pro libertate net

I think my first “contact” with Deirdre McCloskey was when I got seriously interested in scientific writing and in particular in how to improve my writing. I read her Economical Writing at about the same time as Strunk & White’s The Element of Style. That must have been during the middle or shortly before finishing my PhD. Yes, that late. The Rhetoric of Economics followed very soon. Here I got a first glimpse at her battle against the evil p-value and the misuse of statistics. I have to admit even though I agree with her main critique I do not follow all her advice — I think that is one of the big problems she sees in empirical economists. They agree but still do otherwise. I also had the good luck to meet Gerd Gigerenzer, a psychologist and fellow warrior against the misuse of statistics, and discuss this particular topic with him during a sociable evening after a long day full of presentations at a remote conference venue of the Max Planck Society. Yes, there is something wrong with our (that is the economist’s) way of relying on, reporting, and interpreting statistics and specifically statistical significance.

How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives is not only the subtitle of Ziliak and McCloskey’s manifesto The Cult of Statistical Significance it is quite indicative of their (strong) rhetoric.

The book can be roughly divided in two parts that are devoted to different “themes”. The first is an updated and extended rehash of their earlier articles on the current practice of relying on statistical significance in various fields. If you have not read their articles so far read this and be shocked. You will see the author’s outrage in every paragraph. The second part and theme is a historical account that tries to shed light on how we ended up where we are. This part is rather filled with bitterness and repugnance for R. A. Fisher and compassion for the neglected Mr. Student, William Sealy Gosset.

Ziliak and McCloskey’s rhetoric is unique, yet it is not always to their benefit. Though, they certainly make their point and at least in private you have to agree with them. All in all, the book is entertaining and instructive. Even so, I would not assign this book to a class for reading I would rather recommend the 2004 special issue of the Journal of Socio-Economics on this topic. On the other hand, every empirical scientist and every policy maker relying on scientific research (shouldn’t they all?) should be aware that, first, size matters and that precision of measurement should not be the only decision criteria.

Only in 2007 I stumbled upon Trudi Canavan’s debut series The Black Magician trilogy featuring a young girl with a natural talent for magic. I liked this series a lot. Yet, I did not touch Canavan’s second trilogy Age of the Five. I do not really know why. The Magician’s Apprentice, however, drew my attention again as it is a prequel to The Black Magician trilogy.

Canavan either has a very good editor or is just a great writer. The book’s 750 pages are being read in no time (I have just read the paperback). The plot has some similarities with that of the original trilogy. The most obvious is, of course, the main character being again a young girl with a natural talent for magic. Nevertheless, the story is not only sufficiently original it is so intriguing that I had to lend the book to my fiancee who happened to catch a glimpse of just a few pages.

I am already looking forward to the sequel, The Traitor Spy trilogy.

Now, that was a waste of money. Don’t get me wrong. Dona Wong’s Guide to Information Graphics is a nicely designed little book with some valuable advice on how to present quantitative date. Why is it a waste of money? It does not go beyond very small data sets and few closely related time series. The data we talk about is so sparse that even the dreaded pie chart cannot distort the perception of the depicted quantities by much and consequently is discussed in this little book.

Though, book may be an overstatement; booklet seems more appropriate. And despite only being about 150 pages ‘thick’ there are some repetitions in its content. This is often a good didactic move. For a reference book not so much.

Since Dona Wong is a student of Edward Tufte it makes sense to rather refer to his work. So instead of looking into Guide to Information Graphics have a look at:

• Envisioning Information
• Visual Explanations
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
• Beautiful Evidence

all by Edward Tufte, and all are on effective and indeed beautiful ways to graphically present data.

Another “Old Master” is William S. Cleveland and his

• Visualizing Data
• The Elements of Graphing Data

come also highly recommended.

If you rather need an overview of different types of plots and ways to present data Information Graphics - A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference by Robert L. Harris is the reference you look for.

Not as nicely designed as Dona Wong’s Guide, yet with considerable more content is Naomi Robbins’ Creating More Effective Graphs.

And finally, I rather enjoyed reading Howard Wainer’s Picturing the Uncertain World. Though it is more a historic account of the development of good and effective graphical displays.

Pink’s Drive is about motivation in the workplace and yet I have a feeling that he does not know the typical workplace or the dominant type of jobs in the developed world. Or, that the book is not about motivation in the workplace after all.

He gets a lot of things right. There are two very different types of jobs. One type consists of mainly routine work, the other is of mainly creative (problem solving) nature. He correctly identifies the categories of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic, that can be improved by different measures each and that can be linked more successfully to either the routine or the creative type of work. Further, he identifies three motivators that are particularly important for intrinsic motivation: Autonomy (People like to have control over their work), Mastery (People like to get better at what they do), and Purpose (People like to be part of something that is bigger than they are). 

Finally, he correctly points out that extrinsic incentives may have adverse effects on intrinsic motivation.

Pink, however, fails in several other important aspects.

Routine work still needs to be done. Outsourcing does not help. Somebody still has to do the work. Even if job growth is faster for creative jobs nowadays, routine work is a dominant part of work in public administration and public enterprises. Not every job can be re-designed to emphasize the creative part. Consequently, just for this reason alone relying on intrinsic motivation cannot be an universal solution. In short, I think he grossly overstated the relevance of creative jobs.

Second, extrinsic motivation is not just money. There is at least praise, promotion (ok this is money in the end), reputation and the admiration of peers. How do they interact with the different types of work and motivation? Not a single word. How do extrinsic and intrinsic motivation complement each other? Not a single word. In short, he grossly understated the relevance of extrinsic motivation.

Third, his exposition is very unbalanced and lop-sided. If he mentions studies he ignores results that do not support his point. Studies that show the success of extrinsic rewards are not mentioned. They do not support his point. If he concedes that certain extrinsic incentives can be effective he fails to explain to what extend and when this is true . His book is full of inconsistencies. Why do most “flow” experiences (this is something good) happen at work if the workplace is dominated by the horrid carrots and sticks, if-then rewards? Why are the free time for creativity programs only implemented for certain types of employees, i.e. the engineers? Inconvenient truths are sometimes alluded to, never are they discussed in detail.

In the end, Drive is more like a self-help book and about personal development and not about the workplace and how to implement more successful personnel strategies. Indeed, a major part of the book contains a toolkit for self-improvement and ancedotes and conservation starters. The book is about something that fascinated the author. It is not about enlightening the reader.

There was nothing really surprising (except the lop-sidedness) and Pink does not offer the (whole) truth. This is really a pity as Pink certainly is a skilled author and the topic is important.

Not exactly as advertised – The Atlantis Code does not take anyone to a new level of mystery, wonder, adventure nor excitement – it is still quite entertaining. In fact, I might even buy the next installment of the protagonist’s escapades. As far as I understand Brokaw’s next novel announced for this year will feature the same protagonist.

Brokaw’s characters need a little more depth, especially the villains and supporting characters. His protagonist seems a little too awkward in coping with his female companions given his background. Though, I liked the existence of a strong counter-balancing female character. The different characters’ motivation is clear, there is no wondering where all the money for all the travelling and hotels is coming from. These are some of the novel’s positive features that cannot always be taken for granted.

The conclusion of The Atlantis Code is a bit anti-climatic. All the interesting things get destroyed or are spirited away and stashed in some secret place by the Church. The Garden of Eden - Atlantis - Tower of Babel link was, however, rather original. To my taste, Brokaw could have elaborated this even in more detail. In sum, the novel is a rather respectable debut feature.

At Geary Behavioural Economics Blog @LiamDelaneyUCD is looking for books on behavioral economics. Given my interest in the field, I would like to add a few books. I add a few on experimental economics, too, as both fields are close relatives.

First, let’s see what he already has on his list:

• “Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heurisics and Biases” edited by Kahnemann, Slovic, and Tverky
• “Choices, Values, and Frames” edited by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky
• “Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgement.” edited by Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman

These three books were indeed among the first books on behavioral economics that I bought myself at the beginning of my PhD. They are good collections of a number of great papers.

Next came:

• “Advances in Behavioural Economics” edited by Camerer, Loewenstein, and Rabin
• Camerer’s “Behavioral Game Theory”
• “Exotic Preferences” by Lowenstein which really is (I have to agree) a great overview of his work on preference formation, emotion and decision making

Just before I moved to Bremen and joined Jacobs University the following two books gained a place on my book shelf

• Behavioral Economics and its Applications edited by Peter Diamond and Hannu Vartiainen. This is a great overview of some of the most recent applications of behavioral economics and a prospective research agenda.
• “An Introduction to Behavioral Economics” by Nicolas Wilkinson, a textbook that adds a historical context to the different topics it discusses. I liked it.

I have not read so far

• Frey and Stutzer’s “Economics and Psychology: A Promising New Cross-Disciplinary Field”
• Peter Lunn’s recent book “Basic Instincts: Human Nature and the New Economics”

On the pop-economics front @LiamDelaneyUCD lists

• the popular “Nudge” by Thaler and Sunstein
• and Dan Ariely’s “Predictably Irrational”

And in the comments are a number of books mentioned that I have not read so far:

• William Poundstone’s “Priceless”
• Ori and Rom Brafman, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour
• Akerlof and Shiller, Animal Spirits

All three of them are already on my to-read-shelf.

Last but not least, everything by Herbert Simon, and in particular “Human Problem Solving” is mentioned.

Ok. What can I add to this list?

First, two collections:

• “The Construction of Preferences” edited by Lichtenstein an Slovic
• “Quasi Rational Economics” by Richard Thaler.

Both are highly recommended!

On morals, ethics and (behavioral) economics:

• “Moral Sentiment and Material Interest” by Gintis, Bowles, Boyd, and Fehr
• “Explaining Social Behavior” by Jon Elster
• “Moral Markets” edited by Paul Zak
• “Moral and Markets” by Dan Friedman

On behavioral game theory

• “Rational Decisions” by Ken Binmore
• “The Bounds of Reason” by Herb Gintis

And finally, a few essential books on experimental economics:

• “The Handbook of Experimental Economics” by Kagel and Roth
• “Handbook of Experimental Economics Results” by Plott and Smith
• “The Methodology of Experimental Economics” by Francesco Guala
• “Experimental Economics – Rethinking the Rules” by Bardsley, Cubitt, Loomes, Moffatt, Starmer, and Sudgen

 Enjoy!