--E. Frank Stephenson

Youths burn 100 cars in north Stockholm riots

M. Sarkozy has some free time on his hands since he's no longer in office in his home country so I wonder if he's been advising Sweden on ways to boost its happiness adjusted GDP. (Backstory on Sarkozy, car-burning, and happiness adjusted GDP.)

--E. Frank Stephenson

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has a nifty website by that name for keeping up with the ever-expending regulatory state. Another 29,000+ pages of regulations so far this year ...

--E. Frank Stephenson

That's the title of a forthcoming Economics of Education Review paper by Johnathan Lott and Larry Kenny; the abstract:

A new and very small literature has provided evidence that students have lower test scores in larger school districts and in districts in which the district's teachers union has negotiated a contract that is more favorable to the district's teachers. The teachers’ unions at the state and national levels contribute a great deal of money to candidates for state and federal offices. This gives the unions some influence in passing (defeating) bills that would help (harm) the state's teachers. We introduce two novel measures of the strength of the state-wide teachers union: union dues per teacher and union expenditures per student. These reflect the key role of political influence for state-wide unions. We provide remarkably strong evidence that students in states with strong teachers unions have lower proficiency rates than students in states with weak state-wide teacher unions.

--E. Frank Stephenson

Here's the abstract of a paper with interesting implications:

Entry into licensed professions requires meeting competency requirements, typically assessed through licensing examinations. This paper explores whether the number of individuals attempting to enter a profession (potential supply) affects the difficulty of the entry examination. The empirical results suggest that a larger potential supply may lead to more difficult licensing exams and lower pass rates. This implies that licensing may partially shelter the market from supply shocks and limit the impact of policies targeted at increasing labor supply.

The finding that occupational licensing exam difficulty is endogenous with respect to potential entrants into the profession is strong evidence in favor of considering licensing to be a barrier to entry rather than a quality assurance mechanism.

--E. Frank Stephenson

I'm happy to see my employer pushing back against the Tennessee Higher Ed Commission's anti-competitive behavior; here's a synopsis:

Berry College is suing Tennessee’s higher education commission in a dispute over billboard advertising.

Berry College says in the federal lawsuit that the Tennessee agency has threatened to sue the school if it continues to advertise in that state without registering and paying fees of more than $20,000 a year.

The Rome-based school says it competes with Tennessee colleges and has advertised on at least one billboard in the state. It depicts two students in front of a college building with Berry’s name, website and the phrase “26,000 acres of opportunity.”

The Tennessee Higher Education Commission has threatened other schools with such requirements in order to reduce competition from out-of-state institutions, Berry maintains in the lawsuit. Other schools have removed their ads over the issue rather than risk civil and criminal sanctions, the school’s lawyers say.

--E. Frank Stephenson

Life Church will meet at Brewhouse

--E. Frank Stephenson

First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper.

Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the government says it will import 50m rolls to boost supplies.

That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

"This is the last straw," said Manuel Fagundes, a shopper hunting for tissue in Caracas. "I'm 71 years old and this is the first time I've seen this."

One supermarket visited by the Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

"I've been looking for it for two weeks," said Cristina Ramos. "I was told that they had some here and now I'm in line."

Economists say Venezuela's shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government's controls on foreign currency.

Source. I wonder if it's just a cheap stunt to get a visit from Sheryl Crow--she'd be an upgrade over Sean Penn who liked to visit his departed pal Hugo.