We here at Centives are big fans of The Hunger Games, therefore we were quite excited to see that Matthew Yglesais had posted an article that looked at the economics of The Hunger Games. In particular he asked why it was that Panem, a country with such advanced technology as hovercrafts, genetic engineering and sophisticated weaponry could have a population that was so poor. His answer included:

• In the contemporary world countries which have ‘extractive institutions’ – institutions that exist only to take money away from the local populations and concentrate it among the elite – are generally under-developed, since saving and investment is discouraged. Today countries in Africa and Latin-America are dealing with the legacy of extractive institutions imposed by colonizers.
• Panem is a country built upon extractive institutions. There is a single purchaser of all goods (the government) and it dictates the meager prices that are offered for the goods. There is no competition. For example the coal mined by the citizens of district 12 can only be sold to The Capitol.
• Other steps taken to discourage competition and thus economic growth for the masses include restrictions on the freedom of mobility and limitations on the opportunity posed by the natural resources of the surrounding area.
• As African and Latin American countries are realizing, the biggest problem with such institutions is that once they’re established they’re extremely difficult to eliminate.

To read more about how this relates to District 7, 9, and 10, why Collins was wise to stay away from describing the lifestyle in the Capitol, and why Panem doesn’t even need real democratic equality to quickly grow and improve standards of living, click here.

Source: Slate

Via: Will Dearden

In The Washington Post Peter Whoriskey reports that there are, in fact, a lot of jobs available that employers are desperately trying to fill. However they can’t find the employees because these are not the jobs that Americans want to take. Highlights of the report include:

• Some of the work requires familiarity with machines and high-tech equipment. A lot of the people who were laid off were those who had expertise in things that machines can now do. Thus people don’t have the skills necessary to fulfill the available jobs.
• As the baby-boomer generation retires, a new generation of younger workers must be enticed into the workplace. However this generation doesn’t seem to be willing to work in factories and in uniforms that might get dirty. They instead prefer to work in offices and on computers – even though the pay is often significantly lower.
• Employers could try raising wages even further, but if they did so, it’d become even more appealing to outsource the job to other countries – permanently removing those jobs from the United States.

To read more about some of the innovative ways that employers have tried to work around this problem, what G81Z-.829R.1F28. means and the implications for Boeing, click here.

Source: The Washington Post

Via: Newmark’s Door

In an article that raises privacy concerns about video game consoles that gather data about human movements, what really stands out is Jeremy Bailenson discussion of some of the things that the Kinect is capable of determining about you:

• Based on about ten behavioural cues during a period of learning, it is possible to predict how well students will do on a test of the material that they learnt. The cues include shoulder and elbow movements.
• The Kinect can detect with ~84% accuracy what behavior you’re engaging in – whether its brushing your teeth of cooking a meal.
• The Kinect might also be able to detect a pre-accident face – your facial expression before you engage in risky driving behavior. Car manufacturers might be able to use this to tighten your seatbelt or ‘prime’ the airbags because of the higher likelihood of an accident.

To read the privacy concerns this raises, what this means for insurance companies, and details of the studies outlined above, click here.

Source: Slate

In Slate Ray Fisman reported on a study that might provide insight into what a world run by women will look like:

• In 2006 the Norwegian government required all companies listed on its stock exchange to increase the fraction of women on the board of directors to a minimum of 40% within two years.
• Compared to companies that weren’t listed on the stock exchange and thus did not have to comply with the ruling, the publicly traded companies saw a decline in both profits and the number of people laid off.
• The authors conclude that women are less likely to lay-off workers, and that this leads to short term declines in profit. However it is possible that over the long run this actually improves corporate performance by ensuring labour loyalty. Since it’s only been four years since the ruling went into effect it’s too early to say.

To read more about the gender differences between men and women, the details of the study, and what this means for the United States, click here.

Source: Slate

Natalie Wolchover met with the organizer of the Rock-Paper-Scissor World Championship (no, really, it’s a thing) to find out what strategies you can use to win at the game:

• Inexperienced players have a tendency to play ‘stone’
• If a player has repeated the same move twice, they’re unlikely to do it a third time.
• In pre-game discussions use your hands to subtly gesture the move you want your opponent to play. You should be able to prime them into doing so.
• Announce what move you’re going to play and then…play it. It’ll throw your opponents off.

To read about how to deal with more experienced players, other strategies to win at the game, and a really cheap strategy for those who are “willing to sacrifice honour and integrity” click here.

Source: Yahoo News

Via: Newmark’s Door

Rajiv (L), Sonia (R), and Rahul (M) Gandhi: India’s past, present and (potentially) future leaders in a family photograph

A fair amount of attention is directed towards income inequality. But what about dynastic-political inequality? Ronald U Mendoza took a look at family dynasties in democracies. Highlights include:

• Some notable examples of dynasties in democracies include the Bush family in the United States, the Gandhis in India, and the Shinwatras in Thailand. Argentina, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore and the Philippines also have ruling family dynasties.
• In India and Myanmar the sons and daughters of former state leaders are being groomed to take over the reins of power in the near-future.
• The amount of this inequality varies by democracy. In the United States just 6% of legislators and parliamentarians have dynastic links. In the Philippines it’s as high as 70%.
• Daughters are unlikely to continue family dynasties. Even when a woman is in power it is generally their sons or their husbands who take over after them.
• Those who come from political dynasties normally win elections by larger margins. Evidence also suggests that they normally increase their wealth by more than the returns from the country’s stock index.
• Political dynasties are more likely to be located in poorer regions. It is unclear if poor people are more likely to vote for political dynasties, or if political dynasties deliberately keep people poor.

To read case studies on the experience of The Philippines, Singapore and Japan with political dynasties, as well as key statistics behind the phenomenon click here.

Source: Vox

Via: The Economist

Researchers analyzed if there were particular times of day when people were more likely to be creative. PsyBlog reported on the (surprising) results:

• “Morning-People” were better at coming up with creative solutions in the evening. “Evening-People” did their best creating thinking in the morning.
• The potential explanation for this counter-intuitive result is that creativity requires a certain amount of dissociation from reality, which only drowsiness can bring.
• On the flip side though just because an idea is creative doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. Morning people might laugh at the ideas they produced in the evening when viewed in the harsh light of the (morning) sun.

To read the methodology of the study and how a parachute for a sandwich fits into all of this click here.

Source: PsyBlog

Via: Freakonomics

Ticket scalpers make their money by purchasing tickets for shows when the tickets are first released, and then reselling them to individuals at a higher price. Ray Waddell had the opportunity to interview one of them. Highlights include:

• The business involves gambling. A scalper has to buy the tickets in advance before knowing whether or not there will be demand for the show. This might mean that the scalper ends up with tickets that never sell.
• A scalper can make up to $300,000 in profit for a summer with a lot of high-demand shows. But scalpers also lose about $100,000 by betting on shows for which there is ultimately no demand.
• At times ticket sources requires scalpers to buy tickets for shows that they know won’t sell well, in exchange for allowing the scalpers to buy tickets for high-demand events.
• In recent times there has been the rise of speculative selling – scalpers selling tickets that they don’t actually have.
• The use of automated computer bots to buy and sell tickets is likely to attract the attention of regulators, ultimately shutting the industry down.

To read more about how scalpers deal with ticket-less systems, what happened to fan-clubs, and where scalpers get their tickets from, click here.

Source: Billboard

Via: Marginal Revolution