all economics stories

Lessons from past explored to expedite future research

50443248 — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:22:42 -0400

People, knowledge, communication, and capitalism were front and center as authorities on innovation sought to shed light on ways to speed up the development of new medical treatments from discoveries in the lab.

The speakers, who drew on lessons from the computer industry and from past startup ventures, were part of the “Harvard Medical School Dean’s Symposium on Clinical and Translational Research,” sponsored by Harvard Catalyst: The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center.

David Parkes named professor of computer science

404132862 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:20:49 -0400

David C. Parkes, a leader in research at the nexus of computer science and economics, has been appointed Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences(SEAS).

Parkes, 35, was previously John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences and associate professor of computer science at Harvard, where he has been on the faculty since 2001.

Transitivity, the orbitofrontal cortex, and neuroeconomics

404132862 — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:58:28 -0500

You study the menu at a restaurant and decide to order the steak rather than the salmon. But when the waiter tells you about the lobster special, you decide lobster trumps steak. Without reconsidering the salmon, you place your order — all because of a trait called "transitivity."

Study probes academic, industry relationships

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:52:19 -0400

A study led by members of the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy (MGH-IHP) has found that institutional academic-industry relationships — financial relationships companies have with medical schools or teaching hospitals rather than with individual physicians or scientists — are as common and pervasive as individual relationships. The report, the first nationwide look at the extent and impact of these relationships, appears in the Oct. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“Our data show that institutional relationships are as ubiquitous as individual relationships,” says Eric Campbell of the MGH-IHP, the study’s principal investigator.

Bringing hard science to economics

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:01:58 -0400

Guido W. Imbens, now in his first year as a professor of economics at Harvard, was still in high school in the Netherlands when he decided to study economics. For a bright, energetic boy who had always excelled at mathematics, there was nothing dismal about the so-called "dismal science."

At Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Imbens studied econometrics, an academically rigorous combination of mathematical economics and statistics. The tools of econometrics are used to test economic theories using data, and to measure economic variables that are important for public policy.

Compared with classical mathematics, said Imbens, econometrics "appealed to me. It seemed more policy-relevant, more connected to the real world."

Microsoft's Ballmer pulls out the stops at HBS talk

50443248 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:51:11 -0400

The 24th richest person in the world made a visit to the Harvard Business School (HBS) last week (Dec. 7), and gave an audience of 700 advice on how to succeed in business: Have passion, curiosity, and empathy.

Microsoft CEO Steven Anthony Ballmer '77 (whose net worth is around $14 billion) also shared his vision of the high-tech industry's future: It's bright.

"The next 10 years will be hotter than the last 10 years," he said - surpassing the past decade with its huge new global markets for PCs, cell phones, the Internet, and digital cameras. (Microsoft's already grabbed its share. About 800 million PCs - 90 percent of the world's computers - use Microsoft Windows.)

Beckert tracks cotton trail

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:42:27 -0400

Sven Beckert, a professor of history with an expertise in 19th century America, is hoping to understand the roots of the global economic ties that bind the world today by looking at one of the first truly global products: cotton.

"Once upon a time, it was the most important agricultural product, the most important export, and the most important industry," Beckert said. "This is a history of globalization through the lens of one commodity."

Cotton is a particularly apt product to focus on because it was largely produced in Asia until the 19th century, Beckert said. During the 1800s, however, cotton production, processing, and manufacturing moved west into the United States and Europe, until Asia was largely marginalized in the cotton world.

This was part of a split between East and West that led to the industrialized West gaining the vast economic power that is still felt around the globe today.

"I'm interested in how the world took the shape it did in the 19th century," Beckert said.

Beckert plans to publish his research in a book, "The Empire of Cotton: A Global History," though he is still completing the writing.

Study finds vaccines boost the economies of poor countries

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:40:47 -0400

A study determined that previous measurements of the benefits of immunization have generally underestimated their economic value by focusing solely on health-related impacts such as averted illnesses, hospitalizations, deaths, disability, and medical costs. The study provides a more thorough investigation of the impacts of vaccination by looking at its effects on cognitive development, educational attainment, labor productivity, income, savings, investment, and fertility. The article is authored by David E. Bloom and David Canning of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Mark Weston of River Path Associates, a knowledge consultancy based in the UK. "Our study finds that the benefits of vaccination have been greatly underestimated. The economic impacts of immunization stem from the fact that immunization protects individuals not only against getting an illness per se, but also against the long- term effects of that illness on their physical, emotional, and cognitive development," said David E. Bloom, who is Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography at HSPH. "When kids grow up healthier, they do better in school and, later, as adults, are more productive, earn more, and save more. Overall, we found powerful new sources of economic returns from immunization."

Fryer brings mathematical economics to stubborn racial issues

50443248 — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:09:56 -0400

Roland G. Fryer Jr. is a brave man.
An economist and self-described math geek, Fryer plunges fearlessly into the roiling waters of racial inequality, often surfacing with findings that contradict conventional wisdom, political correctness, and even his own life experience.

"I take stubborn old questions of racial inequality that have been around for decades and decades and try to use simple mathematics to be able to answer those questions," says Fryer, assistant professor of economics and a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. "It's a way of taking politics, taking emotion, taking anecdotes out of the study of racial inequality."

Imaging may not be major driver of hospital cost increases

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:18:33 -0400

"There have been several news stories and reports from insurers claiming that imaging costs are catching and even surpassing drug costs as major drivers of health care inflation," says Scott Gazelle, M.D., MPH, Ph.D., and an MGH radiologist who is director of the Institute for Technology Assessment. "Those of us who work in imaging believe that its use should be celebrated, since imaging has truly transformed the way we deliver health care. But we also need to understand the value that imaging brings to health care; and when looking at its costs, we need to make sure our analyses are accurate."

Gazelle and co-author Molly Beinfeld, MPH, analyzed billing records for patients admitted to MGH between 1996 and 2002.

Psychology of economics

50443248 — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:53:09 -0400

The much-touted concept of "interdisciplinary collaboration" was more than a concept last week at the Eric M. Mindich Conference on Experimental Social Science. Titled "Action Research in Psychology and Economics," the conference - held at the Harvard Law School on Friday and Saturday (March 4 and 5) - was the first major event to be sponsored by Harvard's new Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Developed by Harvard Professor of Economics Sendhil Mullainathan and psychology professor Tim Wilson of the University of Virginia, the conference demonstrated how methods from psychology and economics can combine to achieve common research goals.

Safer cigarettes would cut fire deaths if made available

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:36:25 -0400

Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health, funded by the American Legacy Foundation, compared the physical properties of cigarettes sold in New York with cigarettes of the same brands sold in Massachusetts and California. The researchers found: • That while not perfectly self-extinguishing, New York cigarettes were far less likely to burn to the end than cigarettes of the same brands in California and Massachusetts. Ten percent of a sample of five major cigarette brands sold in New York had a "full burn" compared to 99.8 percent of the California and Massachusetts cigarettes tested. • Reduced ignition was apparently achieved through banding of the cigarette paper. • Reviewing cigarette tax data for the past six months, the reduced ignition propensity (RIP) cigarettes appeared to have no effect on sales of cigarettes in New York, indicating consumer acceptance. • Based on the New York experience, prior industry objections to RIP cigarettes are unfounded, the report concludes. There is no valid reason why cigarette manufacturers should not sell RIP cigarettes nationwide.

New calculations suggest economic cost of Iraq war much larger than previously recognized

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:23:46 -0400

A paper presented to the annual Allied Social Sciences Association meeting in Boston, in a session jointly sponsored by the American Economic Association and the Economists for Peace and Security, suggests that the costs of the Iraq war are much higher than previously reckoned, with conservative to moderate estimates ranging from slightly less than a trillion dollars to more than $2 trillion.

The joint paper, prepared by Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government budget expert Linda Bilmes and Columbia University professor and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz, recalculates both the budgetary and economic costs of the war.

The price tag calculated by Bilmes and Stiglitz varies significantly from the $50 billion to $60 billion figure estimated by former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Mitch Daniels shortly before the war began.

The paper estimates the costs on two different scenarios for Americas involvement in Iraq, both of which predict that U.S. troops deployed in Iraq will drop from the current 160,000 to 136,000 in 2006. It expands on traditional estimates first by including long-term budgetary costs of Americas involvement in Iraq. For instance, it provides an estimate of the life-time disability and health care costs of the 16,000 injured (some 20 percent with serious brain injuries), and the increased costs of recruitment into both the National Guard and the armed forces.

The paper goes on to analyze the social costs to the economy, recognizing that, for instance, payments for those killed are only $500,000, far less than standard government estimates of the life-time economic cost of a death ($6.1 million to $6.5 million). Similarly, disability payments are markedly lower than the value of lost earnings. Finally, the paper provides a range of estimates of the macro-economic costs. While arguing that much of the increase in the price of oil can be attributed to the Iraq war, it estimates the overall effect on the economy if only $5 per barrel of the increase is due to the war. It also calculates the impact on the economy in the short run and in the long run if a proportion of the money spent on the Iraq war were spent in other ways, including on investments in the United States.

The paper identifies a number of other costs, some potentially quite large, but the quantification of which is more problematic. The implication, however, is that even the moderate estimate may significantly underestimate the cost of Americas involvement in Iraq.

When oil became black gold

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:23:13 -0400

Texas, Alaska, Russia, the Middle East - these are the regions one is likely to think of when asked to name the world's top oil- producing areas.

Galicia, an area of Eastern Europe now divided between Poland and Ukraine, would probably not make it onto anyone's list. And yet, 100 years ago, Galicia ranked as the third largest oil producer in the world.

It was the Kingdom of Galicia back then, a part of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire. Oil was discovered there in 1894, and production reached a peak in the early years of the 20th century. In fact, there was so much oil that the major problem for producers was finding people to buy it.

And yet, by the time World War I began in 1914, production had fallen off dramatically, leaving the German-led forces without sufficient means to fuel a modern mechanized military. The Allies, on the other hand, continued to obtain abundant supplies from Russia and the United States, leading Lord Curzon, later British foreign secretary, to remark after the war's end that "the Allies floated to victory on a wave of oil."

The rise and fall of the Galician oil industry is the subject of a new book by Assistant History Professor Alison Frank. She was drawn to the subject not out of a fascination with oil or economics, but through an interest in Austria-Hungary - the multinational state with its capital in Vienna, whose writers, artists, and scientists played a vital role in giving birth to the modern era.

Her book, "Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia" (Harvard University Press, 2005), tells a sad tale, one to which those who extol the free market economy as a cure-all for society's ills would do well to pay attention, although Frank emphasizes that the book is not policy-oriented.

"It's not a case study aimed at telling policymakers what not to do in Kazakhstan, although I do think there are certain lessons to be learned," she said.

Study suggests obesity has lesser financial impact on African-Americans

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:09:54 -0400

The study published in the January 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health is among the first to examine how patient demographic factors affect the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and health-care costs.

"From the perspective of the health-care system, obesity may be less costly among African-Americans than among whites," says Christina Wee, MD, MPH, of BIDMC's Division of General Medicine and Primary Care and an assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.