distinguished journal. … The argument is dense, the analysis acute, on its face a worthy illustration of academic study deserving broad notice and integration into subsequent research in the field. That reception doesn’t seem to have happened. … After 5,000 studies of Melville since 1960, what can the 5,001st say that will have anything but a microscopic audience of interested readers? …

I devised a [small] study of literary research. … Of 13 research articles … in 2004, 11 of them received zero to two citations, one had five, one 12. Of 23 article … 16 received zero to two citations, four of them three to six, one eight, one 11, and one 16. … The unfortunate conclusion is that the overall impact of literary research doesn’t come close to justifying the money and effort that goes into it. …

The research identity is a powerful allure, flattering people that they have cutting-edge brilliance. Few of them readily trade the graduate seminar for the composition classroom. But we have reached the point at which the commitment to research at the current level actually damages the humanities, turning the human capital of the discipline toward ineffectual toil. More books and articles don’t expand the audience for literary studies. A spurt of publications in a department does not attract more sophomores to the major, nor does it make the dean add another tenure-track line, nor does it urge a curriculum committee to add another English course to the general requirements. All it does is “author-ize” the producers. Deep down, everybody knows this. (more)

This is pretty much the standard situation in academia – English is not much different. Academics talk as if academia is all about the research progress, but in fact it is more about “authorizing” the academics. That is, about credentialing their impressiveness, so that others can affiliate with credentialed impressive folks.

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Can’t Hear Bad News

By Robin Hanson · November 23, 2011 8:30 am · Comments (9)

I’ve long been puzzled with why students aren’t taught more about the consequences of choosing different careers, and why they don’t take more initiative to learn this for themselves. One clue: apparently students are only capable of hearing good news about future earnings. Maybe students don’t want to hear, and aren’t told, out of an urge to avoid hearing bad news? Details:

[Of] undergraduate college students … we ask … (1) their self beliefs about their own expected earnings if they were to major in different fields and (2) their beliefs about the population distribution of earnings. After the initial round in which the baseline beliefs are elicited, we provide students with accurate information on the population characteristics and then re-elicit their self beliefs. …

Students in our sample, despite belonging to a very high ability group, have biased beliefs about the population distribution of earnings. … More experienced students – those in their second or third year – hav[e] relatively more accurate beliefs about population earnings. …

The effect of information is asymmetric: There is signifcant updating when the information is good news for the respondent, i.e., when the respondent is informed that population earnings are higher than her prior beliefs, and no significant updating in instances where the respondent is informed that the population earnings are lower than her prior beliefs. … Relative to freshmen, experienced students are more likely to be non-updaters and less likely to react excessively to information. …

The information on earnings we provide causes nearly half of the students to revise their beliefs about graduating with the different majors. (more)

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True School Believers

By Robin Hanson · November 22, 2011 7:00 am · Comments (25)

A few weeks ago I met the head of a prestigious institute devoted to studying and promoting college education. He disapproved of Bryan Caplan’s writings skeptical of college social value, and felt so strongly that at one point he broke off our conversation to compose himself. Yet when I raised the point that most students don’t seem to ever use much of what they learn, he agreed and endorsed the view that college mainly helps students hone work habits, a view I find plausible and first heard from Tyler.

In a long review of education reform books, Steven Brint, who directs a similar pro-college institute, also ends up endorsing a similar view:

A few jobs require specialized skills that can only be acquired in technical programs, but most jobs are relatively routine. They require workers to know basic literacy and numeracy, but other skills can be picked up on the job. The most important requirements are that workers show up and do their jobs every day, feel comfortable working with people from a variety of backgrounds, and know how to find information they need in non-routine situations. Following the directives of supervisors is essential. Reliability and steady effort are highly valued. …

[In] the society in which we live, … educational structures that might otherwise seem low-performing, expensive, and inefficient make perfect sense. Dedicated work is not required in college because it will not be required at work. In most jobs, showing up and doing the work is more important than achieving outstanding levels of performance. … [People think] inequality is legitimate, talent can always be identified, a regulated work force is possible, technical training is possible, adjustments for credential inflation are possible, the regulation of ambition is possible, and the elite is preserved in gilded educational enclaves. (more)

Even so, Brint rejects the scenario where we use college less, and hone work habits on the job. He would instead “welcome” our “invest[ing] in a revival of the gospel” that college 1) should be available to all regardless of performance, 2) is the main route to personal success, and 3) solves all social problems, 4) including social inequality. This even though he “cannot be optimistic about the prospects for reform.” Like democracy fans who insist the only acceptable solution to democracy’s failings is more democracy, for many school fans the only acceptable solution to school failings is more school.

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Second Chances

By Robin Hanson · November 19, 2011 10:00 am · Comments (21)

In 1993, at the age of 34, I began a Ph.D. at Caltech, which I finished four years later. I probably didn’t make much more money afterward, but I’m a lot more satisfied with my life. Apparently this is a common outcome of late life schooling:

This paper addresses the economic returns on tertiary degrees obtained in ages above 30 for individuals with upper-secondary schooling [in] Sweden [where] labor market legislation supports employees who take a leave to study. … Late degrees were found to increase the employment rate by 18 percentage points and earnings while employed by 12 percent. … The effects were absent in the higher parts of the earnings distribution, and females gained more than men. (more)

Human lives are long. If you are willing to work, you can radically change direction, even at the age of 34.

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Buying Affiliation

By Robin Hanson · November 17, 2011 11:00 am · Comments (9)

We care about the origins of art. Comparing two physically identical artworks, we pay more for an original than a duplicate, and not because we think originals have better quality, rarity, resources, or effort. Instead it seems we pay for a more direct physical connection to the artist:

Duplicate artworks are judged to be less valuable than duplicate artifacts. We observed this effect even when both the original artwork and the original artifact were one of a kind and were equivalent in value. Experiment 2 helped to further rule out the potentially confounding inferences based on the relative quality of a duplicate artwork versus a duplicate artifact, as well as on the belief that duplicate artifacts are simply more common than duplicate artworks. Finally, the results of Experiment 3 address the alternative explanation that original artworks are valued because they are perceived as requiring more effort and resources to produce. …

The [importance of] degree of physical contact with the original artist (contagion). … was supported in Experiment 1 and more directly in Experiment 5, where artworks made with a hands-on process were judged to be more valuable than those made with a hands-off process. In addition, contagion had a larger impact for artworks than for artifacts. Support for uniqueness of performance as an important dimension came primarily from Experiment 4, where the act of intentionally duplicating a painting (as opposed to accidentally making a similar looking painting) had a twofold impact on judgments of value in driving down the value of a duplicate, while driving up the value of the original. …

[The idea] that people value original artworks solely because they observe that other people value originals more than duplicates—cannot be entirely correct. … Previous research has documented how … mere proximity between two items in a shopping cart or on a table may be sufficient to trigger inferences about contamination, which can raise or lower value. … Similarly, everyday artifacts can gain value through contact with certain special individuals, such as celebrities. Finally, assessments of a performance as effortful or unique may apply to wide array of objects and events, such as evaluations of sports or scholastic achievement. (more)

This lends some support to the suggestion that customers of academia, such as students, funders, and readers, pay in part for a more direct affiliation with certified-as-impressive academics.

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It’s Called “Stock”

By Robin Hanson · October 24, 2011 10:49 am · Comments (32)

There’s something the federal government can do right now to help students caught by our terribly unjust higher-education financing system. … Under an income-contingent loan system, … students pay a fixed percentage of their income toward their loans. Payments are automatically deducted from their paychecks by the IRS. .. After an extended time period of 20 or 30 years, any remaining debt is forgiven. … The concept has been proven to work—Australia and Britain have used it for years— and … the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman proposed the idea all the way back in 1955. …

Because student loans can almost never be discharged in bankruptcy, defaulted loans can haunt students for a lifetime. … That is insane. A similar-sounding federal program, called income-based repayment, is now on the books and is scheduled to become somewhat more generous starting in 2014. But the program is administratively complicated, involving income-eligibility caps and requiring students to reapply every year. (more)

Yup, it can be easier to fund investments via “loans” whose repayment amounts are set to be a proportion the venture’s net income. This is usually called “stock,” however, and proposals for private sector stock in individual future income are usually criticized as “slavery.” Especially if such stock claims on income are exempt from the usual bankruptcy evasions. But to most folks the same policy doesn’t seem like slavery if the government does it, just like we refuse to call conscription slavery.

Some argue that the government needs to make student loans because private loan markets fail in this case. But if they fail, it is mainly because we purposely hobble private investors by not allowing them the tools we are allow governments to ensure a return on their investment. This is how a lot of market failures go these days – they are real failures, but failures caused in large part by refusing to allow private actors all the tools we allow governments.

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