Links to Consider, 6/19

Alice Evans defines patriarchy; Jean Twenge joins substack; Michael Bernstein offers more evidence of pure tribalism in politics; John Cochrane on bank regulators

Alice Evans writes,

In patriarchal societies, prestigious positions are dominated by men; this reinforces beliefs that men are more competent in socially valued domains, deserving of deference, and speak with authority. Feeling entitled to higher status, men (either as individuals or as a group) may get angry when given insufficient respect.

If this is correct, then patriarchy would seem to be highly path-dependent. If prestigious positions happened to be dominated by women, then women would be deemed more competent and feel entitled to higher status. If path dependence were the only factor, then might we not observe more matriarchies?

Jean Twenge’s first substack post:

What is the risk in restricting social media among those (say) 15 and under? Pretty low. What is the risk in doing nothing as more kids become depressed and harm themselves? Very high.

The time to call for “more research” was 10 years ago. We now have the research. Now we need action — not more more dithering.

It’s weird that our culture resists letting a 10-year-old walk to school by herself, but we’re fine with giving her a smart phone. I would be more optimistic about the future if it were the other way around.

Michael Bernstein writes,

Democrats generally support the same policy more when attributed to Obama versus Trump while Republicans generally support the same policy more when attributed to Trump versus Obama. The college student results are shown in Figure 1 below where scores greater than 0 indicate pro-Obama bias and scores lower than 0 indicate pro-Trump bias.  For instance, in the case of drone strikes, Republicans gave it an agreement rating of 0.55 higher in the Trump versus Obama frame, and Democrats gave it an agreement rating of 0.30 higher in the Obama versus Trump frame.

Pointer from Rob Henderson. You survey a bunch of Democrats about policy X. You tell half of them that the policy was undertaken by Obama and half of them that it was undertaken by Trump. They are more likely to approve of the policy if you tell them it was undertaken by Obama. (Conversely for Republicans and Trump.) And, yes, the policy is one that was undertaken by both as President, and also you can be confident that the survey respondents are not knowledgeable enough to realize that.

In fact, another interesting study would be to give people a list of policy measures, some of which were undertaken by both Obama and Trump, some by Obama only, some by Trump only, and some by neither. Then ask each survey respondent to say which measures were followed by both, O, T, or none and also the extent to which the respondent approves the measures. One can imagine a world in which the strongest approval goes to measures that the respondent believes were followed by both. My guess is that instead for a Democrat the strongest approval will go for measures that the respondent believes (rightly or wrongly) were not followed by Trump, and conversely for a Republican.

John Cochrane writes,

Why don't banks naturally issue more equity in good times? Well, because buying insurance is expensive, and most of all there is no deposit insurance or too big to fail guarantee subsidizing stock. So banks always leverage as much as they can. Behavioralists will add that bankers get over enthusiastic and happy to take risks in good times. Why don't regulators demand more capital in good times, so banks are ready for the bad times ahead? That's the natural idea of "countercyclical capital buffers." And after 2008, all worthy opinion said regulators should do that. Only some cynical types like me opined that the regulators will be just as human, just as behavioral, just as procyclically risk averse, just as prey to political pressures in the future as they were in the past. 

People who have faith in bank regulation are like people who have faith in Communism. Although it fails all the time, its adherents insist that is because it was not really tried. I have a long essay on this topic coming out in a few days. I propose taking some of the hard decisions about when to rein in a bank out of the hands of government officials, who have every incentive to go easy on banks. Transfer the responsibility to private companies with skin in the game. I have no hope that Congress would ever do this, of course.

substacks references above:

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Frenemies, Fake News, Dimorphic Primates

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Political Tribalism in Today’s America

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What is Patriarchy?

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