Bank run?

Lien

C'est de la torture!!!

Voici un texte très intéressant sur le waterboarding. Le "journaliste" se soumet volontairement à une simulation de la technique d'interrogation.

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.

Exploring this narrow but deep distinction, on a gorgeous day last May I found myself deep in the hill country of western North Carolina, preparing to be surprised by a team of extremely hardened veterans who had confronted their country’s enemies in highly arduous terrain all over the world. They knew about everything from unarmed combat to enhanced interrogation and, in exchange for anonymity, were going to show me as nearly as possible what real waterboarding might be like.

View a video of Hitchens’s waterboarding experience.
It goes without saying that I knew I could stop the process at any time, and that when it was all over I would be released into happy daylight rather than returned to a darkened cell. But it’s been well said that cowards die many times before their deaths, and it was difficult for me to completely forget the clause in the contract of indemnification that I had signed. This document (written by one who knew) stated revealingly:

“Water boarding” is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body.

As the agreement went on to say, there would be safeguards provided “during the ‘water boarding’ process, however, these measures may fail and even if they work properly they may not prevent Hitchens from experiencing serious injury or death.”

...

suite de l'article.

Je vous suggère également de regarder le vidéo qui accompagne l'article.

Quelle surprise....

Aucun commentaire...

Écrire sur l'Afrique

Je suis tombé sur un essai génial écrit par un éditorialiste kényan. Cet essai nous "suggère" sarcastiquement comment écrire sur le continent africain. L'auteur souligne tous les clichés d'une façon particulièrement habile et se moque de la fausse "bonne volonté" de plusieurs individus qui écrivent sur l'Afrique.

Extrait:

Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless. She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the dramatic moment. Moans are good. She must never say anything about herself in the dialogue except to speak of her (unspeakable) suffering. Also be sure to include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling laugh and who is concerned for your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all delinquent. These characters should buzz around your main hero, making him look good. Your hero can teach them, bathe them, feed them; he carries lots of babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).

Bad Western characters may include children of Tory cabinet ministers, Afrikaners, employees of the World Bank. When talking about exploitation by foreigners mention the Chinese and Indian traders. Blame the West for Africa’s situation. But do not be too specific.

Et si votre voisin gagnait à la lotterie?

Certains économistes(et beaucoup de non-économistes) estiment que la consommation et le bonheur sont étroitement liés à notre position relative dans la société. L'économiste Robert H. Frank pense qu'il y a même de la consommation compétitive, le but étant d'obtenir des "positional goods" (pour plus de détail).

Des chercheurs ont eu l'idée de vérifier cet hypothèse avec les gagnants de la "Dutch Postcode Lottery". Ainsi, ils pourraient mesurer l'effet d'un gain inattendu de revenu sur la consommation personnelle des gagnants et celle de leurs voisins.

Voici l'abstract:

In the Dutch Postcode Lottery a postal code (19 households on average) is randomly selected weekly, and prizes –consisting of cash and a new BMW-- are awarded to lottery participants living in that postal code. On average, this generates a temporary, unexpected income shock equal to about eight months of income for about one third of the households in a typical winning code, while leaving the incomes of nonwinning, neighboring households unaffected. We study the responses of consumption and reported happiness of both winners and nonwinners to these shocks. Consistent with simple models of in-kind transfers, the overwhelming majority of households who won a BMW convert it into cash. With the exception of food away from home, the only ‘own’ effects of cash winnings we detect are on durables expenditures and car consumption; these results support a version of the permanent income hypothesis in which durable spending is used to smooth consumption. We detect social effects of neighbors’ winnings on two types of consumption: cars and exterior home renovations. Six months after the fact, winning the lottery does not make households happier, nor do neighbors’ winnings reduce happiness.

Pour plus d'information sur l'étude, vous pouvez la télécharger ici.

Commentaire inutile de la semaine

J'ai beaucoup de respect pour Marie-France Bazzo. Elle animait une émission de radio géniale et ne semblait pas tomber excessivement dans les clichés ridicules. Mais, je suis, malheureusement, tombé sur la dernière chronique de Mme Bazzo au sujet de la Formule 1... misère. Ce n'est pas que la position qu'elle défend est nécessairement mauvaise. Ce qui me dérange est le ton "citoyen" qui me pue au nez.
Sans plus tarder, voici le joli commentaire qui termine sa chronique :

"La F-1, c'est de la pornographie néolibérale"

Elle veut prouver quoi à qui avec ça ?

L'ADQ me déprime!

Voici la raison #498 qui explique pourquoi l'ADQ est une cause perdue.

L'ADQ exige une politique d'achat local
Rémi Nadeau
La Presse Canadienne
Québec

Le gouvernement et les sociétés d'État doivent accepter de payer plus cher pour favoriser les fournisseurs québécois, selon l'Action démocratique du Québec, qui exige l'adoption d'une politique d'achat local.

Le chef Mario Dumont, qui a visité récemment des entreprises québécoises boudées par le gouvernement, demande à Jean Charest de forcer les ministères et les sociétés d'État à acheter des produits fabriqués chez nous.Au cours d'un point de presse tenu vendredi à Québec, M. Dumont a indiqué que Québec devrait accepter d'absorber un écart de 10 pour cent lors des appels de soumissions, pour favoriser les compagnies québécoises.

Selon lui, le gouvernement récupérerait en taxes et impôts la somme supplémentaire ainsi déboursée tout en stimulant l'économie du Québec.

«Quand on encourage des entreprises québécoises, elles paient des impôts et des taxes au Québec, elles font travailler du monde et l'argent tourne dans l'économie du Québec», a résumé M.Dumont.

Le chef adéquiste, qui plaide pour le respect des ententes de commerce interprovinciales et de l'ALENA, a reproché au gouvernement de se cacher derrière ces accords commerciaux pour ne rien faire.

Pendant ce temps, il déplore que la Société des alcools du Québec fasse fabriquer les chandails de ses employés en Chine et qu'une entreprise allemande développe la technologie éolienne installée au Québec.

«Québec devrait se préoccuper de développer l'économie, plutôt que d'exporter des emplois à l'autre bout du monde», a ajouté M. Dumont.

(suite du texte)

Commerce, pauvreté et inégalité dans les PED

Les vertus de la libéralisation commerciale comme levier pour sortir les pays en voie de développement de leur situation sont souvent mis de l'avant pour promouvoir cette méthode pour combattre la pauvreté. Dollar and Kraay, avec leurs études, sont de ardents défenseurs de cette approche. Pourtant, il semble y avoir que très peu de preuves concluantes qui prouvent hors de tout doute que ce type de politique fonctionne à tout coup. Il ne faut pas non plus négliger le fait que, dans plusieurs cas, la libéralisation a entrainé l'augmentation des inégalités et même causé une plus grande pauvreté. C'est pour cela que je vous invite à lire un article scientifique (document de travail) écrit par M. Jean-Pierre Cling, Directeur du DIAL, intitulé Commerce, croissance, pauvreté et inégalités dans les PED: une revue de la littérature.

Comme le titre le mentionne, l'article fait une recension exhaustive de la littérature qui touche les sujets de la croissance, la pauvreté et les inégalités en lien avec l'accroissement du commerce par la libéralisation. Le texte illustre très bien la diversité des opinions et la difficulté de démontrer théoriquement et empiriquement les "bienfaits" de la libéralisation. Ce qui sort de ce texte est que, comme dans plusieurs autres choses de la vie, les solutions aux problèmes sont plus une question de cas par cas que d'une et unique "one size fit all solution". L'article est d'une longueur d'environ vingt pages et date de Juin 2006, ce qui le rend très actuel.

Voici le résumé:
RESUME
Cet article présente une revue de littérature théorique et empirique sur la relation commerce-croissance-pauvreté-inégalités dans les PED qui a été l’objet de nombreux débats parmi les économistes au cours de la période récente. Dans la première partie, nous présentons les grands faits stylisés concernant ces différents éléments. Dans la deuxième partie, on montre que les estimations empiriques concernant l’impact de l’ouverture commerciale, mesurée par le degré de protection, sur la croissance apparaissent peu robustes. Pour pallier ce problème, certaines études ont estimé directement l’impact du commerce sur le revenu ou la croissance économique. Mais l’endogénéité du commerce par rapport au revenu est délicate à prendre en compte, tandis que le taux d’ouverture ainsi défini ne peut être relié précisément aux politiques commerciales. Les études empiriques sur la relation commerce-inégalités-pauvreté sont discutées dans la troisième partie. La plupart de ces études considèrent que le commerce contribue à une hausse des inégalités salariales ou de revenus dans les PED, contrairement à ce que qu’indique la théorie standard. L’impact sur la pauvreté est plus conforme aux enseignements théoriques (plutôt positif, en particulier à travers l’impact sur la croissance). Ces travaux estiment toutefois que le commerce n’est pas le principal facteur influant sur l’évolution des inégalités et de la pauvreté.

Et voici le lien

Le modèle Anglo-américain contesté

Voici un court commentaire très intéressant de l'économiste Mica Panic qui est professeur à l'Université Cambridge. Le professeur critique certaines politiques sociales et économiques des États-Unis et de la Grande-Bretagne et donne son opinion positive de la sociale-démocratie.

Il est vrai que la compétition peut jouer un rôle cruciale dans l'allocation des ressources et l'efficacité de la production de biens et services. Mais il ne faut jamais oublié que les décisions non-coopératives ne sont pas efficaces dans toutes les circonstances et sont même parfois contre-productives( par exemple tous les formes du dilemme du prisonnier).

Child poverty weakens the Anglo-American model, by Mica Panic, Commentary, Financial Times:

For more than 30 years neoliberals have held up the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK as examples that other countries must follow to achieve economic success and high levels of social well-being. Yet, according to a recent Unicef report on child welfare, these are the worst two industrial countries in which to grow up. Is the Anglo-American model really as successful as neoliberals claim?

Two years ago another United Nations agency ... singled out the plight of many children in the US and the UK. Child poverty had doubled in the UK between 1979 and 1998... A major cause was “the impact of [Thatcher] government policies that cut taxes for higher earners and lowered benefits for the poor”.
The present UK government has reversed some of these policies and reduced the level of child poverty, though it remains higher than in the 1970s and the latest figures show an increase.
In the US the consequences of similar policies and the lack of universal healthcare (unique among advanced countries) have been even more serious. According to the UNDP report: “A baby boy from a family in the top 5 per cent of US income distribution will enjoy a lifespan 25 per cent longer than a baby boy from the bottom 5 per cent.”

Not surprisingly, when you consider the whole population, not just children, the two countries, especially the US, lag behind the nations of “old Europe”, whatever indicators of well-being are used. My own comparisons of economic performance and social well-being in seven countries, representing different models of capitalism, produce rankings that are very similar to Unicef’s – even though I use different indicators.

Swedes and Norwegians enjoy the highest level of social well-being, ­followed closely by people in the Netherlands. The US is well behind on almost every indicator. Germany and France are in the middle, with the UK between them and the US.
The importance of these comparisons is that they consistently show that countries with social democratic or corporatist models of capitalism have markedly higher levels of social well-being than those ... with a liberal free-market model.

Equally important, the reason for this is not that they have higher gross domestic product per head but that their social attitudes, objectives and policies are very different. ...
As they believe that there is “such a thing as society” rather than “only” isolated, alienated individuals in ruthless pursuit of self-interest, the aim of their institutions and policies is to improve both social and individual welfare. In other words, the goal is to promote a harmony of national interests – not social Darwinism – by ensuring that the whole society shares the benefits of economic growth as well as the costs of the adjustment process that makes it possible.

Consequently, social democracies in particular are committed to those institutions and policies that neoliberals want to change. Employers, employees and government co-operate to solve national problems. Taxes and social expenditure are comparatively high, making generous unemployment and other benefits possible. They spend much more than the US and the UK on retraining those who become unemployed. Inequalities of income are much lower; and so also poverty, economic insecurity, lack of trust in other people and levels of stress and crime.
If these achievements are, as neo­liberals believe, a sign of failure, what constitutes success? ...

Easterly attaque!

J'ai déjà parlé de William Easterly dans un des premiers billets de ce blogue. Il a écrit un texte pour le Wall Street Journal au sujet de la pauvreté en afrique, et ce texte est particulièrement critique des institutions internationales telles que le FMI et la Banque Mondiale. Il est définitivement un ardent promoteur du "free-market", mais il est, également, une voix particulièrement "lucide" dans un domaine rempli de bonne volonté et d'utopisme à outrance.

Africa's Poverty Trap
William R. Easterly. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Mar 23, 2007. pg. A.11
There is a sad law I have noticed in my economics career: the poorer the country, the poorer the economic analysis applied to it. Sub- Saharan Africa, which this month marks the 50th anniversary of its first nation to gain independence, Ghana, bears this out.
There has been progress in many areas over the last 50 years -- life-saving drugs, the Internet, air conditioning, Powerpoint slides, the iPod, the acting of Penelope Cruz -- yet the same poor economics on sale to Ghana in 1957 are still there today. Economists involved in Africa then and now undervalued free markets, instead coming up with one of the worst ideas ever: state direction by the states least able to direct.

African governments are not the only ones that are bad, but they have ranked low for decades on most international comparisons of corruption, state failure, red tape, lawlessness and dictatorship. Nor is recognizing such bad government "racist" -- this would be an insult to the many Africans who risk their lives to protest their own bad governments. Instead, corrupt and mismanaged governments on the continent reflect the unhappy way in which colonizers artificially created most nations, often combining antagonistic ethnicities. Anyway, the results of statist economics by bad states was a near-zero rise in GDP per capita for Ghana, and the same for the average African nation, over the last 50 years.

Why was state intervention considered crucial in 1957? Africa was thought to be in a "poverty trap," since the poor could not save enough to finance investment necessary to growth. Free markets could not get you out of poverty. The response was state-led, aid-financed investment. Alas, these ideas had already failed the laugh test then, as the late economist P.T. Bauer pointed out. The U.S. in 1776 was at the same level as Africa today, yet it escaped the poverty trap. The same was also true for the history of Western Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Latin America. All of these escapes from poverty happened without a state-led, aid-financed "Big Push."
In the ensuing 50 years, there have been plenty more examples of poor countries which grew rapidly without much aid -- China and India (who each receive around half a percent of income in foreign aid) being the most famous recent examples. Meanwhile, aid amounted to 14% of total income year in and year out in the average African country since independence.
Despite these reality checks, blockbuster reports over the last two years by the U.N. Millennium Project (led by Jeffrey Sachs), Mr. Sachs again in his book "The End of Poverty," the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), the Tony Blair Commission for Africa, and the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) have all reached what the UNDP called "a consensus on development": Today Africa needs another Big Push. Do they really think nobody is paying attention?

Africa's poverty trap is well covered in the media, since it features such economists as Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Bono and Brad Pitt. But even Bill Gates, at an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2007, expressed indifference to Africa's stagnant GDP, since "you can't eat GDP." Mr. Gates apparently missed the economics class that listed the components of GDP, such as food.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have good economists who have criticized state intervention. Under the pressure of anti-market activists, alas, they have soft-pedaled these views lately in favor of African governments producing National Poverty Reduction Strategies to meet U.N.-led Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015. The role of private businesses is to be the subject of bureaucrats'"sustained action." As Kofi Annan explained in a rare U.N. reference to the market, "Success will require sustained action across the entire decade between now and the deadline . . . to grow the small and large businesses able to create the jobs and income needed."

The cowed IMF and the World Bank never mention the words "free market" in thousands of pages devoted to ending poverty. Even the World Bank's 2005 World Development Report "A Better Investment Climate for Everyone" doesn't mention the forbidden words.World Bank economists are so scared of offending anyone on Africa that they recite tautologies. The press release describing the findings of the 2006 World Bank report "Challenges of African Growth" announces: the "single most important reason" for Africa's "lagging position in eradicating poverty," finally "has been identified." It is "Africa's slow and erratic growth." The next World Bank report may reveal that half a dozen beers has been identified as the single most important reason for a six-pack.

Today Unctad (in its 2006 "Big Push" report) still offers to make possible government "infant-industry policies" for "small, fragmented economies" by setting up a regional market, presumably so Burkina Faso and Niger can help absorb the potential output of the Togolese automobile industry. Unctad lacks everything but chutzpah: All aid to Africa, it said, should be moved into a new U.N. Development Fund for Africa, to which Unctad helpfully offered its "in-house experience," by creating a Commission on Aid and Development inside of Unctad. Unctad will thus permit the economics of Africa to at last "escape from ideological biases," so we can finally understand "why economic activity should not be left entirely to market forces."
The free market is no overnight panacea; it is just the gradual engine that ends poverty. African entrepreneurs have shown what they are capable of. They have, for example,launched the world's fastest growing cell phone industry to replace the moribund state landlines. What a tragedy, therefore, that aid agencies have foisted the poorest economics in the world on the poorest people in the world for 50 years. The hopeful sign is that many independent Africans themselves are increasingly learning the economics of how to get rich, rather than of how to stay poor.

Le gouvernement et l'efficacité économique

Voici un texte du New York Times écrit par Robert H. Frank, un économiste que j'aime bien.
Il explique avec simplicité comment il est erroné d'affirmer qu'un État minimum est synonime d'efficacité économique.
Cela est simple pour certains et moins évident pour d'autres.

When to Violate the Top Two Commandments of Antigovernment Crusaders
By ROBERT H. FRANK

When asked to identify the two most important items from their list of 10 public policy commandments, most antigovernment crusaders pick (1) public spending shall be kept to an absolute minimum and (2) the state shall not transfer income from rich to poor.
No government heeds these admonitions in any literal sense. Yet they have had a profound impact on public policy decisions, especially in the United States. Often, however, their impact has been the opposite of what antigovernment crusaders intended.
The problem is that many compellingly advantageous public policies cannot be enacted without violating the two commandments. Every significant policy change benefits some people and harms others. If the gains to winners substantially outweigh the costs to losers, solutions can always be found that allow everyone to come out ahead. But those solutions often involve higher taxes and income transfers to the poor.
Regulations that limit auto emissions are a case in point. Because these regulations increase car prices, legislators in most jurisdictions exempt older vehicles to avoid imposing unacceptable costs on the mostly low-income motorists who drive them. Yet the cost to society of this exemption far outweighs its benefit for the poor.
For example, although fewer than 10 percent of the vehicles in Los Angeles are more than 15 years old, these cars account for more than half the smog. Exempting the old cars thus necessitates much stricter regulations for new ones. But the cheapest ways of reducing emissions from new cars have long since been adopted. According to a RAND Corporation study, meeting air quality targets by further tightening new-car standards is several times as costly as meeting those targets by eliminating the exemption for older vehicles.
By raising taxes on high-income motorists, the government could finance vouchers that would enable low-income motorists to scrap their older vehicles in favor of cleaner used cars of more recent vintage. The required taxes would be much smaller than the resulting savings from not having to adopt such costly standards for new vehicles. Both rich and poor motorists would win.
The problem is that taking these steps would violate the two commandments. Antigovernment crusaders have prevailed for now. The ostensible champions of economic efficiency, they have kept government budgets smaller and blocked some transfers to low-income families. In the process, however, they have made everyone poorer.
Some believe that minimal government is synonymous with economic efficiency. But it is not. As the emissions example illustrates, economic efficiency sometimes requires that government play a larger role.
This example is part of a much broader pattern. In health care, for example, the private insurance system employed in the United States delivers worse outcomes at substantially higher cost than the single-payer system employed in virtually every other industrial country. But switching to the single-payer system would require higher taxes and increased benefits for low-income citizens, steps that would violate the two commandments. So for now, we remain saddled with a system that everyone agrees is dysfunctional.
In the realm of antipoverty policy, most economists agree that raising the earned-income tax credit would be the most efficient way of increasing the living standard of the working poor. Under this program, general tax revenues support income subsidies to those whose earnings fall below a given threshold. Its compelling advantage is that unlike a higher minimum wage, it does not discourage hiring. But raising taxes to increase the earned-income tax credit would violate the two commandments.
Because the most efficient antipoverty policy is deemed politically unfeasible, many economists support current legislative proposals to raise the minimum wage for the first time in a decade. If this legislation passes, antigovernment crusaders will be able to claim, truthfully, to have prevented an increase in the federal budget. But they will have won a hollow victory. For unlike an increase in the earned-income tax credit, an increase in the minimum wage not only limits job creation for the least- skilled workers, it also raises the prices of goods they produce. Over all, it would have been cheaper to raise the earned-income tax credit.
Antigovernment crusaders have also prevented the adoption of energy policies that would produce better outcomes for all. For example, economists of all political stripes have argued that a stiff tax on gasoline would relieve traffic congestion, reduce greenhouse gases, accelerate the development of energy-saving technologies and reduce dependence on foreign oil. But it would also impose significant economic hardship on low-income families, making it necessary to increase transfer payments to those families. Both the tax on gasoline and the transfers to low-income families would be clear violations of the two commandments. And so gasoline taxes continue to be far lower in the United States than in other industrial countries.
That democratic forces limit the economic hardship that government can impose on low-income families is a good thing. But sometimes imposing hardships on those families would create far larger gains for society as a whole. In such cases, we can always devise solutions that make everyone better off. But it is impossible to put these solutions into practice without violating the two commandments.
Is it better to solve a problem by spending two extra dollars in the private sector than by spending one additional dollar in the public sector? The two commandments insist, preposterously, that it is.
Economic efficiency is a worthy goal because when the economic pie grows larger, everyone can have a larger slice than before. Antigovernment crusaders deserve credit for emphasizing the importance of this goal. But as events of recent years have repeatedly demonstrated, they are often the biggest obstacles to its achievement.

Robert H. Frank, an economist at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University, is the author of “The Economic Naturalist,” which will be published this spring. Contact: www.robert-h-frank.com.

The Great Global Warming Swindle ?

Par esprit de contradiction, j'ai décidé de mettre ce documentaire qui a été diffusé à la télévision britannique. Je ne suis pas un expert sur le sujet et honnêtement, je suis très favorable à une vision beaucoup plus globale du problème de la pollution. Par contre, je trouve que le débat (si il y en a un) prend un tournant inquiétant. Il y a une certitude sur le sujet que je trouve particulièrment troublante, surtout quand nous savons que le sujet est immensément complexe et que les outils utilisés pour l'étudier sont très loin d'être parfaits.
J'ai beaucoup aimé le film de Al Gore et je suggère à tous de le visionner, mais il faut regarder ce film avec recul car il n'y a pas de doute que ce documentaire utilise des raccourcis et effets pour renforcer le message.
Je trouve très intéressant que d'autre gens avec une position différente sur la cause du réchauffement climatique aient produit un documentaire utilisant les mêmes armes.

L'inégalité : Les raisons de la colère

Un texte intéressant de Robert J. Shiller qui provient de Project Syndicate.

L’inégalité : les raisons de la colère
Robert J. Shiller
Les dirigeants du monde semblent être convaincus que l’inégalité et le manque de participation massive à la croissance économique, si on les laisse persister, déboucheront sur la discorde sociale et même sur la violence. Mais est-ce l’inégalité, le vrai problème ?
Comme l’a remarqué le Premier Ministre indien Manmohan Singh lors de la conférence internationale des Dalits et des minorités, qui s’est tenue à New Delhi en décembre, “Tout comme la pauvreté absolue peut être réduite par la croissance, les inégalités peuvent s’aiguiser. Cela peut s’avérer extrêmement déstabilisant tant politiquement que socialement.” L’Inde doit donc prendre des initiatives visant à réduire les inégalités sociales et économiques, sans porter préjudice à la croissance et sans réduire les incitations à l’entreprise individuelle et à la créativité.”
De même, lors du Forum économique mondial de Davos en janvier, le président brésilien Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a déclaré : “ C’est la croissance économique, la création d’emplois et la distribution des revenus qui nous permettront de vivre dans un monde en paix.” Il a ensuite appelé à des barrières douanières plus basses sur les exportations agricoles afin d’aider les pauvres des pays en développement.

De tels arguments sont frappés au coin du bon sens. Si les gens sont convaincus qu’ils vont partager les fruits de la croissance économique globale, ils seront plus susceptibles de soutenir la paix dans le monde. Dans le cas contraire, les troubles seront plus probables.
Les sociologues ont trouvé ce point difficile à prouver. En fait, certaines analyses statistiques de la corrélation entre inégalité et conflits sociaux concluent qu’il pourrait y avoir même une relation inverse : les sociétés les plus inégales ont tendance à subir moins de conflits, parce que les riches y ont davantage de moyens de contrôler les pauvres.
Il existe certaines preuves que les troubles sociaux découlent de l’inégalité. Les économistes Alberto Alesina et Roberto Perotti ont montré que, après avoir contrôlé de nombreux autres facteurs, les pays où règne une grande inégalité subissent en général une plus grande instabilité sociale. Ces phénomènes sont mesurés, par exemple, par le nombre d’assassinats pour motifs politiques ou par le nombre de personnes tuées, en association avec la violence domestique de masse.

Quoi qu’il en soit, on peut se demander pourquoi les preuves que l’inégalité provoque les troubles sociaux ne sont pas plus évidentes.
Une partie du problème tient peut-être au fait que ce n’est pas toujours l’inégalité elle-même qui provoque la discorde sociale, mais aussi la manière dont son apparition est perçue. Les troubles peuvent refléter davantage un sentiment de trahison –celui que d’autres ne tiennent pas leurs promesses, ou qu’ils ne se conduisent pas de façon honorable.
En effet, le sentiment de confiance dans les intentions des autres est crucial au bon fonctionnement d’une économie. Les juristes rédigent de nombreux contrats, et les tribunaux passent beaucoup de temps à les faire appliquer, mais ces institutions ne peuvent couvrir tous les domaines. La plupart des relations économiques dépendent de la bonne volonté, l’une propension fondamentale à faire quelque chose de bien, même si personne n’est là pour le vérifier.

La loyauté n’a rien d’universel. Mais le monde des affaires est bâti sur notre connaissance intuitive du moment où nous pouvons assez faire confiance aux gens, et de celui où il n’en est pas vraiment question. Nous concevons des contrats appuyés sur une fiabilité imparfaite et construisons des institutions élaborées qui prennent en compte les hauts et les bas de l’honneur humain. Quand celles-ci fonctionnent bien, nous avons le sentiment général que, même si les gens ne sont pas toujours fiables, une justice de base prévaut.
Un article d’Ernst Fehr de l’université de Zurich, d’Alexander Klein et Klaus Schmidt de l’université de Munich, dans l’exemplaire de janvier 2007 du journal Econometrica , montre la manière dont les gens conçoivent leurs relations économiques en les basant sur leur connaissance des circonstances dans lesquelles les gens sont dignes de confiance.
Dans leurs expériences, les sujets, qui jouent le rôle d’employeurs, devaient choisir parmi plusieurs types de contrats d’embauche, puis observer la réaction d’autres sujets, qui jouaient le rôle d’employés. Au départ, les employeurs faisaient confiance aux employés pour travailler sans encouragements spécifiques, et comprenaient rapidement que, sans incitations, beaucoup d’employés tireraient au flanc.

Mais les employeurs ont aussi rapidement appris que le meilleur type de contrat d’embauche est celui qui offre à l’employé non seulement un contrat fixe, mais aussi la possibilité d’un bonus, un genre de cadeau pour bons résultats en dehors de toute provision du contrat. Les employés ont appris lors des expériences qu’ils pouvaient largement faire confiance aux employeurs pour que ceux-ci leur accorde des primes s’ils travaillaient dur, même si aucun ne pouvait formellement leur reprocher un égoïste refus.

Ainsi, une sorte d’échange gratuits de bons procédés entre employeurs et employés a émergé de ces expériences, et non un contrat d’embauche rigide ou stéréotypé. On peut conclure que de tels arrangements informels survivent dans les relations du monde de l’emploi réel parce qu’ils renforcent nos sentiments sincères de bonne volonté les uns envers les autres.
En revanche, quand l’inégalité est perçue comme le résultat d’une brèche dans des relations de confiance, elle peut mener à l’amertume, et, au final, aux troubles sociaux. Cela se produit fréquemment à des époques de changements économiques rapides. Par exemple, dans un monde qui se mondialise rapidement, les salariés peuvent devoir quitter l’employeur avec qui ils travaillent depuis longtemps et avec qui ils ont tissé une relation de confiance, ou bien c’est leur supérieur qui peut être amené à changer. Dans de tels cas, l’inégalité peut être perçue avec plus d’intensité, car les salariés peuvent lier ce phénomène avec une perte de bonne volonté.
Ce que Singh, Lula, et d’autres dirigeants du monde semblent vraiment vouloir, c’est renforcer la confiance et la coopération même dans un monde dont l’économie change rapidement. S’ils parviennent à élaborer des politiques, des lois et des incitations qui le permettent, cela pourrait bien déboucher sur la réduction des inégalités, ce qui, on peut l’espérer, consoliderait un meilleur sentiment de confiance.

Robert J. Shiller enseigne l'économie à l'université de Yale. Il est économiste en chef à MacroMarkets LLC, dont il est co-fondateur (voir macromarkets.com), et l'auteur de Irrational Exuberance et The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century.

Étude Économique de la Suède

L'OCDE vient de publier une étude sur la Suède, pour ceux que ça intéresse voici un résumé de l'étude.

Résumé
La Suède enregistre d’excellentes performances macroéconomiques, avec une croissance rapide, un faible chômage et des anticipations inflationnistes stables. La réforme de la réglementation, engagée dès les années 90, se révèle payante en termes de productivité et de croissance du PIB. Mais on peut constater certaines tensions à la marge. Les taux d’emploi ne sont pas revenus à leur niveau traditionnellement élevé depuis la crise du début des années 90. Le non-emploi est fréquent parmi les immigrants et les jeunes, et les taux d’invalidité et de congés de maladie sont relativement élevés. En outre, un nouvel effort de réforme de la réglementation est nécessaire, notamment pour remédier au faible taux de création d’entreprises et à leur croissance limitée, qui pourraient nuire à la capacité de l’économie de se lancer dans de nouvelles activités.
Le nouveau gouvernement, entré en fonction en octobre 2006, a réitéré l’attachement à de solides conditions cadres macroéconomiques et il respectera l’objectif d’excédent budgétaire de 2 % du PIB. Cela est nécessaire pour assurer la viabilité des finances publiques face aux pressions qui s’exerceront sur les dépenses. Dans le domaine de la politique structurelle, le gouvernement est déterminé à mettre fin à l’exclusion du marché du travail et à alléger les charges administratives des entreprises. Plusieurs mesures importantes figurent déjà à cet effet dans le budget 2007. Dans la lignée de ces louables efforts, la présente Étude formule une série de recommandations qui visent à améliorer le rapport coût/efficacité des réformes mises en oeuvre ou envisagées.
Le dispositif de ciblage de l’inflation a été très utile en ancrant efficacement les anticipations inflationnistes. La hausse des prix étant inférieure à l’objectif d’inflation depuis assez longtemps, en partie grâce à l’effet positif que certains facteurs liés à la mondialisation ont exercé sur l’offre, la Riksbank a décidé d’allonger la période sur laquelle l’inflation est censée revenir à l’objectif dans ces conditions. L’initiative de la Riksbank de publier son évaluation de la trajectoire future des taux d’intérêt devrait éclairer davantage les agents économiques et mieux orienter les anticipations.
Un problème d’exclusion se pose sur le marché du travail. Face à cette situation, le gouvernement a présenté des réformes ambitieuses qui augmenteront l’offre et la demande de travail en réduisant les taux de remplacement et le volume des programmes actifs du marché du travail tout en accordant des exonérations de charges sociales en faveur de certains groupes et secteurs. Un crédit d’impôt important pour l’exercice d’une activité sera par ailleurs mis en place. Ces mesures sont conçues pour être efficaces dans le contexte d’une structure de rémunération comprimée et d’une protection relativement stricte de l’emploi. Il faudra suivre de près leur impact afin d’éviter des effets secondaires indésirables et, si elles se révèlent insuffisantes, les situations observées dans d’autres pays de l’OCDE incitent à penser qu’une détermination plus flexible des salaires et une protection moins rigoureuse de l’emploi permettraient sans doute de lutter efficacement contre l’exclusion.
Le marché du logement souffre de distorsions. Les loyers sont inférieurs au niveau du marché dans les grandes villes parce qu’ils sont fixés en fonction des coûts dans le secteur public du logement, d’où l’apparition de files d’attente qui nuisent probablement à la mobilité des travailleurs et au bien-être. En conséquence, le marché locatif se trouve dans une situation délicate, entre un système rigide de fixation des loyers et le marché en pleine expansion des logements en toute propriété et des logements de type coopératif. La concurrence dans la construction est faible et les communes ne sont pas assez incitées à accroître la constructibilité des terrains. En 2006 déjà, l’impôt foncier et l’impôt locatif étaient bien inférieurs au niveau qu’aurait exigé la neutralité fiscale. Il faudrait donc que la prochaine réforme de la fiscalité du logement finance intégralement la baisse de 2007, également pour éviter d’alimenter la hausse de l’immobilier. Il faudrait autoriser la propriété individuelle directe d’appartements et faire en sorte que l’application du système de détermination des loyers soit plus sensible à la situation du marché local. ■

Le lien pour la synthèse de l'étude sur la Suède

Rae ou Dion ?

Voici ce que les prix des contrats sur Tradesports nous disent sur les chances des candidats à la chefferie du PLC. J’ai construit le graphique avec les « closing prices » des derniers jours et le prix le plus récent de la journée.
Donc, si le marché dit vrai, Rae devrait gagner en fin de semaine.

Je rajouterai des liens à des études sur les « prediction markets ».

Rembourser la dette publique, la pire des hypothèses ?

Je viens de lire un article sur cyberpresse qui me laisse un peu perplexe.
Cet article est au sujet d’un nouveau livre de l’économiste Louis Gill, professeur à la retraite de l’UQAM, qui argumente contre payer rapidement la dette québécoise. Je n’ai pas lu le livre, mais l’article propose trois arguments qu’il utilise pour nous convaincre et ça je peux le commenter.

Payer la dette, une mauvaise idée ?

Presse Canadienne 15 novembre 2006 - 13h55
Il est inopportun pour le gouvernement du Québec de consacrer des ressources financières à la réduction de la dette publique, selon l'économiste Louis Gill, professeur à la retraite de l'Université du Québec à Montréal.
Texte:


Dans son plus récent livre, intitulé Rembourser la dette publique, la pire des hypothèses, M. Gill s'oppose ainsi au point de vue défendu par les lucides, le groupe dont le porte-parole est le plus souvent l'ex-premier ministre Lucien Bouchard.En conférence de presse, mercredi, M. Gill a avancé trois arguments pour étayer sa position.

Le premier : le poids relatif de la dette, par rapport au produit intérieur brut, diminue de lui-même avec la simple croissance du PIB.

Le deuxième : le coût du remboursement de la dette est beaucoup plus élevé que les économies d'intérêt qui en découlent, de sorte que les sommes qui y sont consacrées seraient mieux investies dans des usages sociaux (éducation, santé).

En troisième lieu, M. Gill considère qu'au lieu de perpétuer le mythe du conflit entre les générations, le gouvernement devrait investir davantage en santé, en éducation et dans les infrastructures sociales, au profit justement des générations futures.

Pour s'assurer d'être lu par le plus grand nombre, malgré la complexité du sujet, M. Gill a vu à ce que ce livre ne se vende que 12 $.


Ces trois arguments semblent être valides seulement sous certaines conditions.
Pour le premier argument, il est vrai seulement si nous payons les intérêts sans problèmes ou que le PIB croît plus vite que le taux d’intérêt. Ceci n’est pas très restrictif comme hypothèse et en fait cela ne pose pas de problème pour l’instant.

Le deuxième argument est selon moi un jugement de valeur. À moins que ma compréhension de l’argument soit erroné, il semble que M. Gill affirme que le coût d’opportunité d’utilisé une somme d’argent pour payer la dette rapidement soit trop élevé pour justifier ce remboursement. Cela suppose que le taux d’intérêt ne changera pas beaucoup dans le futur et que les sommes investies dans des usages sociaux ont un plus grand retour sur l’investissement que de payer la dette rapidement.
J’ai beaucoup de misère à croire que les taux d’intérêts resteront bas et qu’ils ne peuvent pas revenir à des sommets vus par le passé. Il serait, selon moi, beaucoup plus prudent de s’assurer de ne pas avoir un fardeau trop élevé si jamais les taux montent rapidement. Également, il m’apparaît assez fort d’affirmer que la société valorise le retour sur les investissements en usages sociaux plus que les coûts associés à ne pas payer cette dette rapidement surtout si les retours en investissements en usages sociaux ne sont pas nécessairement très élevés.

Le troisième argument est encore un jugement de valeur et une sorte de refus d’une situation épineuse envisageable pour le futur. Il y a une réalité incontournable dans l’idée que si le gouvernement emprunte de l’argent, il devra un jour le remettre. Plusieurs, avec raison, peuvent faire le lien entre cette dette et une hypothèque d’une maison. Cela est vrai en théorie, mais en pratique la situation est toute autre. Si c’était vrai, le Québec aurait payé ses dettes au moins avant que la maison s’écroule. Pourtant, nous faisons face à une situation où nos infrastructures sont en besoin de rénovations et de remplacements et la dette est toujours présente. De plus, le gouvernement actuel fait des pirouettes comptables pour remplir ses obligations en termes de services. Dans ce contexte, M Gill nous suggère même d’investir encore plus dans la santé, l’éducation et les infrastructures sociales. Mais, si nous avons des dettes et que le gouvernement a de la misère à remplir ses obligations et en plus nous devons investir, où donc allons nous trouver cet argent ?
Également, Il ne faut pas perdre de vue que dans un futur rapproché, nous allons avoir besoin de sommes considérables pour venir en aide à nos aînés. Tout semble indiquer qu’il sera nécessaire dans le futur d’emprunter d’autres sommes d’argent pour arriver à subvenir à nos besoins et aux nécessités d’investissements publiques.
Cette situation ne sera pas unique au Québec, elle sera similaire pour tout l’occident, et que pensez-vous qu’il arrivera au taux d’intérêt ? Il n’y a aucune raison de croire que le taux d’intérêt dans le futur sera plus bas, ce qui nous ramène au deuxième argument.
Je ne pense pas qu’il y a un mythe dans l’idée d’un conflit entre les générations. Les baby-boomers ont utilisés beaucoup de ressources et ont accumulé des dettes qui devront être payées par les générations futures. On peut le nier tant que nous le voulons, cette réalité est incontournable.

En somme, je ne suis pas très convaincu des arguments proposés. Mon idée pourrait changer si l’argumentation du livre est particulièrement convaincante. Pour cela, il va falloir que j’obtienne une copie du livre et de la lire attentivement.

L'économie et les mathématiques

Il y a quelques jours, j’ai publié un billet sur mon blogue qui critiquait la méthodologie généralement employée en science économique. Dans un essai, l’économiste Paul Krugman répond aux innombrables critiques formulées à l’égard de la mathématisation des outils utilisés par les économistes.
Honnêtement, il ne faut pas penser que nous sommes tous des esclaves des équations différentielles et que nous sommes incapables de réfléchir sur l’objet de notre étude.
Il est fréquent de constater que certains modèles soulèvent des doutes suite à des conclusions bâclées. Il faut être simple d’esprit pour suivre au pied de la lettre les conclusions d’un modèle développé sous des contraintes particulièrement fortes et irréalistes. Heureusement, peu d’étudiants en économie sont simples d’esprit. L’important est de comprendre que tous ces modèles sont des outils puissants qui nous permettent de comprendre un peu mieux les comportements économiques et que ces modèles sont modifiables pour qu’ils puissent reflétés une conception plus réaliste de la réalité.

Two Cheers for Formalism, by Paul Krugman: Attacks on the excessive formalism of economics - on its reliance on abstract models, on its use of too much mathematics - have been a constant for the past 150 years. Some of those attacks have come from knowledgeable insiders - from the likes of McCloskey (1997) or even Marshall. More often, however, the attacks have come from outsiders - from journalists, political crusaders, and so on.

In this essay I want to make three points. First, much of the criticism of formalism in economics is an attack on a straw man: the reality of what good economists do is a lot less formalistic than the popular image. Bad economists, of course, do bad economics; but one should not confuse a complaint about quality with a complaint about methodology. Second, when outsiders criticize formalism in economics, their real complaint is often not about method but about content - in particular, they dislike "formalistic" arguments not because they are formalistic, but because they refute their pet doctrines. Finally, as a practical matter formalism is crucial to progress in economic thought - even when it turns out that the ideas initially developed with the help of formal analysis can in the end, with some work, be expressed in plain English. Moreover, this is especially true precisely in the sorts of areas that economists are often accused of neglecting, such as those that involve imperfect competition, incomplete rationality, and so on.

1. What do economists do?

A few years ago a more or less typical article about the plight of economics (Parker 1993) criticized economists for "their deductive method, their formalism, their over-reliance on arcane algebra, their imperviousness to complex evidence", and repeatedly charged the field both with an excessive faith in free markets and with irrelevance. These accusations are standard. But are they really the way economics is? Do they really describe the way economists do economics?
Clearly each piece of this critique describes at least some economists. There are economists who rely on a "deductive method" - although if this is supposed to mean deriving everything from predetermined axioms rather than building models suggested by real-world observations, it actually describes only a handful of practitioners. "Formalism" could mean many things; so let's hold off on that one. "Over-reliance on arcane algebra" - well, there is certainly a lot of algebra in economics, and some of it is surely excessive. "Imperviousness to complex evidence" - actually, that is probably dead wrong. The real problem with the parts of economics that I personally believe have gone off the rails, such as much of business cycle theory, is imperviousness to simple evidence. But that, as we will see, is by no means a problem unique to mainstream economists.
But while some economists must fit each of this descriptions, do many leading economists fit all of them? And is irrelevance a major problem with contemporary economics?

Here is a simple reality check. The American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal is a highly coveted award; it is therefore an indicator of what the profession values. And because it must be given to an economist under 40, it reflects research undertaken fairly recently. So what do we learn about the values of the profession - the sorts of work that command the highest rewards - by looking at, say, the last ten Clark Medalists? Here is the list: 1979, A. Michael Spence; 1981, Joseph Stiglitz; 1983, James Heckman; 1985, Jerry Hausman; 1987, Sanford Grossman; 1989, David Kreps; 1991, yours truly; 1993, Lawrence Summers; 1995, David Card; 1997, Kevin Murphy. In short: two middlebrow theorists whose work on imperfect markets has had major impact both on policy and on corporate strategy; two econometricians whose techniques are widely used in practical applications; two theorists who specialized on issues of information and uncertainty; a trade theorist who focussed on increasing returns and imperfect competition; a macroeconomist with a strong empirical and policy bent; and two very empirically-oriented labor economists. Not one of these economists has worked mainly on perfectly competitive markets, or is a free-market ideologue. And as far as relevance goes, notice that in their subsequent careers some members of the group have found that businesses and governments are willing to pay large sums for work based on their earlier research; one became Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, while another is now a very powerful Deputy Treasury Secretary; and one has been known to write reasonably successfully for non-economists. So where in this group is the excessive formalism, the excessive reliance on the deductive method, of which economists are routinely accused?

You may answer that while the very best economists may be free of the sins for which the profession is criticized, things are different once one goes down the scale. But take any of the fields in which one of the lucky 10 works, and try listing 5 or 10 other successful economists in the same area. How many of them are engaged in arcane algebra that has no relationship to reality? (Some of them, like auction theorists or finance theorists, are indeed engaged in arcane algebra - but it turns out to be very relevant indeed). I have not done this exercise, but I would guess that if one took the 100 economists most cited in the Social Science Citation Index and summarized the nature of their work, it would turn out to be mostly focussed either on real-world problems, or on techniques that other economists have found very useful in addressing real-world problems. So where does the picture of economists as a tribe engaged in pointless, abstract mathematical games come from?

Perhaps the picture is based on the fact that most economists do not do first-rate research, and that there is a lot of irrelevant mathematical modeling out there. But in what academic field do most people do first-rate research? And if someone is doing work that will not be read or cited, does it matter whether it is boring literary work (as in many humanities), boring experimental work (as in many physical sciences), or boring mathematical modeling?
One can make a good case that the intellectual level of economics is not as high as it should be, given the importance of the subject. But that is a complaint about quality, not formalism. What, then, leads to such angry charges of excessive formalism?

Suite de l'article

Taxer le gras?

L’économiste Gary Becker a écrit sur son blogue un texte intéressant au sujet de la taxation de la « malbouffe ».

Taxing Fat-BECKER
There is growing concern in rich countries, especially in the United States, about the increase in consumption of fats and sugar, and the related increase in obesity. These trends are particularly noticeable among teenagers and even younger children, who consume large quantities of fast foods and soft drinks. Some localities, like New York City, and countries like Denmark, have proposed to either phase out or restrict sharply the use of trans fats in french fries, margarine, and other foods. The concern goes far beyond trans fats, however, and includes proposals to restrict the sale of foods high in saturated fats, such as big Macs.
One proposal receiving some attention is to impose a tax on foods that contain high quantities of saturated fat in the hope of cutting down consumption of these foods. The basic law of demand states that a tax on saturated fat would raise the price of fatty foods, and thereby would reduce their consumption. A good analogy is with other "sin"taxes, such as the very heavy tax in most countries on cigarettes, or the large tax in many countries on alcoholic beverages. These taxes have greatly raised the price of these goods and reduced their consumption. For example, it is estimated that every 10% increase in the retail price of cigarettes due to higher taxes cuts smoking by about 4% after the first year, and by a considerable 7% after a few years. Responses are greater in the longer run because more people decide over time not to start smoking (or drinking), and many of those who were smoking (or drinking) eventually manage to quit or cut down the amounts used.
I do not know of any estimates of the responsiveness of the consumption of bad fats to higher fat prices, but I am confident it would be reasonably large, particularly for teenagers and lower income families who have the highest rates of obesity, and are more sensitive to these prices. I also believe it would be possible to define a fat tax that would effectively target foods that are high in saturated fat content. Yet I would like to express some doubts about whether that would be good public policy.
First of all, public policy should not ignore the pleasure consumers get from cheeseburgers, french fries, and other high fat foods, or for that matter from soft drinks, smoking, alcoholic drinks, and other such "sins". Good policies require that these pleasures are more than offset by strong negative public consequences.
Although the growing obesity of teenagers and of adults too during the past 25 years may be partly related to the greater consumption of fats, a stronger factor seems to be the increased time spent at sedentary activities, and a corresponding reduced time spent exercising and at other active calorie burning activities. These sedentary activities include watching television, surfing the Internet, playing computer games, communicating on chat rooms and through instant messaging, listening to music on iPods, and other devices. For a careful analysis of the growth in weight of teenagers that concludes that increased sedentary activities is the main culprit, see the 2006 PhD thesis by Fernando Wilson in the Economics Department of the University of Chicago.
The reduced exercise rate of teenagers is not mainly because they are too fat to have the energy to be active, but rather due to technological developments, such as the internet, computer games, iPods, television, and the like. Put differently, lack of exercise has caused obesity (to a large extent) rather than that obesity has caused reduced exercise. I doubt if there would be much of a call for taxes on computer games, or iPods, or use of the Internet in order to reduce obesity. Dr. Michael Roizen has pointed out, however, that certain types of computer games do require manual dexterity and other exercise.
Suppose, however, that increased fat consumption is the major cause of the gain in weight. Is this enough reason to justify active public interventions? I raise this question not only because of the pleasure received from eating foods with saturated fats, but also because doubts have been raised about the connection between excess weight and medical problems like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, and other serious diseases. Of course, no one denies that extreme overweight is dangerous to health, such as a body-mass index (BMI) of over 45. This would mean that a male of average height weighs over 300 pounds, and less than one % of the American male population is that heavy relative to their height. And often an important distinction is drawn between overall weight and how much is concentrated in the belly, the later being much more hazardous to health.
A possibly more important consideration than the connection between fat consumption and weight may be that the consumption of fats crowds out diets richer in fruits and vegetables. Diets heavy on fruits and vegetables appear to reduce the incidence of various serious diseases, such as colon cancer and heart attacks. If such diets were to be encouraged, a more direct and powerful approach than taxing fat consumption would be to subsidize fruits and vegetables. Yet teenagers, the group that elicits greatest concern, are likely to have weak responses to lower prices of fruits, and of vegetables like broccoli.
Even if excess weight and bad diets are very unhealthy with present medical knowledge, is it irrational for teenagers and other young persons to ignore the recommendations of nutritionists and medical associations, and to consume diets heavy in fats and gain weight? Not necessarily if they recognize the trade off between present pleasures and future harms, but which they may not recognize. An additional and highly important consideration that is almost never mentioned is that the next 20-30 years will probably bring at least as much improvement in medical knowledge and new drugs as the past several decades did. We now have drugs that greatly reduce the potential health hazards of high (bad) cholesterol, drugs to lower blood pressure greatly, drugs to reduce the consequences of mental depression, and many other important drugs that were unavailable a few decades ago.
The not so distant future will very likely see big advances in fighting various cancers, colon and lung cancer included, in preventing or better controlling adverse effects of diabetes, in preventing or slowing Alzheimer's disease, and in reducing still further the risks of strokes and heart attacks. The many teenagers who are unaware of these medical trends, and are inactive, gain weight, eat few veggies, and consume much fat will still benefit from these medical advances during the next several decades.
Yet suppose medical progress slowed down, and that heavy saturated fat consumption significantly would raise the probability of contracting a major disease in the future. Are public policy interventions then justified? A common affirmative answer relies on the fact that overweight people who get serious diseases use health resources that are partly financed by taxpayers. This argument has some merit because of heavy taxpayer involvement in health spending.
But the major flaw is in the health payment system that would be largely corrected by providing stronger incentives to economize on health spending through encouraging health saving accounts, and requiring compulsory private catastrophic health insurance. These important changes in the health delivery system would give individuals much greater incentive then they have at present, partly due to greater insurance company pressure, to reduce their health spending by getting into better shape, eating better diets, and in other ways. To be sure, if the health delivery system were not greatly improved, the health spending "externality" from consuming fat would become more relevant.
I believe that aside from this externality argument about the use of taxpayers' monies, there is little reason for governments to intervene in eating decisions, with some important exceptions. The main ones might include policies to give greater publicity to the health advantages of better diets, and policies that kept unhealthy foods and possibly soft drinks out of school cafeterias and school dispensing machines. Perhaps a "say no" campaign against saturated fats would work, but I am dubious about its effectiveness.
Sometimes I wonder whether much of the public outcry over the gain in weight of teenagers and adults stems mainly from the revulsion that many educated people experience when seeing very fat people. Surely, though, this should hardly be the ground for interventionist policies!

Stern Review on the economics of climate change

Voici le rapport commandé par le gouvernement britannique sur « l’économie des changements climatiques »(lien). Je n’ai pas eu encore la chance de le lire, mais je le mets sur mon blogue pour que les gens puissent s’en faire une idée.
Bien que je sois très préoccupé par la possibilité des changements climatiques, je suis toujours assez sceptique par rapport aux « analyses » qui tentent de quantifier les impacts des changements climatiques en se basant sur des extrapolations et des suppositions (voici une annexe technique).
Tout de même, je vais laissez la chance au coureur et le lire attentivement.

Voici l'introduction de la partie I:

Part I
Climate Change – our approach

Part I of the Review considers the nature of the scientific evidence for climate
change, and the nature of the economic analysis required by the structure of the
problem which follows from the science.
The first half of the Review examines the evidence on the economic impacts of
climate change itself, and explores the economics of stabilising greenhouse gas
concentrations in the atmosphere. The second half of the Review considers the
complex policy challenges involved in managing the transition to a low-carbon
economy and in ensuring that societies can adapt to the consequences of climate
change that can no longer be avoided.
The Review takes an international perspective. Climate change is global in its
causes and consequences, and the response requires international collective action.
Working together is essential to respond to the scale of the challenge. An effective,
efficient and equitable collective response to climate change will require deeper
international co-operation in areas including the creation of price signals and markets
for carbon, scientific research, infrastructure investment, and economic development.
Climate change presents a unique challenge for economics: it is the greatest
example of market failure we have ever seen. The economic analysis must be
global, deal with long time horizons, have the economics of risk and uncertainty at its
core, and examine the possibility of major, non-marginal change. Analysing climate
change requires ideas and techniques from most of the important areas of
economics, including many recent advances.

Les sciences attaquent

Voici un post très intéressant que j’ai trouvé sur le blog de Mark Thoma.
Un physicien critique sévèrement la théorie néo-classique dans un article du Financial Times. Bien qu’intéressant, on peut voir facilement que l’auteur du texte ne connait pas très bien la science économique et on y décèle même un brin de condescendance des sciences « dures ». Il y a par contre quelques points où il n’a pas tout à fait tort.
Je vous suggère de lire la réplique de M. Thoma ainsi que les commentaires sur son blog.

This is Philip Ball, "consultant editor of Nature and the author of Critical Mass," with a criticism of neoclassical theory:

Baroque
fantasies of a most peculiar science, by Philip Ball, Commentary, Financial
Times (free): It is easy to mock economic theory. Any fool can see that the
world of neoclassical economics, which dominates the academic field today, is a
gross caricature in which every trader or company acts in the same
self-interested way – rational, cool, omniscient. The theory has not foreseen a
single stock market crash and has evidently failed to make the world any fairer
or more pleasant.
The usual defence is that you have to start somewhere. But
mainstream economists no longer consider their core theory to be a “start”. The
tenets are so firmly embedded that ... it is ... rigid dogma. To challenge these
ideas is to invite blank stares of incomprehension – you might as well be
telling a physicist that gravity does not exist.
That is disturbing because
these things matter. Neoclassical idiocies persuaded many economists that market
forces would create a robust post-Soviet economy in Russia (corrupt gangster
economies do not exist in neoclassical theory). Neoclassical ideas ... may
determine ... how we run our schools, hospitals and welfare system. If
mainstream economic theory is fundamentally flawed, we are no better than
doctors diagnosing with astrology.
Neoclassical economics asserts two things.
First, in a free market, competition establishes a price equilibrium that is
perfectly efficient: demand equals supply and no resources are squandered.
Second, in equilibrium no one can be made better off without making someone else
worse off.
The conclusions are a snug fit with rightwing convictions. So it
is tempting to infer that the dominance of neoclassical theory has political
origins. But ... the truth goes deeper. Economics arose in the 18th century in a
climate of Newtonian mechanistic science, with its belief in forces in balance.
And the foundations of neoclassical theory were laid when scientists were
exploring the notion of thermodynamic equilibrium. Economics borrowed wrong
ideas from physics, and is now reluctant to give them up.
This error does
not make neoclassical economic theory simple. Far from it. It is one of the most
mathematically complicated subjects among the “sciences”, as difficult as
quantum physics. That is part of the problem: it is such an elaborate
contrivance that there is too much at stake to abandon it.
It is almost
impossible to talk about economics today without endorsing its myths. Take the
business cycle: there is no business cycle in any meaningful sense. In every
other scientific discipline, a cycle is something that repeats periodically. Yet
there is no absolute evidence for periodicity in economic fluctuations. Prices
sometimes rise and sometimes fall. That is not a cycle; it is noise. Yet talk of
cycles has led economists to hallucinate all kinds of fictitious oscillations in
economic markets. Meanwhile, the Nobel-winning neoclassical theory of the
so-called business cycle “explains” it by blaming events outside the market.
This salvages the precious idea of equilibrium, and thus of market efficiency.
Analysts talk of market “corrections”, as though there is some ideal state that
it is trying to attain. But in reality the market is intrinsically prone to leap
and lurch.
One can go through economic theory systematically demolishing all
the cherished principles that students learn... [I]t is abundantly clear that
herding – irrational, copycat buying and selling – provokes market fluctuations.
There are ways of dealing with the variety and irrationality of real agents
in economic theory. But not in mainstream economics journals, because the models
defy neoclassical assumptions.
There is no other “science” in such a
peculiar state. A demonstrably false conceptual core is sustained by inertia
alone. This core, “the Citadel”, remains impregnable while its adherents fashion
an increasingly baroque fantasy. As Alan Kirman, a progressive economist, said:
“No amount of attention to the walls will prevent the Citadel from being empty.”

The author seems to believe he has a better theory of aggregate fluctuations:

[I]t is abundantly clear that herding – irrational, copycat buying and selling – provokes market fluctuations.

That's fine, but when he says "The theory has not foreseen a single stock market crash" as his argument against neoclassical theory, he should first realize macroeconomists don't focus on predicting the stock market, and then he ought to put his theory to the same test. Can he predict stock market crashes? If he can predict the stock market's random walk behavior, will he then go on to show he can provide improved forecasts of the things macroeconomists care about? More generally, can physicists predict earthquakes, etc.? If I ask, why is there gravity, will physicists be able to tell me? Should I accept string theory as evidence of their success and superiority? The existing paradigm in physics doesn't work and the new one, string theory, doesn't produce testable implications and may be little more than mathematically sophisticated philosophic musings - is that where we want to head?
I don't mind the criticism, it's good for us and there are truths in what is said. But I always resent the arrogance of scientists from other fields thinking they can mosey on over to economics for a few minutes, diagnose our ills, and solve all our problems. I'd suggest they solve the problems in their own discipline first, or show a bit more humility when giving advice to others, especially when, as above, they are clearly unaware of vast swaths of literature such as the published work on corruption. And along those lines, and for the record, we're well aware of and have models for the list of things he mentions in his "abundantly clear" theory of market fluctuations. If he actually tried to build these models rather than simply casting aspersions at the existing paradigm, he'd find it isn't as clear as he thinks.