Matt Nolan

Weak Warehouse result, disappointing Christmas retail?

/3 Comments/in /by

That is what is implied by this article in the Herald.

The Warehouse is a huge retailer in New Zealand, and with their Christmas retail sales disappointing this is bound to cause some concern.  However, this does not necessarily imply that the New Zealand retail sector struggled during Christmas.

Why?  Well, many people believe (rightly or wrongly) that the Warehouse generally sells a set of “inferior goods“.  Given this perception, if household experience an increase in their expected lifetime income they may well switch from buying things from the Warehouse and buy things from other places instead.

Even so, there are other indicators that suggest that December was weak.  Everyone could see the strong sales that were occurring before Christmas Day, and in many places there was the feeling that the crowds were a touch on the low side.  We will have a better idea on the 15th, when Stats NZ releases the Electronic Card data for December.

Matt Nolan

Karl du Fresne’s review of Avatar

/9 Comments/in /by

Is spot on (ht Offsetting Behaviour).  I can’t remember the last time I got as genuinely bored in a movie as I did with Avatar.  The scenery and graphics were beautiful, but the acting and story were both atrocious.

I tried to enjoy it, hell I even did enjoy it for the first 30 mins.  But over time the lack of story combined with the fact that how “beautiful the animation is” was being rammed repeated and unnecessarily down my throat made me both bored and a little bit irritated.

However, to be fair almost no-one seems to agree with this negative view.  IMDB is currently giving it 8.7/10.  The Dim Post also reviews.

Matt Nolan

Pop lyrics and cognitive biases

/15 Comments/in /by

There is an excellent post from Stumbling and Mumbling on this issue, it can be found here.  I love the conclusion:

Now, I don’t want to claim that all of this year’s most popular songs contain howling irrationalities. The mighty Lady Gaga passes muster. But could it be that such irrationalities – as distinct from plain nonsense – are more common now than years ago? If so, isn’t this yet more evidence of the decline of civilization? And what hope is there of people becoming properly educated if they are exposed to such cognitive errors? Will no-one think of the children?

In the comments someone suggests that the lyrics of the Beatles were more rational, and that the rationality of pop singers is declining over time.  However, I’m not convinced that is the case.

For example, in the the “The End” Paul states (and John heartily agreed with) that “the love you take is equal to the love you make”.  Now this is true on average, but I doubt there is any behavioural rule that ensures this occurs for every person.  Such a rule could lead to people “over-investing” in love, in the belief that any they give will be returned to them.

Matt Nolan

Evolving blog focus

/16 Comments/in , /by

I was recently accused (by co-author Goonix) of becoming more libertarian over the past 2 1/2 years.  Now I don’t agree, I think I am where I was in July 2007.  However, it is evident that the particular focus of the blog has evolved since then.

Read more

Matt Nolan

Filler: The Sweeney posts

/in , /by

I am still feeling tired from Christmas, but my pre-set posts from before the break are now finished.

I did watch Sweeney Todd last night (the movie) and so will leave you with the two posts I did about the movie and welfare policies here and here.  Be warned, there are spoilers.

Matt Nolan

Incentive problems in econ?

/6 Comments/in , /by

So there has been discussion on incentive problems in economics here before (here, here, and here).  However, now there seems to be a little bit of hard empirical evidence indicating that there is a problem.

It seems that 51% of graduate students at the top 15 US universities think that knowledge of the actual economy was “unimportant” for doing a degree in economics.  These weren’t people saying “a little important” or “I’m not sure”, these are just the ones saying “it does not matter at all”.

Now, if the best graduate students do not believe that the actual economy matters for economics that suggests to me that there is a major incentive problem – the same sort of one that Rauparaha tried to convince me about so long ago