在紅綠燈上加裝倒數計時器日漸普及，但交通部運輸研究所的報告指出，加裝綠燈倒數器的路口肇事件數比設置前多一倍，加裝紅燈倒數器則減少一半，兩者兼有的路口肇事件數增加一九％。運研所建議，儘速拆除綠燈倒數計時器，或關閉功能。
I brought in a very high-priced call girl to guest lecture at my undergraduate
Economics of Crime class.
The next day, I asked my students whether they liked the lecture. More than one-third of them said it was the single best lecture they had attended in their
four years of college. I had to agree with them.
One of his research subjects is a former computer programmer who charges $300 an hour as a high-end call girl. Levitt asked her if she was happy when her “client line” rang on her Palm Pilot. She told him that she wasn’t happy, but indifferent. He told her that meant she was not charging enough for her services. Later,Levitt offered to pay her the hourly rate she charged clients if she would come speak to his economics class. He was surprised, however,when one of the students asked the prostitute what she charged and she replied, “$400 an hour.” The student then asked her how she had determined that rate. “She turned to me,” Levitt recalled, “flashed me this huge smile and said, ‘Well, I was talking with Professor Levitt and he convinced me that my services were worth more than I was previously charging.
我想最近大家可能都忙著想一些新鮮的題目，試圖尋找自己的經濟見解。但是，若你像我，時常胡思亂想，將一堆學過的東西串在一起，最後發現整個邏輯很勉強，甚至到最後連自己都無法說服時，你可能就是一開始就是錯的。所以有沒有什麼方法可以一開始就檢視自己的理論是不是對的呢?
我長期以來都覺得經濟學裡的模型將人假設的太"聰明"。但是，經濟學家又認為當這一些人表現的不"聰明"的話就表示他不"理性"。所以理性到底是什麼? 而經濟學家又真得很理性嗎? 下面的故事是 Harry Markowitz (1990年諾貝爾獎得主，CAPM的始祖) 在做投資時的趣事:所以若這麼天才的經濟學家都無法依照他自己所創的模型做投資決定，我們憑什麼認為現在的經濟學沒有什麼 "重大" 的問題。我個人認為經濟學有很嚴重的問題，需要更新的方法解決。實驗 anyone?
"There is a story in the book about Harry Markowitz,” Mr. Zweig said the other day. He was referring to Harry M. Markowitz, the renowned economist who shared a Nobel for helping found modern portfolio theory — and proving the importance of diversification. It’s a story that says everything about how most of us act when it comes to investing. Mr. Markowitz was then working at the RAND Corporation and trying to figure out how to allocate his retirement account. He knew what he should do: “I should have computed the historical co-variances of the asset classes and drawn an efficient frontier.” (That’s efficient-market talk for draining as much risk as possible out of his portfolio.)
But, he said, “I visualized my grief if the stock market went way up and I wasn’t in it — or if it went way down and I was completely in it. So I split my contributions 50/50 between stocks and bonds.” As Mr. Zweig notes dryly, Mr. Markowitz had proved “incapable of applying” his breakthrough theory to his own money. Economists in his day believed powerfully in the concept of “economic man”— the theory that people always acted in their own best self-interest. Yet Mr. Markowitz, famous economist though he was, was clearly not an example of economic man.
九月快結束了! 而十月中，就要公布諾貝爾經濟學獎的得主。有哪一些人有機會得呢?Thomson Scientific 預測今年這幾位經濟學家有機會:
Elhanan Helpman Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade Harvard University Cambridge, Mass., USA Emeritus Professor Department of
Economics Tel Aviv University, Israel
-and-
Gene M. Grossman Jacob Viner Professor of International Economics Princeton University Princeton, N.J., USA Professor, Department of Economics Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Princeton, N.J., USA
For their contributions to international trade and economic growth.
Robert B. Wilson Adams Distinguished Professor of Management Emeritus Stanford Graduate School of Business Stanford University Stanford, Calif., USA
-and-
Paul R. Milgrom Shirley and Leonard Ely Professor of Humanities, Department of Economics Stanford University Stanford, Calif., USA
For their work, both theoretical and practical, on the mechanism of auctions.
Jean Tirole Scientific Director, Institute of Industrial Economics University of Social Sciences Toulouse, France Affiliated research member of CERAS Paris, France For his research in industrial organization and regulation.
我認為這幾位經濟學家都應得獎，但是應該不是今年得。例如，Jean Tirole 在 industrial organization 跟 contract theory 上有卓越的貢獻，但是論得獎還早了一點。而 Milgrom 與 Wilson 若要拿獎，很難不包含 Krebs 跟 Roberts，號稱 "The gang of four." Helpman 也一樣，講到 international trade，很難想像 Bhagwati 還沒有拿到，所以 Helpman 可能還太早 (不然就是一起得)。
為何大家要排隊?
Calculus
Linear Algebra
Multivariable Calculus
Real Analysis
Probability Theory
Mathematical Statistics
Game Theory
Differential Equations
It would have been difficult to predict this outcome [of his success in economics] from the title of Barro's first publication in 1970: "The Crystal Structure of a Dimeric Cobalt Compound Containing a Chloro Bridge."
"Feynman was a great inspiration, but what he taught was often way above my head. It made me realize I wouldn't be close to the top in those fields."
The News......what appears to have been a normal childhood with a typical interest in sports — in Pavarotti's case soccer above all — he graduated from the Schola Magistrale and faced the dilemma of a career choice. He was interested in pursuing a career as a professional soccer player, but his mother convinced him to train as a teacher. He subsequently taught in an elementary school for two years but finally allowed his interest in music to win out.
During his years of study Pavarotti held part-time jobs in order to help sustain himself — first as an elementary school teacher and then, when he failed at that, as an insurance salesman.
From recent studies: [Firm's Value] slid by about one-fifth, on average, in the two years after the death of a CEO's child, and by about 15% after the death of a spouse. As for an executive's mother-in-law, the old jokes seem to hold: The researchers found that profitability, on average, rose slightly after her demise.
