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Econlinks for 03-08-’07

markets in everything edition: The Economist presents the black market for corpse brides in China; the truly nasty problem is that it comes with some scary incentives, given the scarcity of bridal corpses…

1028 is the number of US economists that signed the recent petition against the (expected) Congress protectionist moves (link with the Dems general race-to-the-bottom economic policies that I was recently blogging about).

Econlinks for 30-07-’07

reasons not to be a lazy (…lousy) editor– from Steven Levitt’s (JPE editor) experiences
Hill against Bill, on globalization. Not difficult to guess whom I prefer (yes, he still made perfect sense when addressing globalization in this recent speech I’ve attended, hence I think that the “marital disorder” in that couple is permanent)… In fact that is old news by now, since lately all the prominent Dems are really having a race to the bottom in terms of basic economics know-how.

How intelligent should leaders be?

Although I think there is more to the story, quite insightful thoughts from Richard Posner and Gary Becker on the relationship between intelligence and leadership. A few potential caveats I’d point out very rapidly:

the examples considered are clearly selected to fit the theory advanced (though it is far from clear that if one considered, say, all -succesful and unsuccesful – political leaders within the last century, from all over the world, not just the USA, the correlation between intelligence and leadership would turn positive)
“leadership failure” is far from easy to define.

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Books I’ve finished reading this week (And a PS on Chicago)

…with a one phrase short characterization for each of them. But before that, I certainly recommend these books to you, they really say a lot about (the style of) their famous American authors.

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Fun with Rogoff and Wolfowitz. And hedging against a (Presidential) change, in general

Amid all the scandal around the World Bank boss, Paul Wolfowitz and his (required/demanded/expected, by most) would or would not-be resignation, here’s a very recent leaked memo from him to his staff (Ken Rogoff has been rather careless and leaked it to the press :-)).

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