Evolution explains why women like shopping

WOMEN really are better than men at shopping. And they really do prefer pink. And, surprisingly, it is possible that these facts are connected. The first conclusion was drawn by Joshua New of Yale University and his colleagues. The second was drawn by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University in England. The connecting theme is that in the division of labour that forms the primordial bargain of human hunter-gatherer societies, it is the men who do the hunting and the women who do the gathering.

Blackberry-picking aside, urban humanity does little gathering from the wild these days, so Dr New decided to look at what seemed to him to be the nearest equivalent—shopping at a farmers' market. There is a fair amount of evidence that men are better than women at solving certain sorts of spatial problems, such as remembering the locations of topographical landmarks. Many researchers suggest such skills may have been important in the past for man-the-hunter, who needed to be able to find his way round the landscape. If that is the case, then woman-the-gatherer might have been expected to develop complementary skills not shown by males. And that, as he writes in this week's Proceedings of the Royal Society, is what Dr New found. . . . .

When Trade Protection and Environmentalism Collide

Do they realize that higher prices mean that fewer people will buy their so important energy-efficient light bulbs?

The European Commission has decided to retain import tariffs on Chinese-made energy-efficient light bulbs for up to another 12 months.

The decision was made even though only one of Europe's four energy-efficient light bulb producers, Germany's Osram, had called for more time to adjust.

The tariffs, introduced to stop cheap Chinese imports entering Europe, can add up to 66% to the price of bulbs. . . . .

I will be on Glenn Beck's Radio Program Today

I will be on at 10:35 AM EDT. Talking about guns, crime and New Orleans.

I will be on Glenn Beck CNN program Tonight

I will be appearing on Glenn Beck's program on CNN tonight. The topic will be concealed handgun laws. His program starts at 7 PM EDT.

New Op-ed: More Guns, Not Less, Would Prevent Shooting Massacres

My newest op-ed is up on Fox News:

With school starting, the April 16 attack at Virginia Tech that left 32 dead is still on many people’s minds. Some are looking for guarantees that such an attack won’t happen again.

But Virginia Tech’s just released report on how to stop future tragedies was pretty disappointing, and this coming week’s Virginia Governor’s task force report isn’t likely to be any better. The university proposes more counseling for mentally troubled students, internet based billboards to alert students of emergencies, putting both the police and fire departments into the same building to allow better coordination, more surveillance cameras, and locks that make it easier for students to get out of buildings. . . . .

Is it a crime (or at least wrong) to sell lock-picks?: iPhone unlocked

No one ever doubted that the iPhone would be unlocked. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to crack the armor that heretofore has kept iPhone users from popping in a SIM card other than the iPhone-specific one that AT&T Wireless supplies with every new iPhone.

It seems that the team of someones at iPhoneSimFree.com are the first to successfully pull off this feat. The group says it has unlocked the phone, and will be releasing its software for sale starting next week.

Unlocking the iPhone dramatically widens the phone's appeal. . . . .

Unlocking the iPhone is on net bad for consumers. Those who already have an iPhone or who are going to get one are possibly better off. The question though is whether this theft will alter AT&T's investments in future capabilities for its network and service. If it does, the consumers will not have quality of service that they would have had and that will work to reduce the iPhone's appeal. One presumes that since Apple wants to maximize iPhone's attractiveness relative to its costs, this cheating will move them away from the right mix of quality. The bigger problem is that this type of cheating reduces the incentives to invent and invest in devices such as iPhone to begin with.

UPDATE: This is about what I expected. This seems like pretty strong evidence that Apple for one doesn't think that it is better off by the unlocking of the iPhone.

The man informed McLaughlin that if he posted the unlock code, he could be sued for copyright infringement and for dissemination of Apple’s intellectual property. . . . .

UPDATE2: AT&T is now in the act.

Until an assessment is made of the potential of legal action, Uniquephones is unable to release the unlocking software for sale. The company spokesperson also said that the company would also be evaluating what to eventually do with the software should they be legally denied the right to sell it. A substantial delay caused by any legal action would render the unlocking software a less valuable commodity as well as creating unforeseen security issues for the company.

Rational Monkeys

It appears that even monkeys understand the notion of deterrence. At the very least, they at least respond in the way economics predicts: the more costly something is the less they do of something.

They say the monkeys are more afraid of young men than women and children, and the bolder ones throw stones and chase the women from their farms.

Nachu's women have tried wearing their husbands' clothes in an attempt to trick the monkeys into thinking they are men - but this has failed, they say.

"When we come to chase the monkeys away, we are dressed in trousers and hats, so that we look like men," resident Lucy Njeri told the BBC News website

"But the monkeys can tell the difference and they don't run away from us and point at our breasts. They just ignore us and continue to steal the crops."

Minnesota State Fair Next Tuesday

I will be at the Minnesota state fair signing copies of Freedomnomics next Tuesday afternoon. Jason Lewis, who does the early evening afternoon talk show on KTLK FM, is being quite nice and having me out for his entire show while he broadcasts from the fair grounds. I have done this before with Jason, and it should be a lot of fun.

Women voting: Second of two part interview about Freedomnomics

The second part of the interview with Fred Lucas at CNSnews.com is available here.

First of two part interview about Freedomnomics (CNSnews)

The first part of the interview with Fred Lucas at CNSnews.com is available here.

Video of part of talk at the Cato Institute

A video of part of my recent talk at the Cato Institute can be found here.

Another Endorsement for Freedomnomics

My Number One (but not the only) book for the year is "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't..." by John Lott. I'll bet there are no liberals reading this one. . . .

Another Review of Freedomnomics

“Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t,” reads the subtitle on the dust jacket.
So what? And what does that have to do with gun rights?

Like the saying goes, it’s not about guns, it’s about freedom. And Freedomnomics, by economist and author John Lott, Jr., does much to illustrate the relationship between free markets and liberty.

Sure, he builds on the groundbreaking work that established his name as a world-renowned commentator in More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns. But some of his conclusions go against what is intuitively accepted as common knowledge.

For instance, many believe legalized abortion has reduced violent crime by removing the most unwanted and therefore potentially crime-prone from the population. Lott has the numbers to show an increase in “the murder rate, on average, by about 7 percent.”

Likewise, affirmative action programs for police forces have the effect of lowering their effectiveness by lowering standards. “Ironically,” Lott writes, the people this hurts the most are those who live in “places already plagued by terrible crime.”

This is controversial stuff to some, hardly politically correct. But Lott proceeds unfazed, taking on capital punishment and demonstrating “the death penalty helps deter violent crime and save lives,” and when “there were no executions … between 1968 and 1976 … murder rates skyrocketed.” . . .

New Op-ed: Does Government Weather Forecasting Endanger Lives?

. . . . With all the blame still going around about Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, one fact has missed getting much attention: private weather forecasting companies predicted the threat to New Orleans well before the National Weather Service. In fact, AccuWeather issued a forecast that the hurricane would hit New Orleans 12 hours earlier than the government service.

This is hardly something new. Private companies with a lot at stake would often rather pay for private forecasts than rely on the “free” forecasts from the government. Hugh Connett, the president of Bridgeline, a gas pipeline company in Louisiana, claims that the government’s hurricane forecasts are too imprecise. He says that private companies such as AccuWeather do it better, because they give more accurate predictions and provide hour-by-hour forecasts of a storm’s path. . . .

CSPAN 2 Showing Talk on Freedomnomics

CSPAN 2 Booknotes TV will show a presentation on my book on Saturday, August 18th at 7 PM EDT.

Extensive interview with Bill Steigerwald at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Reacting to the way the free market was misrepresented and disrespected in the best-seller "Freakonomics" -- as a place where trickery, deceit and predatory behavior rules -- economist John Lott has given us "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't." Lott, a prolific op-ed writer, is perhaps best known for his books "The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong" and "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws." He was at his office near Washington, D.C., when I talked to him Thursday, Aug. 16. . . . .

Another Review of Freedomnomics

An Australian weighs in on Freedomnomics with a lengthy, thoughtful review. I particularly appreciated his conclusion:

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR ONE BOOK TO EXPLAIN FREE MARKET ECONOMICS TO YOU, THIS IS IT!

Regulating Prescription Drug Prices Will Cost Lives

Democratic contenders for the 2008 presidential election want to use the federal government to lower the cost of prescription drugs, but while the move may be well-intentioned it could end up costing lives, an economist argued during an event in Washington, D.C.

"All Democratic presidential candidates agree on pharmaceutical price controls, which means people will die," John R. Lott, Jr., a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, told a gathering Tuesday at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Leading Democratic contenders rarely if ever use the words "price controls," which are prominent in socialized European economies and Canada, Lott observed. . . . .

Census Bureau Asks that ICE stops rounding up Illegal Aliens

Some simple economics here. If the Census Bureau is correct that the current round ups of illegal aliens is causing illegals to be fearful, eliminating these round ups would presumably increase the number of illegal aliens.

WASHINGTON — The Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the 2010 census so the government can better count illegal immigrants.

Raids during the population count would make an already distrustful group even less likely to cooperate with government workers who are supposed to include them, the Census Bureau's second-ranking official said in an Associated Press interview.

Deputy Director Preston Jay Waite said immigration enforcement officials did not conduct raids for several months before and after the 2000 census. But today's political climate is even more volatile on the issue of illegal immigration.

Enforcement agents "have a job to do," Waite said. "They may not be able to give us as much of a break" in 2010.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman declined to say whether immigration officials would halt raids. "If we were, we wouldn't talk about it," Pat Reilly said.

"For us to suspend that enforcement would probably take a lot more than one meeting," Reilly said. "We would have to discuss this at the highest levels of both agencies." . . . .

Talk at the Cato Institute available here

A podcast from what I talked about at Cato this week on my book Freedomnomics is available here

Reputations matter, even for China

In my talk at the Cato Institute today the claim that reputations don't seem to be important in disciplining China was very briefly raised. Anyway, talk about timing, here was a story that I just happened upon:

Whittle Shortline Railroad , a company in Louisiana, Mo., that makes wooden trains and trucks, posted a banner on its Web site several weeks ago: “100 percent kid-safe,” it read, “with lead-free paints.” Mike Whitworth, the company’s owner, said the recent recalls of Chinese-made toys found to contain lead in their paint has been good for his business. Very good. . . . .

Events for August 14th

At 10 AM I will be on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show to talk about gun control.

At noon, I will be at the Cato Institute in Washington DC to give a talk on Freedomnomics.

Video from C-SPAN performance can be seen here

This weekend C-SPAN's BookTV aired a great presentation at the Heritage Foundation on my new book Freedomnomics. You can view the film here.

The liberal imbalance in Academia

Seventy-six percent of the education industry's total federal contributions for '08 has gone to Democrats, on par with the industry's partisanship in the last two election cycles. Perhaps more surprising than the industry’s party split is its sheer size: Education was the eighth-largest industry in terms of all federal campaign contributions in 2004 and the 13th largest in 2006, meaning that in the last two election cycles, college employees contributed more to politicians than the oil and gas industry, which ranked 16th in both cycles. For 2008, CRP ranks the education industry as No. 14, still ahead of big-givers such as oil and gas, general contractors, the computer and Internet industry, electric utilities and the pharmaceutical industry.

My new book, Freedomnomics, tries to explain why academia is as heavily liberal as it is and, more importantly, how the tenure process works to keep it that way.

Thanks to Butch Browning for sending me the link to this study.

One of the problems with survey data

Obese people underestimate the amount of sugar they eat, making studies into the condition based on self-reporting very unreliable, UK researchers say. . . . . In a study of hundreds of volunteers, researchers compared what people said they ate with data from urine tests.

The problem with this is that it produces a systematic bias in the survey data. The high end of the survey results are biased downward. The problem is probably even worse than might be claimed here if those being studied in this case understood why their urine samples were being taken. The reason is that the people may have been relatively more accurate in their answers if they thought that they were being checked for accuracy. As the article points out, claims that sugar intake are unrelated to health problems or obesity could simply be due to this bias in the data.

New Op-ed: On Giving Terrorists the Best Advice

Here is a new piece that I have at Fox News:

Should a website post the best ideas for successful terrorist plots? Should we even discuss publicly how to stop terrorist attacks? This week, New York Times blogger Steven Levitt publicly posted terrorist plot suggestions. He claims that “by getting these ideas out in the open, it gives terror fighters a chance to consider and plan for these scenarios before they occur.”

Levitt clearly assumes that terrorists have already figured out the best ideas, but that our side has not. If anything, the reverse is probably true. There are vastly more Americans than terrorists possessing detailed information on American infrastructure, traffic flows, policing practices, etc. So terrorists could easily learn something. To make matters worse, there are also many home-grown mental basket cases who could get ideas on how to obtain worldwide attention. . . . .

Does this Environmental Regulation Endanger Safety?

Changing speed limits along a stretch road raises the probability of accidents. The effect might be small, but people slowing down has some risk. In the past there was some academic research showing that accident rates depend on differential speeds, and these changes in speeds would contribute to that problem. Anyway, it would be interesting to measure how big of an impact this might have.

The speed limit for truckers will drop from 70-to-55 miles per hour. The new speed limit for everyone else will be 65 miles per hour.

The reductions will affect more than 22 miles on I-81 and 12-and-a-half miles on I-26, from the Tennessee-Virginia border to the Sullivan-Washington county line.

Local officials requested the change to help bring the county into line with the Environmental Protection Agency's air quality health standard for ozone. . . .

Freedomnomics on C-SPAN this Weekend

This Sunday, August 12, at 11:00 AM EDT; Sunday, August 12, at midnight EDT; and Saturday, August 18, at 7:00 PM EDT C-SPAN 2's Booknotes will have a presentation on my new book. The discussion each time will last an hour.

My appearance on CSPAN 2's Booknotes seems to have engendered some reaction:

On the positive side you can find this: "I almost forgot to mention that John will discuss his terrific book, Freedomnomics, on C-SPAN at 11:00 am EDT. The interview repeats at midnight and the booktv site has the full schedule for subsequent replays.

Go see it, the book is wonderfully ingenious, clearly written, and the balance of evidence and analysis makes John one of the formidable economists in the public policy arena."

On the negative side you can find this: "John Lott is scary. He's on CSPAN2 right now, giving talk on his book. What's scary about the guy is that he has no concept of the idea that human beings might be less than rational in the way they go about making life decisions. He really thinks everybody is hyper-rational. And, he's the chief economist for the US Sentencing Committee." I did put in a reply to his post on his website. I should also mention that I am no longer chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission.

The Abortion Debate Gets Heated

I guess that it would have been helpful if Ms. Marjorie Signer had actually explained why my research showing that the liberalization of abortion rules increased crime contained "many unfounded, fallacious, racist, and confused assumptions."

"Lott offers so many unfounded, fallacious, racist, and confused assumptions that his overall opinions are useless," said Marjorie Signer, spokeswoman for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights, in a statement sent to Cybercast News Service.

"To speculate that abortion is responsible for various and sundry social trends is irresponsible and misses critical points," she said.

"Abortion has always been an option that women at all socioeconomic levels have considered, and many abortions are performed for medical reasons. Trying to correlate abortion with social trends smacks of pseudo-science and shows little understanding of women's lives and decisions," Signer added. . . . .

John Donohue also refused to comment on the actual research, but was reduced to saying this: "I am a social scientist, however, so Lott's behavior has in my mind, put him outside the bounds of scientific discourse." That will certainly settle the debate, though I can understand why Donohue is reluctant to actually discuss the facts on this issue. Since John Whitley co-authored this paper with me, does Donohue's statement tar Whitley also?

Donohue also doesn't comment on recent issues regarding his co-author Levitt.

Draft nonsense

WASHINGTON — Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday.

"I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."

"And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," Lute added . . . .

If you are having troubles getting enough people in the military, there is a simple solution: increase pay. The notion that you can save money by reinstituting the draft is simply an illusion. True the government doesn't have to spend more, but it is a big tax on many of those who would have been able to earn a lot of money outside of the military. When you include the value of that foregone output, the cost of the draft is much higher than simply paying people more to join. It is pretty obvious that this guy hasn't had even basic economics.

Another Review of Freedomnomics

In sum, Freedomnomics is just the sort of product one would expect from an author whose book begins with the assertion, "The free market works," and whose economic analysis starts with these words, "If something becomes more costly, people will do less of it." Such frankness would have resonated with the late Merryle Rukeyser, a blunt talker who once repeated these no-nonsense definitions on his son's popular financial program: "A liberal is someone who's liberal with other people's money, and a reactionary -- that's someone who can count."

Congressional Energy Bill Farce

The Energy Bill adopted by the Congress has many problems and provisions that will make the US poorer. For example, requiring that we use more expensive, less efficient sources of energy. This discussion in the NY Times caught my attention:

The utilities provision, or the so-called renewable electricity standard amendment, was among the most contested measures in the energy bill. Sponsored by Representative Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, and several others, it will force utilities to make a significant share of their electricity from solar, wind, geothermal, water and other nonfossil fuel sources, although they can meet part of the requirement through conservation measures.

The standard applies only to investor-owned utilities and exempts rural electric cooperatives, municipal utilities, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the state of Hawaii from the mandate. . . . .

If cutting back on carbon dioxide is so important, why do these rules only apply to "investor-owned utilities"? Surely municipal utilities should also count? What about Hawaii? Carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere every place. Why does the administration only threaten to veto based upon the lack of oil production in the bill?

Another Review of Freedomnomics

This cliché of government intervention might not be the effective long-term solution for the economy that many trust it to be. John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, author of the newly-published book Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t, believes that government intervention into a free market can adversely affect the economy. Lott further maintains that many so-called “market failures” actually become profit opportunities for those people who work to solve the problems.

Dr. Lott was at the Heritage Foundation last Wednesday to discuss his book and explain his thesis supporting a free economy despite its shortcomings. Lott drew upon multiple examples from his book to prove that the free market works most effectively with as little government intervention as possible, and is actually able to solve its own market failures over time, contrary to popular opinion. Also, Lott expounded upon the long-term domino effects that touch society when the government exercises sufficient power. . . . .

The penalties faced by white collar criminals

This article only mentions the prison term faced by Fingerhut. But of course he will have to provide full restitution and fines. He is retired so he doesn't have to look for a job again because if he did (as I have pointed out in Freedomnomics), he would have an almost impossible task. There is also a high probability that his wife will divorce him and take most of his assets.

In his day, Bert Fingerhut was a Wall Street player. A top-ranked securities analyst for eight straight years, making calls that moved markets, Mr. Fingerhut rose to director of research at Oppenheimer & Co. in 1980. Three years later, he retired to Aspen, Colo. He was 40 years old.

In the Rockies, Mr. Fingerhut became as passionate about conservation as he once was about stocks. He joined the boards of a string of environmental organizations. So devoted was he to the wilderness that he got married in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park.

But he couldn't get Wall Street out of his system. In the 1990s he picked up a copy of Peter Lynch's "Beating the Street," in which the former star manager of the Fidelity Magellan Fund wrote of a "can't-lose proposition (almost)" called bank-conversion investing.

When mutual, depositor-owned banks convert to public companies, Mr. Lynch noted, they must let depositors buy stock at the initial-public-offering price. The new shares are often priced at a discount. So "the next time you pass a mutual savings bank or an S&L that's still cooperatively owned," Mr. Lynch suggested, "think about stopping in and establishing an account."

Mr. Fingerhut took the advice to heart, and then some. Starting in 1995, he opened accounts at more than 400 banks across the country, from Wellsburg, W.Va., to Covina, Calif. He eventually got in on public offerings at many of them, and flipped their shares for quick profits. Over a decade, he made $11 million from the strategy.

There was one problem: The way he did it, he was breaking the law.

In May, Mr. Fingerhut pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud banks and their depositors by secretly using other people as fronts to open accounts for him, thus increasing the number of IPO shares he could buy. He forfeited all the money he earned from the strategy. On Friday, a federal judge in Newark, N.J., sentenced the onetime star stock analyst to two years in prison.
. . . .

Thanks to Jack Langer for sending this article to me.

Predictions on surveillance cameras

I wonder whether there will be a difference in the change in crime rates between the summer and winter with these cameras. Surely there are fewer crimes that take place in the winter, but my guess is that the drop will be smaller then because in Chicago (one of the cities mentioned in the story) most people where some hood or face mask, thus negating the benefit of the camera.

Most people in the United States have no reservations regarding the use of video cameras in public places as a way to improve safety, according to a poll by TNS released by the Washington Post and ABC News. 71 per cent of respondents support having public surveillance cameras, while 25 per cent do not. . . . .

Congressional Energy Bill Problems

The Energy Bill adopted by the Congress has many problems and provisions that will make the US poorer. For example, requiring that we use more expensive, less efficient sources of energy. This discussion in the NY Times caught my attention:

The utilities provision, or the so-called renewable electricity standard amendment, was among the most contested measures in the energy bill. Sponsored by Representative Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, and several others, it will force utilities to make a significant share of their electricity from solar, wind, geothermal, water and other nonfossil fuel sources, although they can meet part of the requirement through conservation measures.

The standard applies only to investor-owned utilities and exempts rural electric cooperatives, municipal utilities, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the state of Hawaii from the mandate. . . . .

If cutting back on carbon dioxide is so important, why do these rules only apply to "investor-owned utilities"? Surely municipal utilities should also count? What about Hawaii? Carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere every place. Why does the administration only threaten to veto based upon the lack of oil production in the bill?

Predictions on surveillance cameras

I wonder whether there will be a difference in the change in crime rates between the summer and winter with these cameras. Surely there are fewer crimes that take place in the winter, but my guess is that the drop will be smaller then because in Chicago (one of the cities mentioned in the story) most people where some hood or face mask, thus negating the benefit of the camera.

Most people in the United States have no reservations regarding the use of video cameras in public places as a way to improve safety, according to a poll by TNS released by the Washington Post and ABC News. 71 per cent of respondents support having public surveillance cameras, while 25 per cent do not. . . . .

Another Review of Freedomnomics

Phil Miller over at Market Power has a review of Freedomnomics:

John Lott has given us a book that gives an important perspective on the workings and intricacies of markets and what happens when private citizens are economically free.

John Palmer has more thoughts here and Stephen Karlson has his comments here.

Heritage Talk Available Here

The talk that I gave at the Heritage Foundation can be found here. Hopefully it provides a quick understanding of economics is and how powerful of a tool it is. For those with Windows and Windows Media Player you can watch the presentation here.