Happiness, universities, Africa, and income gaps

What makes you happy? And, how much is your happiness worth?

The success rate of universities and their prices are brought to question. Do "better" universities have more of an incentive to graduate their students (who might be in wealthier families or are well-connected)? James Hamilton pointed out that students seem to prefer prestigious research universities. Seems to me that the job market prefers students from prestigious research universities.

As much as Africa is progressing, they don't have very many trade links, and are disconnected from the global economy.

Some money news. Poverty is up, and income is down.

A model, Africa, well-being, and teaching hours

Let's take a brief break from unemployment news! That stuff is depressing.

How about that supermodel who vowed to stay naked until USAID gets to starving children? I'm not sure what kind of incentive she's going for.

More on development--Africa isn't looking so bad, historically speaking. It's made large gains, though there's a lot more that needs to be made. While this is true and all, I think the reason this sort of thing doesn't get spread very much is for the fear that people will miss the point. Though aid might be working, Africa still needs a lot of help.

Via Thoma, Stiglitz tells us we need a better measure of well-being. Unfortunately, he doesn't provide much insight into the discussion. How about median debt as a percentage of income? Or average savings rate? Any ideas, Joe, are you just going to complain?

A chart of hours taught by teachers around the world. Our teachers are apparently putting in a lot of work!

Good news on the recession, sugar, bubbles, and new homes.

A few pieces from Capital Gains and Games. Some thoughts on the unemployment numbers--getting worse slower isn't getting better. Still, I prefer getting worse slower. Still, the prospect that the unemployment rate won't hit 10% is great. The deficit would have been the same under Bush (or McCain) and is likely going to be less than originally forecast. So, it was largely unavoidable. Still, I hope that our money was put to good use.

A reduction in the supply of sugar is causing prices to increase. If there are profits to be made, then we'd expect other firms enter the market. Good sign for South American and African sugar farmers?

The Business Pundit speculates at the next possible bubble to burst. Gold seems a little far fetched to me, as I always thought of gold as a back-up place to store wealth, which means that it'd be more of an effect than a cause of speculation.

Felix Salmon reminds us that a home is not an investment as Krugman buys a new place. I've seen it argued that people thinking of homes as investments is a part of what caused the housing crisis.

Batteries, aid, old experiments, macroeconomics, and taxes.

Lithium ion batteries might start getting cheaper, as we may get a mass producer in the United States. Battery news excites me.

Felix Salmon wades into the developmental economics debate of the success and failure of aid, and is plugging a new book on the subject. I wonder what Easterly would say about the book.

Tim Harford talks about old experiments, and some efforts to rethink the studies.

Steve Chapman at reasononline takes on macroeconomists saying, essentially, that the field is very politicized, and this is partially a result of it being a less definite field.

Nancy Folbre thinks about why people who support raising taxes are wealthy. I think it's more about deeply ingrained ideologies. Though, it's strange that people on the lower end of the income spectrum aren't more strongly supporting their own taxes being lowered.

Krugman's history, South Africa, rational markets, HDMI cable, and crime trackers

Also from Newmark's Door, Krugman gets history wrong. Both people on the left and the right disagree with him, though I think that's kind of an empty statement.

Relatively good news for HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The infection rate has leveled off, with reductions in certain age groups. Still, South Africa has 5.5 million HIV-positive people.

Justin Fox gives a quick summary of the history of rational markets in the last 80 years, which is also a summary of his books.

Ezra Klein and Tyler Cowen seem to think that some traditional brick-and-mortar stores are not lowering their prices in their competitive markets. HDMI cable seems to be very expensive in stores, but online is available for next to nothing. Klein further comments that online shopping is a wealth transfer from those not comfortable with online shopping to those who are comfortable with online shopping. It seems to me that those comfortable with online shopping are in larger, more competitive markets. Brick-and-mortar stores cater to a different demographic than online stores. Moreover, I think that particularly in the case of 80% and 90+% discounts, online stores sell excess stock or used stock, rather than stock just recently received from a manufacturer. I admit these are conjectures, though.

ThinkMarkets provides some links to crime tracking websites, and neighborhood information websites.

Africa, college gards, unemployment and stocks, children, and cheap condos.

William Easterly challenges Sachs in development issues, pointing out problems with Sachs's arguments, and problems in aid money. I think Easterly's position is often overstated by others--Easterly doesn't think that we shouldn't provide aid to Africa, necessarily. Easterly, instead, recognizes that much aid to Africa is wasted, and helping Africa requires some non-monetary reform.

Mike Shedlock tells us how hard the job market is for new college graduates. This isn't anything new, I think, but it is important. We know the job market is bad, Mike just tells us that it's also bad for recent college grads.

Felix Salmon shows us that unemployment and stocks are more coincident than we may have thought. I'd like to see more historical data, though it'd be understandable for unemployment to be more coincident with large changes in stock markets, unemployment being a less sensitive indicator, and both potentially being affected by other economic phenomena. Still, I'm not sure I buy it. The decline in the stock market from 2007 - 2008 alone seems within normal fluctuations and doesn't quite justify the rising unemployment rate.

Nancy Folbre warns us that kids may be the most severely effected by the recession. Parents' job loss can lead to instability in the home, which hurts education and hurts physical health due to lower quality food.

The amazing Tata is making $8000 condos. I wonder if this sort of thing will catch on in other parts of the world, as land becomes more scarce. Certainly, I would think this sort of thing would be popular among college students.

Wasting a recession, African aid, principles courses, housing, stock predictions, and Krugman.

Simon Johnson echoes an idea from Rahm Emanuel: Don't let a recession go to waste. The idea is, essentially, that a recession is a time where more people are willing to back big change. I'm not sure how I feel about this--I'd be happy if things changed for the better, but how do I know I can trust legislators? Should interest groups have an opportunity to push the country around, while we're down? That being said, the five points that Emanuel listed seem like good ones, and people seem to trust this administration much more than the previous one.

A FT discussion on Africa: Is Aid Working? It's an interesting discussion, and I'm of the opinion is that aid can work, but more than giving money, steps must be taken to ensure and enhance the effectiveness of aid.

Scott Beaulier relays a message from Greg Mankiw. Despite the recent events, economics principles courses won't change significantly. The groundwork that those classes lay stays the same, though graduate courses will likely see change in the fields of financial economics or public choice.

A couple on housing. Six years of housing price gains have been wiped away in three years, in real terms. CalculatedRisk has graphs on that, as well as the price-to-rent and price-to-income ratios.

And a couple (more) on the recession: Political Calculations tries to predict changes in the stock market, based on recession probabilities. It should be interesting to watch June 16-23 and September 10-16. And, Krugman is somewhat optimistic in a recent statement, as he says the world economy is stabilizing. We've avoided catastrophe! Still, he frets about the nature of the recovery. I note this isn't getting more media coverage, like Krugman's previous, less optimistic predictions.

Macroeconomics again, Africa, safety nets, and retail spending.

Matt Nolan at TVHE provides a critique of macro critiques. Over the past few months, he has provided some insightful commentary on the state of macroeconomics, I think. While it's important to try to explain stylized facts about the economy, I think what people want out of macroeconomics is something more concrete. Hopefully that'll come with time.

The Guardian emphasizes the dire condition of Africa during the global recession. Though they have relatively little political capital, they are in great need of assistance. I'm not convinced that people are more willing to help during a recession, though. It's hard enough to help Africa when things are going well. Still, it's important for that region to improve. Thank goodness Zimbabwe dollarized!

Mike Moffatt comments on safety nets--protect people when they start businesses.
safety nets. Sure, it's inefficient and could cause people to take advantage of the system, but it'll speed up growth a lot. While I agree it'll speed up growth in the short run, I'm not convinced it's a good idea. Since we're trying to affect the recession, it'd have to be a temporary safety net. Do we want to prop up the economy with temporary inefficiencies? What will happen when we take away the safety nets?

Michael Mandel points out why falling retail sales are good--they reduce our trade deficit. It matters whether retail is falling more in imports or domestic goods, though. Still, since we've been spending beyond our means for quite some time, reeling that back and having some savings will be a good thing in the long run.

Foreclosures, wallpaper, last month's news, and the OECD.

Wow. In some cases, banks are just walking away from foreclosures. The costs of dealing with foreclosed properties just isn't worth it.

I think this is pretty funny. Money as wallpaper in Zimbabwe.

Calculated Risk provides March economic news in 20 graphs. That's data released in March, which is February data.

Speaking of data, Menzie Chinn reports on OECD's forecasts for the next year or so.

The G-20 summit is going on, so people are anxiously waiting to see how it'll turn out.

African bloggers, financial literacy, global regulation, securitization software, car prices, and Geithner.

African bloggers have a conference. Let's hear it for continued development in Africa! May it become quicker and more widespread.

A journalist asks Felix Salmon about the importance of financial literacy. It's probably not really important for most people, says Salmon. That may be true to an extent, but I think it may be important for people to be financially literate enough to know what our government is doing to try to fix the current situation, and whether or not it's a good fix. After all, with so many commentators on current issues, shouldn't people have an idea of how their elected officials are really doing?

I have great respect for Dani Rodrik. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don't, but he always makes me think. This is a thought on global financial regulation.

One of the guys who wrote some of the software turning mortgages into bonds talks about whether or not that was a good idea. I think it's a good read. He points out that securitization isn't a bad thing if it's done well.

You think housing prices are down? Well, car prices are down too! But, that's not really new.

Geithner's job performance numbers are split. The man's got a tough job! I think that it's too early to make a call on his job performance, but I'm still glad we've got such a highly qualified guy in charge at the Department of the Treasury. He was one of the favorites to get the job originally for a good reason, I think.

Buy American, recession woes, wine, African buses, and NCAA basketball

An article from the Detroit Free Press explaining why "Buy American" sentiments are bad for the economy.

Is death a victim of the recession? Eight states are considering getting rid of the death penalty, due to cost.

The wine competition at the Houston Rodeo brought in much less money than last year for the winning wines. That's why we call them luxury goods! The money goes to fund Texas college scholarships, so there's yet another example of education getting tougher in a recession.

Cote D'Ivoire is now producing buses, aimed at Africans. African transportation systems are known for their terrible buses, so this is meant to fix that. The post I link to says, "Not only are better buses now rolling out onto the roads of western Africa, Cote D'Ivoire is becoming better because of its entrepreneurial drive." However, I wonder if that "entrepreneurial drive" was already there, but now there's enough capital or credit available to justify the venture.

I'm surprised by this article, warning the Fed to not be so expansionary. Really? I think most are agreed that recession-fighting is more important, right now, than inflation-fighting. After all, we're still concerned about whether or not our same jobs will still be around, as the middle class shrinks.

NCAA basketball teams tend to lose a lot of money, with the median team having net loses of over $850,000. I wonder what incentives there are for universities to hold on to get basketball teams, or to hold on to them if they have them.