Shame Works

"...parking for a very handicapped person or a very inconsiderate (unscrupulous) person."

Full story over at Freakonomics.

Harvard Econ on Taxes

NY Times

Economist Greg Mankiw of Greg Mankiw's blog suggests four keys to a better tax system:

• Broaden the base and lower the rates
• Tax consumption
• Tax bads rather than goods
• Keep it simple 

News Flash: PE teachers are dumb

The Education Testing Service (ETS) keeps all kinds of stats and apparently PE teachers come from the low end of the already low average that make up teaching majors.

Birth of the chinese economy

This is an interesting story from NPR Planet Money about Chinese farmers who collaborated on a secret free market experiment.

"In 1978, a group of farmers in a Chinese village called Xiaogang wrote a secret contract and hid it in the roof of a mud hut. They were afraid the document might get them executed. Instead, it wound up completely transforming the Chinese economy."

"Dear Student...

...I don't lie awake at night thinking of ways to ruin your life."

An economist, and Forbes contributor, wrote this letter to students everywhere. I like his point.

Is guessing not attempting?

A post from our good friends at the Freakonomics blog describes a teacher who subtracts a 1/4 point for wrong answers, but gives 1/4 point for answering "I don't know" (full text below). I think I understand the reasoning but to me it feels like a reward for quiting. Do the benefits for knowing when to say IDK outweigh the confidence one can get from attempting and succeeding at something risky? I think no, but I don't know.

"In my classroom, students lose 1/4 point for wrong answers on quizzes. But for writing “I don’t know,” they get 1/4 point. (A correct answer is 1 point). The rationale is that if someone is in a medical emergency, and someone asks me what should be done, the answer “I don’t know” is much preferable to a guess. “I don’t know” leads the questioner to ask someone who hopefully is knowledgeable.
Part of why “I don’t know is so hard to say” stems from an education system based on attempting every single question, whether you know the answer or not.
P.S.: End-of-year student survey showed students strongly supported the +1/4 point IDK and -1/4 point wrong-answer system."