UtilityMinimization

Professor Charles Stanton of California State University, San Bernardino has put up a nifty tool that can help in the understanding of linear regression. The java applet allows you to place regression points on a Cartesian plane. Once you put down two points, the applet draws a regression line and gives you the equation for the line. As you add more and more points, the line and the equation update in real time. It’s fun to see how outliers can completely give false results. Check it out here.

The US Department of Education recently released a report comparing public and private schools. The study used the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data, which is a nationally representative sample of public and private school students. This particular study looked at reading and math test performance of students in the fourth and eighth grades. Part of the results of this study were covered in today’s New York Times, which reported that fourth grade students in public schools do significantly better than fourth graders in charter schools. This result calls into question the agenda of charter schools, which, as a centerpiece of the Bush education plan, claim to be able to produce better results at a lower cost.

While the results regarding charter schools are interesting, I do want to point out a few things. First of all, the report is really about comparing all private students to public school students. The results from this overall study were equally interesting. For fourth grade reading scores, the average private school student did better in reading. After controlling for differences in student characteristics, however, the difference in reading scores was not different than zero. For fourth grade math scores, however, public school students performed better–even after controlling for the fact that different types of student attend public schools and private schools.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, Indiana announced that it would lease its state-owned tollway system to a private company for a term of 75 years for the price of $3.8 billion. The Spanish-Austrian consortium Cintra-Macquarie operates 37 toll roads around the world, according to a report by Diantha Parker of Chicago Public Radio. According to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, the state’s tollway has been losing money for a long time, and the $3.8 billion in cash would not only cover the state’s $2.8 billion budget deficit, but would also remove a money-losing operation from the state’s books. This announcement follows on the heels of Chicago’s leasing of its Chicago Skyway to the same company earlier this year. According to Parker, some 35 other tollway systems in the US are considering similar leases.

Private operation of highways is a hot button political issue in the Midwest, where suburban drivers already face higher gas prices for their work-day commutes. In fact, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has disavowed an earlier statement that he is interested in leasing the Illinois Tollway. According the an article in the Chicago Tribune, the 274-mile tollway system would fetch a price of $15 billion, but would represent a very dangerous political obstacle to Blagojevich’s re-election hopes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Douglas Adams once wrote, “It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression ‘As pretty as an airport.’” Airports provide all sorts of mind-bogglingly stupefying experiences. Maybe this is because airports are about as screwed up a place as you are likely to ever visit. Or, maybe it is because of the immense time spent waiting around during various points of the flying process. In any case, every time I am in an airport, I am left wondering, “how can that be?” One of the most curious things (and there are many) about New York City’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA) is the taxi cab situation.

For the uninitiated, cabs at LaGuardia amass in a giant holding pen. When there is a need, they are dispatched to cab lines around the airport to pick up waiting passengers. If the process works smoothly, an exiting passenger goes to a designated taxi area and quickly jumps in the next cab that is waiting in a line of five or six cabs. Of course, things at airports and things in New York rarely work as planned. Put them together, and you end up with that sad, pathetic thing that is known locally as ‘the LaGuardia cab situation.’

Read the rest of this entry »

According to the CIA World Factbook there are 20 countries in the world whose per capita GDP is $1,000 or less per year. Some of these countries are new, like, East Timor, some are tiny, and most have been racked by war over their history. Among the poorest countries are the Gaza Strip, Eritrea, and Comoros, which has endured no fewer than 19 coup or coup attempts in its 31 year history. Today, various news outlets are reporting that heavy gunfire has occurred outside the Congo election offices. First, if you know anything about the history of the Congo and Central Africa, this should comes as no surprise: the Congo/Zaire/Congo has been bathed in violence nearly continuously for centuries. It should also come as no surprise that the Congo is sixth from the bottom when it comes to per capita annual GDP at $700.

Read the rest of this entry »