Highly Linkable - the sports edition

Three different takes on exploitation related to sports.

The new school is exploiting the weaknesses of the old school in football. Love the quote: "We always get the chalk last."

David Berri shows how conventional wisdom exploits many basketball fans' better judgment when it comes to measuring player greatness.

DaBerri also shows us what true exploitation looks like. To those who would condone the coordinated limitation (cartelization) of workers' incomes, you're despicable!

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Catching up on some links to post--unfortunately it has been so long I have forgotten who to hat tip for some of these that deserve it. Don't miss any especially the last one.

Interesting story about the man who smuggles Trader Joe's into Canada.

The most "controversial" problems in math.

Noah Smith offers a very good article on how as clever as we now are, it is not a fine line between us and the market.

If you only want to read one article on the 2014 Economics Nobel Laureate, Jean Tirole, I would suggest you read Tyler Cowen's.

Terrorism is not something to worry much about. Efforts to minimize terrorism are (i.e., we are wasting resources on preventing terrorism). Bryan Caplan has a brief post making both points.

A potential candidate for one side of a WWCF?

Bill Gates on inequality and Thomas Piketty. As an aside, I like Gates' comment made in passing, "Piketty was nice enough to talk with me about his work on a Skype call last month." Things to do today . . . wonder if I can find time to talk to Bill Gates . . . hmm, let's see.

Ritholtz on the economic size of U.S. cities . . . there is a lot of potential economic energy in this world.

Ben Southwood explains how and why central banks cause low interest rates but not by lowering interest rates. (HT: Scott Sumner)

In case you were thinking of wasting your time this coming Tuesday, Hit & Run offers 4 reasons each that Republicans and Democrats are full of s#*t.

Megan McArdle writes about food label laws. We can have too much of anything including information, which is not the same thing as knowledge. Too much information is noise.

Also from McArdle, employers need employees to take vacations. For the employee it might be just a quest for fun, but for an employer it can be everything from a prevention of fraud to a stress-test for capabilities.

I've been making this point for a long time--Andy Schwarz does it better.

Arnold Kling asks some good questions about education.

This one is way too good to be at the bottom of a list--what you don't understand about inequality but should by Phil Birnbaum.

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Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of Howard Roark . . .

A new day is dawning in sports. A tyrannical dragon has suffered the first strike of what I predict will be a lethal combination leading to its eventual slaying. The NCAA has lost the O'Bannon case. Michael McCann's take is, as always, a must read. He carefully lays out the limits of the ruling, but my optimism is not naive. The lawsuits have just begun, and the law from which they challenge is various--meaning more ways the NCAA can be harmed--while the judge will be the same--and she didn't mince words in rejecting the NCAA's logic and arguments. Notice that those calling for (market) reform are not satisfied yet. That is important as it means the NCAA hasn't found refuge in a new normal. Rather the hypocrisy and ignorance is being called out. And the silly arguments, which wouldn't mean salvation for the NCAA even if they were valid, are smothered before leaving the nest.

Kevin Erdmann makes an interesting comparison between school choice and financial regulatory choice with a spotlight on Dodd-Frank. The thrust is that a right to exit is essential to good institutional policies and incentives.

Speaking of exit, Arnold Kling points to others showing yet another way we could exit the FDA.

Scott Sumner wants you to know that the American middle class is fine and that is exactly what he means.

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Andy Schwartz has penned the best analysis that I have ever read of the NCAA, its position as cartel, and the situation before it. Read it to understand the problem(s) and choose a side: Team Market (my group), Team Reform (the bootleggers and Baptists coalition of paternalist progressives and traditionalist conservatives), or Team Cartel (the NCAA today). I believe only Team Market is fully on the ethical and logical high ground. Team Reform's advocated position is not sustainable--the economic incentives will break it down as teams depart the model. Team Cartel might be sustainable in the medium term provided it can unconditionally win the multiple-front legal war it faces. I am being an optimist predicting that Team Market wins decisively and soon. I am simply being logical predicting that Team Market wins eventually.

Speaking of predictions, Randal O'Toole, the Antiplanner, discusses planning for the unpredictable as it relates to city planning and self-driving cars. And Mark Rogowsky makes some predictions about the business side of robo-cars, et al.

More predictions: Scott Sumner discusses some things that can't but will go on forever along with making some interesting predictions.

Here is a prediction that I will make in light of this excellent analysis (HT: Barry Ritholtz): Over the next 5 years hedge fund/alternative asset investment strategies will change A LOT while significantly falling out of favor among institutional money managers (anything outside of the retail brokerage level). I'll predict that in five year average fees are half what they are today and allocations are one-third lower. (UPDATE: To clarify, I am predicting that average fees collected are half as high in five years. If you think about how the average is affected, you'll realize this isn't as bold a prediction as it may seem.)

That's enough predicting for one post.

So Bryan Caplan has basically been following me around chronicling my strategy for success on my terms in life and in business.

Art Carden points out that while there are many negative aspects to poverty and most transcend time, fortunately a low income in absolute terms isn't one of them. Nothing gets you nothing . . .

I had the same reaction as David Henderson to this otherwise good personal finance article by Megan McArdle. People almost always misunderstand the tradeoff between 15 and 30-year mortgages as well as how to figure the cost-benefit of a refinancing decision. It's not about the time to payback on the closing costs and the likelihood of moving in the future. It is a comparison of two (or more) streams of cash flows discounted appropriately. Those other factors are just part of the input variables that must be included.

Like I said recently, the public doesn't understand inflation; Scott Sumner suggests the Fed may be coming around to understanding this and, hence, moving beyond inflation targeting.

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My finger painting never looked quite this good.

I like this framework comparing networks to hierarchies. I find it captures something very true. I'll have more to say on it once I get around to starting a new meme on the blog which I will call Dimension Analysis. (HT: Arnold Kling)

Cliff Asness makes the case for HFT and indicates how some of the "facts" and "reasoning" about it might not be quite so factual or reasonable.

David Bernstein weighs in on an on-going discussion over at The Volokh Conspiracy about how legal extremist (and ridiculous) the Obama Administration has been.

Sumner argues that the American system is rigged to favor the rich. I think this is part of a natural evolution and hope to expand on this thought in an upcoming post.

The O'Bannon v. NCAA trial has ended. Michael McCann has a good summary of how the last day turned a bit in the NCAA's favor. Anyway you look at it, though, the NCAA is in a prolonged process much like a divorce where there is no winning--only degrees of losing. They have all but lost the moral/ethical argument. They have been forced to admit to being a cartel (but a good one, not like any of those other bad cartels). Like I tweeted to McCann,

@McCannSportsLaw NCAA:"If we pay players what they're worth, fans will suffer." --May win O'Bannon, but doesn't pass ethics sniff test.
— Steve Winkler (@swinkler78) June 28, 2014

They can't have it both ways in either an ethical or legal sense: the NCAA is either a consumer-harming monopolist or a labor-harming monopsonist (or both, they can fail to have it both ways).

In a different realm of sports meets law meets consumer demand, it only surprises me that this has taken until now to come about. I expect a lot more up and through a tipping point. Poor guy . . .

PS. I've made many promises in this post. I hope I can live up to them.

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I want to go to then.

Don Boudreaux on Piketty. Steve Landsburg on Piketty. Garrett Jones on Piketty.

Sugar bad, but fat good. I think this lady got the message.

The tide may be turning in the fight against those who want to spend OPM on the bright and shiny things. And the World Cup brings us fresh fuel to our well argued fire.

Sticking with sports, the game makers have settled with current and former college athletes. And Scott Sumner offers some critical thoughts about how anti-trust should be applied to sports leagues and organizations.

As a student of logic, I found these fallacies that don't but should exist to be quite interesting.

Detroit rapidly deteriorating as seen from Google Street View. Maybe if the just had some strong zoning laws, they could have avoided all this mess . . . No. When broad economic forces are working against you, you cannot reverse the decline by legislation or good intentions. D.C. offers a case in point.

Arnold Kling will not be invited to give a high school graduation speech any time soon, but he should be.

How to think and how to learn--including acing exams with hardly any studying. Sounds like good advice. Too much time is spent on worthless rote memorization. After all, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

These ants are nuts!

I'm going on vacation shortly. L.A. La-La land. In my mind, I'm already there. To that end, here are some great travel tools. Especially don't miss Rome2rio.

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Let me axe you a question. Have you seen this yet? Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

Remember, its self-proclaimed goal is to be the most transparent administration in history. Perhaps he meant transparently self serving.

Bryan Caplan on Michael Huemer making the moral case for civil disobedience of unjust laws including lying about intending to and acting to thwart their existence.

Perhaps civil disobedience is all the Bag Man is up to as he compensates college football players. Somebody needs to do more for them it seems as even the NCAA is making some desparate changes.

The pace of change is moving rapidly now as I believe the tide of popular opinion is reaching a tipping point. Our side has the true moral high ground. Most people have chosen to ignore the arguments up until now, but that is quickly changing. I can hear so many beginning to say, "Well, I have always thought college athletes deserved more [clumsily define 'more']. It is just that until now [clumsily offer a justification for past injustices] . . ."

Fortunately, there is plenty of money in college athletics (Alabama's football program has higher revenues than any NHL team and 26 of 30 NBA teams) just as there is plenty of profit in non-profit universities.

And just for good measure in closing this sports-heavy link post, Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald is in a battle with Kentucky's John Calipari to be the worst NCAA spokesman.

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I want to go to there.

We are so amazingly wealthy. Not only can we afford to use resources towards the manufacturing of superfluous jewelry; we can do so to the extent of using this magnitude of technology, craftsmanship in high focus in this case. I am not being sarcastic about affording it. Many manufacturers such as the one showcased here are truly profitable proving they improve upon the status and use of the world's resources.

The French labor unions are working hard to make sure nobody works too hard in France (or perhaps at all eventually--be careful what you ask for).

Speaking of unions and government interference in free-market labor, Ohio Republicans would rather the state subsidize one kind of non-employed workers than have them earn a wage.

Once we as a society realize that environmentalism is economics not religion, we will have advanced significantly from where we stand today. I took this article as a small, positive step in that direction.

First they came for the large fountain drinks . . . a lesson in bad scientism.

This one might be labeled fast and loose statistics applied to television, but it is pretty cool just the same. (HT: BoxScoreGeeks)

I look forward to reading Michael Lewis' Flash Boys, and I expect he'll pull some of the mystery out of high-frequency trading. But as Noah Smith skillfully points out, we just don't know if HFT is on net bad or good--too much remains in the shadows. Perhaps The Shadow knows, but the rest of us are in the dark.

As if we needed another example, Obama is a demagogue and a hypocrite. Thankfully, we have Mark Perry and Andrew Biggs to set us straight on the myth of gender-pay inequality. Unfortunately, they may have goofed on a calculation of the profit opportunity the assumed gap implies. Thankfully, we have Steven Landsburg to shore up the gap and improve still upon the argument. And finally, Megan McArdle offers thorough insight and reasoning on the issue.

Highly Linkable

We're back from an unintended hiatus. Let's begin with some jokes one might overhear in the Lambda^3 house. (HT: Mungowitz)

The world is spinning fast for the NCAA. Northwestern players, et al. can unionize because they have been ruled as employees. If this stands, this potentially changes everything. No apple cart is safe from tipping. Of course, the NCAA isn't hesitating one moment to provide comic relief as events unfold. But Jeffrey Kessler may get the last laugh.

Before we leave the sports realm, the Box Score Geeks want you to remember that the NBA is not McDonald's.

Scott Sumner reflects on what he has learned from Fama and Lucas.

The state will even license con men (and women). Apparently, there is indeed no end to state licensure. I'm sorry, what did you say about the current unemployment rate? . . .

Speaking of employment problems, perhaps your potential employer is agreeing with your current employer not to hire you away. I've witnessed this type gentlemen's agreement in a couple of different situations. Megan McArdle assumes the case against it while, I believe, making more strongly the case why it is not as simple as it would seem. There are complexities here that legislation with its good intentions and unintended consequences may undesirably unravel.

Mike Munger has completed his Mungerfesto with the fifth installment. I give the overall piece a B+. Simply refining the presentation would elevate it to A-. Giving a more thorough treatment to how this is largely a second-best but necessary approach to our world's political economy problems given that the first-best approach is unrealistic (I believe this is his argument of direction versus destination) would make it A+.

I look forward to reading the new book from Max Tegmark recommended by Steven Landsburg. It is always fun to read material completely over one's head. If nothing else, it offers a humility we all should seek.

Speaking of humility . . . wow.

Highly Linkable

The Internet is controlled by 14 people who hold 7 secret physical keys. This sorta takes the mysterious fun out of it.

Tyrannical central planning looks dimmer every time you look at it.

Sumner points out the obvious culprit behind the high and growing rates of youth unemployment.

Dovetailing unfortunately with the prior link whereby union workers tend to gain from minimum wage laws at the expense of low-wage (largely youth) workers, is how NYC's mayor and teachers' unions are fighting proven successful methods of teaching disadvantaged youths.

Jonathan Mahler is fantasizing about the lawsuit that will kill the NCAA. Mark Cuban is promoting an idea that I believe would improve NCAA basketball, NBA basketball, and most importantly the wellbeing of the men who play basketball. Not to mention that it would likely be have negative side effects for the NCAA itself.

Two more on sports: Baseball umpires show bias (all the more reason machines should replace/complement their work); Grantland has a good overview on the work left to be done in bringing analytics to sports.

Landsburg has some good thoughts on the Arizona Senate's attempt to allow a certain type of discrimination.

Turnabout is fair play for the CFPB.

Here are two strong reasons to not believe the conventional wisdom that middle-class incomes have been stagnant for the past few decades. The first shows how amazingly more affordable housing is today, and that is before we take into account how much better it is today in quality. The second debunks the myth that wage growth and productivity growth have separated from one another.

Lastly, an interview with "the bogeyman".

Highly linkable - on high-minded steriods

I want to go to there. And while we're at it, here too.

So let's talk about misled people doing selfish things. But perhaps it is not as bad as it seems.

Here is a different example of the same kind of high-minded nonsense as above. I particularly like the quote: "It’s time for the altruists to get over themselves. We cannot afford the price of their convictions."

The high-minded Fed controls interest rates, right? Wrong.

Just how bad are the effects of rent control--one of many forms of high-minded real estate planning? Maybe to the tune of about $1 billion dollars on a $3 billion neighborhood. Dr. Evil would be proud.

Lenin was a prohibitionist!?! Shocking . . . well, no; that makes sense. He was high-minded enough to want to help every aspect of Russian life.

Speaking of turn of the 20th century garbage, apparently my Spidey Sense was correct when it picked up on something rotten in Downton. The George Will piece quoted in the previous link deserves its own link. Still a good show; let's just not romanticize how hard life was for most everyone in prior generations.

Enough negative stuff, for the moment. Let's think about a cool new business idea. While we're at it, let's think about how fabulously wealthy cool new business ideas continue to make us.

Okay, moment's over. You know, college football isn't a business; hey, stop laughing! Like all NCAA sports, it is about pure amateurism.

Sticking with sports, I think I am being consistent when I believe both (1) that Oklahoma State's Marcus Smart was potentially justified in pushing a Texas Tech fan (if the fan had been injured and I was on a jury, I would be giving heavy consideration to a self-defense argument in favor of Smart) and (2) people in public (state-owned) spaces or attending official-state-functions have wide latitude to say nearly whatever they want in the act of cheering. The First Amendment doesn't have a carve-out exemption for your or my high-minded respectfulness or proper etiquette. You don't like cussing, hatefulness, and otherwise ugly slurs coming from the crowd? Quit funding sports arenas and sports teams with taxpayer money.

When it comes to sports and high-mindedness, you don't get any higher than the Olympics. And you'd have to be high not to see through the veil of virtue and right into the corruption, state run-amok wastefulness, and panglossian denial of oppression that is the Olympic gathering. I very much like the stories of so many of the athletes. I like the history of competition. I detest the desire to pretend there hasn't been and doesn't continue to be intense nationalism (an illogical and evil conception) at the heart of The Games. Don't get me wrong. I root for Team USA, but I also root for others. These sports aren't my sports, and some aren't even sports. These are interesting curiosities that viewing for just a few moments will satisfy my interest for four years at least. But if you're really into it, great! Just don't tell me we are obligated to root for our country. And don't tell me it is "us" versus "them". And PUH-LEASE don't tell me how great The Olympics are for world peace, the economy, or NBC ratings.

Saving the best for last, Megan McArdle busts the high-minded bubble of paint-by-numbers educational excellence cum success. "Let your kids fail!" is perhaps the best advice one can give a parent.

Crime and Punishment, Law and Order, Optimal Rulebreaking

From Advanced NFL Stats:

Last week a WSJ article about the Seahawks' defensive backs claimed that they "obstruct and foul opposing receivers on practically every play."  I took a deeper look in to the numbers and found that as long as referees are reluctant to throw flags on the defense in pass coverage (as claimed in the article), holding the receiver is a very efficient defensive strategy despite the risk of being penalized.

That is from a guest post by Gary Montry, a professional applied mathematician. The article is very interesting, but gets a little deep into the statistics beyond the points I want to discuss here. Nevertheless, it is a rewarding read that I encourage including being as Brian Burke puts it, "a great refresher on conditional probabilities and Bayes' theorem".

The article made me think a little about how economic efficiency many times runs counter to our intuition and ideals when it comes to wrongdoing. Novices often get confused by the fact that the economically optimal level of pollution, crime, et al. is not at all zero. It is not that a certain level of pollution is a pure good or that some amount of crime is desirable in an absolute sense--these are still and always "bads" rather than "goods". It is just that at some point the benefit of eliminating the next (aka, marginal unit of) crime or amount of pollution is not worth the cost. At that point we tolerate the "bad". Fortunately, economic progress implies that the cost curve for fighting problems is ever declining.

Tying this back to the article, the question is how could the rules or enforcement be restructured so that this manipulation, which is arguably against the spirit as well as the letter of the law of the game, is corrected or reduced. Howard Wasserman's new paper on Football and the Infield Fly Rule, which is on my to-read list, may offer some help here. The paper is an exploration of how some football situations may imply and incite behavior that is counter to the spirit of the game and sportsmanship. I don't expect him to address this specific issue, but I do expect the analysis to offer some help in situations such as this.

The article also got me thinking about how my neighborhood's HOA is considering instituting fines for uncorrected violations of the neighborhood's covenants. At issue mainly is roof-mounted satellite dishes that are visible from the street--because we all know that things like this "obviously" lower property values by "a lot" (economic research forthcoming I'm sure). Here are some of my concerns assuming we even have the authority as an HOA to do this and assuming (a BIG assumption) the covenants are optimal as written:

• Will the punishment (fine) fit the crime? How would we know? If the fine is set so that the behavior is undoubtedly discontinued, we've probably set it too high. If the fine is always paid with no change in behavior, it is not necessarily but could be too low. In fact the optimal fine probably has some of the violations corrected and some continued. But the same people who roll their eyes when economists say we want some level of pollution to continue probably roll their eyes in uproar to think that the neighbor gets to just pay a pittance to continue their property-value-destroying activity. Mrs. Kravitz would be shocked!
• Do we set the fine equal for all violations (that is the proposal on the table)? Is parking a trailer or a boat for "long periods" in a driveway equal to satellite dishes being visible and equal to trash cans out of compliance and equal to dead trees not removed or not replaced by the right kind/size of tree etc.? It seems the answer to the second question is most likely "no", which implies the problems of getting the fines right is growing in magnitude.
• Do we really want the reputation as the neighborhood who runs around assessing fines on one another? Is that property value maximizing? The list and litany of compliance violations came out a bit during the recent HOA meeting. The implication seemed to fall on deaf ears.
• Have we given up on neighborly persuasion? Can't we all just get along? 

Rule making and rule enforcing are endeavors fraught with unintended consequences. Just desires and outcomes are almost always highly debatable and are always evolving. Simplier is usually better. Persuasion is generally preferred to force. Tread lightly. 

PS. I knew I was in trouble when the HOA asked if the trees I had planted were "free-range" or "farmed". 

WWCF: Balls/Strikes Called by Machine or Professionalized College Sports?

Which will come first?

Pitch tracking technology in baseball displaces umpires as caller of balls and strikes

or

Separation of college sports into professional and truly amateur

Don't tell the traditionalists we are even discussing this. I believe we are headed to a brave new world where consistency in baseball's fundamental point of interaction is equalled by honest treatment of college athletes. Many sacred cows are nervous. And some time-honored institutions will change and in some cases they will crumble. 

Supporting the baseball half of the question are recent developments in furthering the use of technology such as this. The demand for and acceptance of instant replay shows in baseball as it has in other sports that true and rightful outcomes matter to sports fans--even above the cost of tradition, even above the cost of delay of play. If the technology is highly accurate (it is but there are flaws such as in tennis and when human eyes and judgment are involved such as in football) and reasonably quick, seeing an inconsistent outcome on the television replay is seen as unjust and intolerable. Notice that a call by a ref isn't necessarily unjust if it is wrong. It takes it being sufficiently bad for it to be unjust. 

Giving the baseball side some pause is this article in Grantland. It seems the accuracy isn't quite there yet, but I expect it could come pretty quickly. More likely the hold up will be fan/owner/player approval. The article points to how robot and man could team up. That is probably the first step. Yet I am interested in where the machine is making the calls and a human can only intervene to overrule in specific instances--think today's challenge system in football and soon to be baseball. For the baseball part to have come first, this is the threshold.

The article does discuss a point I find important. Namely that standardization of the strike zone would remove a nuance of the game that might be more important than realized at first blush. 

However, standardizing the zone would remove a level of interplay between batter, pitcher, catcher, and umpire that many fans find compelling. No longer could a savvy pitcher with pinpoint command annex extra territory off the corners, like Tom Glavine or Mariano Rivera, or learn how to tailor his approach to each umpire’s personalized zone. And catcher receiving skills — the impact of which has only recently been recognized — would become obsolete overnight...

While these changes might make the batter-pitcher confrontation fairer, they would also sap it of some of its nuance, leaving less to analyze and discuss...

McKean offers another argument in support of keeping umpires around: Removing them, or reducing their role, might make baseball more boring. The former umpire makes the case that the controversy generated by incorrect calls — or at least the perception of incorrect calls — generates excitement.

These are important considerations.

For the other side of the question, it should come as no surprise to readers that we at MM favor a major overhaul in the structure and nature of college athletics. We optimistically believe it is inevitable. There are two changes here under consideration either of which would constitute success for this side of the question: separation of amateur sports from professional, revenue sports (perhaps tennis, rugby, field hockey, etc. from football and men's basketball) and separation of amateur college-level football from professional college-level football (perhaps Harvard, Air Force, Tulsa, et al. from Oklahoma, Notre Dame, et al.). The which comes first threshold here will be once most current NCAA institutions make the first change or the current FBS football and D-1A men's basketball schools make the second change.

There has been a glimmer of hope for change in this direction from within the castle, but it is overwhelmingly likely that this change comes from without. The discussion on this evolution continues. And for good reason.

There are two driving forces for this side of the question at hand: there is too much money involved for the charade of amateurism to continue and there is too much money involved threatening the institutional integrity of the parent organizations.

My take is that technology is ready for umps to be replaced 5-10 years before baseball is institutionally ready while those challenging the institutions of the college sports' status quo are 5-10 years away from being legally and culturally capable of forcing change. Reading between the lines, it is just the technology in baseball that is different. I give the edge to the separations in college sports and say both changes (baseball and college sports) come within a decade.

2013's Resolution Fulfillment

My ever on-going resolution was fulfilled twice over in 2013. In the first case I blogged about it here. That is where I changed my mind that there is potentially an economic case to be made for state action to encourage or even mandate recycling.

The second case came from this EconTalk involving among other things The Code in sports. I was rather naively opposed to something that seemed so brutish and reasonless as The Code. To me it was a ridiculous way to justify violence in hockey and promote silly traditions in baseball. I was wrong.

You might notice that Dr. Mike Munger is at the center of both resolution fulfillments. I guess great minds are open-minded and listen to other great minds and when those other great minds make a convincing case the former great minds adapt their views . . . or something like that. In any case it shouldn't be too many resolutions from now that I've finally got my mind right.

Dr. Munger will be the keynote speaker this week at the CFA Society of Oklahoma's Annual Forecasting Dinner. If you're in the Tulsa area Wednesday night (Jan. 22nd), come join us at the DoubleTree downtown.

Put Me In Coach

I beat up on coaches a lot. More in conversation than in this blog in fact. I've done my share of armchair, from the bleachers, and Monday morning quarterbacking. Allow me to defend coaching a little and relate some economic concepts to the coaching profession.  I want to focus on college football coaches and to use Oklahoma's Bob Stoops in 2013 as a specific example, but this applies in large part to coaches at all levels and in all sports.

Flat out, coaches have a tough job. Yes, many are very, VERY well paid to do this job. Of course, many more are not. The job is tough because it is high-profile performance judged by a vast sea of people who have much less information and skills and who tend to approach the issue from an emotional standpoint. (Not me, of course; when I am yelling at my TV, it is because of my passion for reason and logical decision making.)

A coach has to balance between running an on-going training program while producing output that meets consumers' high demands. The training program is comprised of the gamut from relative beginners to high-value-producing experts (I'd call them professionals, but this isn't that blog post)--all of them thrown into the same "classroom".

Let me use the 2013 OU football team as an example of how coaches face issues involving asymmetric information, decision-making under uncertainty, skewed risk-reward payoffs, and management of public and intra-firm relations.

Throughout Bob Stoops' very successful 14 seasons as Oklahoma's head football coach he has either had a high-profile, all-star quarterback or an inexperienced newcomer who struggled not just when compared to his high-profile predecessor but also in absolute terms. 2013 was of the latter variety.

As Stoops sought to replace the 4-year record holder Landry Jones, he was evaluating the options with many backseat onlookers. The obvious choice to many was Blake Bell, the two-year backup. But in late August Stoops awarded the 2013 starting job to freshman Trevor Knight. When Knight stumbled some in early games, the natives including me grew restless for Bell to be given a shot. A combination of a bad first half and a slight injury gave the natives what they wanted in the West Virginia game, and Bell performed well. But then a few games into his starting role, Bell too fell into a malaise. The offense stumbled contributing greatly to OU's losses to Texas and Baylor. A little in and out substitution between Knight and Bell over a couple of games ended with Knight regaining the starting job for the Kansas State game (a victory) only to exit the role at half-time against OSU due to injury. Bell came in and played well if not better than Knight. Oh, and the formerly third-string sophomore Kendall Thompson was inserted before Bell replaced him in the OSU game.

To say this wasn't according to script is an understatement. But the script isn't actually written by fan dreams. It is an emergent process governed by both luck and coaching decisions. The coaching decisions are governed by a couple of underappreciated forces--uncertainty and asymmetric information. Coaches know a lot, and I mean A LOT, more than the rest of us. They see these players in practice and in games and in replayed videos of both. They interact with them. They also have a game plan and a complex strategy of plays to accomplish that plan. We don't know the plays, the formations, the game plan theories, or how well or poorly the players fit into them all. Add to that the complexity that combinations of players will imply different outcomes. Oh, and players are living lives all this time meaning they simply aren't the same in Spring of sophomore year as they are in December of senior year. Oh, and coaches are humans with biases and informational blind spots. They are operating in a cloud of uncertainty. We are in a fog orders of magnitude more dense than coaches are due to the asymmetric information.

And yet we judge them and will call for their heads if too many of their decisions turn out "wrong". Was Knight the right choice for Stoops to make in August? In September it seemed like the answer was no. In October and November it seemed more and more like the answer was probably yes. In one half of one game in December (n = .5 for statisticians out there) the best we could say was, "Looks like it was a toss up either way". It took us as onlookers an entire season to finally say what we should have been saying all along. To wit, "The coaches probably are making the best choice available, and that choice is still a guess".

"Coaches are paid the big bucks to make those calls and get them right!" you say. Well, yes and no. What is "get them right"? Right as judged by critics--media, fans, detractors, players, administrators, donors, parents, etc. Coaches have many masters. Effectively managing the intra-firm (i.e., players, assistant coaches, administrators, donors, some fans) relations along with the public (i.e., media, some fans, detractors, other team's coaches) relations implies they have interests that may conflict with simply maximizing the probability of long-term winning. Their risk-reward payoff matrix is skewed to a degree that is hard to appreciate. Balancing this well is an art.

Reflecting on the Sooners' 2013 season has humbled me and caused me to appreciate the coach's job(s). I don't think it is just because I view the season as a success with hindsight knowledge (it would be judged a failure from an ex ante point of view). Trying to put aside how a last-minute comeback victory over Oklahoma State makes me feel, I think I would feel that Stoops did a great job in 2013 win or lose that game.

Highly linkable

Back from bi-coastal travel with a backlog of blogs to write. Let's start with some links to get us caught up:

What is probably most amazing about this is that we don't find it as amazing as it is. (HT: Steven Landsburg)

Art Carden is demanding action "FOR THE CHILDREN" a la, Helen Lovejoy, in this first of what will perhaps become an on-going series (there have been three posts in this meme so far).

The United States is incredibly and perhaps paradoxically wealthy.

Caplan shows how Game of Thrones makes the case for pacifism.

The EA Sports proposed settlement in the on-going legal battle between college players and the NCAA cartel is a both a win for the players as well as a win for consumers as pointed out by Sports Law Blog's Rick Karcher. Probability of a strike or other work-stoppage demonstration is rising. A couple of years ago it was rumoured that a team in the NCAA March Madness tournament was planning on a demonstration including perhaps refusal to play if they made the Final Four. The team was eliminated in the Elite Eight round.

Posts like this one make me understand why I relate to Scott Sumner. Perhaps I should discount somewhat my agreement with his views on monetary policy fearing I have an unconscious bias.

Is the magnitude of U.S. gun violence evidence of civil war warranting international intervention? I think not so much. This article is hyperbolic and the arguments within fallacious I believe.  I found the biggest problem with the lumping of suicide deaths by firearms, accident deaths, and violent crime deaths. Those are quite different subjects. Attacking firearms is attacking the particular method and not the underlying conditions. Crimes aided by guns and accidents are the cost side. The benefit side, crimes reduced or prevented (including government-committed) and the joy of gun ownership, is completely ignored. But the article was thought-provoking, nonetheless.

WWCF: Social condemnation of hunting or human combat?

Which will come first?

Social condemnation of sport hunting

OR

Social condemnation of human combat sports

By social condemnation I mean when will we be past the point where being a hunter or being a fan of a human combat sport is acceptable in polite (general mixed) company. Yes, there is an underlying assumption here that the long-term trend is toward these ends. At some point the argument over rabbit season versus duck season will be moot--it won't ever be either. 

I think these come in degrees as they are long-term developments with stages for each. We need some ground rules on which will represent the true tipping point. First let's look at the levels we must consider.

For sport hunting I see it as a gradual outlawing by the spot an animal represents on the food/intelligence chain:

1. Apes, monkeys, dolphins, whales, dogs, cats, . . .
2. Elephants, lions, tigers, bears, oh my, . . . 
3. Deer, ducks, turkeys, fish . . .

For human combat I see it as a gradual abandonment if not outlawing by the apparent brutality of the sport:

1. Olympic-style wrestling
2. Boxing
3. MMA, cage fighting, etc.

We are already somewhere between 1 and 2 for sport hunting and nearly past 1 for human combat. Consider point three in this list in regard to sport hunting (this would represent a proxy as noted in the next paragraph), and consider how wrestling continues to be on the ropes. Here is my test for WWCF: when five state legislatures outside of New England pass broad legislation outlawing or highly limiting most items of the third type. We've already noted how politicians follow rather than lead. I feel it safe to say if this legislative test is passed, the overwhelming majority of voters must agree with the position. Alternatively, we might get to WWCF through other means such as the market for selling human combat evaporating. 

Note that sport hunting does not include harvesting of fish, lobster, elk, or other game for mass consumption on a secondary market. Hunting a deer and eating it, though, is sport hunting still whether or not the deer's head ends up on the wall. 

I think the key here is considering when does general public opinion pass what I will term a social acceptability threshold. At some point activities that were once common (e.g., smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco, sexual harassment in the workplace, etc.) become beyond the pale. In the other direction eventually behavior once thought uncouth (e.g., interracial marriage, tattoos, etc.) become acceptable. I believe a large driver of this is the number of people engaging in the particular activity. 

In 1955 about 55% of men and 28% of women smoked. By 1990 the rate for men was equal to the 1955 rate for women while the rate for women had fallen about a fifth to about 23%.

For sexual harassment in the workplace note that female labor force participation may be the critical driver. Positively correlated with the LFPR trend would be female advancement in the workplace--probably with a lag due to the time it takes for the greater numbers of women to be experience-eligible for advanced positions as well as both active and institutional discrimination factors. When Don Draper was running things, the female portion of the labor force was about 33%. By 1990 it was nearly half (45%). 

Perhaps at some point I will have to awkwardly admit I do not have a tattoo. 

As for my prediction, I say that human combat has a shorter shelf life than sport hunting. This despite the fact that in the former behavior the participants are willing and compensated whereas in the latter behavior this is the case only on one side--and the other side doesn't just lose but dies. Alternative methods for population control of pest animals such as deer might accelerate the trend for outlawing sport hunting. But as we get wealthier and healthier, dangerous activities like human combat sports become more costly. This trend I believe dominates.

Boardwalk Stillwater

This is really a story about prohibition. And prohibition is at its heart a story about economics.

When you make something illegal that is demanded, you get a black market. In this case the thing demanded is successful college football. The prohibitions are on free-market transactions that connect those providing value, college football players, and those who are consuming the value provided, college football fans. When value cannot fully be reflected between suppliers and demanders, externalities exist—in this case positive externalities meaning the market is undersupplying college football along some dimensions*. The market abhors externalities and is only prevented from erasing them by transactions costs that outweigh the benefits. Transactions costs cast shadows upon markets. When those transactions costs are high enough, the communication process revealing gains from trade can break down significantly. Hence, black-market transactions take the place of open-market transactions.

Black markets have two significant downsides: they aren’t as efficient as open, free markets and they come with baggage (technically speaking, negative unintended consequences). Notably in the second case, black markets incentivize suppliers who aren’t as sensitive to the transactions costs as the typical supplier. Additionally, black-market transactions take on forms that are both less efficient in an economic sense and less sensitive to the standards the original prohibitions attempted to uphold. To wit: Gangsters are successful because they are more willing and able to break the rules and the rules attempt to prevent what otherwise would come to be.

The local response has been predictable in nature and course but surprising in intensity. The clan has been attacked, and all members are called to unquestioned defense. I believe most of the response track has followed something similar to the stages of grieving, and I predict it will continue in such a fashion.

First has come Denial. This couldn’t be true because I don’t want it to be can be read between the lines of many responses. Some examples have been along the lines of: “The players making the accusations are disgruntled former troublemakers,” “There are no documents revealed proving these payments happened,” “One of the authors is an OU alum who dislikes OSU.”

Next will come Rationalization. I expect the group response to be along the lines of: “This happens everywhere, why single us out?” “Most of this isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things,” “These events are taken out of context; it isn’t that bad.”

Next will come Acceptance along with Anger (I said similar to the stages of grieving, not mirroring it). Expect both some contrivance and sorrow along with a few scapegoats offered up. Eventually, though, someone significant must be to blame, and that person or group of persons will have to pay. Remember, I’m not saying what the NCAA or general public response will be. I am predicting the response from inside the community affected.

As for the response from general public opinion, the Oklahoma State brand has been badly tarnished. The labels these accusations will bring will not easily or quickly be erased. Assuming the accusations are completely true, which I do not, but I do believe they are largely and substantively true, I have already found and expect further to find interesting inconsistencies. There is what sounds bad given our mores: marijuana use along with other drugs, sexual arrangements, payment of college athletes for work performed (playing football well) and work not performed (housework, construction, etc.), and academic leniency and fraud. And then there is what does not sound so bad again given our mores including what is absent in the accusations: alcohol use, athlete exploitation, and unrealistic academic expectations. It is like our social norms on toleration and prohibition were determined by coin flip.

Take us home, Radiohead.

*There is nuance here. The aggregate supply of college football may be sufficient or excessive due to subsidies but at the same time there are specific shortages. For example, it could be that resources aren’t reaching their optimal use by being underemployed—football quality is too low at Oklahoma State and is too high elsewhere.

Highly linkable

One of the greatest economists ever, Ronald Coase, passed last week. He was 102 years old. He was still an active, working economist. His two great contributions, The Nature of the Firm and The Theory of Social Costs, fundamentally changed the field. In these he established the importance of transactions costs within firms and how that leads firms to be authoritarian and how assignment of property rights matters in a world of social costs when transaction costs are not zero. These are likely the first and second most cited papers in the history of economics. Here is a good summary of Coase's work and here is an appreciation written upon his passing. Both are well worth reading.

Malcolm Gladwell does an expertly crafted job in this The New Yorker piece pointing out the tension between the general social distaste for athletic differences equalized by certain means (chemical and biological therapies) and the general acceptance of athletic differences generated by natural or surgical means. The contradictions defy good reasoning.

At Advanced NFL Stats John Morgan shows how to lie with statistics. Just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

This is my favorite time of year--football season, which maybe isn't saying much since it extends for arguably half of the year. But specifically, I love autumn and college football. The period from now, August, until late October is a splendid few months.

As I have gotten older, I have come to appreciate the joy of anticipation. That's what makes this weekend special for football fans; for it is now that hope is alive. No matter how realistic, every team is right now a theoretical contender. And regardless of how many trophies will actually be won, every team and every fan has a chance to dream of joyous, fun, and celebratory moments big and small.

I thought I'd briefly pen a few thoughts on some of the current dynamics in college football as I see them. This is a look at the larger picture beyond this season.

Conference re-re-realignments:

I fully expect this trend to continue. The current arrangement does not seem like a stable, sustainable equilibrium. Large disparity among conferences whether true or perceived weaken the league-wide product. They also hinder participants' (individual teams') ability to specialize and innovate as appearing too different can be counter productive to input acquisition (recruiting) and output revenue (fan interest). Breaking old traditions is probably more difficult than was first appreciated when this process began. That is partially why it has taken so long with so many fits and starts and busted deals. Now we are much more used to the idea that old rivalries, etc. may not continue. The other major reason why it has been a clumsy process is the relative uncertainty as to the value to be gained through new arrangements. Because college athletic departments are not fully operating within a free market, profit-driven environment, this murkiness about value is compounded. 

Super division formation:

We've heard rumblings of this recently. It is no longer the subject whose name shall not be mentioned. The product of the league has been diluted through the addition of too many teams. There are currently 126 teams playing in the highest division of NCAA football (the FBS division), and this number has surged in the past 10 years. The range among these teams in terms of quality is stark. Throughout all divisions we see this growth in the sport, although not always the self-generated resources to support it. The artificial stimulus that fuels this at the lower division level is the expansion in the number of games and the revenue streams at the upper division coupled with the need/ability to "pad" schedules playing against softer opponents. Again, this dilutes the product. I think what will evolve is a super division of perhaps 60 elite teams and perhaps a promotion/relegation method as used in soccer. While this may make a more just system of paying players more palatable and hence to the extent that trend is an inevitability it self reinforces, I would not be fully satisfied in only these "semi-pro" players finally getting their just desserts. 

How would we populate the 60-team elite league? Rather than appointing a czar or council of elders, I would propose we assume all FBS league teams have a property right in the new league and auction off slots in it. The method I propose is that the highest bidders pay the "losing" 66 bidders for the right to be in the league. Single submission, silent bidding would be used. To elicit honest bids (paying close to what it is actually worth to the individual teams), the highest 30 bidders would each pay the average of their own bid and the corresponding lowest bidder equal from the bottom that they are from the top. So, the top bidder would pay the average of the #1 and #60 bid. The second highest bidder would pay the average of the #2 and #59 bid. After the 30th highest bidder, the remaining bidders would pay simply the amount of their bid. Yes, the order of bidding would most likely not match the order of amount eventually paid. That is the point.

Playoff format:

The coming playoff format for determining the league champion will strengthen these trends on net and have a positive feedback to push towards a larger playoff. The net economic influences are also in this direction. But I believe after about 8-12 teams the diminishing returns become dominant and the process stops. Another implication of all these trends is stronger schedules--more competition among equals. 

Player pay and safety:

Players will be paid. It is only a matter of time. The NCAA is on the wrong side of justice. The hypocrisy will eventually become too much. The O'Bannon lawsuit is a major catalyst for change, but it is not alone.

Similarly, player safety (concussions, et al.) is probably on the precipice of the most significant change since the NCAA was originally formed (for that purpose no less). Equipment improvements will not be how this gets resolved. Fundamental changes to rules, practice conditions and procedures, and as importantly fan/coach/parent/player attitudes about what is and what is not proper football will be what brings about ultimate resolution--more appropriately termed the new plateau as it will only be a new but not permanent equilibrium. The NFL's settlement of the concussion lawsuits for $765 million is not an end to the issues; it is a coming to terms that major change is needed and on its way.

Enjoy the season! Boomer Sooner!