I've taken some real news headlines from the past month (courtesy of Lexis) and switched a few key words. It is remarkable how these two stories have such parallels. This is either stupid or kind of funny. I hope both.

"Successors jostle for position as Red Sox cling to life"
"Still some hope for Arafat; High-top shoe fitted for ankle"
"Red Sox alive but condition is 'very complex', say French"
"Arafat has little hope of returning to the Bronx"
"Palestinian delegation hoping to see Red Sox"
"Arafat's hopes hang by a tendon"

"Red Sox death to be announced Tuesday"
"Arafat beats long odds; Mo's blown save gives him life"
"Israel says it is preparing for rise in violence after Red Sox death"
"Arafat stays up late to create glimmer of hope at home"
"Red Sox condition still a mystery as Palestinian leaders head to Paris"
"Arafat fans destined to suffer"
"Red Sox linger"
"Fenway to rescue; Arafat hopes old ballpark can save him"
"With Red Sox between life and death, minds turn to 'day after'"
"Arafat hopes to 'shock the world'"
"Rivals on Red Sox death watch"
"Francona stood behind Arafat as he went into Game 4 trying to keep hopes alive"
"Not in danger -- Officials deny Red Sox are dying"
"Ortiz 12th inning homer keeps Arafat's hopes alive"
"Aides want Red Sox dead, wife says"
"Arafat hopes for 'monster' comeback"

From Philip A Curry's and Steve Mongrain's Economic Analysis of Morality Laws (by Lawrence Solum).

For other forms of externalities [other than "morality" laws], like pollution, a positive legal level or quota is usually set. Finally, the typical penalty for the infraction of these laws [morality laws] seems unusually low(2).

2: For example, in the city of Vancouver, the maximum penalty for excessive noise while cleaning your carpet with a vehicle mounted cleaner on a Sunday before noon is $2000 while the maximum sentence for a first offense of cocaine possession is six months in prison and $1000.

I've just read Deirdre McCloskey's Secret Sins of Economics, now available online. [The piece comes via Tyler Cowen, currently blogging at WSJ.com, which is worth reading-- and also has a picture of Professor Cowen; I hadn't expected him to look like that.]

Anyway, I loved McCloskey's article, in no small part because her two chief objections to the modern discipline of Economics (Theory and Econometrics) were mine as well, and a large part of the reason I decided that I could do more, and more usefully, someplace else.

One last thing: Economists-- in their ability to ignore writings like McCloskey's or Rabin and Thaler's Risk Aversion (15 JEP 219)-- prove a dramatic vindication of Robert Nozick's point that while arguments like these can persuade, they cannot compel. Your interlocutor or reader is always free to simply put down the page and say, "yes, well, so what?"

McCloskey makes this point poignantly at the end of her piece:

Cassandra, you know, was the most beautiful of the daughters of Priam, King of Troy. The god Apollo fell for her and made her a prophetess. In exchange he wanted sexual favors, which she refused. So he cursed her, in a most malicious way. He had already given her the power of prophecy, to know for example what would happen to a science that refused to ask seriously How Much. His curse was to add that though she would continue to be correct in her prophecies, no one would believe her.

Cassandra [to Trojan economists proposing to bring the wooden horse into the city]: The horse is filled with enemy soldiers! If you bring it into the city, economics is lost! Please don’t!

Leading Trojan Economist: Uh, yeah, I see what you mean, Cassie. Good point. Enemy soldiers. Inside. City lost. Qualitative theorems useless for a science. Statistical significance without a loss function equally useless. Economics ruined. Thanks very much for your prophecy. Great contribution. Love your stuff. [Turning to colleagues] Okay, guys, let’s bring that sucker in!

In a classic sketch from the television show Monty Python's Flying Circus, a customer attempts to return a parrot (a "Norwegian Blue") he bought from a pet shop earlier in the day, complaining the parrot was dead when he bought it. The sketch consists of a series of more and more surreal claims by the shopkeeper that the parrot is still alive-- that it is merely resting, that it is shagged out after a long squawk, that it prefers resting on its back, and that it is pining for the fjords of Norway. To prove the parrot is dead, the customer takes it out of the cage and starts beating it against the coutnertop. The shopkeeper repeatedly tries to distract the angry customer from the fact that the parrot is dead by pointing out the parrot's "beautiful plumage." The customer responds that "the plumage don't enter into it," and proceeds to list numerous different ways of saying that the parrot is dead, the most famous of which is the declaration: "This is an ex-parrot."

We feel much like the customer in the pet shop, beating away at a dead parrot.* For nearly 50 years, economists have been fending off researchers who have identified clear departures from expected utility. Allais's paradox was thought by many economists to be a mere technicality, which should either be ignored or integrated into a normative generalization of expected utility theory. Tversky and Kahneman's devastating framing demonstrations have also been dismissed by many as mere parlor tricks. While we disagree with both of those responses, it is even more strained to view the calibration problems discussed here as some kind of technicality or parlor trick. Attempts to refute these problems more and more resemble the shopkeeper's surreal denials that the parrot was dead, and attempts to ignore the problems more and more resemble the shopkeeper's attempts to change the subject. Expected utility theory implies that people depart from risk neutrality only when facing prospects that might have a major effect on lifetime wealth. That is clearly false.

In terms of its mathematical elegance, tractability, and normative appeal, the expected utility model clearly has "beautiful plumage." But when the model is plainly wrong and frequently misleading, at some point economists must conclude that the plumage doesn't enter into it. Even the obstinate shopkeeper finally admitted the parrot was dead and conceded: "I had better replace it, then."

Three things, which I shall attempt to group together into a blog post:

One: Via Ed Cohn, I learn that The Master and Margarita is being turned into a movie. Via Nick Tarasen, I learn that the musical RENT is being turned into a movie. Via Amber Taylor, I learn that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera may be turned into a movie as well.

Nick suggests that the RENT musical is troubling because it will come out of context, and sell out whatever vestiges of anti-establishmentism that RENT had left. These seem to me to be very odd complaints to level against a movie that was itself essentially a clever re-working of one of Puccini's best operas (La Boheme). Nick may be right that the movie will be a disappointment, but since RENT was itself a very successful reworking of a classic to a new time and style, the movie might well do the same thing.

I'm more dubious myself of both the Margarita and Cholera projects, because the books are so good it will be hard to do them justice. But it's possible-- Lolita (and Lolita) provide hopeful examples.

Having recently re-discovered the time-wasting joy that is Oyez, I have been listening to the oral arguments in U.S. v. Morrison (striking down the Violence Against Women Act). For those (like me) awaiting Randy Barnett's Raich v. Ashcroft (dealing with the regulation of non-commercial intrastate marijuana) performance with bated breath, this bit from Morrison, where Justices Scalia and Stevens tangled over something very close to the issue in Raich is very intriguing:

QUESTION: May I give you one example I'd be interested in your views on? Assume a person wants to grow marijuana in his back yard for his own use and for no other purpose. Could--does Congress have the power to prohibit that activity?
MR. ROSMAN: I don't think so, Justice Stevens.
QUESTION: That's what I thought your view would be.
MR. ROSMAN: And--and I would--
QUESTION: As opposed to wheat? I mean, marijuana is different from wheat? Is that--
(Laughter.)
MR. ROSMAN: Well, it--it--I was--I was going to provide that caveat, Justice Scalia--
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: Yes, but let's--let's assume--
MR. ROSMAN: --that--that in--
QUESTION: --let's assume the marijuana grower says I want to grow it in my back yard solely for my own use because I am sick of being gouged by the interstate marijuana market.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: Doesn't--doesn't that pass muster with you?
MR. ROSMAN: There's always going to be some close cases. I think the specific--
(Laughter.)
MR. ROSMAN: I think the specific example--
QUESTION: I thought I gave you an easy one.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: That's not a close case under our precedents. It's not a close case at all.
QUESTION: Well, I think it is a close case.