Double Blind Studies

The Economist reports on the pseudo placebo effect in randomised control trials.

"In a new paper, Erwin Bulte of Wageningen University and his colleagues conduct a double-blind test of an agricultural intervention—that is, the treated don’t know whether they are receiving the treatment or the placebo. The treatment is a modern seed of cowpeas, the placebo is the traditional seed. As a second experiment in a different set of villages, they do a normal RCT where the treated know that they are receiving the modern seed. Comparing the results of both experiments reveals some striking results. When the farmers don’t know which seed they are planting, there is no difference between the modern and the traditional seed in terms of yield. When they do know that they are being treated, the modern seeds yield considerably more. What the authors call the “pseudo-placebo effect” therefore accounts for the whole effect that a typical RCT would have found."

La Ceiba Microfinance Institution video

La Ceiba is a micro lending agency developed by Professor Shawn Humphrey and students at the University of Mary Washington. It emerged out of work they were doing with Students Helping Honduras. Here is a video describing what they do.

bikes for girls

Great video from the International Growth Centre about giving bikes to girls so they can go to school, explaining the research they used to determine the effectiveness of the program.

free stuff

gretl free econometric analsysis software (also very easy to use)

PANDA-glGo free computer Go (fun but addictive)

Colleges Are Controlling Costs

Recently President Obama received a lot of attention for effectively warning colleges to keep costs under control.Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion about college costs. Many people confuse cost, posted tuition, and net tuition. . The cost is the full amount spent educating a student, regardless of who pays it. The posted tuition is what is listed on the college web page, but many students do not pay this amount. The net tution is what a student actually pays.

This graph is from the Delta Project it shows, for the Mid Atlantic region, the average full cost per full time equivalent student, what part is paid by the student, what part is paid by someone else, and how these have been changing. Clearly colleges have been containing costs; the total amount spent has increased very little. What has changed is the part that is paid for by the student.

Econ Talk

At Econ Talk Russ Roberts talks to Daren Acemoglu, the Kieth Richards of economics, about why nations fail.

Bad Economics: Krauthammer on Oil Prices

Charles Krauthammer criticizes President Obama for suggesting that "Drill, Baby, Drill" wil nott lowee oil prices. He writes: "So: Decreasing U.S. demand will lower oil prices, but increeasing U.S. supply willl not? This is ridiculous. Either both do or neither does. Does Obama read his own speeches?"
Who is right. On this point it is the president. Yes, price is determined by both supply and demand, but not everyone is a large enough part of supply or demand to influence the price. If I decide to stop working it won't change the salaries of professors. If I double the amount of eggs I consume it won't increase the price of eggs. Why? Because in each case I account for a small part of the total supply and demand. The U.S. accounts for a fairly small part of supply. In terms of proven reserves it was less than 2% of the world total 2009. On the other hand, we accounted for over 20% of world consumption. Thus, changes in U.S. consumption are more capable of influencing the price than changes in U.S. production.

All of this does not imply that we should not increase oil production. Domestic oil production will generate income and create jobs. It won't, however, lower the price of gas