Wisden remembers the best of even the worst
06 Sep 2017 2 Comments
in economics of crime, law and economics, sports economics Tags: cricket
Alan McGilvray: The Game Is Not The Same (Part 1)
25 Jun 2017 Leave a comment
in sports economics Tags: cricket
Richie Benaud Milo Ad (1960s)
12 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in economics, economics of media and culture Tags: cricket
Deirdre McCloskey’s Crossing: A Memoir
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in liberalism Tags: cricket, Deirdre McCloskey, gender wage gap
When Donald at the age of 52 told his university dean, a conservative economist, he had decided to become a woman a stunned silence was followed by:
Thank God … I thought for a moment you were going to confess to converting to socialism.
The dean also joked it would be good for the department’s affirmative action program – one less man, one more woman – and that McCloskey’s pay could now be cut to about 70¢ in the dollar, since she would be a female.
Sadly, his son, daughter and former wife turned away from this new person.
His sister and one of her academic colleagues conspired to have him committed as mentally incompetent — unfit to sign papers for optional surgical procedures.
They devised a theory that he was manic and that his mania could be treated with psychopharmacology.
Twice during his determined journey into womanhood, they managed to have him incarcerated — handcuffed, locked away where he could not harm himself, at first in the University of Iowa Hospital’s mental ward and later in the University of Chicago Hospital.
Deirdre McCloskey’s mother and brother were bulwarks of support; her sister is moving toward reconciliation. She has finally stopped calling her ”Donald.”
McCloskey expected to lose everything because of the gender transition but her academic career survived. McCloskey’s former wife and two adult children have not spoken to her since 1995.
Her 16 books and 400-odd academic articles range from highly technical economics to philosophy, ethics and transgender advocacy. McCloskey’s Twitter biography is a reasonable 15-word summary of her:
Postmodern, quantitative, literary, ex-Marxist, economist, historian, progressive Episcopalian, coastie-bred Chicagoan woman who was once not.
More unusually for an American, she loves cricket. McCloskey even played wicket-keeper for the University of Illinois cricket team, which was made up mostly of players from the subcontinent and Jamaica.
HT: Sydney Morning Herald and New York Times
The economics of Dennis Lillee and Steve Jobs
15 Mar 2014 1 Comment
in cricket, entrepreneurship, human capital, labour economics Tags: Apple, Bill Gates, CEO pay, cricket, Dennis Lillee, Kerry Packer, regulatory capture, Steve Jobs, superstars, top 1%
Dennis Lillee was paid £1,200 to tour England in 1972 for five months. He was paid the same to tour for three months in 1975. Now a world-class fast bowling coach, he would probably not get out for bed for £1,200
When Kerry Packer bid for the Australian cricket rights in the 1970s, he offered $500,000 per year. That was about ten times what the ABC was paying at the time
The Australian cricket TV rights sold for over $500 million in 2013 for a 5-year deal.
Today’s international cricketers are millionaires – widely respected and beloved members of the top 1% of income earners. Most think it is great that top sports people make millions over their career. No plans for the Occupy Wall Street crowd to occupy the MCG, Wimbledon or the Olympics to complain about superstar sports salaries and prizes.
Lillee and other top athletes, celebrities, actors, musicians and entertainers are all paid much more for much the same reason that CEOs, money market managers, top lawyers and tech entrepreneurs are paid much more than in the past.
They are superstars who are able to leverage their talent through communications technology advances on a national and global level. They can apply ‘their talent to greater pools of resources and reach[ing] larger numbers of people thus becoming more productive and higher paid’.
- Why is there envy over the pay of businessmen but not for superstar entertainers and athletes?
- Did people boo World Series Cricket in 1977 because those cricketers could now make a decent living?
- Do people complain when musicians and actors make it big?
Why is Steve Jobs strangely immune from top 1% envy despite his cheapness and meanness to others while Bill Gates is reviled as some sort of monopolist despite his giving most of his wealth away?
Was Jobs worth his pay? Apple shares went up and down in billions on news of Steve Jobs’s health.
When Hewlett Packard’s CEO Mark Hurd resigned unexpectedly, the value of HP shares dropped by about $10 billion! This makes his $30 million in annual compensation a bargain for his shareholders. Oracle’s shares rose 6% on word of Mr. Hurd’s hiring as co-president on an annual base salary of $950,000 and being eligible for up to a $10 million annual bonus. Perhaps he is under-paid?
See Kaplan, Steven N., and Joshua Rauh. 2013. It’s the Market: The Broad-Based Rise in the Return to Top Talent, Journal of Economic Perspectives 2013 for more.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments