Andrew Leigh is one of the finest academic economists in Australia. He is also a good guy. All his work is evidence based and he does some very interesting research. Although he does think the ABC is a right-wing organisation. One of the things he has done is to consider the impact looks have on electoral outcomes.
Are beautiful politicians more likely to be elected? To test this, we use evidence from Australia, a country in which voting is compulsory, and in which voters are given ‘How to Vote’ cards depicting photos of the major party candidates as they arrive to vote. Using raters chosen to be representative of the electorate, we assess the beauty of political candidates from major political parties, and then estimate the effect of beauty on voteshare for candidates in the 2004 federal election. Beautiful candidates are indeed more likely to be elected, with a one standard deviation increase in beauty associated with a 1½ – 2 percentage point increase in voteshare. Our results are robust to several specification checks: adding party fixed effects, dropping well-known politicians, using a non-Australian beauty rater, omitting candidates of non-Anglo Saxon appearance, controlling for age, and analyzing the ‘beauty gap’ between candidates running in the same electorate. The marginal effect of beauty is larger for male candidates than for female candidates, and appears to be approximately linear. Consistent with the theory that returns to beauty reflect discrimination, we find suggestive evidence that beauty matters more in electorates with a higher share of apathetic voters.
The rumour about town is that Andrew – currently the youngest full economics professor in Australia – is looking to toss it in and is seeking preselection in Bob McMullen‘s Canberra seat. Of course, if that’s what he wants to do we all wish him well. But can we trust anything he says in future?
I think not. Here he is saying leadership doesn’t matter.
Leaders matter in autocracies, but not in democracies. The deaths of Ayatollah Khomeini and Mao Tse-Tung were followed by rapid improvements in living standards for ordinary Iranians and Chinese. But in a typical democracy, economic outcomes are unaffected when a leader passes away. Constrained by political parties, institutions and interest groups, democratic leaders have less scope to change the world than the typical biography (or autobiography) might have you think.
So by his own previous writings we know that he knows he’ll have little impact, and also, bad news for an economist, there is a pay cut involved. (Andrew – backbenchers earn less than full Profs and they’re cutting the travel perks – sorry. If you want to test theories of irrational behaviour – well that’s what the students are for).
Anyway, good luck.
I’m shocked, absolutely shocked out of my skin that Andrew would be throwing his hat in the ring for a labor seat. lol.
After absurdly calling the ABC a right wing organization, signing a letter in support of the ALP’s economic policy ostensibly as a disinterested observer despite taking a political appointment in the already politicized Treasury and not disclosing it, I would have assumed he was going after a liberal seat
To be perfectly honest a lot of the stuff he writes about seems to me to be almost like pop economics so ALP would suit him well.
JC
1 Feb 10 at 9:43 pm
if he’s going into politics and looks matter, I hope Andrew is prepared to do this.
C.L.
1 Feb 10 at 10:16 pm
I think you underestimate the salary of a backbencher Sinclair. There are a lot of perks, and the superannuation is fantastic. I’d be surprised if a full professor earned more than a backbencher if the total remuneration package was compared. And, importantly, most MPs have a leadership baton (or at least ministerial baton) in the backpacks. One shouldn’t underestimate the ego and perceived prestige of being an MP – with media attention etc. And who knows if the travel perks will go.
Samuel J
1 Feb 10 at 10:45 pm
Politics could only improve with Andrew’s direct involvement. If that’s what he’s going to do, good luck to him.
The ABC finding is just a cautionary tale about reading too much into the data.
Jarrah
1 Feb 10 at 11:29 pm
He defended the ABC “finding” like a dog defending its food, Jarrah.
People patiently pointed out to him that perhaps Landline, hosted on Sunday afternoon in competition with the football and just after the ABCs’ religious service is not equal to the 7.30 ALP Report or Lateline evening reports on the latest global Warming scare story such as ice cubes melting in the fridge.
However he didn’t listen and defended the integrity of the report by even suggesting or implying Fatty Adams show has a right wing slant.
As i said anyone who comes up with stuff like that should actively seek a seat with the ALP. In fact I would encourage it.
JC
1 Feb 10 at 11:37 pm
Samuel – the perks are inefficient, I’m sure Andrew would rather have the cash. In fact, if he is rational would always want the cash – as an MP it would be harder for him to make that argument, but I do think the perks should be stripped out and replaced by cash (think of the paper were people value Christmas presents).
I don’t know what super scheme Andrew is in, but I don’t reckon the current MP super is better than the (normal) academic super – only he could access it earlier.
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 5:24 am
I think it’s not looks it’s Australianisms. In this respect, I think he’s too un-Australian because he got his PhD at an elite un-Australian university (Harvard I think, that’s American), and being elite is un-Australians, especially for the Australians. He’s also not a lawyer or a career bureaucrat (or maybe you really are in the university system), and that what make his style even more un-Australian for a politician.
conrad
2 Feb 10 at 9:58 am
A bit harsh conrad – here I was thinking he’s unaustralian becasue he lives in Canberra
Actually he is a lawyer by training and I seem to recall that he clerked for somebody or the other.
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 10:02 am
Sinclair
One is always suspicious of ‘lawyers by training’ i.e. people with legal degrees who didn’t have the wherewithal to get and keep up that which makes a real solicitor or barrister, a practising certificate. If you don’t practise law you don’t know the law, as most of a lawyer’s training comes through actually doing legal work. It sets us apart from mere mortals and enobles and enriches us to a degree that academics never attain.
That is why the legal profession attraccts the brightest and rightest of the law graduates, whilst academia attracts the idealistic, but not so sharp-witted, leftists.
Rococo Liberal
2 Feb 10 at 10:56 am
I agree, but for different reasons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0pkigApKEw
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 11:02 am
Not disclosing he worked at Treasury for a short time.
err he disclosed it on his blog and his blog was then never updated until after his secondment was over.
wrong AGAIN.
I hope Andrew wins pre-selection. He would add a lot to the ALP team however previous Economic professor’s record in parliament do not bode well!
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
2 Feb 10 at 11:08 am
JC – I have to agree with Homer here. If the ALP were all like Andrew you’d be voting for them. He is a very high quality candidate (assuming the rumors are true).
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 11:12 am
Sinc:
I lost an enormous amount of respect for him over that ABC bullshit he peddled and the letter he signed.
Rather than being an interested observer, he became a partisan player. This isn’t the issue though however those two points are.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 11:22 am
The problem is Sinclair, that anyone who would think to join and or run for the ALP has already demonstrated a lack of brainpower.
If Mr leigh was as good as you say, he would have joined the Liberals.
Paul Dyer (Head of the Australian Brandenberg Orchestra) and Andrew O’Keefe of TV fame are also lawyers by training, but don’t usually mention the fact and have chosen careers that do not involve academia or parliament. They are not thus to be despised.
Rococo Liberal
2 Feb 10 at 11:24 am
RL – a lack of judgement perhaps. We don’t know why he joined the ALP. It could be anything from family tradition, to believing the ALP are the party of economic reform rather than hidebound conservativism. In the meantime the ALP needs more like him. (Also I think its very funny that Doug Cameron might be getting an ‘aaaakedemic ekoonomist’ as a colleague.
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 11:33 am
“If Mr leigh was as good as you say, he would have joined the Liberals.”
Yes, he could have been with such luminaries as Tony Abott at the federal level or Kerry Chikarovski at the State level (or whoever it is now — they all kind of blur into one to me, Jeff Kennett excluded).
Maybe you haven’t noticed Rococo, but the Liberal party is currently an embarassment to itself. In addition, since Labor has historically done all the big economic and educational reforms, I imagine it’s really the place to be if you are an economist that is also interested in education versus a person that wants to sit on their hands and do nothing.
Good luck to him, and may the first person/media outlet that complains about his PhD not being done in Australia or elitism be jinxed!
conrad
2 Feb 10 at 11:34 am
Did he support the re-regulation of the labor market? Silence on this issue does the job of speaking out and telling us what sort of “reformer” he’d be.
I bought the bullshit about the other “reformer” in the ALP from some of the guys here…. telling us how great he was when he spoke to the CIS. Emerson couldn’t even support or rather get support for opening up the book market. On that issue alone he should have resigned and shown a little spine.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 11:40 am
JC – emerson was rolled – at some point it is better having good people in the ALP than some of the nutters. I’d be happy is more of the Liberals were as solid as Andrew is on economics. What is so good about Andrew is that he always supports evidence based policy, he is not some starry eyed hippy (at least not economically).
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 11:43 am
Sinc:
I don’t want to over do this, but how much evidence was there the ABC is right wing shtick he peddled?
Jeez Louise, he actually gave lefties cover to suggest the ABC was right wing at the time. They were using an academic study in support of that bullshit.
What’s worse he defended it too arguing that his “evidence” offered support. Christ almighty.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 11:49 am
JC – if that’s the biggest cock-up he makes in his whole life, he is doing well. His algorithm didn’t work well and rather than say its an outlier, he defended it.
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 11:51 am
“That is why the legal profession attraccts the brightest and rightest of the law graduates, whilst academia attracts the idealistic, but not so sharp-witted, leftists”
Who represents unions and environmentalists in court RL?
Semi Regular Libertarian
2 Feb 10 at 11:58 am
have a visit of his blog.
That id good enough.
Politics is about getting the numbers. sometimes you get them and at other times you don’t.
I think Andrew would be great if he advocates evidence based policies from within the party and Emmo would get an ally he could work with.
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
2 Feb 10 at 11:59 am
I’ve seen his blog , Homer. It’s my opinion only, but a lot of it looks like pop economics to me.
Compare it to this:
http://www.institutional-economics.com/index.php
I can see the point in terms of Emerson getting an ally, but they may not see each due to the cob webs floating around in the party room
JC
2 Feb 10 at 12:08 pm
That id good enough.
Freud on the id:
He could have been describing Homer’s writing style.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 12:08 pm
CL
That cracked me up.
So Freud had Homer in mind when he discussed the Id.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 12:10 pm
I made the mistake of believing you could actualy read.
No pop economics is written here as we saw with the story on the alleged default on US bonds
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
2 Feb 10 at 12:10 pm
“No pop economics is written here as we saw with the story on the alleged default on US bonds”
You’re just a serial bullshit artist. No one ever said that. Your list of gaffes on the other hand is long and infamous.
If Rudd thinks it is irresponsible to be worried about your largest trading partner heading towards 100% debt to GDP ratio, then clearly the ALP need Leigh to kick some butt and get rid of this economically illiterate muppet.
Semi Regular Libertarian
2 Feb 10 at 12:12 pm
JC,
a blog is a blog, not an indication of the pinnacle you might have reached intellectually. I’m with Sincs and all of the rest of the people in the world that actually care about data and evidence. If can stick to that, that’s great in my books.
conrad
2 Feb 10 at 12:15 pm
Mark go on you tell us what the latest CDS is for US Bonds?
List of gaffes Mark hmm
who said that all economic statistics in Germany between the wars was false.
Who said that people in the RAD were slave labour?
we haven’t even got to Japan yet. you would be challenging Forrest and he is stupid
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
2 Feb 10 at 12:19 pm
Shut up and answer the question you crackpot. We’re not going to be distracted by your ignorance – clearly FDR defaulted on bonds in 1933. Changing the terms of consideration clearly repudiated the obligations of the bonds.
http://marketpipeline.blogspot.com/2009/01/was-there-ever-default-on-us-treasury.html
Clearly we can have a massive depreciation and inflation in America, but if you think this is :nothing to worry about”, you’re to be filed away with crackpots like Major Douglas.
The fact that you think you can use the history of your discussion of Nazi economics as a petard illustrates your incompetence and delusion. We’re trying to give you an education here but you’re so bloody obtuse you’d prefer to defend Keynes vicariously through one of the most murderous regimes ever to exist.
Shut up you ingrate and answer the question:
“Is it economically *irresponsible* to worry that you largest trading partner is heading towards a 100% debt to GDP ratio?”
Put up or shut up you huckster.
Semi Regular Libertarian
2 Feb 10 at 12:30 pm
Conrad:
I’m with Sincs and all of the rest of the people in the world that actually care about data and evidence. If can stick to that, that’s great in my books.
He did. His “evidence” told him that the ABC was right wing.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 12:36 pm
Homer:
Stop ruining that thread with you low rent bullshit. If you’re going to continue with this low IQ crap take it to the open thread.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 12:37 pm
It’s a no brainer. Compare presidents before TV with those after. Except Nixon. Poor old Nixon.
Adrien
2 Feb 10 at 12:43 pm
Nixon sincerely cared about the little man, Adrien.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 1:08 pm
It clearly does not matter in Australia!
Peter Patton
2 Feb 10 at 1:10 pm
Mark you qualify for being as big a idiot as Forrest.
A Government can default or a government can have hyperinflation but not both.
Make up your mind.
you can’t tell me the CDS for US bonds , what a surprise.
oh yeah each time you attempt you show your ignorance about Germany between the wars you get punched around the head.
That is merely because your much boasted about research skills are very poor and have been shown thus on almost any day of the week.
The fact you believe a country can both default and have inflation simply shows you have no idea of what you are talking about.Forrest can rabbit on about that because he is an idiot.
What is your excuse?
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
2 Feb 10 at 1:18 pm
JC,
I’ll admit it, I don’t really care about that left-right stuff, especially in terms of an irrelevant little TV channel. No doubt ABC is right wing if you have a French perspective of what left and right are, and left wing if you have an American perspective. They put lesbian mothers on TV, after all. Quelle horreur!
I’m more interested in things like “Does program X help kids read better than program Y” or “Does XX model of school/social progam/etc. funding work better than YY”. If you get the answer to that sort of question wrong, it really does make a difference.
conrad
2 Feb 10 at 1:21 pm
The Obama Monument.
I blame Peter Costello.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 1:23 pm
A Government can default or a government can have hyperinflation but not both.
Make up your mind.
Umm yes they can, you ding bat. The tragedy of South America proves it.
Look you moth balled brained git, if a country has loans denominated in foreign currency it can both default and suffer hyperinflation at the same time. South Am has been doing that forever.
A first year economics student would be able to work that out.
Hey but don’t fucking apologize for another one of your appalling fuck ups. As a beta male you don’t do apologies, right?
JC
2 Feb 10 at 1:24 pm
conrad
I agree. To talk about “left vs. right” wing in Australia is pretty silly. That conflict ended the day the ALP elected Bob Hawke its parliamentary leader.
Peter Patton
2 Feb 10 at 1:24 pm
Conrad.
That’s fine Conrad… look, you and Sinc are right. It would be better to have Leigh in there than some one else.
I was pissed off with that ABC thing.
And yes he would be a good add to the parliament is my initial guess.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 1:26 pm
Nixon sincerely cared about the little man, Adrien.
.
Brilliant!
Adrien
2 Feb 10 at 1:43 pm
Conrad:
This smug-faced irritating leftie then got the “evidence based study” and used on his program to suggest the ABC is right leaning!!!!!!!!!
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2685740.htm
JC
2 Feb 10 at 1:45 pm
Who represents unions and environmentalists in court RL?
Certainly not academic lawyers.
Game Set and Match to me, I think SRL
Conrad
All of Labor’s reforms have been crap, except for some of those brought in the Conservative era of the 19080s. Howard/Costello pissed all over Hawke and Keating, who after all gave us two recessions. Only a complete front-bottom would argue Labor has any intellectaual cred at all. Their answer to everythiung is more bureaucracy and more useless jobs for half-brained academics and public servants. Being left means being wrong, on everything.
Rococo Liberal
2 Feb 10 at 4:15 pm
“A Government can default or a government can have hyperinflation but not both.
Make up your mind.”
You twit Butters. FDR defaulted on the obligation to pay in gold. The result was high inflation. Do not apply the monetary rules of what we have now to back then. You should be ashamed, feigning intelligence. This was even before Bretton Woods but this suits your style of argument where everything gets confused and you change your mind from week to week as Rudd’s spin machine moves.
Semi Regular Libertarian
2 Feb 10 at 4:22 pm
And don’t give us that shite PP about Hawke being rightist. He, like all Labor types believed in equality before liberty in government being the be-all-and-end-all. That is part of the Labor ethos.
Rococo Liberal
2 Feb 10 at 4:23 pm
“Who represents unions and environmentalists in court RL?
Certainly not academic lawyers.
Game Set and Match to me, I think SRL”
You won a tennis match with an own goal?
Impressive!
FDB
2 Feb 10 at 4:26 pm
“Who represents unions and environmentalists in court RL?
Certainly not academic lawyers.
Game Set and Match to me, I think SRL”
Yes well you think you’re a winner when you play with yourself but we know better. Now, are environmental lawyers and union lawyers the lefty airheads or the macho, good looking and suave conservatives you keep talking about?
Butters – you dishonest shill – do you think our major trading partner careening towards a 100% debt to GDP ratio matters or not? I’m sure you’re not too busy advising Mac Bank on a CDS swap to give your opinion.
Semi Regular Libertarian
2 Feb 10 at 4:28 pm
oh dear we now have a new economic paradigm.
previously e knew that debt could be reduced by inflation by a government but now Marky is saying this is not so.
Wake up.
You can either have inflation or default but you cannot have both.
Make your mind up or better still go and look up a text book on debt and read what it says.
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
2 Feb 10 at 4:45 pm
“Howard/Costello pissed all over Hawke and Keating, who after all gave us two recessions”
As far as I can tell, Howard did nothing except massively increase middle class welfare. When he was treasurer for Fraser, he was even worse. Why people like him so much apart from ideological blinkers beats me. Hawke and Keating floated the dollar and got rid of pattern bargaining. We’d be Argentina if that hadn’t happened.
On this note, as far as i can tell, and as history suggests, the Liberal party in modern Australia are a bunch of big government conservatives that have essentially no ideas, Jeff Kennett excluded. That doesn’t make the Labor party good. It just makes them both bad.
conrad
2 Feb 10 at 4:51 pm
actually only one recession in 1990/1 but RL is only a lawyer
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
2 Feb 10 at 4:53 pm
Butters – last week you invented the “liquidity ladder”. You didn’t understand how the IS LM framework worked and also agreed with Stevens, tacitly rejecting your “output/inflation trade-off” as being anything but vertical. You are not in a position to utter the phraee “new economic paradigm” in an imperious fashion.
Here is what happened: they refused to pay with gold as contractually promised – they took themselves off the gold standard, defaulted and inflation was the result.
In our current monetary regime we will virtually always have inflation as opposed to defaults. Butters’ confusion of history is not an excuse to falsely accuse others of not understanding economics.
Semi Regular Libertarian
2 Feb 10 at 4:53 pm
err marky I don’t really know what a liquidity ladder is.
I didn’t talk about ISLM either but go on and invent something more you good at that.
What happened back in the 30s is irrelevant to today.
the CDS , for what it is worth, does not show investors expect the US to default neither does the bond market.
Moreover if the US does get much higher inflation this errr reduces debt,look up the textbook and you will find out how.
Never mind it is embarrassing to know you think a country will have both inflation and defaults.
Another to head your list of gaffes
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
2 Feb 10 at 4:58 pm
“I didn’t talk about ISLM either but go on and invent something more you good at that.”
Yes you did. You inferred that interest rate targeting was not part of inflation busting. Although you repudiated your 1950s belief in a bent Philips curve, the result of your strange beliefs was no change in output or prices, only the interest rate. Wow golly gee Butters I wonder why Keating’s high rates were so problematic.
“What happened back in the 30s is irrelevant to today.”
Yes but I never claimed that they were using our monetary system. It is a furphy that they have never defaulted.
Answer this you obtuse and dishonest prat:
*Is it economically *irresponsible* to worry that you largest trading partner is heading towards a 100% debt to GDP ratio?*
You, the well published, well respected consultant, don’t understand that massive inflation in America would destroy US direct investment in Australia – which is 20% of our capital base that pays 25% of our wage bill. You don’t understand that this would hammer our export market. You don’t understand that this would make much of our foreign capital market investment disappear.
The jobs and livelihoods of million’s are not as important to you as Rudd’s reputation.
Semi Regular Libertarian
2 Feb 10 at 5:08 pm