Best discussion of the bordered Hessian ever!
Ever wanted to know why the positive semi-definiteness condition on the bordered Hessian characterizes the maximum in a constrained optimization problem?Yeah, me too.I guess I never made the connection...
View ArticleDiscounting asteroids, again
A while back, I wrote:It seems to me that history has a direction. For some good things to happen other good things needed to happen first. The transistor had to be invented before the computer could...
View ArticleThe NeoAth delusion
Once again I find someone more articulate on this issue... albeit, it wasn't hard.I suppose it's possible that a few ambivalent souls may pick up Dawkins' book The God Delusion and see "the empirical...
View ArticleDefinition of a Nash Equilibrium
If we start shooting around there [the other gang's territory], nobody, and I mean you dig it, nobody gonna step on their turf. But we gotta be careful, 'cause they can shoot around here too and then...
View ArticleUC Davis economics in the news (ish)
Well, I guess an email that gets published on Greg Mankiw's weblog is sorta like a letter to the editor getting published in a newspaper, which is sorta like news.
View ArticleWhat is X?
Kantian ethics as it applies to humans:(1) All humans have intrinsic value.(2) All those who have intrinsic value have it equally.(3) All and only those which have some relevant property, X, have...
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Is American health care more expensive because its better...
... or because its less efficient?Here's one piece of evidence that American health care is better, but The Economist warns: This is a good illustration of why it is so very, very difficult to do...
View ArticleWhy countries are a crappy way to divide people up: Maquiladoras edition
A former student writes:Hi Will, I had a question for you since I remember you were very knowledgeable last quarter and we had some interesting conversations. I am writing a paper for a class now on...
View ArticleSweet Jesus! I'm a member of a militia!
Holy Crap! Don't tread on me, man.UPDATE: I'm suppose to gear up: "That every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a...
View Articlemoritheism
Apropos a conversation I was having with Gavin the other day about ID, Robin Hanson comments on Richard Dawkins and The God Delusion:To my mind most discussion misses the key distinction between these...
View ArticleDangerous Ruling
An appeals court ruling would put cars back in D.C. garages - A Washington Post editorialIN OVERTURNING the District of Columbia's long-standing ban on cars yesterday, a federal appeals court turned...
View Article(x and y => z) does not contradict (!x => z)
Instead (x and y => z) implies (!z => !x OR !y). If you theorize that (!x => z) then (!z => !y). In this case, the Fed existence and increasing the money supply would lead, in theory, to a...
View ArticleUC Davis economics in the news
Prof. Peri talking up immigration (even the unskilled kind).As of 2004, two thirds of workers without a high school degree in California were immigrants as well as almost half of the workers with a...
View ArticleCivil war?
A UK based opinion poll company ran a survey in Iraq(PDF). They found:most Iraqi's think the situation in Iraq would get better if American troops leftmost (Shias and Sunnis but not Kurds) don't want...
View ArticleThe Lucas Critique and Climate Change
In Economics we have something called the Lucas Critique. Lucas' observation was that people change their behavior depending on the policy environment. Its dangerous to assume because we see a...
View ArticleBring the troops home?
It's true that what's happening in Iraq doesn't meet the ambitions of Iraqis or Americans and everyone admits that many mistakes were made. I agree that the Iraqi government should be pressed to speed...
View ArticleThe Economist is soliciting ideas...
...for a new online venture to be launched in the summer.Don't bother submitting any ideas, though. The best one has already been submitted; see this post.
View ArticleMoney is just a commodity...
Slashdot reports on the gaining popularity of a virtual money in China:It's the QQ coin — online play money created by marketers to sell such things as virtual flowers for instant-message buddies,...
View ArticleOMG!!! Inequality is rising, big time! I'm outraged!!!
Round up the rich and rally the firing squad; inequality is on the rise!*The income share of the top 1% went up by 20% over the last 20 years!The average wage is almost 3 times the median!!The income...
View ArticleWill Blogger post posts about Wordpress?
Playing with Wordpress. Maybe someday my new blog URL will be here (actually here).UPDATE: I realized I could host wordpress on my he.net account. So I've done that. I'll be playing with it over the...
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