Education, Personal Responsibility, and the Fundamental Attribution Error

George Will argues that Democrats are making a mistake by framing the country's failing education system as a civil rights issue rather than a crisis of minority families. He's probably right that in this particular circumstance (an address by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan) the administration is taking a safer line with their base because critiquing the performance of families is politically difficult.

However, the President hasn't shied away from appropriating some of the conservative rhetoric on parents' personal responsibility, as for instance in his speech to the NAACP in July 2009. Additionally, he's been a big supporter of the Harlem Children's Zone which takes a comprehensive approach to improving the well-being of kids by giving everything from classes to families expecting children to mentorship and other forms of support once they enter school. This approach aligns more with a recognition that impoverished parents are less likely to create assets for their kids not because they lack the will but rather because they lack those assets themselves. Check out this short discussion between two professors regarding scarcity of time as a tax on the "mental bandwith" of single mothers. The political discourse of personal responsibility that Will dances around too often falls into the fundamental attribution error - assuming that a negative outcome is the result of an individual's personal failing alone rather than a product of circumstances. So many of our policy debates, domestic and foreign, would benefit from some more empathy - not sympathy, but the ability to put yourself in another's shoes and really understand their mental calculus.

Food Stamps Back in Fashion

According to the NYTs, “One in eight Americans now receives food stamps, including one in four children.” For at least six million Americans, food stamps are the only reported source of income. Food stamp enrollment is so high in part because food is a relatively low-controversy handout and in part because, although states administer the program, the federal government picks up the entire tab.

In the article, a Republican Congressman (not from Dalton, I checked) sang the old refrain: “We’re at risk of creating an entire class of people, a subset of people, just comfortable getting by living off the government.”

An article that ran the day before the food stamps piece described rising homelessness among New York City’s population of mostly undocumented day laborers. (About 75% of day laborers nationally are undocumented workers.) These guys do not collect any entitlements. They will take any job. But they’ve stopped sending remittances, and they’ve started moving out onto the street. To me, that’s a testament to the current scarcity of jobs that resonates even more than the stark unemployment figures. In this (slumping and/or capitalist) economy, a portion of the population will be unable to support itself. That will include a large number of documented people who have no desire to live on the government dole.

I’ll conclude even more didactically. The degree and mechanisms of support a society offers to its most vulnerable, down-and-out citizens constitute decisions that involve calculations of both efficacy and ethics.

Are Professors Self-Selected to be Poor Managers?

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is in a doctoral program for chemical engineering at Iowa State University. In the course of the conversation I asked him if he had a thesis adviser yet, and if so, whether he was pleased with his adviser. He voiced approval of his adviser, specifically because they get along. From talking with other friends at graduate school, I know that getting an adviser whose well-connected and has research interests that you share is important, so I found his comment a little puzzling (I should mention that they do also share research interests).

He told me that he's talked with other friends in graduate engineering programs and many of them aren't happy with their adviser because:

1. They are far too hard on them, or
2. They leave them on a long leash and then come down hard on them

I pointed out that those problems were due to poor managerial skills, not the technical skills one needs to attain the positions the advisers hold. My friend then reminded me that academia appealed to him going into graduate school precisely because he doesn't need to have managerial skills to function in the field.

That left me wondering if professors self-select themselves to be poor managers, despite the fact that they will likely be managing people their entire careers. Have you noticed a lack of managerial skills in the advisers in your graduate studies? Perhaps the selection is field specific, as chemical engineers require chemicals, not people. Is there some other causal factor underlying this imagined correlation that I could be missing?

A Capitalistic Christmas

There’s a board at the Star Gospel Mission with pictures on it, and every day there’s less and less. Because, you see, there’s less days to work around the holidays for day laborers. It’s cold outside. It rains a lot. Many employers take time off—lots of it. So while Christmas carolers, donated food, hand knitted scarves and warm clothes pile into the Star Gospel, the men who can’t pay their rent anymore pass them on their way out.

This is a capitalistic Christmas, based on supply and demand. There’s less demand for laborers, and ironically more supply of needless crap (Forgive me for playing the role of God. It’s possible hearing “Silent Night” could inspire anyone to create a sequel to "The Pursuit of Happyness." We just can’t say for sure. And I really do like my scarf—it’s blue and green, and warm.).

There are a lot of loopholes to be sure (cigarettes, booze, drugs, prostitutes, completely unnecessary spending on a license to carry a concealed weapon), but if we could compartmentalize capitalism into claiming its own responsibility, could you make an argument that it lets these guys down? At any point? Man shows up to work every day, gets picked some days but not others, makes $48 a day on the days he does, uses this to pay for food and shelter and anything else. Then one week doesn’t get picked enough days to pay for both food and shelter, so picks one.

Is this some sort of manipulated capitalism? After all, employers do pay anywhere from $13-$20 an hour for day laborers, but the laborers lack the resources and organization to collect that wage themselves, and so instead they make minimum wage. Is it only capitalism if the pure supply and pure demand are exchanged fairly? What constitutes fair? Who decides?

Opportunity Costs & Wedding Planning

I am a (relatively) newly engaged man and engagement is about planning a wedding and preparing for marriage. I have to say that I have never understood the concept of opportunity costs more clearly than in the course of evaluating decisions for the wedding. Would we rather invite 50 more people or keep our guest list constant but increase the quality of the food? Would we rather have the wedding on a Sunday at our ideal location or on a Saturday at our second choice? Would we rather have a band to increase the probability of dancing and thereby increase the probability of a more enjoyable wedding or would the cost saved by using a DJ compensate us properly for the lower probability of dancing?

There have been a few times where I've been tempted to draw indifference curves for our various options, overlay the budget, and see what maximizes our utility. That would truly make me homo economicus (assuming I could accurately draw the indifference curves, which is especially difficult given that there are multiple parties involved).

Canons of Interpretation and Economics

In interpreting statutes, courts, both federal and state, often use canons of interpretation. Simply put, a canon of interpretation is a rule of thumb that enables a court to divine the "correct" statutory interpretation.

Generally, these canons fall into two categories: non-substantive canons and substantive canons. The primary difference between the two is that the former is policy-neutral and the latter is not. For example, non-substantive canons often deal with grammatical or textual intricacies like interpreting a statutory provision to avoid surplusage. Opposed to that, substantive canons express a policy objective, like interpreting ambiguities in a punitive statute in favor of the defendant (called the rule of lenity).

I'm interested to know what you guys think about the use of a substantive canon to make sure that the court gets to the correct result economically. In other words, in the face of a statutory ambiguity, the court should interpret the statute in the manner that best enhances welfare. Let's put aside the question of whether anyone can determine what enhances welfare. So, assuming arguendo that that determination can be made, is it acceptable for a court to do this? This is a question answered in the affirmative by the law and economics crowd.

As an example, consider this hypothetical (I based this on the case Sturges v. Bridgman (1877) often used to illustrate the Coase Theorem, but changed a few of the facts):

Two businesses exist side by side. One business is a confectioner and uses a loud mortar in the preliminary stages of candy-making. The other business is a doctor's office that has a regular flow of patients. The doctor's office is disturbed by the noise of the large mortar and sues for nuisance, requesting an injunction against the use of the mortar. Assume for purposes of this hypothetical that: (1) the doctor's office is more profitable than the candyman's business; and (2) the statute governing nuisance is ambiguous on whether the mortar is a nuisance, i.e., it could reasonably be read either way.

The big questions: In this circumstance, should the court find for the doctor's office and issue an injunction on the basis of welfare enhancement, i.e., the doctor's office is more profitable? Should the existence of a social good (healing people as opposed to creating cavities) be factored into determining which activity better enhances welfare?

The Myth of Timeless Growth

I just finished reading an address given to the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He argues for a more holistic understanding of economics as housekeeping for our society. I'm largely sympathetic to his argument, but I imagine that at least one other author on this blog would dismiss him as idealistic, if not naive. Consider what he says about economic growth.

Practically speaking, this means that both at the individual and the national level we have to question what we mean by 'growth'. The ability to produce more and more consumer goods (not to mention financial products) is in itself an entirely mechanical measure of wealth. It sets up the vicious cycle in which it is necessary all the time to create new demand for goods and thus new demands on a limited material environment for energy sources and raw materials. By the hectic inflation of demand it creates personal anxiety and rivalry. By systematically depleting the resources of the planet, it systematically destroys the basis for long-term well-being. In a nutshell, it is investing in the wrong things.

A fairly standard rebuttal to Williams’ critique of growth is that the growth he criticizes lifts people out of poverty, raises overall GDP, etc. Yet his criticism still stands, because the economic growth currently promoted is simply unsustainable. Can you imagine what would happen if per capita consumption in China and India approached America’s?

Another response would be that the market prices in scarcity, so that as natural resources are used up, prices go up, and people consume less. Although in principle this may be true, this argument strikes me as hollow on two fronts. First, I seriously doubt the market’s ability to price in externalities – the market seems to be myopically focused on the production and consumption of goods, with no thought for secondary or long term consequences. Second, I am even more skeptical of the market’s ability to operate without growth as the driving factor. I doubt that a politician could last long while saying things like, “I’m sorry, we just have to recognize that our consumption is unsustainable. You, the American people, must shop less. Our GDP must go down.” That’s a political third rail. Think about current proposals for green technology. They’re suffused with the language of job-creation, new market opportunities, etc. They present this as an opportunity for growth when in fact our growth patterns are unsustainable.

I’ll close with a few questions. Does our current economic system have the internal capacity for becoming a system that is sustainable? In other words, can factoring in externalities and changing tastes and preferences really create a more sustainable global economy? Or are we going to continue barreling along our pattern of growth until scarcity forces prices to increase to unacceptable levels, and we either reduce our consumption patterns or go to war over natural resources? Finally, do we as a society have the moral resources necessary to change our consumption patterns? The deck seems stacked against this change.

I look forward to your comments, and I apologize for a rather unfocused and depressing first post.