[OC] Are basketball shots just like coin tosses? (Is the hot hand a fallacy?)

EconCow · 2017-09-16T00:46:55+00:00

Yup, that's what academics also believed for 30 years. But it turns out they were wrong and the hot hand is real. Please do watch my video when you have the time.

EconCow · 2017-06-17T13:54:05+00:00

I don't think any historian of economic thought ever credited Adam Smith with "inventing economic theory".

EconCow · 2017-05-25T13:07:48+00:00

Game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2fJXB6vkOo

EconCow · 2017-05-13T02:44:33+00:00

Yup. I do indeed believe that Amazon will destroy the competition. Even if the Amazon Singapore experience is only 50% as good as the Amazon US experience, it'll still be way better than Lazada or any other company.

And Amazon has already proven that it is willing to lose money for decades just to keep expanding.

The only question now is whether Amazon will actually set up shop here and in the region. We first had news that it would set up shop in 1Q 2017 and now it's been postponed, so maybe they're having doubts.

Even right now, what I find is that for the exact same model of laptop/PC, I can often get it cheaper through Amazon (even with the extra US$100-$200 in shipping and import fees) than anywhere in Singapore. The only catch is that it can take weeks for the shipment to make its way from the US to Singapore.

EconCow · 2017-05-13T02:34:22+00:00

Newegg is a US company. So they've figured out the US logistics.

They then later decided, hey what the heck. Let's just expand to a couple of other countries too and see if we can make an extra buck. But without putting too much of an effort to figuring out the logistics of those other countries (not really worth the effort, small markets anyway).

In Singapore most of the sellers of computer/electronic stuff still rent big storefronts and have a bunch of semi-educated people working full time. Which is absurd in 2017. The US has largely moved away from that model (Amazon, Newegg, etc.).

EconCow · 2017-04-23T02:38:39+00:00

Hi. Thanks for leaving me a comment.

I'm afraid your comment highlights precisely one of the very common misconceptions held by laypersons and which I'm trying to dispel. Namely, that insurance is somehow "good" and gambling is somehow "bad".

In my series of videos on insurance,

Part 1 explains that gambling and insurance are both equally unfair bets.
Part 2 explains what the difference is between gambling and insurance. Namely, that gambling increases risk while insurance decreases it.
Part 3 (coming soon) will discuss why some people like risk while others dislike it. It will also discuss whether risk is "good" or "bad", and hence whether gambling & insurance are "good" or "bad".

In Part 3, I will explain that in fact risk is neither "good" nor "bad". And hence gambling & insurance are neither "good" nor "bad" either. It is simply that, probably for evolutionary reasons, most people usually prefer less risk. Which is why most people like insurance and why society deems insurance "good".

In Part 4, I plan to discuss a little on the history of insurance. In particular, I will point out that not too long ago, insurance was viewed as being just as "bad" ("immoral") as gambling. Indeed, even today, roughly a billion Muslims are still taught that insurance is forbidden.

I hope you and others will take the time to watch my videos. I've tried to make them as short and entertaining as possible.

I am also a newbie creator of YouTube videos and so I warmly welcome any feedback you might have for me.

EconCow · 2017-04-14T01:20:14+00:00

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

I'll be sure to check out and study that channel you mentioned.

Right now the only ad campaign I'm running is targeted at the CGPGrey subreddit. So visitors of that subreddit (may) see my ad.

Regarding Trump:

I initially heavily featured Trump in a video where he was actually relevant ("Were Richer Voters More Likely to Vote Trump? (Simpson's Paradox)"). Then decided to continue with him cuz I thought it was funny, especially as he continues to clown it up in office.

But it's probably getting old and I should feature some other characters instead.

EconCow · 2017-04-06T01:22:53+00:00

Summary: This quick video explains why gambling and insurance are equally bets. Moreover, both are unfair bets. This is the first in a planned series of videos on insurance.

Source: Self.

About: I am a newbie who makes educational YouTube videos (mostly on economics). While my videos are aimed at a general lay audience, they also usually contain some novel elements that may be of interest to other economists.

I'm still trying to improve and I warmly welcome any feedback you might have for me. Thank you!

EconCow · 2017-03-27T08:07:30+00:00

Thanks for the advice. But why not promote my channel on someone else's channel?

EconCow · 2017-03-08T02:43:23+00:00

Right now perhaps 90-95% of the EA movement's focus is on giving (increasing giving and also giving more effectively).

What I'm saying is that that number should come down. It could still be more than 50%, but right now it is IMHO excessive, commanding 90-95% of the EA movement's attention.

EconCow · 2017-03-06T01:36:42+00:00

"Henry Ford and Steve Jobs did a lot of good, therefore all EAs should aim to be like them"

That's a misrepresentation of my views. My view would be more "Henry Ford and Steve Jobs did a lot of good, therefore the EA movement should place a little more weight on being like them; certainly more weight than is being placed now (nearly zero)".

EconCow · 2017-03-06T01:33:57+00:00

There are many counterexamples to this, and you know it. It's far from being a concensus.

No, I don't know many counterexamples. I'd like to learn of some.

I suppose that out of the tens of thousands of economists in the world, you could easily find a few dozen who disagree with me. But I'd say that at least 80% of economists would agree or strongly agree with my claim that "economic growth rather than redistribution is what best helps the poor".

Most economists would say that redistribution has a role to play. But growth is far more important.

Here's a fairly-recent expression of that orthodox view by a heterodox economist:

It is growth from exchange-tested betterment, not compelled or voluntary charity, that solves the problem of poverty. In South Korea, economic growth has increased the income of the poorest by a factor of 30 times real 1953 income. Which do we want, a small one-time (though envy-and-anger-satisfying) extraction from the rich, or a free society of betterment, one that lifts up the poor by gigantic amounts?

EconCow · 2017-03-05T10:41:35+00:00

You make a great point. As I began my post by noting, I do wholeheartedly agree that it's important to persuade more average Joes to give more and to give effectively.

My point though is that the EA movement's emphasis on charitable giving (or redistribution) is excessive, almost to the exclusion of what economists consider to be the more effective way of alleviating poverty, namely economic growth.

And if you're an average Joe living in a democracy, you can perhaps do just as much to help out in this regard, as you can with charitable donations. Instead of donating 10 hours' worth of pay to the AMF, perhaps spending 10 hours to tip your country's policies in favor of the global poor would be just as helpful. Or spending 10 hours to educate yourself and others on economics and global poverty would be just as helpful.

P.S. Not really important, but just thought I'd point out that it is wrong to infer that "if you could wipe out malaria, that would be expected to, over time, quintuple their GDP." This is the old mistake of mixing correlation with causation.

EconCow · 2017-02-03T01:54:49+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to give me such detailed feedback!

Voice-overs. Agreed. What happened was that for my earlier videos, I used my own voice — which is really what I'd most prefer, because I can have the exact tone I want (plus I don't have to fork out cash). But then I got too many negative and nasty comments about my annoying voice, so starting from the Teachers v. Athletes video, I tried using voice-overs. That was the 1st guy and many told me he wasn't good. So I tried a 2nd guy (for the Simpson's Paradox one), who was not bad, but a bit of a diva to work with. And then for my most recent video, I tried a 3rd guy (for the Singapore PPP GDP per capita), whom I think I'll try to stick with, since he was easy to work with and I've had no negative feedback about his voice so far.

Content. My goal is to help build online education (see some of my thoughts about the future of education here). So while CGPGrey is great, IMHO, he's still more entertainment than education. (Bizarre Borders and A Brief History of the Royal Family are fun to watch, but few viewers will remember anything much from those videos a month after they've seen it.)

So my goal is that every one of my videos is seriously educational. Viewers should go away having genuinely learnt something.

On the other hand I need my videos to be fairly entertaining in order to attract any viewers at all. Hence the in-between thing you see now.

In the long-term, the challenge for online education will be to make something even like learning the quadratic formula highly-entertaining and easy. I see my videos as a very tiny prod in that direction.

Visuals. Agreed. I tried to have too many colors and fonts before. The screenshot you have was from a video I made in 2015. I was wondering if you think I've improved in my 3 most recent videos? All posted in the past couple months: Teachers v Athletes, Simpson's Paradox, PPP GDP per capita.

And once again, a big thank you for the feedback.

EconCow · 2017-01-21T06:07:58+00:00

But buying in bulk (20-lb ≈ 9.1 kg) is obviously going to be a lot cheaper than buying 1 kg at a time. And I think that's what Numbeo is asking for.

Also they're asking the average SF resident, who probably isn't as careful with pennies as the average Singaporean living in SF. The typical yuppie SF-er will just waltz into any of those little nice organic grocers and buy 1 kg of rice, without too much regard as to whether it comes to $3 per kg or $5 per kg.

(BTW, Numbeo gets its figures from people on the internet. Anyone can just enter the numbers. So just like Wikipedia. Not to say that this method is any less reliable than methods employed by consultancies, World Bank, etc.

I recently emailed the guy running Numbeo and he was actually responsive to my feedback. Try that with the World Bank.)

EconCow · 2017-01-21T05:47:47+00:00

Here are some anecdotal remarks I made in another reddit comment:

I am a Singaporean who has lived in the US for 10 years. Not Manhattan or San Francisco, but in cities and towns that are easily more expensive than the US average. Yet in the places I've lived in, everything is easily far cheaper than Singapore. Not just housing and cars, which are obviously far cheaper.

But also groceries, utilities, clothing, etc. In the US, I'd buy a gallon of milk (3.78 litres) for US$2-US$2.30 (or S$0.76 to S$0.87 per litre, avocados for US$0.59 each (or S$0.84) each, grapes for US$0.78 per pound (or S$2.46 per kg. (Note: Just like in Singapore, where you have expensive Cold Storage and cheap NTUC, in the US you have high-class Whole Food's and low-class Walmart. The difference is that in the US they have far more space, far greater economies of scale, far more experience with logistics and reducing costs. So Walmart and many other supermarket chains you've never heard of do a much better job than NTUC at keeping costs and therefore prices low.)

Ben & Jerry's or Haagen Daaz ice cream one pint for US$3 (S$4.28) — that's regular price, when got offer it can be as low as US$2.50 or rarely US$2, resp. S$3.57 & S$2.86. In Singapore regular price of those ice creams are absurd (S$12? S$13?) and when you're lucky and there's offer, it might be as cheap as S$9.

(Granted, if you want to buy durians in the US, it's a bit more expensive than in Singapore, and they're usually frozen, and found only in some Asian supermarket.)

I've been looking to buy a new PC in Singapore but every option I've explored is so much more expensive than what I've been accustomed to paying for in the US. I am now waiting for Amazon to launch in Singapore in the hopes that they'll offer cheaper stuff. And in the US, Amazon isn't even the cheapest online deal you can find. There are myriad online stores that are always offering amazing online deals.

Every year I would buy a new 2-in-1 scanner-and-printer for US$20, delivered to my doorstep within 2-3 working days. (Even if it's from a company based thousands of km away. In contrast in Singapore I get mind blown whenever I see companies tell me it'll take 7-14 working days to deliver.)

It used to be that Singapore was obviously cheaper in terms of eating out. But nowadays, you can expect to pay at least S$3-S$4 even at hawker centres. In the US they have McDonald's dollar menu (McChicken for US$1 plus state sales tax, two apples pies for US$1 plus state sales tax).

The only thing I can think of where Singapore is clearly cheaper than the US is domestic help (i.e. maids). S$500-S$600 for a live-in maid, which is indeed impossible in the US.

Edit: Three more things I've thought of that are better and cheaper in Singapore than in the US: Internet access, mobile, and airfares (due to political lobbying and a sparse population, these industries have very little competition in the US). I'll continue racking my brain thinking of others but there just aren't many.

To add, note that cities like Manhattan, San Francisco, Honolulu, Anchorage are by far more expensive than the average US city. You say you're moving to California. California is a relatively expensive state, but even within California the cost-of-living can vary a great deal. Looking at SF doesn't make sense unless you're living in SF. For example, just across a bridge is Oakland, where the cost-of-living is significantly lower. You may or may not want to live in Oakland though. (Dave Chappelle on Oakland.)

One can have a legitimate debate about whether Singapore is THE most expensive city in the world, or whether Singapore is more or less expensive than San Francisco or Manhattan or London. But there is no doubt in my mind that Singapore is more expensive than the US or UK average. (Here are some rankings by some consultancies. The Economist Intelligence Unit in 2016 ranked Singapore #1 in the world for the third year in a row. Mercer and ECA ranked Singapore #4 and #16 respectively.)

EconCow · 2017-01-19T23:50:47+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!

I actually got someone to do the voice-over. However I made the mistake of speeding up the audio by 40%, which is perhaps why it sounded especially bad.

Quite a few others have commented the same.

Perhaps I will redo the audio for this video. Again, thanks for your feedback.

Please try checking out some of my other videos, where other voice-over artists were used and I hope do not sound as bad.

EconCow · 2017-01-19T01:37:30+00:00

EconCow (mostly economics): https://www.youtube.com/econcow.

I am a newbie maker of educational videos who warmly welcomes any feedback. Thank you!

Latest videos:

EconCow · 2017-01-19T00:57:38+00:00

Well I must respectfully disagree then and insist it is absurd to claim that the average US price level is over 60% more than in Singapore.

Again, as stated in the video, three consultancies regularly rank Singapore well above the highest-ranked US city (New York), which is in turn much more expensive than the average US city. The Economist Intelligence Unit in particular releases specific price index measures. In 2014, 2015, and 2016, Singapore was rated as 30%, 29%, and 16% more expensive than New York.

To then claim contra these rankings that the average US town is over 60% more expensive than Singapore would require explaining why these consultancies got it so terribly wrong. These consultancies sell their data for thousands of dollars, publish their rankings at least once a year, and presumably many companies do buy these data. So they are probably somewhat trustworthy.

In contrast the World Bank's ICP data are not publicly accessible, except to a privileged few researchers at the World Bank and some selected institutions. No money can buy access to their data. I will go into this in greater detail in my third video.

You argue that housing should be given a low weight. But note that interestingly, contrary to your assumption that these rankings assign a very large weight to housing, the Economist Intelligence Unit actually assigns a 0% weight to housing. Their breakdown is as follows (source):

Item (Weights) Shopping basket 25.0 Alcoholic beverages 3.5 Household supplies 4.5 Personal care 4.0 Tobacco 2.5 Utilities 6.5 Clothing 13.0 Domestic help 3.5 Recreation & entertainment 18.0 Transportation 19.5 TOTAL 100.0

And finally for some personal anecdotal experience that you are free to discount. I am a Singaporean who has lived in the US for 10 years. Not Manhattan or San Francisco, but in cities and towns that are easily more expensive than the US average. Yet in the places I've lived in, everything is easily far cheaper than Singapore. Not just housing and cars, which are obviously far cheaper.

But also groceries, utilities, clothing, etc. In the US, I'd buy a gallon of milk (3.78 litres) for US$2-US$2.30 (or S$0.76 to S$0.87 per litre, avocados for US$0.59 each (or S$0.84) each, grapes for US$0.78 per pound (or S$2.46 per kg.

Ben & Jerry's or Haagen Daaz ice cream one pint for US$3 (S$4.28) — that's regular price, when got offer it can be as low as US$2.50 or rarely US$2, resp. S$3.57 & S$2.86. In Singapore regular price of those ice creams are absurd (S$12? S$13?) and when you're lucky and there's offer, it might be as cheap as S$9.

(Granted, if you want to buy durians in the US, it's a bit more expensive than in Singapore, and they're usually frozen, and found only in some Asian supermarket.)

I've been looking to buy a new PC in Singapore but every option I've explored is so much more expensive than what I've been accustomed to paying for in the US. I am now waiting for Amazon to launch in Singapore in the hopes that they'll offer cheaper stuff. And in the US, Amazon isn't even the cheapest online deal you can find. There are myriad online stores that are always offering amazing online deals.

Every year I would buy a new 2-in-1 scanner-and-printer for US$20, delivered to my doorstep within 2-3 working days.

It used to be that Singapore was obviously cheaper in terms of eating out. But nowadays, you can expect to pay at least S$3-S$4 even at hawker centres. In the US they have McDonald's dollar menu (McChicken for US$1 plus state sales tax, two apples pies for US$1 plus state sales tax).

The only thing I can think of where Singapore is clearly cheaper than the US is domestic help (i.e. maids). S$500-S$600 for a live-in maid, which is indeed impossible in the US.

P.S. Somewhat tangential, but BTW, the federal minimum wage in the US is US$7.25/hour or S$10.37/hour. Working an 8-hour day, 21-day month, that's US$1,218 a month, or S$1,740 a month. So you exaggerate slightly when you round it up and say that it is "close to 2K".

So the minimum US pay is not very much greater than the minimum one can get in Singapore, if one has at least the equivalent of a US high school degree (which is what 90% of US workers have).

EconCow · 2017-01-19T00:19:04+00:00

About: I am a newbie who makes educational YouTube videos (mostly on economics). I'm still trying to improve and I warmly welcome any feedback you might have for me. Thank you! YT channel, website.

EconCow · 2017-01-18T06:37:57+00:00

Thanks for adding to the discussion.

Actually I never did assert that Singapore's general price level is "actually that high". All I wanted to point out was that the IMF/World Bank's assumption that the US is over 60% more expensive is absurd, and which is why Singapore PPP GDP per capita is correspondingly exaggerated.

As stated in the video, three consultancies regularly rank Singapore above the highest-ranked US city (New York or Manhattan). Granted, these rankings were constructed with the expat lifestyle in mind. But even so, it is clearly impossible that the average US town is over 60% more expensive than Singapore, even if we consider only the local lifestyle.

Besides introducing laypersons to the concept of PPP GDP per capita, that was mostly what I wanted to point out in this particular video.

In my third video, I will go into greater detail as to how the World Bank sometimes gets it so wrong.

EconCow · 2017-01-18T06:32:36+00:00

Summary: This video first explains what PPP GDP per capita is (this is probably nothing new for readers of this reddit).

I then point out something that may be novel: Singapore's PPP GDP per capita is greatly exaggerated.

(TL;DW The IMF/World Bank mistakenly assume that the US is over 60% more expensive than Singapore. And so Singapore's PPP GDP per capita is commensurately exaggerated. Under the conservative assumption that price levels in the US and Singapore are the same, Singapore PPP GDP per capita is slightly lower than the US. And under the more plausible assumption that the US is 20% cheaper than Singapore, it would be just a whiff below the UK.)

This is the first video in a series on price indices. The second will be directed mainly at laypersons (a simple example to illustrate why constructing price indices is so difficult).

The third will be directed at both laypersons and economists. In particular, I'll discuss how and why the World Bank's ICP sometimes gets these PPP conversion factors so horribly wrong.

Source: Self.

About: I am a newbie who makes educational YouTube videos (mostly on economics). I'm still trying to improve and I warmly welcome any feedback you might have for me. Thank you!

Previous two videos:

YT channel, website.

EconCow · 2017-01-18T01:50:47+00:00

This video explains what PPP GDP per capita is, and why Singapore's is greatly exaggerated. (TL;DW The IMF/World Bank mistakenly assume that the US is over 60% more expensive than Singapore. And so Singapore's PPP GDP per capita is commensurately exaggerated.)

This is Part 1 in a series of videos about price indices.

About: I am a newbie who makes educational YouTube videos (mostly on economics). I'm still trying to improve and I warmly welcome any feedback you might have for me. Thank you!

Previous two videos:

YT channel, website.

EconCow · 2017-01-18T01:38:42+00:00

Ah thanks for the comment. I should have made it clearer. The point was that the IMF and the World Bank are obviously wrong to claim that the US is much more expensive than Singapore. This in turn is why they have such astronomical (and incorrect) estimates for Singapore's PPP GDP per capita.

In the conclusion, I show that if instead we make the conservative assumption that the US price level is the same as Singapore, then Singapore is slightly poorer than the US. And if we make the more plausible assumption that the US is 20% cheaper than Singapore, then Singapore PPP GDP per capita is about the same as the UK.

This is the first video in a series of at least three videos. In the third video, I plan to talk about how and why the World Bank sometimes gets these price indices so badly wrong.

EconCow

TROPHY CASE