Market Power

Ham and Bean Soup

We had a Christmas ham at the Miller household and needed a recipe for leftover ham.  I chose this Ham and Bean soup at Allrecipes.com that turned out wonderfully.  

I used a mixture of pinto, red kidney, and great northern beans because that's what I had on hand.  I made some veggie stock from scratch using this recipe* and I used some chicken stock I had made and canned a month or so ago.  I substituted two pints of tomatoes I had canned this past summer in place of the diced tomatoes and the low sodium veggie juice.  I also used some homemade yellow mustard since I had no Dijon mustard on hand.  I also added no salt since the soup was salty enough via the ham.  Lastly, I added a quarter cup of butter to the soup to add richness and flavor.

*I didn't have any peppers of turnips on hand, so I left those out of the veggie broth I made.  I added a few frozen beans, peas, and corn as well to the stock in step 4.  

Everything's Bigger in Texas, Especially High School Football

Everything's bigger in Texas, it's often said.  It's true about the size of the state and its high school football stadiums.

In a few days, the folks here will be celebrating Christmas, but it'll be another eight months before they get the present they've long desired. That's when kids from this tony suburb north of Dallas will finally get to play in a new $60 million high-school football stadium. Many see this as yet another sign of the excesses of youth sports in America.

That's Mark Yost writing about a new high school football stadium in Allen, Tx.  Before we criticize the folks in Allen, Tx., note they are not gutting their academics to pay for football.

Further blunting criticism of the $60 million stadium's price tag is the fact that Allen clearly isn't sacrificing academics for athletics. The 650,000-square-foot high school was completed in 1999 at an initial cost of $59 million and includes science labs, a student newspaper and a modern television broadcast studio where students get experience in front of and behind the camera. The school system is rated "Exemplary" by the state, and the stadium is part of a $120 million high-school expansion project that includes a new auditorium that will be used by the music and theater programs.

And, the citizens of Allen are paying for the whole thing themselves. They passed a special bond referendum that met only token resistance. For all the Internet and media chatter about the stadium, Allen isn't apologizing for the price tag.

I asked Mark what "token resistance" is and he said the bond referendum passed by more than 70%.

As readers know, I am not a fan of public funding for sports stadiums because neither a sports contest nor a stadium satisfy the definition of a public good, especially when that public funding largely ends up benefiting a small slice of the population.  And at least in college and professional sports, I'm not convinced any positive externality is not somehow captured by the program through souvenir and clothing sales.  But when a bond referendum for a stadium passes by such a large margin, it's hard to argue against public funding in that particular case.  

 

I Resemble this Remark

Did my wife write this?

I knew I was in love when I allowed my future husband to use the word "heteroskedastic" as if it were a real word, even though real words don't have k's in the middle of them. But economists don't just make up words; they make up entire universes in which everything that they do can be perfectly rationalized.

During what one might call my beloved's gradual student years, he purchased an expensive stereo system, although his income at the time hardly covered the local phone bill. When I cried out accusations such as "blowing money you don't have," he calmly explained that the procurement of such an item is nothing more than "consumption smoothing," in which one purchases something unaffordable now with the security of knowing that shortly thereafter, in what might be called the professorial years, one would have the money to own that very stereo.

Yes, that article is definitely in my utility space.  Via John Whitehead.

The Ethanol Trifecta

Ethanol gets the trifecta of government support.

1. It's subsidized
2. It's protected from foreign competition
3. It's use is mandated

And the mandate is set to go even further.  The EPA wants gasoline to be 15% ethanol, and that has engine manufacturers up in arms.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  If a private good needs to be subsidized, protected, and mandated, it's probably not a very good product.

What's Free Exposure Worth?

I just spoke to a reporter from Chicago who was wondering how he might guesstimate the value of the more-or-less free exposure obtained by TCF Bank from having this past Monday's MNF game between the Vikings and Da Bearsss played at TCF Bank Stadium.

• Calculate the per-game naming rights fee paid by TCF to have its named plastered on the U's stadium in Minneapolis.
• Calculate the per-game naming rights fees of a small sample of NFL stadiums.
• Go back to the tape and find out how often "TCF Bank" is mentioned and find out how much ad rates are for 15-30 second spots on a MNF game.

Any other suggestions? 

Or maybe TANSTAFE (there ain't no such thing as free exposure).

The Three Essay Dissertation

Yes, I understand the institutional pressures to get students out and yes I understand that articles are where the payoff is, but I can still lament the loss of sustained attention to a single argument that used to characterize a much higher proportion of Economics dissertations.  And a title such as "Essays on the Macroeconomics of Trade Flows" is singularly uninformative in helping me understand what this person might be writing about.

Yes, I sound like an old fart, but so be it.  "Three Essays in Search of a Staple" has won out in the "competitive" process, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

That's Steven Horowitz.  John Whitehead concurs:

In the old days you learned how to do in-depth research first and, once that was mastered, learned how to get it published. The almost unconnected essays are the most frustrating and not just for grumpy reasons. You sometimes might wonder if the 3 essays breeds a lack of patience, a hesitation to fight through a difficult problem and an unwillingness embrace the minutiae. All of which makes for sloppy research (I should know, mid-career time constraints [sometimes*] force me into that situation). Experience allows you to learn where you can take shortcuts and where you can't (but maybe PhD programs work on teaching that these days?).

I wrote a 3 essay dissertation that explored facets of Major League Baseball's arbitration system.  I chose this format for the familiar reason: because I wanted to have nearly-publishable papers ready to help me find a job when I finished grad school (I got three from the first two full essays).  I don't see anything wrong with the three essay format as long as the papers are on a fairly-narrow subject and are somehow connected.  

As far as slop and the lack of patience goes, those are two qualities that need to be hunted down and mercilessly killed, in a bloody manner if need be, if one is going to get a decent product out of the dissertation research.  I had an advisor who wasn't going to let me finish without fully exploring the problems at hand.  It was something that I didn't always like at the time but that, looking back, I'm glad I went through.

Markets in Everything: Urinal Entertainment Division

Sega, the once proud innovator of console design, is back in the gaming hardware business! Only not in the fashion you might think. The company has just rolled out a trial of its Toylets system, which embeds a pressure sensor into otherwise innocuous urinals and gives life to every bad piece of joystick-related innuendo you ever heard. Four games are available right now, to be enjoyed through a display mounted at eye level, including one where the intensity of your delivery helps blow a girl's skirt up and another that offers (asynchronous!) multiplayer competition. The latter game matches you against the previous dude to have used the porcelain repository, thereby finally providing Japanese men with a measurable way to settle pissing contests. 

Here's the story plus a SFW video with a peeing statue demonstrating this hardware.  This is better than the advertisements many restaurant and bar urinals have displayed above them.  Via David Strom and, as always, kudos to Tyler Cowen for the MIE tag.

Missouri Red Zone Statistical Defense

Missouri's football team had a tremendous regular season led largely by their defense.  The Tiger D led the NCAA FBS in red zone defense in terms of the percentage of drives that ended in scores.  Opponents had 31 red zone drives this year and only 55% ended in scores.

Those 31 drives ended in 101 points, for an average of 3.25 points per red zone drive.  That also led the FBS (Boise was second with 3.44 points per red zone drive).  To put it in perspective, the average team had 43.3 opponent red zone drives (standard deviation = 9.3) , opponents scored 35.3 of the time in red zone drives (standard deviation = 8.6) for an 81.4% clip.  The average team gave up an average of 4.8 points per red zone drive (standard deviation = 0.57).

So Mizzou's red zone defense was 3.7 standard deviations better than the average team in terms of percent and 2.7 standard deviations better in terms of points per red zone drive.  That's outstanding.  This is one of the soundest defenses I've witnessed out of Columbia since I began following Mizzou in the early 90's.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced its newest inductees, a list that includes Neil Diamond, Tom Waits, and the Alice Cooper Band.  

Still no Rush, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Heart, Kiss, Cheap Trick, Def Leppard, etc.  What's the eligibility criteria?

To be eligible for induction as an artist (as a performer, composer, or musician) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the artist must have released a record, in the generally accepted sense of that phrase, at least 25 years prior to the year of induction; and have demonstrated unquestionable musical excellence.

We shall consider factors such as an artist's musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and the body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique, but musical excellence shall be the essential qualification of induction.

Ah, now I see why Rush, Iron Maiden, the Priest, etc. aren't in yet.  Wait.  What?

Mizzou Indefinitely Suspends MBB PG Michael Dixon

Coach Mike Anderson has indefinitely suspended point guard Michael Dixon for an unspecified violation of team rules.  At this point there are only rumors about what Dixon might have done, and I won't speculate on what he might have done.  

Dixon had started all 9 games this season and averaged over 24 minutes and over 10 points per game.  Moreover, the heir-apparent at the PG position, Phil Pressey, is a true freshman who is just getting his feet wet in college competition.  I have no idea what happened, but I applaud Anderson's decision to suspend a such an important player on the Tiger team.