貴就好？尬意就好？紅酒看商品價格與"本質"

這則影片非常有趣，從紅酒的評價，可以討論：一項商品"價格"，"專業訓練"，"品質"，以及"事實"。(影片/報導來源：VOX (May 20, 2015) 貴的酒是給潘仔喝的

2015諾貝爾經濟學獎得主Angus Deaton的啟發

專家們都協助暴君？還是專家們根本就是暴君？
民主的精神在哪裡？

平均與邊際(2)：難民，與社會中的"邊際"

Pavarotti & Friends: Together For The Children Of Bosnia(1996, Decca)

有誰還記得，1996年的巴爾幹與波士米亞？

大跌背後的主因(1)：都已經灌注了這麼多錢，大家還在擔心通貨緊縮？

過去一個禮拜大跌的原因，眾說紛紜。以歐洲的角度來看，通貨緊縮成為主要的討論議題。到底通貨緊縮是甚麼？這張過去曾經描繪出來的圖示就又派上用場了。正常的經濟運作，是每個市場中間的連結像上圖一樣：個人進入勞動市場，參與生產部門的運作。個人的所得拿來消費，或者是儲蓄導引到金融市場，繼續往生產部門投資。以此循環。

通貨緊縮看似是右下角消費市場的價格，會持續往下探底的故事。看似對消費者是件好事，至少生活成本不會再往上拉，但在今天的狀況下，問題變得不是這麼容易。

On Valentine Day: Let's ask "Where is the love?"

On the day of Valentine, Let's ask
"Where is the love?"

經濟效率與經濟誘因(1): 稅率, 所得重分配, 誘因機制

在去年(2013)年底有一系列討論貧富差距的文章, 以美國跟法國來說, 現任的總統都比較"左"一些. 簡單來說, 對於經濟發展的政策, 相對於市場競爭帶來的效率, 他們比較重視"公平".  到底公平跟效率之間, 有沒有一個平衡點?

跟其他我的文章相同,我們從三篇國外的報導與文獻出發, 看一下到底在政策上該用甚麼樣的角度來衡量這樣的政策.
法國總統得到法院同意課徵75%的百萬富人稅
Bloomberg(Dec. 30, 2013)
重分配與低所得者的生活福利
Prof. Gary Becker (Dec. 29, 2013) 
(從富到貧的)重分配真的減緩了經濟成長或者是整體經濟福祉? Judge Richard Posner (Dec. 30, 2013)

Market and Moral: Incentive v. Punishment

When Market Incentive Undermine Morality by Daniel Friedman and Daniel McNeill Bloomberg, Jun 10, 2013
Markets function under incentive: Is it really beneficial for all?

Chile, The Economic Laboratory in 70s and 80s

Is it possible to make any comparison on their economic policies?

台灣房地產(1): 台北房地產價格大規模普遍性下跌的可能

這篇是我去年(2012) 年第三季左右成文的文章, 對於現在有個氛圍提出台北房地產價格不合理以及可能的大規模普遍性下跌的一些看法. 於是將原文整理一下. 我想我的看法跟當初的想法並沒有差異太大,而就我有限的時間跟精神裡面蒐集到的資訊並沒有看到支持台北市房地產價格大幅度改變的可能, 修改成文,給讀者作為參考. 

(Updated, May 17th, 2013)

我想要在文首加一下這個公式, 以及引述J.H. Cochrane在2011年Journal of Finance "Presidential Address:Discount Rate" 一文中的一句話.

"All a 'price bubble' can possibly mean now is that the equivalent discount rate is 'too low'  relative to some theory,........, this equivalence guides us to a much more profitable discussion"
"所謂的泡沫陳述可能只是現下的折現率, 相較於理論的推估值,過低,這樣的陳述引導我們到更有建設性的討論"

一個小孩的價值: 少子化與經濟因素

"欸, 到底爸媽養我們到大要多少錢?"
那天跟女朋友討論的還真剛好跟跟這個議題扯上點關係.
早期台灣貧窮照生6, 7個? 少子化跟經濟因素有關?

魔球 v. 人生決勝球, 統計到底有沒有用?

沒有錢 沒有好的數據分析就不要玩職棒? 

貶值: 真的有貨幣戰爭? (2)

日本貿易赤字因為日圓貶值而擴大 by Bloomberg, Feb 20, 2013
貶值救貿易赤字? 別再相信"拔獅子鬃毛"的傳說了.........

貶值: 真的有貨幣戰爭?

這篇是我這些年來對於總經的粗淺認知, 我嘗試推演傳說中的貨幣戰爭根本不存在, 試圖用另外一個角度來告訴大家現在的相競貶值到底在玩些什麼花樣?

首先, 我想先回顧一下我之前寫的一篇文章, 到底貨幣是什麼? 我們持有cash的目的是什麼?
The value of (holding) cash 其中有兩個很重要的概念:

1. 現金還是一種政府擔保發行的一種資產, 以政府的概念來看就是一種超短期債,以個人的角度來看就是持有某種短期政府債券. 跟其他債券一樣,他也是一種金融資產.

2. 一個國家的國民: 你, 會持有這個大家普遍信任的債券去交易: 不論是交易你想取得的財貨或勞務, 或者是把這個債券換成其他的金融資產,比如你去投資股票或者其他債券etc.

3. (本文新加入這點) 別人為什麼會願意收下你的這個金融資產,讓你換取實體財貨或者是勞務? 因為他相信這張紙具有"購買力" :換句話說: 持有這張金融資產可以讓他在往後的短時間內還是可以兌換到相應的產品,他並不用承擔任何短期的損失.

ok, 那印鈔票到底會發生什麼事情,貶值會發生什麼樣的事情?

4 Bloomberg Robert Shiller collection

(This article has been laying in my draft box for a long time, here we go: 中文版本在此)

I just saw "The Dark Knihgt Rises" recently. I did not quite like the plot, especially the ending...(what the....) However, there is a scene caught my eyes, when, "liberators" stormed into a stock exchange and tried(and succeeded) to execute a transaction that made Bruce Wayne broken.

This is an interesting metaphor, when people might think stock exchange. Individual greed might be a small drop, yet eventually all converge into stock exchange where the greed become a huge flood: One day it might wash up all your wealth.

Is that true? Shouldn't ordinary people know a thing or two about finance and even enjoy what modern finance bringing to them?

Prof. Shiller's collection of these four articles(on Bloomberg) are going to offer the readers a new perspective.

隨意雜感: 商品化有什麼不對?

最近跟了一些台灣的新聞, 有一個觀點我不太能夠理解. 或者是說,對於所謂"左派"的思考我有所謂不能理解的地方.

我們反對將"_____"商品化: "________"可以自行帶入各式各樣的物品.

商品化有什麼不對?

A glimpse of thought: Risk seeking and boom-bust circle

In my leisure time, I read two article about the boom and bust of economic circles: one article is about how Ching Dynasty is doomed by a rubber price mania in early 20th century, the other is about the housing price in Europe now, at least in some regions, are coming back.

This gives me a thought: How to study people's risk-seeking behaviors!

Too old to get employed, too young to retired?

This article aims to share two articles, having a very different views on aging.

2012.Mar. 22: Too Old to get hired, too young to retired: by Michael Kinsley

2012 Sep. 7: BMW never-too-old assembly insures against lost engineers by Christian Wuestner

In crisis time, labor markets are always under the spot light. Of course, lots of talks are on financial system. Yet, to my belief, human, as we see in labor markets, is the only core of economy.

Twin Crisis: Disentangle National Debt markets and Banking System

Distengaling twin crisis by Prof. Thorsten Beck (2012, Jun)

Twin Crisis: Sovereign Debts and Banks

There are 3 essential questions in the speech：
1.) how are banks and sovereigns being locked up together in this crisis?

2.) how cross-country banking should be？How might it help to cope with the problem？

3.) Is there any possibility to design a new financial instrument, specifically, a repackaged debt instrument, to tackle the current crisis？

Language tense for time preference, an academic argument

For the Netherlands, the future is NOW!!

The other day in the behavioral economics class, I discussed such ideas with my fellow classmates , concerning whether the verb tense might influence some economic behaviors in different cultures. It seems some scholars indeed try to use quantitative models to explore such effect.

The working paper  in January done by Yale Economics Professor Keith Chen indicated that, for people using languages with weak future-time reference(FTR), they would have higher saving rates. The reason is that, they perceive the future as PRESENT! Consequently. any problems that might happen in the future would not be perceived that "remote." Therefore, people in this language group will react to problems as if it is "NOW!" 

The immediate comparison is between German and English. I am not familiar with German, yet, as the author suggest, in German you could say "Morgen regnet es" ,directly translated as "It rains tomorrow." Yet, in English it should be written as "It will rain tomorrow" Usage of "will" or not is a key indication of strong or weak FTR form. As noted in this case, German speakers could take a future event  as present one and start taking precautionary measures to deal with such event.

The second interesting results is, after adjusted to such effect, people in southern Europe actually save MORE than their Northern counterparts. In other words, if southern Europeans were speaking in the same language structure as the Northern Europeans, then they would have saved more than these Northern parts!

Language is playing a role in our economic decisions!