Evidence-based policy-making US-style

Based on our rough calculations, less than $1 out of every $100 of government spending is backed by even the most basic evidence that the money is being spent wisely.

...

Since 1990, the federal government has put 11 large social programs, collectively costing taxpayers more than $10 billion a year, through randomized controlled trials, the gold standard of evaluation. Ten out of the 11—including Upward Bound and Job Corps—showed “weak or no positive effects”

Just in case you thought that there was any danger of the whole results agenda and RCT-fetishism taking over in American politics. From an excellent piece in last month's The Atlantic, which by the way is generally fantastic, I just bought a paper copy for the first time and the whole thing was full of interesting - a critical look at the evidence on over 35 female fertility, a thing about how much health food is actually really unhealthy, a note about how recycling can actually increase carbon emissions because it needs more trucks on the streets, and a piece discussing relationships and gender politics and family from the perspective of a man who has sacrificed his career for his wife's. 

What Would Happen If We Let All The Immigrants In?

Sense from Matt Yglesias:

According to Gallup there are 150 million people around the world who say they'd like to move permanently to the United States. Right now the United States has about 89 residents per square mile. Add another 150 million people and we'd be at around 135 people per square mile. How would that stack up in context? Well, France has 303 people per square mile and Germany has 593. Japan has 873. The Dutch have 1,287! 

All those places have their share of problems (and so do we) but none of them are exactly post-apocalyptic hellscapes.

The equivalent Gallup number of people who say they'd like to move permanently to the UK is 45 million. That would take us from the already relatively dense 673 people per square mile to 1,153 people per square mile, edging out Rwanda, but still not quite as dense as the Netherlands or South Korea. I think we'd manage. Personally, I also think British people are great, and it would be great to have more of us.

There is no poverty in America...

... was the subject of a recent household debate. I'm talking, of course, about real, deep, absolute poverty, of the one dollar per day variety (at purchasing power parity, meaning already adjusted for the big price differences between rich and poor countries).

Exhibit A:

"By international standards the US poverty line of $23,050 corrected for exchange rates is around the average of world income, and is deemed a comfortably middle-class income in India" -- Deidre McCloskey.

Exhibit B:

A 1996 survey of users of homeless shelters and soup kitchens found a median monthly individual income of around $250 in inner cities in America (quite a lot higher than the $35 per month earned by about a billion people).

Exhibit C:

The housemate sent me a link to this paper which shows some quite shocking life expectancy outcomes for certain groups in America. If you pick out some of the very worst, you get life expectancy for black males in America of 68.7, or for Native Americans in South Dakota of 58 years. Compare this to the life expectancy of Rwandans, all Rwandans, not just those living in poverty, and you get 55 years.

And despite all this, it seems to be quite normal to feel more guilty about poverty in America or England.

Is there really poverty in America? Should we care? Can we just call it something different in America to be clear about the distinction?

---

Jina Moore's comments on this post below are excellent (though I think we still have some disagreements), as are her two articles in the CS Monitor about poverty in America here and here. 

The NRA and "now is not the time"

"We think it is poor form for a politician or a special interest group to try to push a legislative agenda on the back of any tragedy."
-- NRA, after 2008 Northern Illinois shootings 

"Now is not the time to debate politics or discuss policy."
-- NRA, after 2009 Binghampton massacre 

"At this time, anything other than prayers for the victims and their families would be inappropriate."
-- NRA, after 2011 shooting spree that wounded Gabrielle Giffords 

"There will be an appropriate time down the road to engage in political and policy discussions."
-- NRA, after 2012 Aurora massacre 

"NRA will not have any comment."
-- NRA, after 2012 Newtown massacre

From Doonesbury 

Chart of the Day: Gay Marriage in America

read more at the Monkey Cage.

And here is an equivalent chart for Europe.

America in one sentence

And now for some balance, some amateur anthropologising about America.

"This feeling of embarrassment, this shyness, this bashfulness, if you take that out of the people, then these people will do whatever they want to do. And that is the very definition of America, a people who have no shame, and therefore they do, whatever, they want, to do."

Unknown, from the end of Phony Rappers by A Tribe Called Quest

Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom"

Not gonna lie, it's the first novel I've read in a while, but I'm very much enjoying it. Favourite (but not at all representative) quote so far:

“He became another data point in the American experiment of self-government, an experiment statistically skewed from the outset, because it wasn't the people with sociable genes who fled the crowded Old World for the new continent; it was the people who didn't get along well with others.”

How things are going in the USA: Quantified

Just over 4 months ago I moved to America. It is basically pretty similar to England in many ways, which is perhaps why I notice the small differences so much. Naturally I decided to keep score.

I’m focusing on my entirely subjective experience of living here, and particularly on non-tradables, so there will be no thorny discussion of who has the best pop music or anything like that. I will gladly take suggestions but can’t guarantee to acknowledge or give any credence to them. And this is basically just a list of random stuff tapped into my phone over the weeks, with no reflection or analysis.

Without further ado:

Points for Great Britain

• Ubiquitous chip-and-pin security for credit cards. Seriously America you can’t manage that?
• (A decent) Minimum Wage. Meaning proper salaries for waiters, meaning I don’t have to worry so much about tip-maths in restaurants.
• Universal (and simple!) healthcare coverage. Ugh, paperwork, thank god I never actually go to a doctor.
• Sensible politicians. You all make the Conservative Party look really really nice. My first week here, the first bar I went to, O’Donnell was on the TV talking about closing the Department the Education.
• Sensible people. Generally speaking, people get the representatives they deserve right? Far fewer crazies in England.
• Liberalism. The proper, fully evolved grown up variant which includes social liberalism as well as economic liberalism.
• Location. Being geographically closer to the rest of world, and foreign cultures.
• Towns. That are walkable.
• Public transport. The tube is way better than the NY subway in my opinion. And so are the buses. And there is a Congestion Charging zone.
• Mobile phone contracts. For some reason there is fierce competition in the UK driving down prices but not in the US. What’s going on defenders of capitalism?
• Better date formats. It obviously makes far more sense to start with the day than the month.
• Better sports. We are not the only country who play our sports, therefore they are better. This is almost a tradable as its pretty easy to follow the Premiership over here, but not quite. You can’t enjoy reading the sports pages of a physical newspaper here.
• Bank ATMs. Somehow Britain managed to get rid of fees for using other bank’s ATMs. It’s good.
• No flags. Seriously, why are there so many flags everywhere? Are you worried about forgetting which country you are in?

Points for the Unites States of America

• Turning right at stop signs. Definitely a winner.
• Better usage of the phrase "public school." I could go on forever about grammar and spelling but that would be really boring. Here is a case where the American version is clearly objectively better.
• Better weather. Hotter, colder, either way, at least there is actual weather rather than just cold grey drizzle.
• Food. Enough said.
• Ubiquitous Pizza. It is everywhere, and it is good. So good that it gets its own point in addition to the point for food above.
• Automatic cars. Why do we still bother with manual transmissions? Aren’t automatics just a better technology?

Which makes it;

Great Britain 14

United States of America 6

Pretty damning. But I am genuinely trying to be agnostic here. Show me the evidence America! What else do you have going for you!

More on Poverty in America

Why do I feel more guilty about poverty in the US than in Sudan? Not that I think it is a bigger problem - people generally don't starve to death in the US. I'm generally quite cynical about "relative poverty". But the visceral emotional reaction seems stronger here.

Matt suggested this was about empathy and the veil of ignorance, which I hadn't thought of, but seems plausible. My instinct rather was that the problem seems so much more easily solvable here [the broad here - the developed world - whatever]. Inequality, poverty amidst plenty, is ugly. I  had my instincts somewhat reaffirmed by a friend who is Indian, lived in Sudan, and was similarly surprised by homelessness upon returning to Oxford. It's just unnecessary. Just give them cash?

Why is Yale so small?

Or rather the town of New Haven, which you probably haven't heard of, in which Yale sits.

Sam* got me thinking about this with this article he sent me recently, on repopulating urban america.

Now bear with me, but I can half-remember a talk by an LSE economic geographer (Henry Overman?), arguing that Oxford and Cambridge (UK) are underpopulated. Agglomerations matter. In the 19th Century industrial age Manchester grew rapidly as the centre of manufacturing. In the modern information economy, universities are the drivers of growth, and these places should naturally be expanding. In the UK this natural growth is restricted by green belts (I believe they call it zoning in the US).

So what's going on in Yale?


* Ooh snazzy new website, check you out. Nice tagline.

Poverty in America

Driving through my neighbourhood in Juba, an American once asked if I felt guilty living in the midst of such poverty. I didn't. At least no more than I had done living in England, being equally aware of the existence of such poverty. Physical proximity shouldn't really have much to do with it.

I do though feel guilty about the guy who sleeps in the bus shelter in my New Haven neighbourhood. What is that?

US Politics

I arrived in New Haven yesterday, and amongst a few other things I’m trying to develop my understanding of American politics somewhere beyond the West Wing.
So today I caught a glimpse of this craziness (via MR), and was sent this great quote from a friend who made the leap from Yorkshire a few years back:

“Policy making in Europe is like a prizefight: Two contenders, having earned the right to enter the ring, square off against each other for a prescribed number of rounds; when one fighter knocks the other one out, he is declared the winner and the fight is over. Policy making in the United States is more like a barroom brawl: Anybody can join, the combatants fight all comers and sometimes change sides, no referees is in charge, and the fight lasts not for a fixed number of rounds but indefinitely or until everybody drops from exhaustion… ‘it’s never over.’”

From Bureaucracy by James Wilson.
And how about this for some new lobbying research:

once the politician for whom they worked leaves office, their revenue falls 20%, or $177,000 per year, suggesting that lobbyists are paid more for “who they know” than “what they know”.

From researchers at LSE and Pompeu Fabra.

How America can save the peace in Sudan

Note: Image from the LSE report Southern Sudan at Odds with Itself

I am optimistic about the chances for peace in Sudan. Khartoum and Juba are interdependent. Both rely heavily on the shared oil revenues (Khartoum about 50% reliant, Juba about 100%), and both could choose to stop production, violently or otherwise.

There is lots of room for a mutually beneficial deal to be done.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that cool heads will necessarily prevail. Both sides have strong incentives to arm as heavily as possible, just in case a deal doesn’t work out (see Elbadawi on the game between Juba and Khartoum).

The Sudan Tribune recently reported allegations that the SPLA is buying military aircraft (denied by the SPLA).

Well it would make sense for the SPLA to want to buy military aircraft. Khartoum has planes and Juba does not, making the South incredibly vulnerable in any kind of conventional war.

As a result of the logic of the incentives facing Juba, the SPLA gets about 33% of the GoSS Budget, money that could otherwise go on essential infrastructure and social services.


What does any of this have to do with America? How about a no-fly zone for Southern Sudan? A security guarantee - allowing both sides to step down from the brink and focus on working out a deal, and investing in the country?

The Ground Zero Mosque…

… isn’t actually the ground zero mosque at all. It is TWO BLOCKS from the World Trade Center site.

HT: Scott Berkun

A plea for help

“I have something I want to tell you now,” he said.

“Everyone who is here now is here because of America. It was your president, Bush, who forced the north to sign the peace.

“You educate our people. Our top leaders were educated in America, my son too. You are our deepest friends. Even our young children know this about America.

“Even these oil companies, we want them to leave, and American companies to come back.

“I appeal to you, bend down your ear to hear us.

“We are going to our referendum. We want to leave. We want independence. But the Arabs don’t want this. We need your help. The Arabs do not want to let us go.

“America, please, reach down your hand to us.

“Please take back my message.”

Alan Boswell speaking to the paramount chief of the Dok Nuer in Unity State, Southern Sudan.

Brad Delong on the New York Times

I have reached my limit with the New York Times: I think it would be a better world if it shut tomorrow--all of the best and some of the good journalists would go elsewhere and do their work, and a lot of bulls--- would vanish from the public debate.

Shut down the New York Times today

US Emigration

Tim Kane at Growthology worries about the impact of the US fiscal crisis (and the baby boomer pension burden) in the context of a global economy. What if all the smart kids decide to pick up and emigrate rather than stick around to pick up their parents generation’s tab?

In passing he notes this startling stat from the BBC: 10% of all Brits live abroad.

Barack Obama reads rovingbandit.com

Is the only possible explanation I can come up with for the fact that he has just decided to:

allow technology companies to export Internet services to Iran, Cuba and Sudan in a bid to exploit their libertarian potential.

Clearly he saw how my libertarian potential was being thwarted by those restrictions on the purchase of little blocks of pixels on Facebook, and decided to change his mind.

Well, thank you Barack.

The Cost of US Border Control

At $3,000 per arrested migrant, is more than the annual per capita income of 85% of the world's population.

And to add insult to injury...

Monday 30 Nov: UK commits 500 new troops to Afghanistan

Tuesday 1 Dec: US commits 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan

Why do we even bother?