Notice the 3 minute time limit.
That means that even Googlers will have to be quick in order to answer in time!
Let us know how long you take to complete it......
Showing posts with label greatesteconomists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greatesteconomists. Show all posts
Monday, 7 February 2011
No 179: Name the famous economists
BELOW is a screenshot from a quiz about famous economists that can be found here.
Notice the 3 minute time limit.
That means that even Googlers will have to be quick in order to answer in time!
Let us know how long you take to complete it......
Notice the 3 minute time limit.
That means that even Googlers will have to be quick in order to answer in time!
Let us know how long you take to complete it......
Thursday, 3 February 2011
No 177: The first economist and the first economic question
ACCORDING to a book I am currently reading - Dr. Strangelove's Game: A Brief History of Economic Genius - the first person who can be clearly recognised as an economic thinker was Sir William Petty (1623-1687). (This links to a Wikipedia article about him.)
Not the best looking man who ever lived, he was called a "bumptious and somewhat unpleasant man."
One reason why he was so important is that he seems to be the first person to have tred to put a monetary value on everything, with what he called "political arithmatiek". This included human life.
In measuring the value of the labour working on his vast lands in Ireland, he valued the worth of each working man at twenty times his annual income.
Doing this was an important development in the history of human thought. Firstly, it made it "possible to calculate the loss to a nation by deaths, especially in times of war and plague" (Dr Strangelove's Game p.21). In addition, a money value for everything "gave a common denominator against which everything could be measured" (p.22).
The true monetary value of a human life is a question economists are trying to answer even now, centuries later.
Some people are very uncomfortable with the idea of trying to do this.
However, if we believe that governments should take all costs and benefits into account before deciding whether or not to spend money on a project, the possible loss of human life must be included. For example, when deciding to build a road, the possible costs of traffic accidents need to be calculated.
This links to a very simplistic yet fun way of calculating your own worth. As you can see, I have tried it:
(If you try it, you need to make sure you click "scan" at the end to see the results.)
The maximum value of $10 would be achieved, according to the site, if you were a male, 33 years old, from Luxembourg, with a perfect body.
When I tried this again, with all the information the same except being a Mrs. Spottiswoode, instead of Mr, my value had fallen to $4.43. So it seems that a British woman is worth about a third less than a British man.........
Of course, this is fairly primative stuff. It's really just to stimulate discussion I think, so please don't take it too seriously!
However, there are of course serious issues here.
For instance, this article talks about how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the USA, in 2008 reduced its calculation of the value of an American human life from $7.8 million down to $6.9 million.
Critics of this decision speculated that the agency made the change so the Bush government could avoid tougher regulations on air pollution, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental problems.
This article talks about valuing a year of human life. Doing this is important in assessing whether medical insurance companies should offer to pay for the cost of a new medical treatment or piece of equipment. Previously, insurance companies calculated that to make a treatment worth its cost, it must guarantee one year of "quality life" for $50,000 or less. However, economists from Stanford University have written a report arguing it should go up to $129,000.
It seems then that the issue of the value of human life is as controversial now as it was in Sir William Petty's time.
It also seems that we still very far away from agreeing what that value should be.
One reason why he was so important is that he seems to be the first person to have tred to put a monetary value on everything, with what he called "political arithmatiek". This included human life.
In measuring the value of the labour working on his vast lands in Ireland, he valued the worth of each working man at twenty times his annual income.
Doing this was an important development in the history of human thought. Firstly, it made it "possible to calculate the loss to a nation by deaths, especially in times of war and plague" (Dr Strangelove's Game p.21). In addition, a money value for everything "gave a common denominator against which everything could be measured" (p.22).
The true monetary value of a human life is a question economists are trying to answer even now, centuries later.
Some people are very uncomfortable with the idea of trying to do this.
However, if we believe that governments should take all costs and benefits into account before deciding whether or not to spend money on a project, the possible loss of human life must be included. For example, when deciding to build a road, the possible costs of traffic accidents need to be calculated.
This links to a very simplistic yet fun way of calculating your own worth. As you can see, I have tried it:
(If you try it, you need to make sure you click "scan" at the end to see the results.)
The maximum value of $10 would be achieved, according to the site, if you were a male, 33 years old, from Luxembourg, with a perfect body.
When I tried this again, with all the information the same except being a Mrs. Spottiswoode, instead of Mr, my value had fallen to $4.43. So it seems that a British woman is worth about a third less than a British man.........
Of course, this is fairly primative stuff. It's really just to stimulate discussion I think, so please don't take it too seriously!
However, there are of course serious issues here.
For instance, this article talks about how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the USA, in 2008 reduced its calculation of the value of an American human life from $7.8 million down to $6.9 million.
Critics of this decision speculated that the agency made the change so the Bush government could avoid tougher regulations on air pollution, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental problems.
It seems then that the issue of the value of human life is as controversial now as it was in Sir William Petty's time.
It also seems that we still very far away from agreeing what that value should be.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
No 168: Fun with Google Ngram
THE tools on "Google Labs" are really cool. For example, Google Ngram allows a user to search the millions of books scanned into Google Books, to find how often different words or names have appeared in the past.
This can be very interesting for us economists.
For instance, this is what happens if you search using "inflation" and "unemployment":
Inflation is the first of the 2 terms to start to be written about, but it is overtaken by unemployment in about 1905. Both of the terms, but especially unemployment, show a huge increase during the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s.
After World War 2, the incidence of inflation increases and that of unemployment falls, perhaps due to the Phillips' Curve and its emphasis of the correlation between the two. In the 1970s, inflation leaps up to the same level as unemployment, at the same time as the world economic crisis of the time which saw high levels of both.
The peak for both came during the recession of the early 1980s.
Since then, the frequency drops, possibly due to the relatively good economic climate until the Credit Crunch. It will be interesting to see how it has increased during our current economic crisis, in a few years when the data is available.
Here are some more Ngram graphs:
Not quite sure about Karl Marx's popularity around 1700, about 120 years before he was born! I guess this also shows how Adam Smith's has continued to be a very important figure, even when Marx was at his most influential.
Two more - war and peace first:
How about tea and coffee:
Come on, then, why don't you have a go? Just go to Google Ngram and then tell us about the graph you made.
(Technical note: choosing the option to search through "English One Million" gives a more even sample over the different years.)
This can be very interesting for us economists.
For instance, this is what happens if you search using "inflation" and "unemployment":
Let's be clear what this graph shows: how often books contain the words "inflation" and "unemployment" between 1800 and 2008.
Firstly, it is clear that few writers talked about either inflation or unemployment until about 1870. This is probably because early Economics was almost universally concerned with microeconomics.
After World War 2, the incidence of inflation increases and that of unemployment falls, perhaps due to the Phillips' Curve and its emphasis of the correlation between the two. In the 1970s, inflation leaps up to the same level as unemployment, at the same time as the world economic crisis of the time which saw high levels of both.
The peak for both came during the recession of the early 1980s.
Since then, the frequency drops, possibly due to the relatively good economic climate until the Credit Crunch. It will be interesting to see how it has increased during our current economic crisis, in a few years when the data is available.
Here are some more Ngram graphs:
Not quite sure about Karl Marx's popularity around 1700, about 120 years before he was born! I guess this also shows how Adam Smith's has continued to be a very important figure, even when Marx was at his most influential.
Two more - war and peace first:
Come on, then, why don't you have a go? Just go to Google Ngram and then tell us about the graph you made.
(Technical note: choosing the option to search through "English One Million" gives a more even sample over the different years.)
Sunday, 7 February 2010
No 76: Adam Smith cartoon
WOW that last post took a lot out of me, let's take the time to relax with an enjoyable cartoon.
Although, of course, on this blog there is no innocent fun - even our cartoons must have a good amount of economics in them.
This then, links you to a cartoon version of the most famous book in economics - Adam Smith's "An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (usually just called "The Wealth of Nations").
A wealth of economic knowledge awaits you there, and hopefully some better jokes than that very poor effort I just made.
See also Post 8 for a cartoon version of Hayek's "Road to Serfdom".
Although, of course, on this blog there is no innocent fun - even our cartoons must have a good amount of economics in them.
This then, links you to a cartoon version of the most famous book in economics - Adam Smith's "An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (usually just called "The Wealth of Nations").
A wealth of economic knowledge awaits you there, and hopefully some better jokes than that very poor effort I just made.
See also Post 8 for a cartoon version of Hayek's "Road to Serfdom".
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
No 8: 2 Hayeks
2 FAMOUS people with the surname "Hayek".
One a Nobel prize winner, and passionate defender of the free market, not only for its ability to create wealth, but as a defence against evil government control of society. These ideas are summarised in this Hayek's book "The Road to Serfdom" (published 1944) which you can see here in the form of a cartoon:
http://mises.org/books/TRTS/
(No Nobel prize yet for the other Hayek but she did win the 1998 MTV Movie Award for best teenage date movie.)
Other famous free market economists apart from Friedrich (not Salma) Hayek are Ludwig von Mises, Gary Becker and Milton Friedman. I'll try to post about some of them at a later date.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)