Links to Consider, 3/10
Alex Nowrasteh on the birth dearth; Ed West on mental illness and concept creep; Me on the recent Milton Friedman biography; Ed West on disruptive people
people who worry about low fertility focus on vague cultural explanations and don’t look at the simple one staring them in the face: microeconomics. Opportunity cost is what you must give up to buy what you want in terms of other goods or services, but the concept applies to every action you take.
Pointer from a reader of my recent post on marriage. Nowrasteh is saying that the reason people are having fewer children nowadays is the same as the reason people are eating less meatloaf. There are now more appealing options out there.
At some point, the economist’s argument that people are doing things by choice becomes a tautology. You are simply asserting that the decision is rational, without saying what would constitute evidence against that assertion.
Consider a woman in her early thirties who is not married. She is unlikely to have a large family, and she may have no children at all. Is this what she wanted at age 25? Is it what will make her happy at age 55?
As an economist, you can talk about her choice to have sushi instead of meatloaf at lunch in terms of opportunity cost, meaning instantaneous measures of costs and benefits. I don’t think that language helps to describe her childlessness, which affects her in larger ways.
The argument, that thinking and talking about one’s mental health is bad for your mental health, also at least passes the common-sense smell test. When the Princess of Wales recently visited a primary school to support Children's Mental Health Week, and told them ‘Keep talking about your feelings and keep asking others how they're doing’, that seems like obviously terrible advice. If I was giving help to a loved one who was suffering from a persistent low mood, my advice would be to not dwell on your own negative emotions, nor your own happiness, but to focus on other people.
He also cites research on this point. And you may know about Abigail Shrier’s latest book, which West doesn’t mention. Her recent interview with Coleman Hughes is worth a listen. I was struck when Hughes talked about the negative rebound effect when Adderall wears off.
In a review of Jennifer Burns’ biography of Milton Friedman, I wrote,
Within the economics profession, Friedman came closest to running the show in the early 1970s. His influence on economic policy probably peaked about 15 years later, with the spread of the “Washington Consensus” in favor of limited government and low inflation. But Friedman seemed never satisfied with his victories, seeing them as incomplete. As his criticism of the Washington Consensus shows, he did not see himself as running the show even when others did.
Later this month, I will be discussing this book with Brian Doherty.
One study suggests that ‘exposure to one additional disruptive student in a class of 25 throughout elementary school reduces math and reading test scores in grades 9 and 10 by 0.02 standard deviations and that, in the case of particularly disruptive elementary school students, such as young males exposed to domestic violence, there are larger effects on high school test scores and on college degree attainment.’ This works out at around £75,000 in lifetime earnings. (As a caution, I don’t know if that study has been replicated.)
The principle also translates to communities more generally; many towns slide into poverty because their brightest and best have left, but removing the criminal element from a neighbourhood has a massive impact. The imbalance works in the office, too, where ‘getting rid of toxic workers helps more than hiring more superstars’.
A common management mistake is hesitating to fire someone. If you know that you have people who are hurting morale, you cannot ditch them soon enough.
West argues that schools need to return to policy of kicking out disruptive students.
substacks referenced above:
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"reduces math and reading test scores in grades 9 and 10 by 0.02 standard deviations"
0.02 SD?! Anyone with any familiarity with standard deviations has to balk at a number like that. I was convinced that had to be a typo. But no, I downloaded the nber paper and there it was.
Look, saying "reduced" is a very misleading way to put "does practically nothing", and thinking one can use such weak evidence in support of anything is borderline innumerate. 0.02 standard deviations is unmeasurably precise in the context of those test scores and indistinguishable from zero. For comparison, 0.02SD is 0.3 IQ points, 1/16th of an inch (1.5 millimeters) in height, or something like a 1% difference in household income near the median.
"I was struck when Hughes talked about the negative rebound effect when Adderall wears off"
Adderall is just amphetamine*, i.e., "speed"**. When people consume stimulants in that family at sufficient doses to go beyond mere boost in focus and productivity to feelings of euphoria, arousal, and a substantial lift in mood, many will then tend to experience a mood crash called a "comedown" similar to an alcohol hangover but more emotional than physical, that is a depressed low proportionate in intensity and duration to the high, and which can be aggravated by numerous other factors.
The nature of human metabolic biodiversity is such that plenty of people barely get this at all and bounce right back, and plenty are at the other extreme of getting totally wrecked by comedowns even after small doses, and plenty are everywhere in between. For any member of this family of substances, depending on what effect one is trying to achieve, for some it will prove to be a wonder drug, for others borderline toxic. This makes it very hard to predict how any individual would react or to give individualized useful advice, and the wide statistical dispersion makes "experience reports" such as the one given by Hughes necessarily anecdotal. It also makes it hard for people with different reaction profiles to relate to each other with regards to these experiences.
*Technically, there are left and right-handed versions of amphetamine, the right-handed one is somewhat more stimulating and preferred for recreational use, and Adderall is a 3:1 ratio of right to left, in slightly different salts that don't make much difference. Just calling it "amphetamine" or "speed" is close enough, especially if someone takes a recreational-level dose.
**People don't say "speed" much anymore, and when they did, they used it in a very loose manner where it could refer to either amphetamine, methamphetamine, or occasionally some other similar substituted amphetamines. Drug culture language is fuzzy and often maps poorly to the precise identifications of chemical nomenclature.