Blog Profile / Tim Harford
| URL : | http://timharford.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Business & Finance / Economics | |
| Posts on Regator: | 223 | |
| Posts / Week: | 2.3 | |
| Archived Since: | July 5, 2011 | |
Blog Post Archive
How to find a perfect match for a Nobel
‘The Nobel Prize for economics has been awarded to Americans Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley for their independent work into how best to bring different parties together for mutual benefit.’ Financial Times, October 16 It’s not really a Nobel Prize, is it? I’m glad you’ve mentioned that because it’s an important point that is rarely [...]
Lloyd Shapley and Alvin Roth win the Nobel memorial prize in economics
I took a particular interest in the FT leader on the subject: The award of the Nobel memorial prize in economics to Lloyd Shapley and Alvin Roth is overdue: Mr Shapley should have shared the 1994 prize with John Nash and others, while Mr Roth has been a leading contender in recent years. The choice [...]
Odds and ends
Review by Tim Harford An investigation into the art of forecasting argues for a pick-and-mix approach The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction, by Nate Silver, Allen Lane RRP£25/Penguin Press, RRP$27.95, 544 pages When it comes to soothsaying, there seem to be two types of person: those who will gladly and [...]
There are many ways to price by gender
‘From December 21?.?.?.? insurers must apply an EU-wide ban on the use of gender to price products, such as motor insurance and annuities.’ Financial Times He: And not before time. It’s outrageous that I have to pay more for my car insurance than you do. I’m a perfectly safe driver. She: Of course you are, [...]
So many numbers, so little time
The world’s complexity is a symptom of economic success, but it can pose serious risks The world is a complicated place. When the design student Thomas Thwaites decided to reverse-engineer a toaster, he discovered that it comprised 400 components; when Eric Beinhocker, then of the McKinsey Global Institute, tried to estimate the number of products [...]
Where maths ends, computers begin
Machines have finally made their mark on economic theory with their use in agent-based modelling and simulations Computers have transformed economic analysis. Data can be analysed in ways that would have astonished earlier generations of economists. But computers have made less of an impact on economic theory. The typical economic model describes a small number [...]
Off the rails when the figures don’t add up
‘Three officials at the Department for Transport were suspended on Wednesday after the award of a new contract to run the West Coast mainline rail franchise was cancelled because of “technical flaws” in the bidding process.’ FT.com, October 3 What are these “technical flaws”? Good question. The way this works is that companies bid for [...]
The unpalatable business of spam
A new article provides a fascinating overview on the dynamics of unsolicited email and the fight to keep it at bay A couple try to get cooked breakfasts at a greasy spoon, but their attempts to order are frustrated. The menu largely consists of Spam, and in any case the conversation – and indeed, the [...]
Time for Dad to move to the garden shed
“Parents in work should be able to use pension savings to help their children buy a first property, according to proposals from Nick Clegg.” – Financial Times Dad? Yes, darling? Do you love me? Of course I do; why do you ask such a thing? Do you love me enough to use your pension to [...]
Don’t take growth for granted
One economist believes modern inventions are puny compared to earlier innovations. Does this mean that human progress has hit a dead end? The summer’s most talked about working paper in economics is by Robert Gordon, and it is simply titled “Is US Economic Growth Over?” And well he might ask: GDP per capita, the most [...]
Some public wages are more equal than others
‘Twenty-five economists have written to George Osborne, urging the chancellor not to give up on his attempts to end national pay bargaining.’ Financial Times, May 18 Beware economists writing letters, that’s what I say. I know, but in this case they have a point. We have an odd system in this country under which people [...]
Blow the whistle and reap a web of rewards
‘The Internal Revenue Service has awarded a former UBS banker $104m for revealing a tax evasion scheme that cost the US government billions of dollars in taxes and resulted in criminal charges against Swiss banks and top executives.’ Financial Times, September 12 This is “Tarantula”? Yes, this is “Tarantula”. Who calls him “Tarantula”? Well, a [...]
The big problem with small risks
It seems some of the best economics lessons can be learnt by hiring a car Here’s a puzzle. If it costs €500 to hire a €25,000 car, how much should you expect to pay to hire a €50 child’s car seat to go with it? Arithmetic says €1; experience suggests you will pay 50 times [...]
Left at the gate when it comes to Heathrow
‘The removal of Justine Greening as transport secretary and the appointment of Patrick McLoughlin as her successor has been widely interpreted as paving the way for the Conservatives to perform a U-turn on Heathrow’ Financial Times, September 5 Let me get this straight: 12 cabinet positions have been reshuffled, but this is basically about Heathrow? You’re [...]
One of the world’s largest ever randomised trials… the results are in
The Democratic Republic of Congo is the poorest country on earth. It suffered what was probably the deadliest war since 1945, and according to Margot Wallström, the UN’s representative on sexual violence, it is the “rape capital of the world”. Nevertheless the worst of the conflict is over and there is hope for the future [...]
Home workers or home shirkers?
Where do you imagine I might be writing these words? Am I at the FT? Or crunched up on a train? Perhaps I’m at the kitchen table or by a swimming pool. I may be wearing a suit, swimming trunks or pyjamas. Once you start to imagine some of the possibilities, you may find them [...]
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud…
I received an interesting email recently. I use a computer at the BBC when working on Radio 4’s More or Less, and a BBC colleague got in touch to inform me that his computer was automatically downloading all my personal documents: tax returns; letters to my wife; photographs; the manuscript of a book I’m working [...]
I think to myself, what a complex world
John Maynard Keynes once wrote – in an obituary of Alfred Marshall, although I suspect with a hint of self-congratulation – that a master economist needed to be “mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher – in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular, in terms of the general, and [...]
Don’t judge a book by its cover price
A book tagged at $23m is a long way from the dream that the internet would usher in an era of price transparency Last spring, a young biologist tried to buy a copy of a common but out-of-print reference work, Peter Lawrence’s The Making of a Fly. Amazon offered 15 used copies at reasonable prices – [...]
The random side of riots
We talk as if we understand why civil disorder happens, rather than recognising the unpredictable processes at play Around this time last year, I stood at the threshold of my home in Hackney, with a week-old baby asleep inside and two helicopters overhead tracking the looters outside. As far as I could figure out there [...]