My Mothers' Day Message

Perhaps one of your friends will ask for your help with baby lambs.  At about two weeks of age, they need a shot of selenium and an ear tag.  Their long tails need to be docked and the boys, well, the boys need to be castrated.  These procedures require separating the lambs from their mothers (briefly).  You will be assigned a job.  Catching the lambs requires good hand-eye coordination and the ability to hold a squirming baby with four hooves.  (The boys are easier to catch than the girls, who are wily and fast.) Holding the lamb for the procedures requires strength, patience, knowledge of several "holds" to steady the necessary lamb-parts, and the ability to hold a squirming baby with four hooves.  Applying the ear tag requires experience with gripping a tool such as a hole-punch and squeezing steadily while the squirming baby tries to pull ear from pinching object.  Injecting the selenium requires good enough eyesight to see the millimeter markings on the syringe in bright sunlight while the squirming baby tries to pull away - period.  Docking the tails requires experience gripping a tool against the pressure of an expanding rubber ring with a steady hand while the squirming baby becomes frantic.  Castration is like tail docking, except you need to be able to count to two.  The entire undertaking is not for sissies.  The lambs complain bitterly.  The boys, especially, lie on the grass and make pitiful noises.  The mothers are inconsolable.  Behind the fence, they pace wildly bawling for their babies.  When the gate is opened the reunion is spectacular.  Mothers running to and fro.  Babies forgetting their indignities as they listen for just the right baaaa.  And then quiet.  Just the muted sound of rich mothers' milk going down.

Amy Finkelstein

Over 40 years ago, when I was in graduate school, a professor told us his frustration with economics.  He said: "An economist is stranded on an island.  He wants to know if there are rabbits on the island.  He busily goes about his research, looking at vegetation, habitat, water and other resources to determine if rabbits could thrive.  If it was me, I'd look for rabbit droppings."

The John Bates Clark Medal is awarded annually by the American Economic Association to an economist under the age of 40 "who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge".  This year Dr. Amy Finkelstein, a health economist at MIT was the winner. Amy was recognized for her work on the effects on well being and behavior of Medicare and Medicaid.  In economist-speak, she is honored in part because her work is a model of effective use of empirics (as opposed to theory).  She looked for rabbit droppings.  Amy has many other accomplishments.  MIT introduces her here.  If I am going to be stranded somewhere, I choose Amy for my team.

Unintended (Thoughtless) Consequences

In 1990 Washington State produced 100 million pounds of asparagus off 30,000 acres.  The asparagus was shipped locally and through distributors around the country.  For those of my age, asparagus was a seasonal delight.  In the late spring we looked forward to the thick, tender stalks.  In 1991, as part of the War on Drugs, a new law exempted certain crops, including asparagus, from tariffs.  The idea was that the Andean countries would plant asparagus as an alternative to drug crops.  The War on Drugs has produced violence, mayhem and destruction, and not eased the traffic noticeably.  An unintended casualty was the domestic asparagus industry.  In 2010, the Washington State asparagus harvest was a mere 17 million pounds.  The California acreage has declined by a third.  We have raised a generation who think fresh asparagus is pencil thin and dry.  Today farmers are hopeful again.  There are new varieties, and strong prices.  This year they expect to plant 6,000 acres. South American crops still flood the market.  Maybe enough people will remember the taste of truly fresh asparagus, and 7,000 acres will go in next year.