Grey Swan

Preventative Health? Time for new Measures

Posted by Grey Swan on Thursday, August 9th, 2007

I recently canvassed several interns who are working on preventative health measures in D.C. and asked if there was any new ideas being tossed about. They said “No”. This got me thinking - with all the talk about preventing future illness, why are so few ideas tossed about in public? In order to get this [...]

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The Problem with Free College Tuition (College Wars Part I)

Posted by Grey Swan on Saturday, June 9th, 2007

Many European countries offer free education to those who want it. The idea is that education is good, and the more educated people get, the better. Since education is costly however, this is not necessarily true.
The main problem with education is that it is a partially zero-sum pursuit.
While classes in computer science and engineering may [...]

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IQ and Income

Posted by Grey Swan on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007

I used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine how IQ affects income. The survey takes a set of young people in 1979 (late teens to early twenties) and interviews them on a broad range of issues every few years. While surveys have continued beyond 1996, I only have data up to [...]

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Archive for the ‘Financial’ Category

Preventative Health? Time for new Measures

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

I recently canvassed several interns who are working on preventative health measures in D.C. and asked if there was any new ideas being tossed about. They said “No”. This got me thinking - with all the talk about preventing future illness, why are so few ideas tossed about in public? In order to get this [...]

Abstinence Only Education is Silly

Saturday, August 4th, 2007

The Bush administration stresses the importance of abstinence only education. Ignoring religious issues with premarital sex, does this policy have a chance of preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases? Any economist would say - NO!
Consider you have a child who wants to ride a bike. You can tell him he should not ride a [...]

Why the Price of Luxury Goods is Spiraling

Sunday, June 10th, 2007

Daily news reports stress that the price of luxury good tends to increase faster than the rate of inflation. Increasingly, middle and upper middle class families are being priced out of the luxury good market altogether. Why? I believe that a combination of age old factors and new trends are the root cause. This includes [...]

The Problem with Free College Tuition (College Wars Part I)

Saturday, June 9th, 2007

Many European countries offer free education to those who want it. The idea is that education is good, and the more educated people get, the better. Since education is costly however, this is not necessarily true.
The main problem with education is that it is a partially zero-sum pursuit.
While classes in computer science and engineering may [...]

How H-1B Visas Are Hurting America (and how to fix it)

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

According to Wikipedia the number of H-1B Visas the US grants each year are decreasing. An H-1B visa permits educated non-citizens the right to work in our country. The concept is that these visas are necessary for the United States to stay competitive in high knowledge industries. Unfortunately, the current system both exploits Americans and [...]