education is for whom?
Is education a public good? Does someone else’s learning algebra or Shakespeare make you better off? Well, there are network externalities — in reading this you benefit not only from my learning but from that of anyone from whom I’ve learned. But I would guess that most of the benefit of learning goes to the learner, in enhanced earning power and in the ability to enjoy thoughts not available to the ignorant. (I’ve seen that stated as unsupported fact, somewhere or other.)
The question has many aspects, not all readily quantifiable, but at least it appears that spending on schooling is not correlated with economic health.
Free Market Anti-Capitalism
I wonder what I did to deserve being blogrolled by Mutualist (Kevin Carson).
“for god’s sake, please stop the aid!”
Spiegel Interview with African Economics Expert
If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
(Cited by FFF in the daily for July 18.)
QotD
Letter to The Economist, August 13 issue:
My professor on an accounting course at Harvard Business School 25 years ago introduced it thus: “When most of you read accounting statements now, you do not understand them. At the end of this course, you will not believe them.”
Damianos Damianos
Athens
distributed knowledge wins
I’ve heard that Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992) started thinking about spontaneous order because of an incident in the Great War. Austrian forces were routed in a battle in Italy, and fled leaderless through the mountains; and far more of them got home safely than were expected to.
This says thousands of people at the WTC survived because they ignored advice from on high.
Almost Invented Here — again
Once upon a time, probably 1983, I had an idea to maximize diversity in a representative assembly. You vote for more than one candidate. The ballots are counted once for each seat. On each count one winner is chosen, and if you voted for that winner your ballot is discarded. A few years later (in an article by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Republic‘s special on the bicentennial of the present Constitution, 1987) I read about the Single Transferable Vote, a much more elegant idea: don’t throw out the winning ballots, discount them so that their aggregate value is lessened by the number of votes needed to win one seat.
Once upon an other time, namely 1993, asked how to build a straight road without eminent domain and without being held up for extortionate prices by opportunistic holdouts, I suggested buying options on land until the optioned parcels include a useful path; holdouts would see offers decline rather than rising. A few months ago I read (was it in The Freeman?) that this is standard practice for pipelines. (2017: But how straight does a pipeline need to be?)
And once upon yet another time, circa 1984–7, I proposed funding public goods by conditional donations: by contract, the donors arrange to pay a specified fraction of the budget if and only if enough others make similar arrangements. Now I learn from Mike Linksvayer that this concept has a name – assurance contracts – and an improvement by Alex Tabarrok, dominant assurance contracts.
. . Speaking of voting, I see that a voting reform bill has been introduced in Congress. It would restore the States’ discretion (denied since 1967) to elect Representatives by proportional representation in multimember districts; likely some states will do so to reduce the decennial hassle of gerrymandering. The bill also requires the States to run “instant runoff” elections for federal offices; though instant runoff is fairer than plurality election (even with a conventional runoff), it is also onerous, and I don’t think it’s within the authority of Congress to require it – and thereby forbid approval voting which I like better still, partly because it is much simpler to operate.