Paul Saffo’s mantra: “Strong opinions, weakly held”

The point of forecasting is not to attempt illusory certainty, but to identify the full range of possible outcomes. Try as one might, when one looks into the future, there is no such thing as “complete” information, much less a “complete” forecast. As a consequence, I have found that the fastest way to an effective forecast is often through a sequence of lousy forecasts. Instead of withholding judgment until an exhaustive search for data is complete, I will force myself to make a tentative forecast based on the information available, and then systematically tear it apart, using the insights gained to guide my search for further indicators and information. Iterate the process a few times, and it is surprising how quickly one can get to a useful forecast.

Since the mid-1980s, my mantra for this process is “strong opinions, weakly held.” Allow your intuition to guide you to a conclusion, no matter how imperfect — this is the “strong opinion” part. Then –and this is the “weakly held” part– prove yourself wrong. Engage in creative doubt. Look for information that doesn’t fit, or indicators that pointing in an entirely different direction. Eventually your intuition will kick in and a new hypothesis will emerge out of the rubble, ready to be ruthlessly torn apart once again. You will be surprised by how quickly the sequence of faulty forecasts will deliver you to a useful result.

This process is equally useful for evaluating an already-final forecast in the face of new information. It sensitizes one to the weak signals of changes coming over the horizon and keeps the hapless forecaster from becoming so attached to their model that reality intrudes too late to make a difference.

More generally, “strong opinions weakly held” is often a useful default perspective to adopt in the face of any issue fraught with high levels of uncertainty, whether one is venturing a forecast or not. Try it at a cocktail party the next time a controversial topic comes up; it is an elegant way to discover new insights — and duck that tedious bore who loudly knows nothing but won’t change their mind!

Convocatoria para ocupar una vacante como Profesor-Investigador en la División de Estudios Políticos del CIDE.

Assistant Professor at CIDE – Center for Research and Training in Economics in Mexico City (see english version below)

La División de Estudios Políticos del Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
(CIDE) convoca al concurso por una plaza de profesor investigador con opción a
definitividad para comenzar en agosto de 2013, en alguno de los siguientes campos de
investigación: política comparada, economía política o teoría política.

El CIDE es un centro público de investigación especializado en ciencias sociales. La
División de Estudios Políticos es considerada por algunos estudios como el mejor
departamento de ciencia política de América Latina. Actualmente cuenta con quince
profesores que trabajan en las siguientes áreas: partidos políticos, opinión pública,
instituciones políticas, relación ejecutivo-legislativo, análisis político del poder judicial,
procesos de democratización, economía política comparada, movimientos sociales,
modelos formales, teoría política normativa, e historia del pensamiento político. Se
recomienda a los interesados consultar la página
http://www.cide.edu/concursos_publicos_PIT.htm para obtener mayor información.

La División busca candidatos que cuenten con una sólida formación en teoría y
métodos de investigación. Los aspirantes deben trabajar temas relevantes en su campo de investigación y que sean significativos para el estudio de México. Se espera que tengan la capacidad de publicar los resultados de su trabajo de investigación en editoriales y revistas académicas especializadas de prestigio nacional e internacional. Es requisito para participar en el concurso contar con el grado de doctor o mostrar que se está en posibilidad de conseguirlo antes del 1 de agosto de 2013. El idioma de trabajo en el CIDE es el español. El ganador del concurso tendrá que impartir clases en este idioma en un plazo no mayor de un año. La carga docente mínima es de dos cursos por año. Se ofrece un salario competitivo en pesos mexicanos. Se aceptan solicitudes de candidatos de otras áreas de las ciencias sociales distintas a la ciencia política.

Los interesados deberán presentar los siguientes documentos: a) una carta en la que expliquen sus líneas de investigación y sus intereses de docencia, b) curriculum vitae, c) dos cartas de recomendación, d) copias de dos artículos publicados o trabajo en proceso, y e) evaluaciones de docencia (en caso de contar con ellas). Todo el material, incluyendo las cartas de recomendación, deberá enviarse en archivos electrónicos al Comité de Ingreso (ingreso.politicos@cide.edu). Cuando el expediente del candidato esté completo se enviará un mensaje de confirmación. En caso de dudas, favor de contactar al Dr. Claudio López-Guerra (claudio.lopezguerra@cide.edu). Se comenzará a revisar los expedientes a partir del 14 de Diciembre de 2012; no se garantiza la plena consideración del material que se reciba después de esa fecha.

Assistant Professor at the Center for Research and Training in Economics in Mexico City

The Department of Political Studies at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE, Mexico City) invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position starting August 2013. We seek candidates specializing in one or more of the following areas: comparative politics, political economy, and political theory.

CIDE is primarily a research institution in the social sciences. Its Department of Political Studies is the department of political science in Latin America with the highest scientific production and impact according to a recent study published in the European Political Science journal. The Department currently has fifteen faculty members working in the following areas: political parties and party systems, public opinion, political institutions, executive-legislative relations, judicial politics, democratization, comparative political economy, social movements, formal modeling, normative political theory, and history of political thought.

Candidates should have a solid formation in theory and methods, and their research interests should include topics of relevance for Mexico and the region. The successful candidate is expected to have completed all the requirements for the Ph. D. by August 1, 2013. Spanish is the language of instruction. Applications by candidates trained in disciplines other than political science are welcome.

To apply, candidates should submit the following: a) letter of application explaining research plans, b) curriculum vitae, c) two letters of reference, d) two writing samples, and e) teaching evaluations. The material should be sent via email to the Search Committee (ingreso.politicos@cide.edu) by December 14, 2012. We will send a confirmation email when a candidate’s application is complete. Please submit any questions to Dr. Claudio López-Guerra (claudio.lopezguerra@cide.edu).

A propósito de nada –ok no, la discusión sobre soluciones regulatorias a la cocentración de medios masivos en México me hizo recordar que… ok, tampoco, un tuit de Pepe Merino me recordó un gran paper de Stiglitz (de esos que hay que leer 3 veces). Aquí un extracto de la introducción del artículo (el énfasis es mío). Si lo leen con cuidado notarán por qué el punto de vista de la economía es tan importante a la hora de discutir reformas de gran calado o políticas públicas particulares.

Joseph Stiglitz. “The Private Uses of Public Interests: Incentives and Institutions“. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1998.

As a long-time student of the public sector, I welcomed the opportunity to come to Washington as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers and later to become the Chairman of the Council, partly because it gave me an opportunity to study at first hand this immensely important part of our economy and society and to test my ideas against the reality of government in action.

To be sure, I came also as an activist, if not with a fully articulated agenda, at least with a view about what it was that government should, and should not be doing. Continue reading →

An interesting piece by Teenie Matlock in the American Scientist:

Framing Political Messages with Grammar and Metaphor – How something is said may be as important as what is said. By Teenie Matlock

Millions of dollars are spent on campaign ads and other political messages in an election year, but surprisingly little is known about how language affects voter attitude and influences election outcomes. This article discusses two seemingly subtle but powerful ways that language influences how people think about political candidates and elections. One is grammar. The other is metaphor.

(…)

The semantics of grammar and metaphor and their power in framing political issues is understudied. Differences in grammatical aspect or other grammatical forms may create wildly different inferences about when somebody will do something and in what way. And differences in metaphor can be used to magnify or enhance people’s attitudes about political candidates. We use grammar and metaphor all the time, but we have only begun to scratch the surface of how they shape our everyday thoughts and actions.

The article includes a very detailed bibliography on semantics and framing: Continue reading →

This is John B. Taylor on the “Swings in the Rules-Discretion Balance“.  He distinguishes between an economic and a political rational in favor of rules.

This is the economic argument:

At their most basic level these policy rules are statements about how government policy actions will react in a predictable way to different circumstances. They can be stated algebraically as in many monetary policy rules such as the Taylor rule, which says that the short term interest rate should be set by the central bank to equal one-and-a-half times the inflation rate plus one-half times the GDP gap plus one.  But, of course, a rule does not have to be viewed as mechanical formula to be used rigidly. This brief review demonstrates that, from my perspective, the rationale for using rules over discretion in formulating macroeconomic policy is an economic one.

The word “balance” emphasizes that the ideal of a pure rule, without any discretion, is a theoretical abstraction. Evidence of the swing away from discretion is seen in actual fiscal policy and in the wide consensus among economists against the use of discretionary countercyclical fiscal policy in the 1980s and 1990s; it is also seen in the efforts to make monetary policy predictable and transparent, including through the use of inflation targets and actual policy rules for the instruments. The swing back toward discretion is found in the recent large discretionary fiscal stimulus packages and in deviations of monetary policy from the simple rules that described policy well in the 1980s and 1990s.

Next, Taylor cites Hayek in providing a political rationale in favor of rules:

Nothing distinguishes more clearly conditions in a free country from those in a country under arbitrary government than the observance in the former of the great principles known as the Rule of Law. Stripped of all technicalities, this means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand—rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge.

Though this ideal can never be achieved perfectly…the essential point, that the discretion left to the executive organs wielding coercive power should be reduced as much as possible, is clear enough.

If actions of the state are to be predictable, they must be determined by rules fixed independently of the concrete circumstances which can be neither foreseen nor taken into account beforehand.

Encuesta de encuestas de Pollster / Huffington Post:

2012 General Election: Romney vs. Obama

Esta gráfica combina  las encuestas nacionales y estatales más recientes para la elección presidencial de los Estados Unidos en 2012, utilizando un modelo de poll-tracking. La gráfica se actualiza automáticamente cada vez que se anuncia una nueva encuesta.

Ayer compartí aquí mi opinión sobre la calidad de la democracia venezolana. Dadas las buenas o malas reglas e instituciones de aquel país, el veredicto electoral es claro: la mayoría de los electores venezolanos votaron por Chávez. Ahora bien, ¿cómo ve la elección un venezolano residente en México? Aquí comparto dos visiones de amigos cercanos. Obvio, no se puede generalizar con evidencia anecdótica pero cada voto cuenta una historia.

Alexander Elbittar, economista, publicó en su muro:

“Veo cosas y me pregunto por qué. Sueño otras y me pregunto por qué no”

Declaro el día de hoy y ante la situación desafortunada en que atraviesa mi país Venezuela que espero poder seguir trasmitiendo a mis hijos, familiares, amigos y enemigos, que existe otro camino, en el cual la libertad, las leyes y los derechos humanos de los ciudadanos sean respetados; en el cual uno no se tenga que estar sometido a los favores del gobernante en turno a cambio de un voto o de mantenerse callado ante los atropellos y la injusticia que se comete; en el cual el progreso colectivo se alcance mediante la educación y el esfuerzo de sus ciudadanos y el deseo de lograr niveles intelectuales, materiales y espirituales superiores para sí y su comunidad, y no bajo la esperanza de ser favorecido por un gobernante que se siente dueño y señor del Estado.

María Cecilia Ghersi, @machixblue, compartió su experiencia en Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica: Bitácora personal: el voto venezolano desde México

Describir un proceso electoral fuera del país de nacimiento requiere de un ejercicio objetivo, consciente, que se eleve ante razones personales y se conduzca quieto y cuidadoso por un laberinto asombroso que lleva al día de las elecciones en el extranjero.  El proceso desde hace meses tuvo varios nombramientos de honor pero hubo dos frases cruciales, “Hay un camino” – que resguardaba la esperanza de un cambio con Capriles – y “La Victoria Perfecta” – que se sentaba a esperar la reelección de Hugo Chávez Frías con total seguridad.

Continue reading →