First, consider some headlines about the Supreme Court from major news sources: The New York Times, July 2010: “Court Under Roberts Is Most Conservative in Decades” Los Angeles Times, January 2010: “A Bold Conservative Step by Supreme Court” USA Today, June 2009: “High Court Curves In Conservative Direction” Washington Post, June 2007: “Narrow Victories Move […]
Archive | Public Opinion
Han Solo and the Economics of Rebellion Against Repressive Regimes
By Ilya Somin on December 22, 2009 3:20 am in Public Choice, Public Opinion, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Economist Daniel Hamermesh has an entertaining game theoretical analysis of Han Solo’s decision to fight for the rebels against the Empire back in the first Star Wars movie. The analysis is a bit of a joke, but there is a serious point here. And not the one that Hamermesh emphasizes: In the original Star Wars […]
Beauty and the Political Beasts
Australian economists Amy King and Andrew Leigh have an interesting article showing that the perceived beauty of candidates has a major impact on electoral success [HT: Prawfsblawg]. By their analysis of data from Australian parliamentary elections, one standard deviation of candidate “beauty” (the difference between a candidate at the 84th percentile of attractiveness relative to […]