Is FRED the iTunes of macroeconomic data?

Our Global Economy students know that the St Louis Fed’s FRED is our favorite source of data: easy access, graphics, iPad and Excel add-ins — what more could you want? Well, they’re working on it. World Bank data? OECD data? That and more could be coming our way soon.

Which got us thinking. If FRED becomes the source of choice — the iTunes, so to speak, of the business — would it make sense for private data producers to post some of their data there? Should S&P post some of its data on FRED to reach a broader audience? Bloomberg? What would you do if you ran a data company? What would you do if you ran FRED?

“The point is to protect the consumer”

A good one from Kim Ruhl: Tesla Motors sells high-end electric cars direct to the consumer. But North Carolina’s car dealers have proposed a law prohibiting sales except through — wait for it — car dealers. Robert Glaser, president of the N.C. Automobile Dealers Association, comments, apparently without irony: “The whole point of the system is to protect the consumer.” Quote from here, more here.

Arbitraging the textbook market

Price discrimination is used by sellers to increase revenue, but resisted by buyers looking for better deals. Hence the ongoing battle between sellers trying to segment the market and buyers trying to get around the segmentation. Airline tickets are a good example, but security regulations tying tickets to original purchasers killed off the resale market. DVDs are another, with prices differing enormously by region. Technical standards make resale difficult because players differ across regions, but clever technology can often get around that.

Antitrust limerick of the day

From the delightful Limericks Economiques, a comment on the US Department of Justice decision to fight the proposed takeover of Grupo Modelo by Anheuser-Busch InBev:

Said Justice: “We doubt the propriety
Of imposing on US society
The burden to choose
From costlier brews
When opting for lower sobriety.”

More here, here, and here.

Strategic benefits of limiting your options

Game theory has given us many insights, but I was reminded of an important one when Cheap Talk linked to this classic clip from Dr Strangelove.

Mini-Case: Barnes and Noble

Today on the way to NYU, I crossed 6th Avenue at 8th Street and noticed the B&N there had closed for good.  Not a huge deal — it wasn’t all that appealing a store — but not that long ago Meg Ryan was fighting a losing battle against “books and legal addictive stimulants” when the B&N look-alike moved into the UWS and mowed down everything in its path. (Everything but Cafe Lalo, that is.) Less than 20 years later, are we now facing the end of B&N? Are publishers right behind? Books themselves?

What would you do if you were in the bookselling business? The publishing business? Who benefits from the changing landscape? Is this good for the economy or bad? For civilization? For full credit, please include data and show all of your work. And ask yourself: What would John Asker do?

PhD alums make the bigtime

Two of our PhD alums, Cristian Dezso and David Ross, got a nice mention in the WSJ Real Time Economics blog.  To quote from the article, their research shows:

The gender of a male CEO’s children — particularly his first-born — can significantly affect the salary of his employees.  …  [They] also found that a male CEO’s own wages rise 6.3% after the birth of a son and 3.5% after the birth of a daughter.

Seems a little fluffy to me, but then I thought the same of Freakonomics — and look what a hit that was.  Either way, it’s great to see Cristian and David getting noticed for their work.

Update (Jan 18):  more.

The downside of fighting corruption

I just heard a novel analysis of India, whose economy seems to be slowing down.  The question is why. The suggested answer: an overly aggressive anti-corruption campaign.

The morality of markets

I had the misfortune a few years back to be thrown into a public debate about whether markets are moral. The question never made sense to me. Markets are tools, like hammers, you can use them for good or ill. As John Leahy told me: “Markets don’t kill people, guns do.” I wrote the experience up as a mini-case (read it, please!) and went on with my life.

Well, I just ran across a much more sophisticated version of the same issue, and it’s terrific. Greg Mankiw supplies three wonderful links to a series of lectures by his colleague Michael Sandel and comments on them by two economists. As you might expect if you know the principals, economist and provocateur Deirdre McCloskey gets in the best licks. I recommend the whole thing.

All the news that’s fit to charge

In any account of the major trends in the 21st century, the word “convergence” is bound to be included. Take the following three: news, entertainment and advertising. What does convergence mean in this context?