[{"id":1149,"title":"Terrorism as a Factor of Production in a Coup D'état","sha":"ca8363f2ea7fb263aaa1d1cac2c8513d","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Terror campaigns are perceived as a “.. weapon of the weak..” (Leiden \u0026 Schmitt, 1968), a refuge for actors lacking the political capital for a full coup d’état. Concentrated acts of terror could provide subversive political factions with clout, consensus, and supporters for a government takeover.  Terrorist organizations utilize various mediums to gain followers by disseminating propaganda glorifying the ideological objectives of the group (Nacos,2009). Terrorism also operates as a coercive mechanism (Olson, 1965), persuading the citizenry to accept the regime change. Analogous to an extortion racket, offering protection from the group’s violent acts if the citizenry supports the movement (Tomes, 2004).\r\n\r\nSince acts of terrorism are a common antecedent (Blomberg, Hess, \u0026 Weerapana, 2004) to political coups, we might be to view terror campaigns as a factor of production in the orchestration of a takeover.  Much as labor, raw materials, and other resources are factors of production for consumer goods; terrorism does the same for facilitating abrupt political change. The actions of terrorist organizations musters support out of either fear or notoriety, providing majoritarian support for the new regime.","created_at":"2023-08-16T17:39:01.222Z","updated_at":"2023-08-18T06:00:17.963Z","zenodo_id":8260071,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8260071","subject":null,"tags":["terrorism","economics","factors of production","political takeover"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":41,"title":"Why research reputation trumps teaching reputation in universities","sha":"76617e156d3ae78b4b723298e7ddcaa6","user_id":142,"state":"published","body":"In humans we see lekking behaviour in the general rule that people like being around successful people.  This is why social A-lists exist. More generally as animal behaviour, a lek is a gathering of individuals for the purposes of competitive display - competitive signalling.  For universities, A-list researchers attract other high quality researchers and also crucially high quality teachers.  Why is this important for attracting high quality teachers?  Academics themselves are generally seen to be sensitive to reputational influences of their peer group.  High quality teachers will be hesitant to join to a university who's reputation is ambiguous (uncertainty as to rank).  The solution is to have an unambiguous reputational signal.  However, the signal needs to overcome the problems of asymmetric information associated with the observation ('measurement') of quality.  It is for this reason that research reputation trumps teaching reputation.  Research reputation is a less ambiguous signal as a result of the strength of external validation - active peer review in both academic and public domains (media).  Teaching reputation is harder to validate outside the university in which it occurs, leading to the problem of asymmetric information.  ","created_at":"2015-02-15T20:57:20.504Z","updated_at":"2024-10-04T14:47:05.036Z","zenodo_id":22848,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15414","subject":null,"tags":["economics","reputation","lekking","behaviour","universities","research"],"vote_count":51,"view_count":1,"score":51.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":600,"title":"name preferences: general vs specific, causation vs correlation","sha":"f8152c7e0ac80d7b8663ee46a67d2c51","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"I suspect that there is a correlation between areas of the US where carbonated beverages are called soda vs pop and areas where Coke is preferred over Pepsi.  Is this correct?  If so, what might cause it? Beverage companies using their preferred general term as they expand out from their HQ?\r\n\r\nAnd can this be generalized to other examples of specific names vs general names?  For example, does the use of lightning bug vs firefly correlate with terms used for insects, or for interesting things (cool, rad, ...)?","created_at":"2019-03-02T17:55:38.026Z","updated_at":"2019-06-02T06:01:15.457Z","zenodo_id":3236950,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3236950","subject":null,"tags":["naming","data science","sociology","economics"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":389,"title":"Axiology: is a learning intervention worth the effort?","sha":"528154386218df84565b16f18517be08","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Many medical education studies pursue a measurement approach to demonstrate the efficacy of a learning intervention. Researchers, steeped in the belief system that positions randomized controlled trials as the ultimate form of inquiry, try to apply this methodology in the confounded world of education research. As Cook et al have repeatedly shown, many compare their educational intervention with a control. We already know that something is better than nothing for promoting learning. \r\n \r\nWe often focus excessively on ontology, epistemology or methodology, yet forget to assess the axiology of a study? More specifically, is it worth doing and what is the value of doing it? In this, we run into the classic challenge in cost-benefit analysis: it is easy to count costs but hard to assess benefit. \r\n\r\nConsider this clinical research comparison example: antidepressant studies, which commonly compare new agents with amitriptyline, showing at least as good an effect, but with improved safety and side effects. The relative effect, which is hard to measure, is still open to comparison. \r\n \r\nWhen assessing real world effectiveness, we should consider the economics of the intervention, while comparing learning designs that show equivalent outcomes. Is there less total cost or greater scalability and sustainability?","created_at":"2017-05-29T22:54:41.863Z","updated_at":"2017-06-01T06:00:27.491Z","zenodo_id":801608,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.801608","subject":null,"tags":["methodology","economics"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":198,"title":"Equitable methods of abolishing PAYG personal income tax","sha":"ac8047dfeeafa46bfb129b1f559d966a","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"It is argued that the replacement of pay-as-you-go personal income tax (\"PAYG tax\") by something more efficient (e.g. a land tax or consumption tax) would offend intergenerational equity because retirees no longer pay PAYG tax, and would offend vertical equity because higher-income earners would get proportionally larger cuts in PAYG tax.\r\n\r\nThese objections can be avoided by abolishing PAYG tax in such a way that the benefit, as far as possible, is received as \u003cem\u003elower prices\u003c/em\u003e rather than higher after-tax income.\r\n\r\nOne method is to let employers retain withheld PAYG tax or claim it as a credit against other taxes. Another is to reinterpret existing employment contracts by legislation, so that \u003cem\u003enet\u003c/em\u003e wages (not gross wages) are held constant through the transition, pending new contracts under new employment laws for the new tax system. Either method would reduce employers' costs, hence prices, without reducing workers' net wages.\r\n\r\nThe latter method is harder to legislate if more than one legislature is responsible for employment (as is likely in a federal system). But it is preferable in that employers would no longer incur PAYG compliance costs while workers would no longer face the disincentive of marginal tax rates on their wages.","created_at":"2015-08-08T11:50:51.084Z","updated_at":"2015-08-09T06:00:19.724Z","zenodo_id":52054,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.27232","subject":null,"tags":["economics","taxation","income tax","land tax","consumption tax","fiscal devaluation","fairtax"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1399,"title":"Capitalist capital allocation as meta-reward function for AI training model","sha":"cecf7e1646a5f412b2c60014d226ef87","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Machine learning protocols utilize rewards function during training as a means of tuning parameters toward obtaining desirable outputs from a model. One challenge for the current AI industry is the difficulty of translating real-world utility into reward functions for individual models that are trained primarily on training sets of online content, which seldom has an accurate valuation of its real-world utility attached to it. However, computing resources are allocated to different models based on their value to the companies producing and, at a higher layer, capital in the form of investment or revenue is preferentially allocated to those companies whose models are perceived as having higher potential for real-world utility. In essence, this process functions as a meta-reward function for the AI ecosystem overall.  ","created_at":"2024-07-24T10:18:55.003Z","updated_at":"2024-07-30T06:00:36.428Z","zenodo_id":13129560,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13129560","subject":null,"tags":["ai","machine learning","economics"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1174,"title":"Thiel's Trap","sha":"4bf56fb9a5ae2522dfcab0f8760b2137","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Few economic concepts demonstrate scarcity as clearly as the Malthusian Trap. An economic condition where population growth outpaces food production (Malthus,1798). The fight for subsistence is in the rearview mirror of the developed world, but Malthusian logic is now applied to environmentalism(Hardaway,1997). This concept also applies to business.\r\n\r\nIn Zero to One (2014), PayPal founder Peter Thiel describes the dangers of intense market competition. Firms vying for razor-thin margins bring us to Thiel’s Trap (Thiel \u0026 Masters, 2014). The oversupply of producers greatly diminishes market share and consumer demand, generating a commons (Hardin, 1968). The participating firms do not exercise market dominance, all fighting over a narrowing market share.\r\n\r\nThe only way to escape the chasm of Thiel’s Trap is innovation. Similar to how agricultural advances helped the world climb out of the Malthusian Trap, the Schumpeterian winds of Creative Destruction (Schumpeter,1943) will lift your company out of Thiel’s Trap. Inventing a new product category is the escape hatch from subsistence in business.","created_at":"2023-12-15T20:42:06.071Z","updated_at":"2024-03-20T16:22:07.799Z","zenodo_id":10426529,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10426529","subject":null,"tags":["business","economics","thomas malthus","peter thiel"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":165,"title":"Partial replacement of the FairTax prebate by a wage subsidy","sha":"2dba1ecd29b4f280cb145d48e5f42903","user_id":480,"state":"published","body":"The proposed FairTax Act (H.R.25/S.155) would replace most U.S. federal taxes, including payroll tax and all forms of income tax, with a retail sales tax. To compensate for the rise in prices of necessities, the legislation provides for an annual \"prebate\" of a fixed amount per legally resident adult, plus a fixed amount per dependent child.\r\n\r\nSome critics object to the prebate on the ground that it is an unconditional handout to able-bodied people of working age. This objection (whatever its merits or demerits) can be overcome as follows: for a person who is capable of working, make the prebate payable not to that person, but to any employer who hires that person at a legal wage (with a pro-rata prebate for part-time employment). Thus the prebate would become a wage subsidy, defendable as a Pigovian response to the social cost of unemployment.\r\n\r\nDue to competition, the wage subsidy would be passed on through some combination of lower prices, higher wages, and more jobs. All three modes would help to compensate working people for the sales tax. The first (lower prices) would reduce the required compensation for both working and non-working people.","created_at":"2015-05-25T09:50:57.944Z","updated_at":"2015-05-26T06:00:42.665Z","zenodo_id":30223,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17925","subject":null,"tags":["economics","taxation","consumption tax","basic income","negative payroll tax","fiscal devaluation","fairtax"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":368,"title":"Venture reproducibility","sha":"e8f2b294551972f79ee9fce0b1cfe0c3","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Venture capitalists work under the concept of investing small amounts in lots of startup companies, some of which will fail, some of which will make a little money, and a few of which will make a lot of money.\r\n\r\nThis is similar to [the \"Miracle Machine\" argument Eric Lander makes for funding basic science research](https://danielskatzblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/eric-landers-argument-for-public-funding-of-basic-research/).\r\n\r\nIn [venture film production](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/09/11/439632877/episode-650-the-scariest-thing-in-hollywood) ([transcript](http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=439632877)), the producer spends small amounts of money making large numbers of movies, some of which will lose money, some of which will make a little money, and a few of which will make a lot of money. There are a set of rules, which basically boil down to: 1) keep costs down by not doing expensive things; 2) if you need to do expensive things, pay for them through profit share rather than up front costs; and 3) don't spend more than you plan.  \r\n\r\nIs there a venture reproducibility equivalent for reproducibility? Can we use the idea that reproducibility will often either fail or succeed to a small extent, and a few times will succeed to a large extent? How do we make reproducibility as low cost (low effort) as possible for the researcher? And, how do we build \"profit share\" for the researcher so that if their research is reproduced (or perhaps even reused), they gain?","created_at":"2017-02-24T13:52:36.550Z","updated_at":"2017-03-14T11:34:51.939Z","zenodo_id":322653,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.322653","subject":null,"tags":["reproducibility","risk","payoff","capitalism","economics"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":935,"title":"Menu-Board Theory of Voting","sha":"89bb974c2efeff5c73437c6c4f7dcd61","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"The dictum of Public Choice Theory is that politics functions as a form of exchange. This assertion is very much true of the process of voting, where participants either select policies or representatives to make policy decisions. Public policy is nothing about purchasing decisions. Any commodity or service provided by the state is a public good. The government provides services that the private sector cannot otherwise supply due to practicality or legal sanctions.\r\n\r\nThe suggestion that voting is a form of purchasing public commodities and services (e.g. roadways and defense) validates the Menu-Board Theory of Voting. This theory suggests that anytime political decisions are made through a democratic process it is analogous to ordering food from a fast-food restaurant.  The clearest example of this is the Marijuana legalization referendums in the United States.  Through voting to legalize the sale and consumption, voters are not just purchasing the right to ingest cannabis, but they also acquire other complementary public goods (the proverbial fries and a drink). Voters also gain regulations from the state government to reduce the spillover effects of consumers ingesting unsafe products.  Also, additional tax revenue from the excise taxes will serve as funding for other services.","created_at":"2022-04-25T20:43:16.078Z","updated_at":"2022-06-15T06:00:38.199Z","zenodo_id":6643873,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6643873","subject":null,"tags":["economics","politics","public choice","voting"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null}]