http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/journalview.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4 Miscellaneous potpourri of thoughts and ideas related to being an economist in the modern world. Interact http://interactole.org Suppose you are interested in the level of a state variable (e.g. a disease is present or absent or of a pre-specified level of severity, a failure is recorded or not, etc.) and have a potentially useful but imperfect diagnostic test method, (e.g. a blood test result for this disease, or a quality control check for a manufacturing failure, is either definitely positive or not) . How do you interpret the result of the diagnostic test for the level of the state variable when the some or all of the information underlying the inference is ambiguous (imprecise)? The first video clip basically walks through how to use and interact with the graphical reasoning aid for posterior inferences that Phil and I have developed for the Mathematica Demonstration project. To actually use the player file yourself you need this mathematica notebook (it has a .nbp extension) and the freely downloadable Mathematica Player . There are 3 steps to getting going here: Go to Wolfram (makers of Mathematica) and download the free Mathematica Player . You'll need to install the player, but usually your operating sytem will guide you through this. Download the .nbp file from this page or go to for the Mathematica Demonstration project and download the file on ambiguity we have published there any other interesting demonstration. Look for an orange tab at the top left that says "download live version"Open it from the Player and use the sliders to explore. Of course the real trick here is to understand what it is you are doing - ie concepts concepts concepts! The additional information in this post just below the video clips contains a simple exposition of the logic of the interface. For a readable introduction to ideas of ambiguity have a look at a paper Phil Gunby and I have written. It's a bit overstated but it does get across the point: namely it's not only being able to calculate inverse probabilities from precise numbers expressing sensitivities, specificities, and base rates, but also to explore how much ambiguity in any one or more of those inputs creates ambiguity in the final output (the inverse probability you are interested in). The second video clip is a quickie tutorial style webcast demonstrating a graphic pencil and paper approach to inverse probability reasoning - ie how you can use graphical methods and robustness analysis for posteriro inferences when the basic inputs into that posteriro analysis are not precise. First video clip: an introduction to the basic dynamic interface in the Mathematica Player used for exploring the effects of ambiguities on inferences: Second video clip: back of the envelope type diagrams for examining ambiguity in inverse inference. Let S be the logical truth value (1 or 0) of a proposition about the state variable (e.g. a disease is present or absent or a pre-specified level of severity, a failure is recorded or not, etc.), and let D be the logical truth value of a proposition about the outcome an imperfect diagnostic test for the state (e.g. the test result for this disease or failure is either definitely positive or not). Then our question is, in the language of statistics: how do (and should) people conceptualize and calculate a posterior inference about S after having observed some D when some or all of the underlying information about D, about S, and about the relationship between D and S is ambiguous (imprecise)? From a statistical perspective there are 3 precise numerical inputs that feed into a coherent posterior inferences about binary valued S after having observed the result of the binary valued diagnostic signal D: a sensitivity number, a specificity number, and a base rate number. The first two numbers characterize uncertainty about the results of the diagnostic D under two different information conditions about the state S. The sensitivity number expresses uncertainty about whether the diagnostic test D will be positive, i.e. D=1, assuming that S=1 is true. The specificity number expresses an uncertainty about whether the diagnostic test D for S=1 will be negative, i.e. Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:53:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=197 http://strategicecon.com/viewfile.php/users/1/8/JohnsBlogs/BayesianInference/penpencil.mp4 I have converted the flash streaming versions of the 4 HHMI 2008 Holiday Lectures series "Making Your Mind: Molecules, Motion, and Memory," into mp4 files, about 200 mb each . EVentually these should be available on itunes..but until then....just click to download (the original flash files can be viewed on line at HHIMi Click here . Lecture 1: Mapping Memory in the Brain, by Eric R. Kandel, M.D. Lecture 2: Building Brains: The Molecular Logic of Neural Circuits, by Thomas M. Jessell, Ph.D. Lecture 3: Plan of Action: How the Spinal Cord Controls Movement, by Thomas M. Jessell, Ph.D. Lecture 4:Memories are Made of This, by Eric R. Kandel, M.D. Wed, 4 Feb 2009 03:14:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=187 Against Monopoly referred me to The Misunderstood Idea of Copyright by Karl-Erik Tallmo. As ever when i read about copyright by non economists (and some economists) I get frustrated. Todays frustration is about the idea of modularity in language (and thinking, and culture) and the inefficiency of privatizing modular public goods. Let me (start to) explain.... The first text you see after you click on Tallmo's page is: This text may not be re-published, printed or copied without the author's permission. Copyright © Karl-Erik Tallmo What does "this" refer to? We all understand that it probably means something like "the text that follows", but let's take it at its literal meaning, a self referential meaning? Karl wrote this sentence "This text may not be re-published, printed or copied without the author's permission" in an html file . But so did I. I Googled the sentence and had over 100,000 hits. Of course not all are clones of my sentence or Karl's sentence - ie I'm sure there are many "derivative works" that reshuffle the words , adding or omitting other words, to write the "same" idea but just "express" it a slightly different way. Perhaps what I wrote and what karl wrote is really a derivative work from those other sources? But any way you cut the cake this sentence has been used, written down, said, thought, recorded , thousands of times by thousands of individuals in the past and will be so used in the future. So who is "copying" who? My answer - no one is copying anyone else despite the near identity in what they assert. Whose permission does Karl have to seek, do I have to seek? Or does anyone/everyone EveryMan and EveryWoman who writes, thinks, speaks, records this sentence have to seek permission from everyone else who writes, thinks, speaks, records this sentence...in an infinte , and completely non-operational - regress? My answer - no permissions need be sought. The fact is Karl , I don't need your permission (nor do you need mine, nor does anyone else need anyone else's permission) to rewrite this sentence, to publish it in their blog or anywhere else, to print it in any form, etc.... Every letter in this sentence (every black black dot on a white piece of paper when printed or an electrical charge on a screen when being viewed or modulated into a sound wave when being spoken) is in the public domain. There is no originating author whose permission needs to be sought for any of the 20 odd characters from the (an) alphabet and related grammatical symbols (including spaces) or for the 13 words in the sentence we are examining. I can find an "origin" for any and possibly every such sentence in the sense of a person who writes speaks records etc, but I don't need to, and I probably couldn't, find one unique originator that precedes in time - or thought - every other originator and to whom any later originator owes obeiscance in the sense of needing to ask for permission....current understandings of copyright not withstanding. So there is definitely one complete sentence on Karl's page which is exempt from the permissions and ownership claim that Karl asserts. It's not "your" (private good) land Karl that other's "have to" (under some threat of violence or harm against them) keep off. What about the next phrase: "the misunderstood idea of copyright"? Hmm, lets try an ill-formed syllogism: copyright is an idea, some ideas are misunderstood, therefore copyright is misunderstood. In order to think about and discuss my thinking about the truth or falsity of this claim with others, ie the idea or notion of copyright being misunderstood , this assertion - copyright is an idea - , that syllogism (incorrect as it may be), the question - is copyright misunderstood? , the suggestion - that copyright is perhaps a misunderstood idea,..... I churn the words and semi-associated concepts out, rearrange them, permute them, organise them into logical forms , sometimes in my head, sometimes on a piece of paper, sometimes on my computer. The fact that you (and thousands of others) have taken these fi Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:04:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=175 phil check out this short video clip i put together on what bothers me about using the transaction prices you and ann have obtained: what can we learn from these transaction prices about relative valuations ? Well not a lot. The reason is becasue (1) it's marginal not average valuations that transaction prices reveal and (2) theory could be very indeterminate here on what to expect given you have a wealth maximizer trading with a govt agency like DOC. My general equilib version of the theory has DOC (and LINZ) totally unconcerned with development potential of land..but that very fact leaves open a huge potential for (a) efficnet exchnages (efficient between these two trading parties, not efficien in the sense of chanig the objectives of the govt bargaining agent) and an extremely wide variation in the range of avergae rates of exchange betweeen mountain top graing land and lakeside development land - which is precisley what you observe. This isn't to say some other bargaining theory won't narrow down the range of permissible (in the theory) exchanges, but it does create room for explaining the trades that do occur in terms fo a simple GE model via variation in endowment point relative to aggregate acres of the tow types of land. Anyhow check it out apologies for the rapid fire commentary but i was in a rush to get away.... Mon, 6 Oct 2008 21:31:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=173 Last week's In our Time Radio 4 BBC weekly program on the Translation Movement should be of interest to every economic historian, and especially those interested in the role of intellectual monopoly (property) in the growth of knowledge. That is, there was none - ie no intellectual property - and two breathtaking renaissances with out it, one Arabic, the other European. According to Melvyn Bragg and his 3 commentators the 9th century translation of Greek texts on health, mathematics, philosophy, religion, and engineering into Arabic was THE critical factor in the flowering of science and culture in the Islam world for the next several centuries , and indirectly (through the much later translation of Arabic texts into Latin) was hugely influential in the growth of the European Renaissance. Of course we're also talking "derivative works" here, since "translation" often involved detailed commentary, elaboration and interpretation, and what the author regarded as correction, as well as modification. Do we have a "natural experiment" here? Two great eras of flourishing knowledge in science, philosophy, arts, trade commerce ... ie culture ...built on, amongst other things, absence of tightly enforced national or international exclusive rights in knowledge products ? . As I listened to this fascinating discussion it made me think of two important costs in using and communicating knowledge, one that modifies the receiving units, the other than modifies the originating content. The first , and the largest, is the language barrier, language and literacy...overcome by education. But education in language and literacy is expensive, especially so for people already educated in one language, here Arabic, needing to learn another language, Greek, to "learn" (more) at all. Much easier (cheaper) to transalte the original source material...which of coure involves copying. But transalating was expensive - it is a manual, labour and intellect intensive task, with wages (in current dollars) of $24k PER MONHTH (if the commentators on the program are to be believed). So with costs of training the receivers (human beings) really high and the costs of copying and translating (recoding) really high, but NO IP costs for original copies, these societies still manage to create two Renaissances. Now in our era, costs of modifying receivers (education in specific languages) and/or costs of copying and recoding to suit those receivers is really low, do we have a Renaissance? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. One thing for sure from this history lesson - when original copy costs are low even if reproduction costs are high, knowledge can flourish and be expanded on, changed, improved, developed, diseminated in the absence of intellectual porperty rights. And the counter factual question is most interesting: what would have happened had a tightly enforced national and international system of copyright protection system existed "protecting" greek authors from "pirate" activities in the 9th century, and in later centuries Arabic authors from Latin transaltors? I guess it is a sign of our times that we regard translators who don't pay as "pirates" and prosecute them as criminals , whereas during these two Renaissance eras transaltors who didn't pay were regarded as cultural heroes (and well paid for it) . Sun, 5 Oct 2008 20:43:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=172 Lynne and I recently spent a week relaxing at Malolo Island resort in Fiji. It was terrific - great people, stunning natural beauty, and just slow and easy.."fiji time". Here's a collage of pictures. cheers john Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:31:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=171 I love reading, making margin notes, and keeping a wring binder of more extensive notes for the books I read. Unfortunately I read a lot of books - and have a lot of handwritten ring binder notes that re more or less unusuable becasue of the time costs for me of entering the text for the relevant notes. So recently I purchased MacSpeech Dictate Mac Speech's home page (I could have chosen Dragon Naturally and used it through Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (Intel on my Mac - but I chose to go with a native-to-the mac programme that has licensed the Dragon NAturally speech recognition technology). So attached here is a screen capture of how effective this note taking is. You'll see its not perfect by any means - but a large part of the problem is the lack of clarity in my speech. When I enunciate clearly - instead of slurring words and speaking too quickly the programme does a great job. Moreoever, its actually pretty easy to correct mistakes - either through voice commands or through the usual mouse select cut past retype type commands - or as you'll see in the attached video a combination of the two. The book I am reading here is Yoram Barzel's An economic theory of the state around page 36 and 37. Here's the book o Amazon: A Theory of the State: Economic Rights, Legal Rights, and the Scope of the State (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)It's slow going as I read and think about what Barzel is saying.....but you can see how it is possible to think off the top of your head as you read, pause to collect your ideas, rephrase them etc using this speech recognition software. Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:38:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=170 Why are private ticket resellers ("scalpers") for the Warrior's big game on Friday being vilified by disgruntled fans, uncritical media reporters, and Warriors' management? Let's go back to demand and supply basics. Ticket reselling in an open competitive retail market situation like Trade-me is a good thing for fans, not a bad thing. Every resale of an event ticket on Trade me is to the mutual advantage of both the buyer and the seller. There is no coercion. There is no monopolistic price gouging. There are no back door dealings between mates or ostentatious corporate party packages at wildly inflated prices involved. Lets suppose there were 10,000 additional tickets made publicly available for Friday's big game, at typical Warriors game prices of $25 to $60 (half price for kids). At these relatively low prices there apparently was huge excess demand - thousands more people wanting to buy tickets than the number of seats available at Mt Smart stadium. Tickets got allocated in the first instance to whoever got through to Ticketek on the phone lines or over the internet....and then they get reallocated through a competitive trading process on Trade me. Imagine that these 10,000 tickets could be resold on Trade-me for prices of say $300 each. That's 10,000 happy kiwis. A fan who bought four tickets for himself and his family at $25 each can , after resale, watch the game with his family on the new flat screen television and Sky Sport subscription he can now afford with the extra $1100 cash he has in hand. And the fan who paid $300 for each of the four tickets gets to go to a game that he and his mates really wanted to (where "really" is measured by their willingness to shell out even more than $300 to watch this live performance rather than walk down to the local sports bar to watch the games). Everybody's happy. So who is complaining, and why? Fans who don't get tickets at the open market price on Trade me? Well, that's the way a competitive auction market works. If you can't pay the going market price in a Trade-me auction you don't get the goods - whether the goods are resold cars, resold houses, resold clothes or...resold event tickets. What about fans who paid $300 on Trade-me, got their ticket, but are bitter because they weren't fast enough off the mark (or in the right "mates rates" loop) to get the first lot of tickets at $25 each direct from Ticketek or the Warriors. Well, any buyer would like to pay a low price rather than a higher price. The problem is that there were lots and lots of would be buyers at a $25 price, far too many for the 10,000 available seats. In economics speak we call that a shortage, an excess of demand over supply, at a price of $25. Prices rise to clear the market, making demand equal to supply at the going market price. So if you are willing to pay more than $300 to take in the excitement of the big game and you got a ticket at that price consider yourself lucky - there are other people who would gladly take your place. The idea that a "real fan" would never sell a ticket for the live game for a higher price than he/she paid is rubbish. Fan's differ greatly in their personal situation or willingness to pay to see live performances by the Warriors. Consider the thousands of season ticket holders who suffered through the first half of the Warriors season. Dad and the kids can go to the game live - or resell their 4 tickets for $1000. Would you begrudge them that choice? Does it make them any less of a fan because they prefer $1000 in the hand to watching the game live? Ditto for the local league club that has been gifted say 25 tickets to the game. Of course it's great (for the select few club members) to watch the Warriors live - but 25x$250 is $6,250. That buys a lot of uniforms for the kids, ground maintenance and improvement, new locker rooms, transportation, etc. Sure it would be nice to have both ($6,250 to spend on the club AND some live tickets) but when the choice is there many sensible club managers would, for the good of the game and the glory of the Warriors, opt for the ca Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:25:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=169 Steffan, and Glenn, and Lisa Steffan here is how I do the quadratic scoring rule in mathematica. Before you look at it do have a look at Fig 2 in the paper....and Glenn please also make a correction to the equation A7 in Appendix A and to equation 2.2 page 17 - there are so many tiny superscripts and brackets in here that I don't notice the error until I tried to use it to explain t o steffan what formulae to use. here is Fig 2 - Steffan whatever formulae you use after it is parameterized correctly you should be able to p;ot something that looks like the curve in this boundary. The paramters just specify the size of the enclosing box, the position and the shape of that curve. The position and shape is specified by three parameters - the degree of curvature and the intercept along the 45 degree line and the slope at that intercept on the 45 degree line. (measured relative to the upper right hand corner not the lower left). Once you depart from the standar QSR you may have to be a little more careful about boundary conditions to keep the opportunity set all in positive orthant). Here is a little video clip showing you what I do to program this in mathematica hope it helps john Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:56:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=164 http://strategicecon.com/viewfile.php/users/49/4/BeliefElicit/steffan2.mp4 Good news. I just received the OK from Land Information NZ publications office that there is no copyright on Survey and Lands documents. So here is THE definitive history of land settlement policy in NZ written by W Jourdain, a Supreme Court Solicitor and CHief Clerk for the Department of Survey and Lands at the time. Jourdain, R.W. History of Land Legislation and Settlement in NZ , (Government Printer, Wellington 1925) in one hit (18MB) or in two parts pp1-48 pp48-end Jourdain is "dry" and but the institutional detail at the micro level about the implicit and explicit "property rights" being defined and redefined in the changing policies and legislation of the time is very good. The following two articles written in 1909 by WD Stewart, both from the Journal of Political Economy provide a very interesting perspective on questions of Land monopoly and Land tenure policies in NZ. Stewart's analysis exams how public policy - and private interests - interacted from the 1870's through to 1907 to address two questions (1) If land assets are to be a source of revenue for the State should the state sell its lands outright or lease them? (2) What is the most effective means of preventing land monopoly and the aggregation of large estates? Land Tenure and Land Monopoly in New Zealand: I William Downie Stewart The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 17, No. 2. (Feb., 1909), pp. 82-91. JSTOR link URLLand Tenure and Land Monopoly in New Zealand: II William Downie Stewart The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 17, No. 3. (Mar., 1909), pp. 144-152. JSTOR link URL Stewart has a sharp eye for the incentives created by changing contractual and legislative rules and policies , both financial and political. He notes that from the 1870's all policy makers were becoming increasing aware that large scale infrastructure investments paid for from the public purse (in combination with other economy wide demand and supply side changes ) were creating windfall gains for landholders, and that the state was losing out on a valuable source of revenue from rental income on its land. He describes the origin of and also the folly (from the state's perspective) of the infamous 999 year leases at fixed rents (4% of initial - circa 1895-land value), the misrepresentation of private values in compulsory takings proceedings/bargaining in the breakup of large estates, and the strategic manipulation of small scale "legal" preemptive freeholding rights (part parcel call options in todays terminology) that were bundled in with pastoral lease/license rights. Stewart's articles also have an uncanny prescience: he notes that at the time (late 1800's up to 1909) one fundamental objection to the principle of state ownership of land with long term renewable licenses leases and periodic rents determined by the State (for State income generating purposes) is that the growth in political power of license holders would leave the State vulnerable to continual appeals for rent reduction (with the taxpayer bearing the opportunity cost) and to attempts to use the political process to freehold licensed/leased land and bargain basement prices. Times haven't changed! Mon, 7 Jul 2008 23:37:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=159 DRM lock-in is starting to get exposed for what it is - hopefully potential buyers will realize the end game, backward induct, and reuse to buy from the outset. Yes it is inefficient in labour time and quality loss to copy your DRM protected audio and video files with readily available screen and audio capture software. But it is (may be more) inefficient to purchase DRM coded content form fly by night suppliers, here today, gone (with your digital keys) tomorrow. Of course the fly by night suppliers can be the big guys as well as the shady operators, as two recent ars technica posts reveal. Take the major league baseball suppliers as well as Microsoft service providers. Post purchase servicing of durable goods is usually something savvy consumers look for. WHen you spend $500 on a washing machine you expect to be able to use it as and when you want , including when you change homes , and under various contingencies, eg when the motor dies, or the fan belt cracks, or the outlet pipe leaks, or....There are a myriad of service technicians, specilaized in these sorts of timely appliance repairs, who can usually deal with any washing machine (or other durable appliance) made by any manufacturer - you are not even locked in to your original supplier for post sales service. Consumers know this, and care about it when they lay down their purchase price. But suppose you build up a library of 500 songs/videos at $2 a piece -that's two washing machines eh? But will you be able to do your laundry when you changes houses (computing playing devices) in the future or under various contingnencies? Will the companies that hold your product keys, that permit you to unlock your songs and use them on new computer equipment, well usually on 5 computers (why 5? beats the trinity by two, but falls short of infinity by a lot) - will these guys be around? WHy would you expect them to be? The two articles on ars technica remind us that there are important (and opportunistic) reasons why they wont be here, or that they may change their service providers, and they really don't give a shit about post purchase support (providing you with timely access keys for your locked in products. Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:30:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=84 Another Press article on Friday and a Dominion Post article are pretty revealling - and not just about anti-profiteering attitudes in the public!! Fans miss sevens tickets -The PressSevens scalpers pinged - The Dominion Post Only 8500 of 35K available tickets are sold to "the public". The remaining 26,500 of the 35K available seats are distributed to "a mix of rugby unions, stadium members, the hospitality and travel industries, sponsors and volunteers". What's the mix -how much to each component? Aren't the hospitality and travel industries (the obvious) ticket resellers? How many tickets do these resellers have - in comparison to tickets available to the public? Forget the anti-profit rhetoric of the Sevens' organisers. The logic of market segmentation is profit, pure and simple, as are the means to achieving it (preventing reseale among various segments). Do you really think the Seven's organisers and event venue owners are in there for the good of the public? Separating out the market and trying to prevent resales across those segments is bread and butter profit making strategy. There are two useful questions to ask here, one of public interest, the other private. First , how is it is that an open-to-the public online trading institutions dealing with 25% of the available tickets can be villified for profiteering while closed (to the public) institutions (the backroom deals between the event organisers and other corporate patrons and resellers) where 75% of the seats are allocated avoids critical scrutiny. More to the point, why isn't the Commerce Commssion actively investigating the ongoing restraint of trade activities of the event organisers as they try to crush small resellers in favour of larger corporate ones? Second, why aren't the shareholders of the event management companies being pro-active in questioning their event manager's policies to re-trading, on grounds of customer satisfaction as well as on gropunds of simple profitability. here's the two articles Fans miss sevens tickets -The PressSevens scalpers pinged - The Dominion Post Fans miss sevens tickets By LAURA BASHAM - The Press | Friday, 14 September 2007 (stuff.co.nz link) Rugby fans who missed out on tickets to the Wellington Sevens tournament are angry with the sale system and scalpers. Marlborough builder Tony Gibbons is one of many who failed to get tickets when the February tournament sold out within five minutes of tickets going on sale on Wednesday. Gibbons had three friends using the internet and he and two others were on the phone trying to buy tickets. "We didn't get anything," Gibbons said. "What really disappointed us was that as soon as they sold out, tickets were on Trade Me for ridiculous prices. "It seems a lot of tickets were already sold or given away before they were put on the market for the public." Only 8500 of the 35,000 tickets went on sale to the public on Wednesday. Tournament chief executive Steve Dunbar said 95 per cent of the 8500 ticket sold through its website and 5% through its call centre. The remaining 26,500 tickets went to a mix of rugby unions, stadium members, the hospitality and travel industries, sponsors and volunteers.. Dunbar said the demand was phenomenal. While he could not say how many fans missed out, figures from previous years showed 30,000 to 40,000 calls taken in 30 minutes. Those who did not get tickets could still try through travel and hospitality packages, he said. Yesterday on Trade Me, bids were as high as $610 for two Red Zone tickets costing $120 each. However, the tournament organisers were monitoring sales through websites and had already closed down some auctions, Dunbar said. They could track seat numbers and would not send out tickets to those in breach of sale terms, he said. Sevens scalpers on Trade Me pinged GREER McDONALD - The Dominion Post | Friday, 14 September 2007 (stuff.co.nz link) You were warned. That was the response from Wellington Sevens organisers after they contacted a number of sellers who listed tickets to the event on the online auction site Trade Me, m Sun, 6 Apr 2008 18:52:34 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=81 Why are private ticket resellers on Trade-me being vilified by disgruntled fans who want to attend the World Sevens tournament next February (Dominion Post Sept 14)? The real heat should be turned on the managers of the event (the WRFU) , and not just by sevens' rugby fans (think Commerce Commission and WestpacTrust stadium owners). Fans, and the general public, who are critical of ticket resellers ("scalpers") need to go back to demand and supply basics. Ticket reselling in an open competitive retail market situation like Trade-me is a good thing for fans, not a bad thing. Every resale of an event ticket on Trade me is to the mutual advantage of both the buyer and the seller. There is no coercion. There is no monopolistic price gouging. There are no secret back door dealings. Suppose all 8500 of those publicly available Rugby Sevens' tickets were bought for $150 and resold on Trade-me for prices around three times as much, for $450. That's 8500 happy kiwis. A fan who bought four tickets for himself and his family at $150 each can , after resale, watch the game with his family on the new flat screen television he can now afford with the extra $1200 cash he has in hand. And the fan who paid $450 for each of the four tickets gets to go to a game that he and his mates really wanted to (where "really" is measured by their willingness to shell out even more than $450 to watch this live performance rather than walk down to the local sports bar to watch the games). Everybody's happy. So who is complaining, and why? Fans who don't get tickets at the open market price? Well, that's the way a competitive auction market works. If you can't pay the going market price in a Trade-me auction you don't get the goods. What about fans who paid $450 on Trade-me, got their ticket, but are bitter becasue they weren't fast enough off the mark to get the first lot of tickets at $150 each direct from the WRFU. Well, any buyer would like to pay a low price rather than a higher price. The problem is that there were lots and lots of would be buyers at a $150 price, far too many for the 8500 available seats. In economics speak we call that a shortage, an excess of demand over supply, at a price of $150. Prices rise to clear the market, making demand equal to supply at the going market price. Are you worried about the "poor" person who by chance, or gift from the WRFU, got a ticket but couldn't afford a market clearing price of $450? Why not let that poor person decide whether they really want to go to the game live, or cash in on their good luck and watch it on the telly with $450 in hand? Of course the high ask-prices for these event tickets in open market auctions on Trade-me would have been a lot lower had the WRFU supplied tens of thousands more tickets for sale direct to the public . But the WRFU held back 26,500 tickets from direct public access didn't they? At the same time they are complaining vociferously about , and actively suppressing (via threats and intimidation), the resale of tickets on trade-me. Don't get me wrong. The WRFU isn't against resale of tickets. It's just against resale of tickets where it doesn't get a slice of the action. Those 26,500 extra tickets held back by the WRFU are available for resale, but not by the public, not by rugby fans. The WRFU has a list of authorized suppliers for its' event tickets, and if you go online and check them out, you'll find that there still are tickets available to the world sevens' tournament. Of course, there is the little matter of the prices charged and bundled in services, like food served to you in the venue, prime location box seats, overnight accommodation, or transportation. One official supplier has a range of VIP lounge ($1000) , business packages ($845) and economy ($700) seats. Another has corporate box seats in bundles of 16 to 24 available for $800 per ticket (gst excluded). From yet another supplier, $550 buys you a ticket and accommodation at a Wellington Backpacker's while $950 will buy you a ticket and accomodation at the Holiday Inn. If you live outside of Wellin Sun, 6 Apr 2008 18:37:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=81 Christian Zimmerman over at Against Monopoly has an interesting post about lecturer's in Florida universities monopolizing the production/publication/distribution of "their" lecture notes. A debate about University of Florida..or any university prof's ....having "copyright" in their lecture material (written, spoken, graphical, video) would be a joke if it were not so serious. Does anyone other than IP lawyers and their clients take seriously the proposition that the guy who delivers the lecture from 12-1 every monday and tuesday or the lady who wrote the textbook for the guy who delivers the lecture actually has said anything new? or that the guys and ladies who wrote articles or other texts or who gave seminars and lectures at other universities ...on which the chapters of the lady's text are based has said anything new? anything that rightfully "belongs" to them? EVERY idea taught in the curriculum of EVERY undergraduate course, if not every graduate course is and has been someone else's idea...The distinction of a PhD degree based on a PhD thesis is that something "new" is (supposed to be) produced...all else that goes before it...ie all your undergad and grad courses ... already pre-exists in some form or other and nobody, except local uni lecture note would-be monoplizers, bother much about trying to claim any of it for their "own". The payoff - in university appointment, promotion, prestige - comes in trying to extend the margins, not reprocess the stock. Of course we all embellish previous stories in the retelling that is the delivery of the lecture...or it's "fixing" on paper or in some sort of digitized form(ie create temporary or permanent derivative works). But the key idea to remember is that when I or anyone else deliver's a lecture at a modern University we are taking someone else's ideas who has taken someone else's ideas who has take someone else's ideas....ad nauseam....and reprocessing them for you (students) consumption ( and storage). Don't look at the immediate product...the lecture and associated notes. Look at the production process behind that: course preparation, and then behind that, the PHD preparation which got your prof selected for this job. Doing the course work to obtain a PHD is 5-8 years of copying/editing/processing/embellishing other people's ideas, other people who have done precisely the same copying/editing/processing/embellishing in their generation...till what we see in the final product.....the 12-1 lecture on monday...is a bubbling historical and social half baked stew of ideas and thoughts. As anyone who has read Steven Pinker will know, we humans - especially grad students and academic nerds -are amazing biological computational/information processing machines. The ultimate efficient photocopier with our visual senses and audio/tactile/motor abilities . That's what we academics do. We live to copy and edit. But that's OK. Copying at the genetic level is the essence of life, our life and every creature's life. And it certainly is part and parcel of the modern patronage system funded by general taxation, the system we call public education: this system is, and always has had copying - and further derivative works like editing and processing - at its heart. Of course the private incentives for academic teachers with captive audiences at local universities - especially universities like those that exist in Florida with tens of thousands of students - is to monopolize their product. But passing it off as their own is just that ...passing it off. And on our good days we can point to the small marginal contributions published in good journals that get us our promotions as "ours", but we all know that the bibliography and reference papers we cite...much less the ones we don't....are the true "source" of our intellectual prowess, and the citation labels are justthat -labels, pointers, to a vast stew of ideas. Do you (student's) get that? over and over again, iteratively through time and across space in every university and college on the planet academics exist as biological infor Sat, 5 Apr 2008 12:14:00 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=78 Thanks for the great suggestions, John. We will have other formats of the tutorials on how to use the new site available as soon as the site is launched this spring. We will also explore putting them on iTunes. In the meantime, videos on how to use the current JSTOR site have been uploaded to YouTube (do a search for "JSTOR"), and comments can be made there. (Note: The URL given here goes to JSTOR's current tutorials web page, where several formats of the tutorials on using the current site are available.) Best, Jenny McKillop Education Coordinator JSTOR Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:25:15 GMT http://strategicecon.com/modules/journal/entry.php?space_key=1&module_key=9&journal_user_key=4&post_key=71