05 March 2008
04 March 2008
03 March 2008
19 February 2008
Govt Role to Decrease Inequality: But What Kind?
Countries should have preferences over Information Equality (there exists moral hazard implications with more pointed goals).
With income equality, agents can procure what they want, including health if that is what they want. Therefore wealth redistribution is a more general goal, and health redistribution is more pointed goal. There is less moral hazard associated with more pointed redistribution goals. With income redistribution there is distortion in labor supply and savings decisions including investments in health. With health redistribution there is still moral hazard, but less. For purchase of commodities, agents must still work accordingly, however there is still lack of incentive for adequate personal investment in health.
I claim that the optimal commodity of redistribution by the government is information. Access to information contains all the answers agents could ever want to achieve any goals they would have. It provides the keys to vast warehouse of tools to serve the needs of all individuals desiring to cultivate their own potential. Achieving information equality consists of procurement of library services for public use, subsidies and at least mild de-tiering of internet, subsidies of information databasing firms, hiring of services to assist the access to information such as librarians and search cost routines.
With income equality, agents can procure what they want, including health if that is what they want. Therefore wealth redistribution is a more general goal, and health redistribution is more pointed goal. There is less moral hazard associated with more pointed redistribution goals. With income redistribution there is distortion in labor supply and savings decisions including investments in health. With health redistribution there is still moral hazard, but less. For purchase of commodities, agents must still work accordingly, however there is still lack of incentive for adequate personal investment in health.
I claim that the optimal commodity of redistribution by the government is information. Access to information contains all the answers agents could ever want to achieve any goals they would have. It provides the keys to vast warehouse of tools to serve the needs of all individuals desiring to cultivate their own potential. Achieving information equality consists of procurement of library services for public use, subsidies and at least mild de-tiering of internet, subsidies of information databasing firms, hiring of services to assist the access to information such as librarians and search cost routines.
10 February 2008
25 January 2008
tax competition
by the way, today starts the spectrum auction.
some new interesting unfoldings as to the participants expected strategies.
will have to post some more later.
03 January 2008
back to Net Neutrality
i post again about net neutrality just because policy on this issue is so imminent and so important.
19 December 2007
17 December 2007
16 November 2007
good link
U.S. Military Wasting All Its Victories On Notre Dame
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/u_s_military_wasting_all_its
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/u_s_military_wasting_all_its
02 November 2007
Guest Blogizzle
Posted by: The Wife
What?! Whose wife? Yes, sorry ladies, mastro is married. I know you must be surprised since he has never mentioned that fact, but you must have wondered how a man who obviously has many many interesting topics and insights to converse about has not been snatched up. Well I did snatch him. I guess marriage is just not related to economics enough for him to mention his marital status. Wait a minute -- "economics of families" Seriously, mastro, the opportunity to come clean was all over that blog post! We are very happily married, btw.
Anyway, mastro does not know I am posting today, but he has suggested that I guest blog for him in the past, and I find myself with nothing else to do at the moment, so the time has come. He also told me that my post does not have to be related to economics... but isn't everything?? We actually do converse about economics quite often, and mastro thinks I have great ideas. But apparently I use too many phrases like "some ratio type thing or something" and not enough like "the exponential integral of a finite array of sets" to be a good economics grad student.
Here are my latest thoughts related to economics.
I have been considering whether or not I should get a flu shot this year. Buzzword: externalities. Flu shots provide positive externalities. If I get a flu shot, I won't get the flu, and you won't catch the flu from me. Well, there's my solution -- I'm not getting a needle stuck in my arm (or any muscle of my choosing), so y'all better get flu shots, and if not, I'll see you next spring, okay?
Two of my favorite things to do are probably running and cooking. I guess you could call them hobbies, although I don't really know if a lot of people drag their tight butts out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to collect stamps, nor do I know anyone who considers their responsibility for the survival of their spouse to be a hobby... But lets call them my hobbies for this economic analysis. Buzzwords: tradeoffs and opportunity cost. I only have so much free time, so I have to figure out how much of it I am going to devote to my hobbies, because if I am running, I sure as heck can't be cooking. And vice versa, obviously (although I'm not sure if that is a safe assumption in real economics). So I have to decide how much I like (or rather how much utility) I get from each activity and I must maximize my total utility. Sounds easy enough. The combination of running and cooking, however, brings a slight complication to the standard tradeoff problem. You see, the more I cook (and inevitably eat tons of chocolate, lick all kinds of beaters, and "test" the outcome), the more I must run. This particular issue is getting a little scientific maybe, so I will save the details for when I guest blog for a biology student. Back to the main problem here, tradeoffs say the more you do one thing, the less you may do the other, but like I said, the more I cook, the more I must run. And opportunity cost says that if I run 1 extra mile, I cannot cook one extra cookie. But I say if I run one extra mile, I can cook (and will eat) one extra cookie. What a predicament. I need a solution. I don't know if there is a buzzword to describe this crazy situation yet. If not, this is my gift to one lucky grad student. Do you dissertation about it, and let me know how in the world I can solve this problem!
I hope you all enjoyed today's guest blog. Unfortunately, it is not out on podcasts.
Keepin' it economical,
mrs.mastro
What?! Whose wife? Yes, sorry ladies, mastro is married. I know you must be surprised since he has never mentioned that fact, but you must have wondered how a man who obviously has many many interesting topics and insights to converse about has not been snatched up. Well I did snatch him. I guess marriage is just not related to economics enough for him to mention his marital status. Wait a minute -- "economics of families" Seriously, mastro, the opportunity to come clean was all over that blog post! We are very happily married, btw.
Anyway, mastro does not know I am posting today, but he has suggested that I guest blog for him in the past, and I find myself with nothing else to do at the moment, so the time has come. He also told me that my post does not have to be related to economics... but isn't everything?? We actually do converse about economics quite often, and mastro thinks I have great ideas. But apparently I use too many phrases like "some ratio type thing or something" and not enough like "the exponential integral of a finite array of sets" to be a good economics grad student.
Here are my latest thoughts related to economics.
I have been considering whether or not I should get a flu shot this year. Buzzword: externalities. Flu shots provide positive externalities. If I get a flu shot, I won't get the flu, and you won't catch the flu from me. Well, there's my solution -- I'm not getting a needle stuck in my arm (or any muscle of my choosing), so y'all better get flu shots, and if not, I'll see you next spring, okay?
Two of my favorite things to do are probably running and cooking. I guess you could call them hobbies, although I don't really know if a lot of people drag their tight butts out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to collect stamps, nor do I know anyone who considers their responsibility for the survival of their spouse to be a hobby... But lets call them my hobbies for this economic analysis. Buzzwords: tradeoffs and opportunity cost. I only have so much free time, so I have to figure out how much of it I am going to devote to my hobbies, because if I am running, I sure as heck can't be cooking. And vice versa, obviously (although I'm not sure if that is a safe assumption in real economics). So I have to decide how much I like (or rather how much utility) I get from each activity and I must maximize my total utility. Sounds easy enough. The combination of running and cooking, however, brings a slight complication to the standard tradeoff problem. You see, the more I cook (and inevitably eat tons of chocolate, lick all kinds of beaters, and "test" the outcome), the more I must run. This particular issue is getting a little scientific maybe, so I will save the details for when I guest blog for a biology student. Back to the main problem here, tradeoffs say the more you do one thing, the less you may do the other, but like I said, the more I cook, the more I must run. And opportunity cost says that if I run 1 extra mile, I cannot cook one extra cookie. But I say if I run one extra mile, I can cook (and will eat) one extra cookie. What a predicament. I need a solution. I don't know if there is a buzzword to describe this crazy situation yet. If not, this is my gift to one lucky grad student. Do you dissertation about it, and let me know how in the world I can solve this problem!
I hope you all enjoyed today's guest blog. Unfortunately, it is not out on podcasts.
Keepin' it economical,
mrs.mastro
13 October 2007
Back in Full Swing (of grad school)
As many of you have probably noticed, if you still check this site, posts have dropped dramatically. That is mostly due to a killer courseload of grad classes. Don't worry, i haven't stopped following the FCC auction or worrying myself about economic efficiency of policy. I've just been preoccupied with developing my economic analysis toolbox. This semester I'm taking 4 homework & paper crazed classes. It's a lot of work, but all great material.
I'm in Industrial Organization with Ken Hendricks. We study the operation of markets. Competitive allocations and prices when firms are competing for profits in host of environments; horizontally differentiated goods, vertically differentiated goods, when firms have varying degrees of market power, when there is uncertainty in the environment, in dynamic time settings (when repeated competitions are considered), when goods are complements or subsititutes, and in auction environments. We look primarily at Nash, sub-game perfect, and Perfect Bayesian equilibria allocations and prices. We also are concerned with bringing the theory to data to test whether firms are acting competitively or collusively and the impact on consumer surplus. This class is advanced micro meets game theory meets econometrics.
Also, i'm in Computational Macro with Dean Corbae. In this class, so far we have been occupied with calculating steady state equilibrium of allocations and prices and wealth distributions in intricate dynamic macro-economic models. We will also be solving for dynamic equilibrium, equilibrium tax functions, and social welfare gain in macro and political economy models to asses the economic efficiency of policy. This class is stokey-lucas meets Matlab.
Then, i'm also in Public Finance with Rob Williams. We are studying optimal tax schedule in environments where the government has an exogenous budget requirement for which revenue must be generated. By optimal tax we mean a tax schedule that achieves a desired blend of pareto efficiency and equality. So far we've studied optimal commodity taxes, optimal commodity and income taxes, optimal nonlinear income taxes. Also, we've compared these tax schedule with observed US tax codes and attempted to reconcile the differences. Prof Williams lectures are crystal clear and deliver a great message of the intuition and mathematics.
Last, but not least, I'm also in Econometrics II with Professor Donald. In this class we are achieving skills in statistical inference in nonlinear regression models under only general assumptions on our data set and using advanced estimation techniques. We work on the theory, solve some simple theory exercises on paper, and solve some large scale real-world examples with the help of Stata and Matlab computer code.
Anyway, the point of this post was to just give a brief insight into what i've been up to, what i'm going to be up to, and to show why that does not include a ton of blogging time. Also, i wanted to say that in the off chance I plan to do something fun with some of our austin friends i plan to post some logistics here on this site. Since our group of friends has been growing, and it isn't always feasible to stay in real time phone contact on logistics, i'll just post them here. so, for those loyal econ readers or fcc readers, don't be suprised to see some logistics for some Friday night Texas high school football games posted here. check yall later.
I'm in Industrial Organization with Ken Hendricks. We study the operation of markets. Competitive allocations and prices when firms are competing for profits in host of environments; horizontally differentiated goods, vertically differentiated goods, when firms have varying degrees of market power, when there is uncertainty in the environment, in dynamic time settings (when repeated competitions are considered), when goods are complements or subsititutes, and in auction environments. We look primarily at Nash, sub-game perfect, and Perfect Bayesian equilibria allocations and prices. We also are concerned with bringing the theory to data to test whether firms are acting competitively or collusively and the impact on consumer surplus. This class is advanced micro meets game theory meets econometrics.
Also, i'm in Computational Macro with Dean Corbae. In this class, so far we have been occupied with calculating steady state equilibrium of allocations and prices and wealth distributions in intricate dynamic macro-economic models. We will also be solving for dynamic equilibrium, equilibrium tax functions, and social welfare gain in macro and political economy models to asses the economic efficiency of policy. This class is stokey-lucas meets Matlab.
Then, i'm also in Public Finance with Rob Williams. We are studying optimal tax schedule in environments where the government has an exogenous budget requirement for which revenue must be generated. By optimal tax we mean a tax schedule that achieves a desired blend of pareto efficiency and equality. So far we've studied optimal commodity taxes, optimal commodity and income taxes, optimal nonlinear income taxes. Also, we've compared these tax schedule with observed US tax codes and attempted to reconcile the differences. Prof Williams lectures are crystal clear and deliver a great message of the intuition and mathematics.
Last, but not least, I'm also in Econometrics II with Professor Donald. In this class we are achieving skills in statistical inference in nonlinear regression models under only general assumptions on our data set and using advanced estimation techniques. We work on the theory, solve some simple theory exercises on paper, and solve some large scale real-world examples with the help of Stata and Matlab computer code.
Anyway, the point of this post was to just give a brief insight into what i've been up to, what i'm going to be up to, and to show why that does not include a ton of blogging time. Also, i wanted to say that in the off chance I plan to do something fun with some of our austin friends i plan to post some logistics here on this site. Since our group of friends has been growing, and it isn't always feasible to stay in real time phone contact on logistics, i'll just post them here. so, for those loyal econ readers or fcc readers, don't be suprised to see some logistics for some Friday night Texas high school football games posted here. check yall later.
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