Scott's entry and the New York Times's article on Steven Levitt's work at the University of Chicago was fascinating. I really identify with Levitt's work and the questions that come naturally to him. Some may think his work is trivial, for example, his paper on why drug dealers still live with their moms. It's funny reading the title, and on the face of it it would not appear to address some the most pressing questions of our day. But consider the findings: drug dealers live with their moms because, as it turns out, the take-home pay for a dealer is comparable to that of a burger-flipper. If I worked with drug dealers trying to convince them to change their occupation, I would want to be armed with this information. It seems like most gang counsellors try to persuade dealers to quit despite the fact that they would take a huge pay-cut. Well, perhaps the pay cut would not be so drastic after all?
His work of examining the financing of a gang as if it were a corporation gives me some encouragement that there may be a future for my ideas about the price of status. Like some of Levitt's work, it would require "measuring the immeasurable." Economists have shown that when people buy goods, they often are not only purchasing the good itself, but also a secondary good, such as when someone buys fashionable clothes, they are also buying the status that comes along with owning those goods (if anyone can remember where they've seen this, please let me know--I can't remember the title of the paper).
Another important crutch of this idea is the anthropology theories that define our quest for status, similar to animals, in terms of our desire to find a good mate. A lot of it is based on evolutionary biology, but I don't understand all of that too well yet.
So what interests me is that it seems that the price of status is vastly different within different communities. In some cases this price is completely straightforward: among wealthy businessmen, status is very expensive: Italian Sports Cars, ten thousand dollar watches, Italian suits, etc. The high price of status is set by the high income of the community.
But among other groups the status issue is much more interesting. Let's take, for two examles, hippies and young African-Americans in the rap comunity (my biggest problem so far is avioding angering people for using racial stereotypes--I will have to be very careful). Among the hippies, status seems downright cheap, a pair of cords bought at the thrift store for less than $5, an old VW had for less than a couple thousand, or in some cases, a nicer microbus worth as much as $8-10 thousand. However, there's a lot of anthropological research to support this; the community still has to be able to differentiate who's in and who is not. There are a lot of obvious things, like dancing style (if you have ever been to a Phish concert, you know what I mean), language, etc. that take some time to learn in order to be considered a part of the community.
But what I think is interesting is that the the community seems to raise the relative price of status (to put up barriers to define the boundries of the community) in the status symbols themselves. What I mean is, within the style of hippies, there are elements that reduce one's earning potential to where a $5 pair of cords can be a significant investment, and a VW certainly is. The fact that the hippies with the most status have long dreads and do not subscribe to mainstream olfactory tastes (they often smell like a combination of patchouli and natural body odor, but that is not to say they are not clean. The point is that many outside the community think they aren't clean, like potential employers), serves to reduce their earning potential to raise the relative price of status. Also, the value placed on travel, including following bands such as Phish, eats up much of their income, and further reduces earning potential because they tend to not stay at jobs for a long period of time between trips. A second interesting thing about this community is that it gives a comparative advantage to "trust fund kids" who have money even though they have little earning potential, therefore they can consume a great deal of status at a relatively low price.
The Hip-Hop community, on the other hand, is quite different. It seems to me that the price of status is set by the few people with extremely high incomes: basketball players, rap stars, and gangsters (though Levitt's aforementioned study might cause me to revise this), and the vast majority of the members of the community have very low incomes. This creates a peculiar situation (the implications of which I would like to investigate), where status is extremely expensive relative to average income. The community barriers (like language mentioned above) make it even more difficult. Someone who has consumed a lot of status in this community will also have reduced earning potential. He will be perceived to be unprofessional because of his appropriation of the group's language and mannerisms (see How Hip Hop Holds Blacks Back ).
Another barrier in the community (and any community for that mattter) is arbitrary change of status. Among the hippies, this change is extremely slow--what bought you status 5 years ago will buy you just about the same amount today. But in the hip-hop community it changes very rapidly. As a friend who worked in the inner city told me, 10 years ago you needed gold if you wanted status. 5 years ago that arbitrarily changed to platinum, so you had to get rid of all your gold and buy platinum. Now in the last couple of years it has changed back to gold. These changes cause status prices to skyrocket.
So originally my theory was that relative status prices remain somewhat constant because they are set by the imcome of the community that defines the status. But it seems that status prices can vary, especially if the prices are set by a subgroup within the community that has a very different income than the rest of the group, as seems to be the case with the hip-hop comunity. I am interested in whether this is indeed the case, and if so, is it unique to this community, or are there other examples? Also, how do we work to reduce the price of status in order to increase the welfare of the group? Asking this question sort of violates the assumption in economics that one cannot judge the preferences of another--they are maximizing utility based on what they value. But are preferences really exogenous, that is, are they accounted for by something outside the model that we cannot change? Or can we change people's preferences within the model? A reduction in the price of status could be effected by a reduction in its demand (trying to convince people that they would be better off consuming less). Or perhaps by increasing supply (making it cool to wear less expensive things)? or both?
The point is not to change what people wear. The issue is not that black guys should look like white guys because white guys dress better. The problem that I think should be addressed is how can we help lift the African-American inner city population out of poverty by building social capital that will help them make decisions cosistent with the long-term goal of climbing out of poverty. I think that understanding the preferences and goals behind the purchases of popular goods can help us understand the people many of us are trying to help build stronger communities and better lives. The difficulty is that we are dealing with people's identity, not just their stuff.
OK, first of all, I must apopogize for my neglect of my blog the last few days. We are frantically trying to get our apartment painted and decorated before my mother-in-law shows up here in a few days. I have the insides pf Home Depot thoroughly memorized at this point.
I did think the Jenna Jameson bio was interesting though. She explained that she became interested in nude modeling when she found her dad's stash of Playboys when she was a girl and wanted to be one of the models because they were "so beautiful." Honestly, I think that she wanted her father's affections, and she discovered that day what got his attention. Her mother died when she was three, and her life seems to be a search for the attantion and affection the she never got from her mom. I also lost my mom when i was young (15) and I distinctly remember seeking to replace the attention and affection that I missed from her almost immediately after her death.
When Jenna was a teenager, she said she realized how much power and attention she could get with sex. She recalled feeling this when she lost her virginity and became almost addicted to the power that it gave her over men, once again, I think the power to get attention from them. She never really acknowledged this up front though. Like I said in my previous post, she is phenomenally wealthy from her career, and unlike most women in the industry, who are chewed up and spit out in a realtively short amount of time, she has made millions. It's tough to admit the toll that porn has taken on her life when it's paying her bills, for now.
Recently though, she married and is expecting her first child. After all of the defense of porn that she has done (incliding a debate on the merits of porn at Oxford University, whose audience overwhelmingly voted she won), she has vowed not to do any more porn films, even though she also says that she will be proud to tell her kids what she did for a living. Overall, I don't think that she convinced me that her career has been as good to her as she said it has. The pain that she has endured over the course of her life, and her search for attention through progressively more explicit forms of exhibitionism were thnily disguised by her staunch defense of her career.
One interesting note though, the show briefly showed some of her hate mail, telling her that she's going to burn in hell and all sorts of nasty things--this is almost exclusively the exposure that she has had to Christians. She said "trust me, I know" that the people who send her such letters are the ones who secretly indulge in it (and consequently hate themselves for it and channel their hate to porn stars like her). I have to agree with her on that one.
Also, at the end, they asked many of the people who were interviewed throughout the show wether they thought Jenna would go to heaven (most of them from inside the industry). All of them said that she would because she's a good person, with a good heart. There was only one exception--a minister, head of some moral watchdog group, who had earlier caller her an evil person, said that she would go to hell because she's a bad person. At least one of them could be right. He doesn't seem at all interested to change their fate though. jenna, pparently, knows who her friends are, and for the time being, they're not Christians.
E!'s True Hollywood Story will air a bio on porn legend Jenna Jameson beginning Sunday night at 8. I am curious to see it, because I am always facinated to see interviews with porn stars in the news, because I am interested in the psychology of whatmust be the most cognatively dissonant careers one could possibly be in. Big stars like Jenna (apparently the highest-selling porn star ever) trade an enormous amount of dignity for an enormous amount of cash. I would be willing to lose a small amount of dignity for money, if of course it were not immoral. But assuming that porn actors do not have a strong moral conviction against what they do, they still must be conscious of the fact that their most intimate, their most vulerable selves are not hidden from the world, who expliots their image for their own gratification. But on the other hand, they trade that dignity for an enormous pile of cash, which they are not willing to give up.
I recently saw an investigative journalism piece (20/20 maybe?) on some women that wanted to become models but ended up in porn. It followed them through trying to get a modelling job, swearing that they would never do porn, realizing how hard it is to get into the business, deciding to maybe do a little bit of nudity, and then two of them finally caving into all of the most degrading type of hardcore stuff that they swore they would never do. The not-so-hdden agenda of the piece was that they were tring to expose the large corporations that profit from porn, either through ppv or hotel chains that offer it in the rooms. The irony that they completely missed is that it was the profit motive that drove all of these women to the very thing that they said they would never do. The media though, could not bring themselves to admit that working-class individuals could be just as greedy as corporations, and never commented on it. They interviewed the mother of one of the girls (who became quite famous in the porn world) and got her all worked up over the greedy big corporations that were profitting from her daughter. She cried and harshly condemned their greed. Well, just a few months later, the mom is now porn star Bella Donna's manager, and her best friend, who was jsut as concerned as her mom, decided to dabble in a little porn too. In the end their moral convictions were not a strong enough disincentve when compared to the money. What struck me was theat the show was not interested in criticising the greed of these subjects, they were only interested in corporate greed. In fact, this was the whole premise of the story, but was also the least interesting part about the whole thing. They continued to paint the subjects as victims of corporate profiteering; they could not escape this paradigm. Contrary to popular opinion though, you do not have to be rich to be greedy. The poor and "working families" can be just as guilty; for some reason though, most people think it's justified.
well, everybody knows this now, but Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he is running in the California recall election. Considering the fact that getting a staunch conservative in the governor's office would be next to impossible (anyway, I think I am bothered by them as much as I agree with them), I think that I would vote for Arnold. He seems like he would be fiscally responsible, and that is I think the best that we can hope for here in California.
no recession says something important about me. I would venture to guess that it says more about me than any two words could, if you also care to read the following explanation.
As most of you might know, the title comes from an old song by the Carter Family that was redone on the groundbreaking first album (also titled No Depression) released by Uncle Tupelo in 1990. The group, which disbanded in 1994, is generally credited as being the fathers of the Alternative Country movement (later well-known groups include Whiskeytown, the Jayhwks, Richard Buckner, to name a few) This song later became the title of a magazine that covers the Alt. Country scene, and kind of a tag line associated with the movement itself. Reason #1 for choosing the title is that I happen to be a fan of all things Uncle Tupelo, and most things Alt. Country. Of the many different kinds of music I listen to on a regualr basis, I probably enjoy alt country on the deepest level, and have invested more time in its appreciation than any other.
The chorus to the song goes like this:
i'm going where there's no depression,
to a better land, that's free from care.
i'll leave this world of toil and trouble,
my home's in heaven, i'm going there.
While I cannot speak for the personal convictions of those that have performed the song, as a Christian, I agree with the sentiment, if not the eschatology, of those words. The toil and trouble of this world are not part of my eternal home, but I'm not so sure that it won't be here in this world. I believe in a more restorational eschatology, with the New Heavens and the New Earth being renewed in ths place in much the same way as they were in Noah's day, though of course, not with water. So the second reason for my choice of title is what it says about my Christian faith.
That leads me to reason #3, which is that I have chosen to invest my life in the study of economics, though I am just beginning my graduate studies at the University of California, Davis. I love this world that God has given us, and I believe in the value of sinking our hands into its soil and making it a better place. That's why I think a world with "no depression" isn't a high enough goal. At least in the US, we have already achieved that goal, and we are a far cry from heaven. My goal as an economist is to help create a word with no recssion, no hunger, no poverty, which of course will only fully be realized when the kingdom has arrived in all of its fullness. But God has called me to work to that end, and in the end, my home's on earth, I'm staying here.
well, I thought I'd have a couple of weeks to get the hang of this before I had any actual readers, but thanks to the generous introduction from Scott, I actually have an audience now. The only problem is, while what Scott said is not untrue, though perhaps a bit exaggerated, what he did not say (which would have been untrue) is that I am a writer, which I am not. This being my first foray into public writing, I might need some time to get the hang of it, especially as I am learning MT. If anybody knows any cool tricks, feel free to send them my way.