Monthly Archives: May 2010

Earth at night

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In case you have not been paying attention, I changed the layout of my blog a few days ago.  The picture that I use in the header can be found here, and this is the corresponding  explanation from NASA:

This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth’s surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan. Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the orbiting DMSP satellites.

Evidently, electricity is important and oftentimes it is used as a proxy for economic production when reliable data is not available. Electricity also tracks economic development rather nicely. So, if you ever wondered whether the western/capitalistic world really faced a threat from former socialist countries, just look at the picture one more time: empirical observation beats ideology, anytime :)

Competition and media bias

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There is a growing literature on media bias and, more generally, on how does the so called  marketplace of ideas really work. By far, this is not a new topic but it is only recently that mainstream economists became interested in the topic. Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro make a very clear and comprehensive introduction to this literature in their article: “Competition and Truth in the Market for News” (Journal of Economic Perspectives 22(2), Spring 2008). The piece has a number of interesting quotations:

[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market . . . That at least is the theory of our Constitution. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Abrams v. United States (250 U.S. 616 [1919])

The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. — Hugo Black, New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713 [1971]) Continue reading →

Cómo evaluar reformas electorales

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Este miércoles 12 de mayo, Javier Márquez y yo presentaremos nuestro artículo “Un modelo Monte Carlo para la Cámara de Diputados en México” (por publicarse en Política y Gobierno, 2010). El seminario será a la 1pm en la Sala de Seminarios del CIDE. El Dr. Raúl González comentará el artículo. La entrada es libre al público. (Algunas notas previas relacionadas con este tema aquí y aquí.)

Clase media en México

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El domingo pasado Thomas Friedman dedicó su columna del New York Times a caracterizar tres grupos sociales que, según él, definen a Mexico hoy día: los narcos, los “No’s” (léase, clase media rentista) y los NAFTA (léase, clase media meritocrática). Los comentarios de Friedman se inspiran y complementan con el artículo de Luis de la Calle y Luis Rubio sobre clasemedieros en México, publicado en Nexos de mayo 2010.

May 2, 2010

Narcos, No’s and Nafta

Mexico City

(…) We take the Mexican-American relationship for granted. But with the drug wars in Mexico turning into Wild West shootouts on city streets and with our own immigration politics turning more heated, what’s happening in Mexico has become much more critical to American foreign policy and merits more of our attention. Mexico is not Afghanistan, but it also has not become all that it hoped to be by now. Something feels stalled here.

Three groups are now wrestling to shape Mexico’s future. I’d call them “the Narcos,” “the No’s” and “the Naftas.” Root for the Naftas. Continue reading →

Natural experiments in history

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An interesting post from Nicolas Baumard (with a great quote on large N vs. small n studies):

On the Use of Natural Experiments in Anthropology

Jared Diamond and Harvard Economist James Robinson have just edited a book on Natural experiments in history. This book reviews eight comparative studies drawn from history, archaeology, economics, economic history, geography, and political science. The studies cover a spectrum of approaches, ranging from a non-quantitative narrative style in the early chapters to quantitative statistical analyses in the later chapters. (…) The conclusion of the book struck me, as I had the feeling that it could have been written for students of culture.

Every field of scholarship, not just human history, experiences tension between narrowly focused case studies and broader synthesis or generalization. Practitioners of the case study method tend to decry syntheses as superficial, coarse-grained, and absurdly oversimplified; practitioners of syntheses tend to decry the case studies as merely descriptive, devoid of explanatory power, and unable to illuminate anything except one particular case study. Eventually, scholars in mature fields come to realize that scholarly understanding required both approaches. Without reliable case studies, generalists have nothing to synthesize; without sound syntheses, specialist lack a framework within which to place their case studies. (…) Continue reading →