The most refreshing session I attended today (Sat., 1/3/08) at the Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) meetings in San Francisco was the first ever Economic Humor session. To non-economists, the mere fact that an economic humor session exists is probably funny (although we do maintain a good economic jokes page on this site). But the three presenters were all very good and also were probably a representative sample of the range of the genre. This session was recorded on video, and a Time Magazine reporter was there. So I am hoping to post a link sometime in the near future. The following is a summary, with highlights, of the three hilarious presentations.
Preston McAfee (Cal Tech, and formerly Univ. of Texas) presided over the session, which was listed as being in honor of Caroline Postelle Clotfelter, editor of the book, On the Third Hand: Wit and Humor in the Dismal Science. McAfee started out by giving the award for the funniest paper of 2008, which went to Gregor Smith's "Japan's Phillips Curve Looks Like Japan" (Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 40:6, 1325-1326 [2008]). His paper consists of no other insight than the fact that a graph of the [negative] unemployment rate and the inflation rate in Japan looks strikingly similar to a map of the country of Japan.
McAfee also mentioned that the journal Economic Inquiry (of which McAfee is the editor and Yoram Bauman is the Miscellany Associate Editor) has two forthcoming humorous articles by Nobel Laureates. I thought I overheard Preston say that one of them was by Bob Fogel, and there is a good chance that the other one might be Krugman's Interstellar Trade piece that we referenced in a previous post. We'll keep you posted as these things come out.
The first presenter of the session was Rob Oxoby (Univ. of Calgary) on "The Efficiency of AC/DC: Bon Scott versus Brian Johnson." Oxoby tested who was a better vocalist for the rock band AC/DC out of Bon Scott and Brian Johnson by running an economic experiment of an utimatum game with human subjects. He let one part of the sample play the game while listening to an AC/DC song sung by Bon Scott and another part of the sample play the game while listening to an AC/DC song sung by Brian Johnson. The result was that amounts offered and offers accepted matched up more closely in the sample listening to Brian Johnson and were, thus, more efficient. According to Oxoby, this was evidence that Brian Johnson was the better lead vocalist.
The second presenter was Peter Orazem (Iowa State). He basically delivered a traditional standup routine that had some economic jokes. One of the funniest was a bit about Donald Trump claiming that he was a member of the Sosumi indian tribe. He also had a great joke about gas prices that went something like this:
"The economy is so bad these days that I miss the old days of $4 per gallon gas prices. It was so nice when you could fill up your car and double its value."
The closer of the session was Yorum Bauman (University of Washington), who bills himself as the standup economist. I posted a link a while ago to his bit on Mankiw's 10 principles of economics. He was absolutely hilarious. The majority of his jokes made fun of macroeconomics, and I hope I can find some video of his bit to post here because he had the standing-room-only crowd roaring with laughter. He did his bit on Mankiw's 10 principles of economics, and he also did a piece on some novel applications of the Lucas Critique.
Tonight was a great night for economic humor. And I hope it is the beginning of a long tradition of humor sessions at the ASSAs.
McAfee also mentioned that the journal Economic Inquiry (of which McAfee is the editor and Yoram Bauman is the Miscellany Associate Editor) has two forthcoming humorous articles by Nobel Laureates. I thought I overheard Preston say that one of them was by Bob Fogel, and there is a good chance that the other one might be Krugman's Interstellar Trade piece that we referenced in a previous post. We'll keep you posted as these things come out.
The first presenter of the session was Rob Oxoby (Univ. of Calgary) on "The Efficiency of AC/DC: Bon Scott versus Brian Johnson." Oxoby tested who was a better vocalist for the rock band AC/DC out of Bon Scott and Brian Johnson by running an economic experiment of an utimatum game with human subjects. He let one part of the sample play the game while listening to an AC/DC song sung by Bon Scott and another part of the sample play the game while listening to an AC/DC song sung by Brian Johnson. The result was that amounts offered and offers accepted matched up more closely in the sample listening to Brian Johnson and were, thus, more efficient. According to Oxoby, this was evidence that Brian Johnson was the better lead vocalist.
The second presenter was Peter Orazem (Iowa State). He basically delivered a traditional standup routine that had some economic jokes. One of the funniest was a bit about Donald Trump claiming that he was a member of the Sosumi indian tribe. He also had a great joke about gas prices that went something like this:
"The economy is so bad these days that I miss the old days of $4 per gallon gas prices. It was so nice when you could fill up your car and double its value."
The closer of the session was Yorum Bauman (University of Washington), who bills himself as the standup economist. I posted a link a while ago to his bit on Mankiw's 10 principles of economics. He was absolutely hilarious. The majority of his jokes made fun of macroeconomics, and I hope I can find some video of his bit to post here because he had the standing-room-only crowd roaring with laughter. He did his bit on Mankiw's 10 principles of economics, and he also did a piece on some novel applications of the Lucas Critique.
Tonight was a great night for economic humor. And I hope it is the beginning of a long tradition of humor sessions at the ASSAs.
