There’s an old joke about a violist who suffers weekly at the hands of his conductor during rehearsals. The conductor humiliates him by pointing out his every mistake to the rest of the orchestra, and the violist starts to think he can never do anything right.
Current residents bear the costs of new development. Those costs take many forms – crowded schools, congested freeways, crime, ugly high-rises, spillover parking on residential streets – but they all decrease property values. Accordingly, homeowners and landlords are often vocal opponents of new development, and seek to impose burdensome or prohibitive costs on developers through zoning regulations.
There’s an old joke about a violist who suffers weekly at the hands of his conductor during rehearsals. The conductor humiliates him by pointing out his every mistake to the rest of the orchestra, and the violist starts to think he can never do anything right.
When does violence end quickly, and when does it escalate into broader conflict? The competition between Native American tribes over bison hunting grounds during the mid-1800s provides an illustrative example. Lakotas, Crows, Omahas, Poncas, and other groups roamed the plains on horseback, seeking food for the winter and hides to sell to American traders.
Try saying that five times fast.
When does violence end quickly, and when does it escalate into broader conflict? The competition between Native American tribes over bison hunting grounds during the mid-1800s provides an illustrative example. Lakotas, Crows, Omahas, Poncas, and other groups roamed the plains on horseback, seeking food for the winter and hides to sell to American traders.
My pre-calculus teacher was fond of pointing out that there are many ways to get to the local Dairy Queen. This fact of geography might easily be verified by inspecting a map, but of course there are also many, many ways to create a map. This is one such recipe for mapping roadways in R using ggplot2.
I’m learning to work with data.tables in R. This reference provides a translation between data.table and Stata commands and should be helpful for any moving between the two languages.
The demand for epitaphs ought to depend on several conditions: the number of Romans who died, their wealth, and the popularity of inscribed epitaphs relative to other forms of commemoration for the dead. It follows that periods of high mortality will be associated with more epitaphs. When the death rate is high, there will be relatively more subjects for epitaphs, and – in a Malthusian economy – their surviving relatives will have extra cash available for “luxury” purchases that exhibit their wealth, like high quality inscriptions.1
Similarly, the Black Death “concentrated wealth, often substantial family fortunes, in fewer and younger hands…. Even with a reduced population, the gross volume of luxury goods manufactured and sold rose.” See Rout, David. “The Economic Impact of the Black Death”. EH.net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. July 20, 2008. http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-impact-of-the-black-death/ ↩
Try saying that five times fast.
Across the Empire, Romans inscribed the significant events of their lives on stone. A record of deaths, vows to the gods, and public decrees, these inscriptions reached their highest frequency around the year 200 A.D. The map below depicts the density of inscription writing in Italy and the surrounding provinces.
I’m learning to work with data.tables in R. This reference provides a translation between data.table and Stata commands and should be helpful for any moving between the two languages.
The demand for epitaphs ought to depend on several conditions: the number of Romans who died, their wealth, and the popularity of inscribed epitaphs relative to other forms of commemoration for the dead. It follows that periods of high mortality will be associated with more epitaphs. When the death rate is high, there will be relatively more subjects for epitaphs, and – in a Malthusian economy – their surviving relatives will have extra cash available for “luxury” purchases that exhibit their wealth, like high quality inscriptions.1
Similarly, the Black Death “concentrated wealth, often substantial family fortunes, in fewer and younger hands…. Even with a reduced population, the gross volume of luxury goods manufactured and sold rose.” See Rout, David. “The Economic Impact of the Black Death”. EH.net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. July 20, 2008. http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-impact-of-the-black-death/ ↩
Across the Empire, Romans inscribed the significant events of their lives on stone. A record of deaths, vows to the gods, and public decrees, these inscriptions reached their highest frequency around the year 200 A.D. The map below depicts the density of inscription writing in Italy and the surrounding provinces.
My pre-calculus teacher was fond of pointing out that there are many ways to get to the local Dairy Queen. This fact of geography might easily be verified by inspecting a map, but of course there are also many, many ways to create a map. This is one such recipe for mapping roadways in R using ggplot2.
Try saying that five times fast.
Many workers’ jobs become somewhat more pleasant during the pandemic. Those who could work from home enjoyed instantaneous commutes, less supervision from their managers, and more flexibility in when and how they worked. While these changes certainly did not fully compensate workers for the hardship of the pandemic, they did partially offset it.
My pre-calculus teacher was fond of pointing out that there are many ways to get to the local Dairy Queen. This fact of geography might easily be verified by inspecting a map, but of course there are also many, many ways to create a map. This is one such recipe for mapping roadways in R using ggplot2.
Across the Empire, Romans inscribed the significant events of their lives on stone. A record of deaths, vows to the gods, and public decrees, these inscriptions reached their highest frequency around the year 200 A.D. The map below depicts the density of inscription writing in Italy and the surrounding provinces.
What role do public sector unions play in determining the local government spending priorities? I discuss a trio of recent papers that shed light on this question. Each explores a different source of monopoly power that allows organized public employees to extract rents in the form of higher wages.
Across the Empire, Romans inscribed the significant events of their lives on stone. A record of deaths, vows to the gods, and public decrees, these inscriptions reached their highest frequency around the year 200 A.D. The map below depicts the density of inscription writing in Italy and the surrounding provinces.
Current residents bear the costs of new development. Those costs take many forms – crowded schools, congested freeways, crime, ugly high-rises, spillover parking on residential streets – but they all decrease property values. Accordingly, homeowners and landlords are often vocal opponents of new development, and seek to impose burdensome or prohibitive costs on developers through zoning regulations.
I’m learning to work with data.tables in R. This reference provides a translation between data.table and Stata commands and should be helpful for any moving between the two languages.
What role do public sector unions play in determining the local government spending priorities? I discuss a trio of recent papers that shed light on this question. Each explores a different source of monopoly power that allows organized public employees to extract rents in the form of higher wages.
What role do public sector unions play in determining the local government spending priorities? I discuss a trio of recent papers that shed light on this question. Each explores a different source of monopoly power that allows organized public employees to extract rents in the form of higher wages.
Current residents bear the costs of new development. Those costs take many forms – crowded schools, congested freeways, crime, ugly high-rises, spillover parking on residential streets – but they all decrease property values. Accordingly, homeowners and landlords are often vocal opponents of new development, and seek to impose burdensome or prohibitive costs on developers through zoning regulations.