Cafe Salemba goes off air

sorry for a little, shameless self-promotion...

-- Manager

Mencermati Pragmatisme Rezim Subsidi

Isu subsidi negara selalu mengundang perdebatan. Banyak yang mendukung, namun tak sedikit pula yang kritis. Isu subsidi paling aktual saat ini adalah soal pencabutan sebagian subsidi BBM dan pengalokasian dana itu ke bentuk subsidi lain, misalnya Subsidi Tunai. Terlepas dari motif politik dukungan maupun penolakan terhadap kebijakan terbaru pemerintah, bagaimana sebaiknya isu subsidi, baik untuk BBM maupun yang lain, dicermati?

Untuk menjawab pertanyaan ini, Freedom Institute, bekerjasama dengan Friedrich Naumann Stiftung dan Café Salemba akan mengadakan diskusi di: Freedom Institute Jalan Irian No. 8, Menteng, Jakarta, Kamis, 29 Mei 2008 - 19.00 - 21.00. dengan pembicara Aco dan Ape (Café Salemba), serta moderator Hamid Basyaib (Freedom Institute)

Pengantar diskusi: Dalam kaidah ideal ilmu ekonomi, subsidi seperti halnya pajak adalah kebijakan yang diambil untuk menginternalisasikan biaya dan manfaat sosial agar pelaku ekonomi memperhitungkannya dalam keputusan harga. Hal ini dilakukan pada saat pasar mengalami kendala dalam merefleksikan biaya dan manfaat sesungguhnya dari suatu aktivitas ekonomi (misalnya karena barangnya bersifat publik). Namun demikian, subsidi (sebagaimana bentuk intervensi lainnya) tetap bersifat distortif. Artinya, keseimbangan yang tercapai tidak murni merupakan hasil interaksi yang bersifat sukarela antara permintaan dan penawaran, tetapi dengan imbuhan kebijakan dari pihak pemerintah. Tentunya ini tidak selamanya buruk. Dalam kenyataan, subsidi tetap diperlukan atas alasan redistribusi maupun koreksi atas kegagalan pasar. Tetapi, beberapa jenis subsidi lebih sedikit menciptakan distorsi dibandingkan yang lain. Diskusi ini akan membicarakan kapan dan dalam kondisi bagaimana subsidi dapat diberi justifikasi. Untuk lebih melengkapi gambaran subsidi itu sendiri, diskusi akan dimulai dengan pembahasan tentang apa sebenarnya subsidi itu, asal dari kebijakan subsidi di era moderen, model-model subsidi, pro dan kontra subsidi, serta berbagai contoh kebijakan subsidi di Indonesia beserta tinjauan kritisnya. ***

Self Promotion #394: The Future of the Intellectual Imperialists is Not Dismal and #395: How to Improve Your Love Life

(links to the previous installments: #393 and #392)

The future of the economics, the dismal science, is not so dismal, according to this article in the New York Times. Here's a quip:

"....economists have been acting a lot like intellectual imperialists in the last decade or so. They have been using their tools — mainly the analysis of enormous piles of data to tease out cause and effect — to examine everything from politics to French wine vintages...."

"...As “The Soulful Science,” a new book by Diane Coyle, puts it, there has been a “remarkable creative renaissance in how economics is addressing the most fundamental questions — and how it is starting to help solve problems.”..."

Well, what is certainly not going to be dismal is the future of the thirteen "Economists to Watch" who were featured in the article. Andrew Leigh of the ANU calls them the young guns, although I think Leigh himself is a young gun, certainly one of the top young economists in the southern hemisphere (check out his academic website).

One of the thirteen on the NYT list is Ben Olken, who has done a number of his studies on Indonesia, and his works on corruption, social capital have been discussed in this Cafe (see the links to those discussions here).

An interesting fact about the list is that out of the thirteen economists on it, six of them are married to each other, a clear example of positive assortative mating (ah, this reminds me to do a post on assortative mating in the future).

Examples of positive assortative mating among economists are indeed abound. For my fellow economists whose partners are not really into utility maximization thing, don't give up just yet. There are ways to do it, which brings us to Self Promotion #395: How to Improve Your Love Life.

From Greg Mankiw's blog:

How to Improve Your Love Live

Having trouble satisfying your girlfriend? A reader of this blog emails me his remedy for the problem:

"...You'll be pleased to know that I managed to persuade my girlfriend (a biologist) to buy a copy of your "Principles of Microeconomics" recently here in the UK, so that we could have more informed discussions about interesting economics problems...."

Okay, that;s probably falls into the category of how not to charm your girl/boyfriend. And see also the following letter from a nerd comment in the blog:

".... I'm tempted to try this with my girlfriend. In time she can work up to Romer and Mas-Colell-Whinston-Green. Until then, our love life just won't be complete...."

Err... Oh well, the future is probably dismal after all.

Update: Arya at On Indonesia and the Economy also has a post about the young guns. According to him (I paraphrased), there isn't enough credit being given to economists whose work are as technically sound as those done by the featured economists, have more practical uses, but on topics less sexier than some of those on the list. I think I agree with him.

self-promotion | economists | dismal science | assortative mating

Self-Promotion #393: "...Because That's What Gets the Chicks... "

(See Self-Promotion #392 right here)

It's time for another installment of our infamous Self-Promotion^TM postings. Let me shamelessly quote two full paragraphs from a blog entry by Steven Levitt at Freakonomics:

You may remember Joey Cheek as a gold medal speed skater from the Winter Olympics. It turns out he is also quite smart. He was admitted to Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. (Harvard, however, turned him down.)

Parade magazine quotes Cheek as saying that he plans to study economics. And then he goes on to blow the secret we economists have so carefully guarded for all these years. He plans to study economics because “that’s what gets the chicks.”

Joey, Joey. You just can't keep a secret, can you? Here's the website of Mr. Chick Magnet himself for you ladies.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is Self-Promotion #393. (Or is it self-vilification?)

self-promotion economists

Self-Promotion #392: The Sexiest Trade Alive

(Probably #393, but who's counting)

From the Newsweek :

"Economics, perhaps the geekiest of geek subjects, got a serious makeover this year...What sparked the trend? It's a mystery—even to the number crunchers. "We'd like to say it's because economics is so interesting and because economists are so handsome and intelligent," says John Siegfried, an econ professor at Vanderbilt University..."

Amen to that, Mr. Siegfried! Wait. Did someone just call us geeks? Oh, well.