Determinism and Free Will

In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Causal Determinism, Carl Hoefer suggests in the concluding section (Determinism and Human Action) that there is hope for those who want to believe in free will:

There is a long tradition of compatibilists arguing that freedom is fully compatible with physical determinism; a prominent recent defender is John Fischer (1994, 2012). Hume went so far as to argue that determinism is a necessary condition for freedom—or at least, he argued that some causality principle along the lines of “same cause, same effect” is required. …

Physics, particularly 20th century physics, does have one lesson to impart to the free will debate; a lesson about the relationship between time and determinism. Recall that … the fundamental theories … if they are deterministic at all, are time-symmetrically deterministic. That is, earlier states of the world can be seen as fixing all later states; but equally, later states can be seen as fixing all earlier states. …

Nor does 20th (21st) -century physics countenance the idea that there is anything ontologically special about the past, as opposed to the present and the future. In fact, it fails to use these categories in any respect, and teaches that in some senses they are probably illusory. So there is no support in physics for the idea that the past is “fixed” in some way that the present and future are not, or that it has some ontological power to constrain our actions that the present and future do not have. It is not hard to uncover the reasons why we naturally do tend to think of the past as special, and assume that both physical causation and physical explanation work only in the past present/future direction (see the entry on thermodynamic asymmetry in time). But these pragmatic matters have nothing to do with fundamental determinism. If we shake loose from the tendency to see the past as special, when it comes to the relationships of determination, it may prove possible to think of a deterministic world as one in which each part bears a determining—or partial-determining—relation to other parts, but in which no particular part (region of space-time, event or set of events, …) has a special, privileged determining role that undercuts the others. Hoefer (2002a) and Ismael (2016) use such considerations to argue in a novel way for the compatiblity of determinism with human free agency.

Pecuniary Externalities and Aggregate Demand Externalities

In Econometrica, Emmanuel Farhi and Iván Werning neatly summarize how their work on demand externalities fits in the literature.

… pecuniary externalities, which were first shown to arise when a simple friction, market incompleteness, is introduced into the Arrow–Debreu framework (see, e.g., Hart (1975), Stiglitz (1982), Geanakoplos and Polemarchakis (1985), Geanakoplos, Magill, Quinzii, and Dreze (1990)). The logic is as follows. When asset markets are incomplete and there is more than one commodity, a redistribution of asset holdings generically induces relative price changes in spot markets, in each state of the world. These relative price changes, in turn, affect the spanning properties of the limited assets that are available, potentially improving insurance. Such a pecuniary externality is not internalized by private agents. As a result, the equilibrium is generically constrained inefficient: it can be improved upon by interventions in the existing financial markets. Similar results obtain in economies with borrowing constraints that depend on prices of goods and assets, or when contracting is constrained by private information (see, e.g., Greenwald and Stiglitz (1986)). … [Other work in this literature includes Caballero and Krishnamurthy (2001), Lorenzoni (2008), Farhi, Golosov, and Tsyvinski (2009), Bianchi and Mendoza (2010), Jeanne and Korinek (2010), Bianchi (2011), Korinek (2011), Davilla (2011), Stein (2012), Korinek (2012a, 2012b), Jeanne and Korinek (2013), Woodford (2011).]

… Instead of pecuniary externalities, our theory emphasizes aggregate demand externalities. In addition to providing a new foundation for macroprudential policies, our framework, focusing on monetary policy and nominal rigidities, is well posed for the joint study of monetary and macroprudential policy.

… using a perturbation argument similar in spirit to that in Geanakoplos and Polemarchakis (1985), we show that equilibria that are not first best can be improved upon by interventions in financial markets, except in non-generic knife-edge cases. … In [the pecuniary externality] literature, the key frictions lie in financial markets themselves; in our baseline model, we assume complete markets. Pecuniary externalities rely on price movements; in our framework, price rigidities tend to negate such effects. Our results are instead driven by aggregate demand externalities that arise from nominal rigidities.

The Early Bank of England and its Contemporaries

In the Journal of Economic Literature, William Roberds reviews Christine Desan’s “Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism” and he provides his own perspective on European monetary history.

… the transition of the Bank of England’s notes from the status of experimental debt securities (in 1694) to “as good as gold” (1833) required more than a century of legal accommodation and business comfort with their use.

Desan emphasizes England’s traditions of nominalism (as opposed to metallism) and monetary restraint as well as early experiments in monetary substitution in laying the foundations for the Bank of England’s success. Lobbying played its role, too.

Roberds discusses the experience of note issuing institutions in other countries.

At the time of the Bank’s founding, there were about twenty-five publicly owned or sponsored banks operating in Europe. These institutions are largely forgotten today; most were dissolved by the early nineteenth century and only one continues in existence, Sweden’s Riksbank. …

These banks were run by and for the merchant communities in their respective cities [Amsterdam, Genoa, Hamburg, and Venice] … The existence of the early municipal banks depended on a form of nominalism more extreme than what prevailed in contemporary England. Merchants in these “banking cities” were required by law and by custom to settle all bills of exchange (the dominant form of commercial credit) with transfers of money on the ledgers of the local public bank. The practical advantage of such a restriction was that it reduced or eliminated the possibility of settlement in the debased coins … the municipal banks’ ledger money was often seen as more reliable than the typical coin in circulation …

Most of these banks failed after getting involved in speculative episodes, hyperinflation, or political turmoil. The Bank of England was lucky.

“Kosten eines Vollgeld-Systems sind hoch (Costly Sovereign Money),” Die Volkswirtschaft, 2016

Die Volkswirtschaft 1–2 2017, December 21, 2016. HTML, PDF.

Banning inside money creation would be unnecessary, insufficient, not enforceable, and besides the point. The way forward is to grant everyone access to central bank reserves and let investors choose between reserves and deposits.

Zoroastrianism, Mandaeism, Yazidism

The NZZ runs a series on endangered religious minorities in the middle East.

Daniel Steinvorth reports about Yazidis. More on Yazidism.

Inga Rogg reports about the gnostic Mandaeans in Irak. More on Mandaeism.

Ulrich von Schwerin reports about the Zoroastrian heritage in Iran. More on Zoroastrianism.

Switzerland’s New Immigration Law

In the Guardian, Jon Henley reports about Switzerland’s new immigration law. The Swiss parliament rejected quotas on EU workers, contrary to what a 2014 referendum demanded. Instead, the new law requires that residents be given priority in new job vacancies.

[C]ross-border commuters to Swiss jobs, plus EU residents in Switzerland, will be able to register with a Swiss job centre and get the same treatment as Swiss citizens.

Thomas Schelling

In the Washington Post, Henry Farrell writes about Schelling’s work and how it shaped the Cold War.

Schelling’s contribution was to show how the two sides could think systematically about coordinating (where they had common interests) and deterring each other from unwanted actions (where they did not). This arguably gave rise to a much more stable world — the world of the Cold War — where both sides struggled with each other for dominance, but tacitly agreed on some of the rules of the game, and didn’t try to push each other too far. The Cold War was organized around deterrence, and deterrence mostly rested on Schelling’s ideas about credible threats. …

The U.S. stationed a small garrison in Berlin, which was embedded deep in East German territory, and indefensible against any serious attack. As Schelling described it, these soldiers’ job was not to defend the city but to die if it were attacked. This would then trigger a large scale U.S. response, since no U.S. president could tolerate the USSR killing American soldiers and not retaliate. Hence, by the logic of credible threats, the USSR would not attack Berlin.

In the New York Times, William Grimes writes that

Schelling analyzed superpower negotiations in the way that he analyzed the conflicts between, say, a blackmailer and his client, a parent and a child, or management and labor. In each case, he wrote, “there is a mutual dependence as well as opposition,” with each side seeking out tests of strength at less than crisis levels. …

one side in a negotiation can strengthen its position by narrowing its options … He also argued that uncertain retaliation is more credible and more efficient than certain retaliation. …

“The Strategy of Conflict” introduced the concept of the focal point, often called the Schelling point, to describe a solution that people reach without benefit of communicating, relying instead on “each person’s expectation of what the other expects him to expect to be expected to do.” …

Professor Schelling moved on to other social questions that seemed to be fertile ground for game theory, notably the dynamics behind racial change in American neighborhoods.

Certain Bribe Giving Should Be Treated As Legal

In a 2011 paper, Kaushik Basu argued that “harassment bribes”—bribes that people give to officials in order to get what they are legally entitled to—should be treated as legal. The reasoning is as follows:

Under the current law [treated as illegal], … once a bribe is given, the bribe giver and the bribe taker become partners in crime. …

Under the new law [treated as illegal], when a person gives a bribe, she will try to keep evidence of the act of bribery so that immediately after the bribery she can turn informer and get the bribe taker caught. The upshot of this is not that the bribe taker will get caught but he will not take the bribe in the first place.

Thanks to JP Koning.

Benjamin Todd’s “80,000 Hours”

80,000 hours, that’s how many hours we typically spent working over a lifetime, according to Benjamin Todd and the 80,000 hours team. They have published a book/ebook on how to make the best of it.

Their advice for a dream job: Look for

work you’re good at,

work that helps others,

supportive conditions: engaging work that lets you enter a state of flow; supportive colleagues; lack of major negatives like unfair pay; and work that fits your personal life.

The book discusses strategies to build a career plan, and a career. The main text closes with this summary:

Explore to find the best options, rather than “going with your gut” or narrowing down too early. Make this your key focus until you become more confident about the best options.

Take the best opportunities to invest in your career capital to become as badass as you can be. Especially look for career capital that’s flexible when you’re uncertain.

Help others by focusing on the most pressing social problems rather than those you stumble into – those that are big in scale, neglected and solvable. To make the largest contribution to those problems, consider earning to give, research and advocacy, as well as direct work.

Keep adapting your plan to find the best personal fit. Rather than expect to discover your “passion” right away, think like a scientist testing a hypothesis.

And work with a community.

In an appendix, the authors advise (potential) undergraduates to

aim for the most fundamental, quantitative option you can do i.e. one of these in the following order: mathematics, economics, computer science, physics, engineering, political science / chemistry / biology,

or otherwise,

focus on developing communication skills in philosophy, history or English.

The best choice is a combination. There is high demand for people who can understand quantitative topics and communicate clearly.

Appendix 8 contains useful career review summaries with “facts on fit” and “next steps” (see also this link for updates). For example, the authors advise that

[a]n economics PhD is one of the most attractive graduate programs: if you get through, you have a high chance of landing a good research job in academia or policy – promising areas for social impact – and you have backup options in the corporate sector since the skills you learn are in demand (unlike many PhD programs). You should especially consider an economics PhD if you want to go into research roles, are good at math (i.e. quantitative GRE score above 165) and have a proven interest in economics research.

But they warn that an Economics PhD takes a long time and

[d]oing highly open‐ended research provides little feedback which can be demotivating.

A final appendix discusses areas where people who want to help others possibly can have a large impact. As very promising areas, the authors identify

  • Biosecurity,
  • Climate change (extreme risks),
  • Factory farming,
  • Global priorities research,
  • Health in poor countries,
  • Land use reform,
  • Nuclear security,
  • Risks posed by artificial intelligence,
  • Smoking in the developing world, as well as,
  • Promoting effective altruism (the movement related to the book).

Ayn Rand in the White House

In the Washington Post, James Hohmann reports that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his candidate for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, share an affection for Ayn Rand’s “objectivist” philosophy. Trump

identifies with Howard Roark, the main character in [Rand’s] “The Fountainhead”

while Tillerson prefers “Atlas Shrugged” which I reviewed here. Other prospective members of the new administration also hold objectivist views while Stephen Bannon rejects “unenlightened capitalism” a la Ayn Rand.

Immigration Tax

In the NZZ, George Sheldon questions the efficiency and usefulness of taxes levied on immigrants. He argues that firms rather than immigrants would likely end up paying and that a tax levied at the firm level would thus be more efficient. Moreover, he points out that an immigration tax might reduce incentives to emigrate.

Economics in Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State”

On his blog, Tyler Cowen summarizes the economics in Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State.”

Herzl favored selling European homes and businesses of departing Jews and buying land in Argentina or Palestine, at a profit, through a land acquisition company incorporated in London. Poor Jews from Romania and Russia would supply cheap labor and be rewarded by their own houses eventually. Herzl favored short working weeks, a democratic monarchy or the aristocratic republic of Renaissance Venice.

How Problematic Is a Large Central Bank Balance Sheet?

On his blog, John Cochrane reports about a Hoover panel including him, Charles Plosser, and John Taylor.

Cochrane focuses on the liability side. He favors a large quantity of (possibly interest bearing) reserves for financial stability reasons. Plosser focuses on the asset side and is worried about credit allocation by the Fed, for political economy reasons. Taylor favors a small balance sheet. Cochrane also talks about reserves for everyone, but issued by the Treasury.

Tax Evasion in a (the) New World

In the FT, Vanessa Houlder reports about the tax evasion business. The new regulatory environment has led to portfolio adjustments and new types of behavior, and it exposes vast differences in enforcement across countries:

  • Diamonds in vaults rather than financial assets.
  • Trusts in South Dakota rather than anonymous bank accounts.
  • Moving to a different country rather than just shifting assets.
  • FATCA versus the Common Reporting Standard.

The article also links to an article by Kara Scannell and Vanessa Houlder earlier in the year entitled “US tax havens: The new Switzerland.” That article includes the following quotes:

I think the US is already the world’s largest offshore centre. It has done a real good job disabling competition from Swiss banks.

In a world where it’s very hard to hide ownership or hide assets sometimes the easiest place [is one] no one would normally think of, which is the US.

Seignorage and Cantillon Effects in India

On Alt-M, Larry White discusses three aspects of the Indian “demonetization” experiment.

The transition from old notes blocks “honest” currency transactions, reduces income, and harms the poor who don’t have access to alternative means of payment. Because not all old notes will be redeemed, the transition into new notes will generate seignorage revenue for the government on the order of USD 40 billion, according to White’s estimates. Not all groups or industries get access to the new notes at the same time; this changes the terms of trade (Cantillon effects).

“Wer hat Angst vor Blockchain? (Who’s Afraid of the Blockchain?),” NZZ, 2016

NZZ, November 29, 2016. HTML, PDF. Longer version published on Ökonomenstimme, December 14, 2016. HTML.

Central banks are increasingly interested in employing blockchain technologies, and they should be.

  • The blockchain threatens the intermediation business.
  • Central banks encounter the blockchain in the form of new krypto currencies, and as the technology underlying new clearing and settlement systems.
  • Krypto currencies bear the risk of “dollarization,” but in the major currency areas this risk is still small.
  • New clearing and settlement systems benefit from central bank participation. But central banks benefit as well; those rejecting the new technology risk undermining the attractiveness of the home currency.