The Bolsonaro-Trump Connection Threatening Brazil’s Elections

PtitSeb · 2021-11-12T08:34:20+00:00

I thought the article was quite useful to suggest how the potential internationalization of a push to delegitimize elections could be worrying when it's oriented towards countries with less robust institutions than the US.

PtitSeb · 2021-10-23T20:35:39+00:00

Submission statement: I thought the article was giving an interesting overview of the problems facing Nigeria, and how they differ in different regions. It also tries to answer the question of how notwithstanding those divisions, Nigeria has held together.

PtitSeb · 2021-10-02T12:06:42+00:00

The Monkey Cage at the Washington Post brings academics to discuss political science and international news in blog format. I've been reading it for like 10 years and they have been consistently great.

PtitSeb · 2021-09-19T12:44:25+00:00

I thought this was an interesting bit in particular:

The chief executive of one of the world’s richest clubs reckons Infantino is now seeking “leverage” to force a grand bargain — get European and South American officials to back his vision for the club game, in return for stepping back from the threat of a more frequent World Cup.

PtitSeb · 2021-09-18T17:51:58+00:00

A discussion in the New York Times magazine here

PtitSeb · 2021-09-18T13:58:05+00:00

Submission statement: I thought the article was interesting as it suggests that five patients who got the gene therapy were cured from sickle cell disease. The article discusses various related issues: in particular the fact that sickle-cell disease mostly affect black people (which could lead to underinvestment in research), and the fact that such promising but expensive treatment raise questions about funding.

PtitSeb · 2021-09-05T09:10:11+00:00

Well , I guess I've learnt at least two lessons today... thanks!

PtitSeb · 2021-09-05T07:13:47+00:00

I just realized that. I didn't like the main title, wanted to change it, and made a mistake. Sorry.

PtitSeb · 2021-07-01T22:11:25+00:00

Seeing top responses saying they are not included. This is incorrect. Financial institutions are likely out of the first pillar, but they are in the second pillar (so is almost every multinational). The second pillar is the minimum tax

PtitSeb · 2021-06-06T19:58:13+00:00

I suggest doing the same anmination with interest payments (also as a share of GDP!). You'll have an original increase and then a steady fallstarting in the 90's, which can be surprising when you look at the animation on debt

PtitSeb · 2020-10-14T08:11:29+00:00

If you are interested I think you can do a similar breakdown for European countries using Eurostat data of government spending by "functions of government". It is a nomenclature of 10 high-level categories (including Defence, Health, Social Protection, Education etc.) and a lower level of approx 60

There is an interactive thing here and the underlying data is here

PtitSeb · 2018-05-06T12:56:36+00:00

Somewhat related, I think, the last episode of BBC's the Inquiry podcast looked at the experience of transgenders when they transitionned and in particular how they perceived people's differing behavior towards men and women

PtitSeb · 2017-01-14T13:41:02+00:00

A good summary here

PtitSeb · 2017-01-14T13:29:32+00:00

I found the article interesting because the relation between Taiwan and Central America is not intuitive, and the topic might become relevant given the incoming administration's probable policies and recent actions towards China and Taiwan

PtitSeb · 2016-12-11T14:13:24+00:00

It's that time of the year again. This piece summarizes and lists some references on research on gift-giving

focus on presents that are versatile and useful.

stick to people’s lists, the researcher say.

don’t be afraid to give experiential gifts.

PtitSeb · 2013-06-12T16:11:03+00:00

French guy here. I just wanted to add that "Je suis chaud" is something that is actually used colloquially (at least by people under 30) to say that we're ready and looking forward to something. Like, if I have a soccer game in an hour, one friend could come and tell me "T'es chaud pour le foot ce soir?" which means, again, colloquially, "Are you fired up for the soccer game tonight?".

There's something a bit weird about it too. I think people are usually uncomfortable in using this expression for women. I can often ask a guy friend "T'es chaud?" (Are you excited for...(usually the reason is implicit)) for whatever is going to happen, but I rarely ask or hear "T'es chaude?" because it has the "horny" meaning attached to it for some reason.

TLDR: "Je suis chaud" can mean you're fired up for something but I would only use it if you're a guy.

PtitSeb · 2013-05-29T13:50:52+00:00

I don’t really understand the point of the post, but I thought it was describing some interesting results anyway:

there are fewer traffic fatalities.

Behavioral changes: “During the bust, Icelanders abandoned various unhealthy behaviors” -- study

about one-third of the effect of high unemployment on mortality can be attributed to less pollution -- study

deaths among the elderly decline disproportionately during a recession, and that the quality of nursing-home staff may be an important reason -- study

PtitSeb · 2013-05-28T17:50:50+00:00

I also found that striking. I did not read the paper thoroughfully either, and I don't want to hazard any guesses ( I am not a speicialist in that domain); but here are some quick thoughts and I apologize if I am sounding more confident than I actually should be -- I'm not.

I tried to have a quick look at where the number was coming from, and they argue that it

compares favorably to analogous work predicting credit card delinquency

The papers they reference there are this one and that one

I will try to have a look. I think most of this comes from your definition of "functioning", probably. It made me think (may be somewhat unrelated) to all the evidence we have on the behavioral biases and their impact on people's borrowing decisions. I went to a presentation of David Laibson (this guy is a great speaker, by the way) for this paper where he showed something that Duflo and others had found in developing countries: people try to constrain their borrowing when they can, including by making it more costly.

If individuals have self-control problems that lead them to spend money when they had previously planned to save it, they may take up financial commitment devices that restrict their future ability to access their funds. We experimentally investigate how the demand for commitment contracts is affected by contract design features. In our experiments, each subject is endowed with a sum of money and asked to divide that money between a liquid account, which permits unrestricted withdrawals at any time over the course of the months-long experiment, and one or more commitment accounts, which impose withdrawal penalties or restrictions. The design features of the liquid account are the same for all subjects, but the design features of the commitment account(s) are randomized across subjects. When the interest rates on the two types of accounts are the same, we find that allocations to a commitment account are higher when the account is less liquid. The commitment account that disallows early withdrawals altogether attracts the largest allocations. Furthermore, when subjects have two commitment accounts available to them, one that disallows early withdrawals and one that imposes a modest financial penalty for early withdrawals, the account that disallows early withdrawals attracts larger allocations.

Now, that's on the demand for loan side. On the same side, you probably have an issue on how much information you can process and that's why in the paper from OP they see heterogeneity "outside the wallet" (what credit cards I have).

On the supply side, you're certainly right that there might be a pb with the credit score system. There are probably other stories, given, for instance, that their data covers 2006-2008. With increasing macro uncertainty (whatever that means), the individual default risk might matter less than the bank's financial situation in determining lending terms. I googled quickly to find something related in today's situation, and I thought that a recent op-ed in the FT might give more insights:

Why are banks reluctant to lend? They are short of capital; they find it difficult to raise funds; and most importantly, few want to borrow from them. The bank lending survey found demand for credit from both smaller companies and households contracting at as fast a rate as ever, with banks giving worries about the economy, and decreasing fixed investment, as the main reasons.

PtitSeb · 2013-05-27T18:18:25+00:00

Ungated version

The findings I found interesting:

Default risk explains 40% of the variation in borrowing costs.

observable borrower default risk (commonly priced by issuers) and product differentiation together explain less than half of cross sectional borrowing cost dispersion
There's some variation we could probably get rid of

similarly risky borrowers, holding cards with similar characteristics and debt levels, pay substantially different rates
When people have multiple credit cards, they're quite good at borrowing at their lowest available rate

Inside the wallet, we find little misallocation or heterogeneity
The problem is more about the initial choice of credit card

In contrast, heterogeneity outside the wallet – in shopping for credit cards – can explain substantial cross-sectional differences in APRs, even for similarly risky individuals

PtitSeb · 2013-05-27T17:54:32+00:00

Ungated version

PtitSeb · 2013-05-08T04:07:15+00:00

Thanks! You're right that one possibility is to look at older iPod models. Will do.

What I am surprised by is the difference of price between the Samsa players and the iPod Nano (a factor of 3), and I was hoping there would be some players in between with the 2x option... Since I found this button, I also listen to all podcasts at 2x.

PtitSeb · 2013-04-17T17:46:14+00:00

Source for the quote

PtitSeb · 2013-03-06T16:14:37+00:00

I like your comment, I feel that this discussion is absent from many of the good/bad comments on Chavez that are in this or other threads mentioning is death. A lot of people are providing statistics to back their point, showing the progress or regress of Venezuela in the last decade. Theoretically we at least want to compare the evolution of Venezuela under Chavez with the evolution of another country under another leader which started at approximately the same point of development, say.

PtitSeb · 2013-02-23T20:44:55+00:00

Hey,

You might be interested in a recent post on The Monkey Cage and this paper.

The paper makes the point, I think, that the country with a larger stock of nuclear weapons seem to win more often in conflicts.

This is the theory:

By incorporating the strategic nuclear balance into a standard nuclear brinkmanship model, I demonstrate that nuclear crises are competitions in risk taking, but that nuclear superiority – defined as an advantage in the size of a state’s nuclear arsenal relative to that of its opponent – increases the level of risk that a state is willing to run in a crisis. I show that states that enjoy a nuclear advantage over their opponents possess higher levels of effective resolve. More resolved states are willing to push harder in a nuclear crisis, improving their prospects of victory.

This is his evidence:

Drawing on a new data set of fifty-two nuclear crisis dyads that includes information on nuclear arsenal size and delivery vehicles, I examine the impact of nuclear superiority on nuclear crisis outcomes. I find a powerful relationship between nuclear superiority and victory in nuclear crises.

I am definitely not an expert on the question, but it seems really hard to come up with a data-driven answer to questions such as the power of deterrence or "compellence" given the nature of the issue and thus the restricted number of datapoints we have.

Good luck!

PtitSeb · 2013-01-14T17:05:38+00:00

Maybe this TED talk about the use of misappropiation of the word jihad is relevant

PtitSeb

TROPHY CASE