Hypothetical Bias

Free [fair] trade: I'll give you $2 (under the table) if you'll give me $1 so that everyone can see it

From Bus Week, The Doubtful Deals Driving Cafta, a ton of inefficiencies so that we can sign a free trade pact to improve inefficiencies (same old story, see NAFTA, etc.):

Take an elaborate bargain offered by the Administration to win the votes of Senators Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Senate Agricultural Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). Because CAFTA would relax the import quota on sugar [good!], it's unpopular with America's sugar beet and cane farmers [good!]. So Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns offered up a smorgasbord of sweeteners: The government would either buy up the offending sugar coming from Central America and turn it into ethanol [bad], pay sugar cane farmers in CAFTA countries not to ship their product to America [bad], or ship surplus U.S. crops to Central America free of charge if producers there would refrain from exporting additional sugar to the U.S. [bad].

The good news is:

Trouble is, the Administration may not be able to keep those promises. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, it's unlikely the Administration has the authority for those gambits.

Hypo Bias appears on Economics Roundtable

Hypothetical Bias (aka, John Whitehead's ECON Blog) has appeared on the influential Economics Roundtable. In a cruel twist of fate John Whitehead has been removed as the blogger of Hypo-Bias. A top economist, at a more prestigous big-time university, will take over the blogging at a soon-to-be-announced later date.

Here is the link specific to hypo bias.

Complements: cigarettes and food

The NYTimes reports that as cigarette taxes, and prices, rise, smoking declines. At the same time, obesity rises. The increased price of cigarettes causes people to pursue a lower cost oral fixation -- eating.

Lots of good econ in the article; e.g., the elasticity of demand for cigarettes is 0.5 ... and more!

In a related story:

My current body mass index is 25.76 which makes me slightly overweight. Luckily, I may live longer than a normal weighted person (ignoring numerous other factors). Jammie Price likes this:

Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California, had another perspective. "The take-home message from this study, it seems to me, is unambiguous," Dr. Glassner said. "What is officially deemed overweight these days is actually the optimal weight."

Source: Some Extra Heft May Be Helpful, New Study Says (in the NYTimes archives, you gotta pay for it, sorry).

My first Wiki: embedding effect

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, has an entry on contingent valuation (my research area). There is a link to embedding effect but no entry. I submitted one today, my first Wiki! Take a look: embedding effect.

Wikipedia is built on the premise that entries are from the public and the public can edit them. Below is the original entry. Let's watch for those edits!

"Cnooc Critics Took Donations From Chevron"

By MARK GONGLOFF
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE

Three U.S. lawmakers who have been heavily critical of a bid by Chinese oil firm Cnooc to buy U.S. oil firm Unocal took payments recently from Chevron, Cnooc's rival for Unocal's hand. According to Federal Election Commission records, on June 29, Chevron gave Rep. Richard Pombo (R., Calif.) $2,000 and gave $1,000 each to Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.). At the time, all three were knee-deep in a Capitol Hill campaign to raise alarm bells about Unocal's possible takeover by a state-controlled Chinese firm. Spokesmen for all three lawmakers said the contributions hadn't influenced their standing on the issue at all and that they hadn't worked with Chevron in combating Cnooc's bid. All three have received several donations from Chevron in previous years.