TikTok: Guilty by Intent?
I find the Bloomberg opinion piece written by historian Niall Ferguson at Stanford University very interesting [@tiktokban], partly because it talks about one of the steaming hot and still ongoing
Category: Preinstitutions
Solutions to George Floyd Tragedy
If you live in the US, it is getting harder by the day for anyone to ignore the George Floyd tragedy case. I was personally triggered by the video clip
Leave Democracy Out of the Pandemic?
It is getting more popular by the day to ask the question of which polity is better, democracy or dictatorship (or as this opinion piece in New York Times put
Rethinking Social Choices
Individual vs. Social Preferences The current theories or models all assume individual has complete and independent preferences over options when in fact individual preferences are never completely independent of social
The Economics of Pandemics
The latest issue of Economist (March 14th to 20th) has a cover story entitled “The politics of pandemics”. This blog instead is about the economics of pandemics. No other stories
A Few Unrelated Examples of Preinstitutions
The Hiring Problem and Pre-Screening Bias In HR, the law prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, age and sexual orientation. However, this is not actually happening in every hiring, because
From Furbizia in Italy to Guanxi in China
This NY Times piece on how Italians evade inconvenient rules should be familiar to all Chinese, where enforcement of rules and regulations is a big problem. The potential difference (only
What Exactly Is Accumulated Preference?
Two days ago I was driving a passenger who is a professional skier helping US Olympic team with fund raising and race organization. During the entire trip from somewhere in
Developments Are Accumulated Choices
Middle income traps are caused by slowdown of productivity growth, which is ultimately caused by lacking human capital for innovations. China, like the Asia Tigers but unlike Latin American and African countries, are unlikely to fall into that trap mostly because its people care about obtaining and growing knowledge in science and technologies. That appetite was installed by parents who care about doing good school work and good grades, better than others. …
US Leads the World By Citizens’ Strong & Contested Preferences
Developing countries should set economic growth as their top priority, for that is the most important and most efficient driver for other changes. US leads the world by strong and contested preferences more than anything else. China has a dilemma as its people have single uncontested preference for materialistic gains at the cost of anything else. This creates huge opportunity costs but also shields the country from prematurely follow the US in all aspects of life. …