Way of the World: Economists, Consensus and Healthy Debates







SAN DIEGO — This is a tough time for experts. Empowered by the Internet and embittered by the sour economy, many people doubt the wisdom of expert elites. Journalism sometimes casts further doubt by seeking polarized positions that can draw an attention-grabbing debate, or by taking refuge in he-said-she-said accounts to avoid the harder job of figuring out who’s right.




Now one tribe of specialists — economists — is striking back. Concerned that the great unwashed have come to see all economic proposals as being equally valid, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business has led an effort to figure out what economists agree on, where they diverge and how certain they are about their views.


To do that, the Booth school called on reputable economists to join its panel of experts. Each week, the panelists are asked whether they agree or disagree with a particular economic idea.


“Among practicing economists, it is understood that the media and the political process paints economists as more divided than they are,” Anil K. Kashyap, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Chicago and a leader of the project, explained. “It is more sensational and maybe makes for better reading to have point-counterpoint. It seemed reasonable to provide some context. There’s a lot more settled issues than most people have a sense of.”


Dr. Kashyap cited as an example the gold standard, the monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold. “The gold standard is an insane idea,” he said. “I don’t know of any reputable economist who thinks it is a wise idea, but it got a lot of real political traction.”


Of the Booth panelists, 93 percent disagreed that the gold standard could improve price stability or employment.


But that is an extreme example. A paper presented this week at the annual gathering of the American Economic Association investigated the survey results in greater detail. “Based on our analysis, we conclude that there is close to full consensus among these panel members when the past economic literature on the question is large,” the authors of the paper, Roger Gordon and Gordon B. Dahl of the University of California, San Diego, wrote. “When past evidence is less extensive, differences in opinions do show up.”


But the authors did not find an ideological bias in those disagreements: “There are certainly some idiosyncratic views expressed, but we found no evidence of different camps.”


Economists, these results suggest, seek to objectively establish the truth and have a widely agreed on body of knowledge about how the economy works. In an age when it can be hard to write the word “facts” without reflexively reaching for quotation marks, that is of some comfort. But this picture of consensus among experts comes with a few caveats.


One was articulated by Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize laureate and New York Times columnist who was at the American Economic Association meeting. Mr. Krugman accepted the idea that economists share a wide body of agreed, objective and nonideological knowledge. But he argued that when it comes to one subset of issues — business-cycle macroeconomics, or how policy should respond to booms and busts — economists are both divided and biased. That matters, Mr. Krugman rightly pointed out, because outside the academy these are among the economic issues ordinary mortals care about, and fight about, the most.


The second caveat is that consensus may be more fleeting, and therefore less valuable, than the economic high priesthood might like to think. To his credit, Dr. Kashyap revealed two issues on which the economic conventional wisdom, and his own views, have changed since the financial crisis of 2008.


One is currency controls: “Having watched all this hot money flow into these markets, I am much more sympathetic to the desire to slow things down,” he said.


The second is whether central bankers should try to pop asset bubbles, an idea toward which Dr. Kashyap has softened. “I don’t think the conventional wisdom was very good on this and I was firmly in the consensus,” he said.


These shifts suggest that it is worth looking more closely at one clear subgroup among the economists in the University of California study. Dr. Gordon and Dr. Dahl searched for, and failed to detect, ideological bias or even the subtler influence of the very distinct intellectual traditions of top U.S. universities.


But they did pick up a clear difference between men and women. “Women,” they write, “tend to be more cautious in taking a stance.” For women making their way in the 21st-century world of work, that reticence is mostly a handicap — a willingness to admit to uncertainty is one reason women are paid less and can find it difficult to break through the glass ceiling.


For the benefit of the community as a whole, though, more female economists may be needed. The quest for objective economic knowledge is surely a good thing, as is the Booth effort to map what economists agree on and where they diverge. But given how profoundly and unexpectedly the world economy collapsed in 2008, maybe a little more womanly humility about that conventional wisdom would be a good thing, too.


Chrystia Freeland is editor of Thomson Reuters Digital.


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Amazon steps up digital music competition with Apple






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc unveiled a service that increases competition with Apple Inc’s dominant iTunes store.


Amazon launched Amazon AutoRip, which gives customers free digital versions of music CDs they purchase from the world’s largest Internet retailer.






The digital music files are automatically stored in customer libraries in remote datacenters run by Amazon, where they are available to play or download immediately through the company’s Cloud Player service, the company said.


Amazon customers who have bought AutoRip-eligible CDs at any time since the company started selling discs in 1998 will also get digital versions of that music stored in their Cloud Player libraries for free, the company added.


More than 50,000 albums are available for AutoRip and Steve Boom, head of digital music at Amazon, said the company focused on music that has been the most popular among its customers during the past 15 years.


Albums include “21″ by Adele; “Overexposed” by Maroon 5; “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd and “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.


Boom declined to estimate how many CDs Amazon expects to digitize through the new service. However, he noted that the company has sold hundreds of millions of CDs to millions of customers.


“When we picked those 50,000 titles we focused on having a substantial majority of our physical CD sales covered,” he added.


Amazon is hoping the new service boosts digital music sales and encourages more people to use its cloud music service.


“People will be exposed to Cloud Player and our digital music offering, which is a good thing,” Boom said. “We want to take this global.”


Amazon’s MP3 digital music business has been around since 2007, but its market share is less than 15 percent, according to The NPD Group. Apple’s iTunes store is the clear leader, with over 50 percent of the market.


Amazon is making a bigger push against iTunes now that the company’s Kindle Fire tablets are in more consumers’ hands and its Cloud Player music application is available on a range of other mobile devices, including Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.


(Reporting By Alistair Barr; editing by Andrew Hay)


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George Clooney Kicks Off a Tequila-Fueled Road Trip















01/10/2013 at 10:40 AM EST







George Clooney (left) and Rande Gerber


Seth Browarnik/Startraks


Tequila trip!

As part of the launch of his new spirit brand, Casamigos Tequila, George Clooney stepped out on Tuesday night to celebrate its launch at Rocco's Tacos in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

The Descendants actor was there with his fellow founders Rande Gerber and Mike Meldman to sample cocktails and mingle with locals.

"George and Rande did not separate the entire night. They both drank the Casamigos specialty cocktails being served," an onlooker tells PEOPLE.

The "really friendly" Clooney also took time to take pictures with "almost every attendee at the event," the source says.

"There was one woman taking photos with her iPad and George was helping her get the best shots – he kept calling her 'the iPad lady'!" the source adds.

The promotional tequila tour – which is expected to bring the actor to L.A., Las Vegas and Dallas – kicked off with a short film starring Clooney, Gerber, Cindy Crawford and Stacy Keibler. In the minute long film, the group of friends play musical beds after a night out of drinking Casamigos.


– Jennifer Garcia
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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer


WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be.


Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.


How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in the ovaries or the lining of the uterus, and float down to rest in the cervix, where Pap tests are performed. These cells are too rare to recognize under the microscope. But researchers from Johns Hopkins University used some sophisticated DNA testing on the Pap samples to uncover the evidence — gene mutations that show cancer is present.


In a pilot study, they analyzed Pap smears from 46 women who already were diagnosed with either ovarian or endometrial cancer. The new technique found all the endometrial cancers and 41 percent of the ovarian tumors, the team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.


This is very early-stage research, and women shouldn't expect any change in their routine Paps. It will take years of additional testing to prove if the so-called PapGene technique really could work as a screening tool, used to spot cancer in women who thought they were healthy.


"Now the hard work begins," said Hopkins oncologist Dr. Luis Diaz, whose team is collecting hundreds of additional Pap samples for more study and is exploring ways to enhance the detection of ovarian cancer.


But if it ultimately pans out, "the neat part about this is, the patient won't feel anything different," and the Pap wouldn't be performed differently, Diaz added. The extra work would come in a lab.


The gene-based technique marks a new approach toward cancer screening, and specialists are watching closely.


"This is very encouraging, and it shows great potential," said American Cancer Society genetics expert Michael Melner.


"We are a long way from being able to see any impact on our patients," cautioned Dr. Shannon Westin of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She reviewed the research in an accompanying editorial, and said the ovarian cancer detection would need improvement if the test is to work.


But she noted that ovarian cancer has poor survival rates because it's rarely caught early. "If this screening test could identify ovarian cancer at an early stage, there would be a profound impact on patient outcomes and mortality," Westin said.


More than 22,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, and more than 15,000 die. Symptoms such as pain and bloating seldom are obvious until the cancer is more advanced, and numerous attempts at screening tests have failed.


Endometrial cancer affects about 47,000 women a year, and kills about 8,000. There is no screening test for it either, but most women are diagnosed early because of postmenopausal bleeding.


The Hopkins research piggybacks on one of the most successful cancer screening tools, the Pap, and a newer technology used along with it. With a standard Pap, a little brush scrapes off cells from the cervix, which are stored in a vial to examine for signs of cervical cancer. Today, many women's Paps undergo an additional DNA-based test to see if they harbor the HPV virus, which can spur cervical cancer.


So the Hopkins team, funded largely by cancer advocacy groups, decided to look for DNA evidence of other gynecologic tumors. It developed a method to rapidly screen the Pap samples for those mutations using standard genetics equipment that Diaz said wouldn't add much to the cost of a Pap-plus-HPV test. He said the technique could detect both early-stage and more advanced tumors. Importantly, tests of Paps from 14 healthy women turned up no false alarms.


The endometrial cancers may have been easier to find because cells from those tumors don't have as far to travel as ovarian cancer cells, Diaz said. Researchers will study whether inserting the Pap brush deeper, testing during different times of the menstrual cycle, or other factors might improve detection of ovarian cancer.


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China data lifts Wall Street on hopes for world growth

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Thursday as stronger-than-expected exports in China, the world's second-biggest economy, raised hopes for a more robust recovery in the global economy.


Data showed China's export growth rebounded sharply to a seven-month high in December, a strong finish to the year after seven straight quarters of slowdown, even as demand from Europe and the United States remained subdued.


Ford Motor shares climbed 3.2 percent to $13.90 after it doubled its first-quarter dividend to 10 cents a share, despite a recent drop in market share.


Adding to bullish sentiment, Spanish benchmark government bond yields fell below 5 percent to a 10-month low on the back of a strong bond auction that raised more than the targeted amount.


"The market's more positive and it owes a lot of that to the Chinese economic data," said Art Hogan, managing director of Lazard Capital Markets in New York. He said the success of the Spanish auction was also of note.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 47.75 points or 0.36 percent, to 13,438.26, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 6.73 points or 0.46 percent, to 1,467.75 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 14.04 points or 0.45 percent, to 3,119.85.


Data showed new U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, though seasonal volatility made it difficult to get a clear picture of the labor market's health.


Also, U.S. wholesale inventories rose more than expected in November and sales rose by the most in more than 1-1/2 years. The market's reaction to both reports was muted.


Several Federal Reserve speakers are due to speak Thursday, including Kansas City Fed President Esther George and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard. Market participants are likely to pay close attention to their remarks following indications, in the minutes of the latest Fed meeting, that the Fed may halt its highly stimulative asset purchases this year. The program has been one of the pillars of the strength in the equity market.


Shares of upscale jeweler Tiffany dropped 4.9 percent to $60.14 after it said earnings for the year through January 31 will be at the lower end of its forecast.


Molycorp shares dropped 22.3 percent to $8.38 after it said revenue and cash flow would be lower than expected this year due to lower rare-earth prices.


U.S.-traded Nokia shares jumped 16.5 percent to $4.37 after the Finnish handset maker said its fourth-quarter results were better than expected and that the mobile phone business achieved underlying profitability.


(Editing by Bernadette Baum)



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In Old Taliban Strongholds, Qualms About What Lies Ahead





LOY BAGH, Afghanistan — The battle against the Taliban in Helmand Province was so fierce two years ago that farmers here say there were some fields where virtually every ear of corn had a bullet in it.




Now it is peaceful enough that safety concerns were an afterthought during this year’s harvest. In districts of Helmand like Marja and Nad Ali that used to be Taliban strongholds, life has been transformed by the American troop surge that brought in tens of thousands of Marines three years ago. Over several recent days, a reporter was able to drive securely to places that in the past had been perilous without a military escort, and many of the roads were better paved, too.


So why, then, was it so difficult to find an optimist in Helmand Province?


In conversations with dozens of tribal elders, farmers, teachers and provincial officials, three factors loomed large: dissatisfaction with the Afghan government, the imminent departure of Western troops and recognition that the Taliban are likely to return. Few expressed much faith in the ability of the Afghan government and security forces to maintain the security gains won by the huge American and British military effort here.


Although some people said they believed that areas near the provincial capital would remain secure, beyond that there was little confidence, and many voiced worries that much of the province would drift back under Taliban control after the NATO combat mission ends in 2014.


Even now, with at least 6,500 Marines still in Helmand after a peak of 21,000 troops last year in Helmand and neighboring Nimroz Provinces, local people say the Taliban have begun “creeping back.” Residents report that threats from nearby militant commanders have increased, and that the Taliban are sending in radical mullahs to preach jihad in the mosques and woo the young and unemployed to their cause.


As fearful as residents may be of a resurgent Taliban, they are also angry at the government for what they see as widespread corruption and hypocrisy. Some of that anger focuses on bribery connected with government services, and some on policies relating to the opium trade, which still thrives here. Helmand is the supplier of more than 40 percent of the world’s opium, according to United Nations statistics, and the poppy crop is still the most profitable one by far. Even farmers who are willing to grow other crops are angry at officials who have eradicated poppy but failed to provide enough help with alternatives. Farmers say some of those same officials profit from the drug trade they profess to be fighting.


“Before the surge, the government in Helmand did not control even a single district,” said Hajji Atiqullah, a leader of the powerful Barakzai tribe in the Nawa district of central Helmand. “They had a presence in the district centers, a very small area, but the Marines cleared many districts, and they expanded the presence of the central government.”


Afghan forces now control his district, he said, but will not be able to hold it unless “the foreigners manage to get rid of corruption in the Afghan government, in the districts and the province levels.”


Local elders fear that many farmers, especially those impoverished by the government’s strict poppy eradication policies, will return to opium cultivation and look to the Taliban or other criminals for protection because the government has not offered them a satisfactory substitute livelihood.


“Before the Marines launched this big offensive, Marja was the center of the opium trade,” said Ahmad Shah, the chairman of the Marja development shura, a group of elders that works with the government to try to bring change here. “Millions and millions of Pakistani rupees were being traded every day in the bazaar. People were so rich that in some years a farmer could afford to buy a car.


“We were part of the eradication efforts by the government, and if they had provided the farmer with compensation, we could have justified our act. But the government failed to provide compensation, and unless it does so, the people will turn against us or join the insurgency and be against development, as they were during the Taliban.”


Part of the government’s rationale for poppy eradication was to starve militants of the opium profits that have been important to their finances. As opium cultivation was pushed away from the centers of the American troop surge, the Taliban made new allies by providing protection for farmers who moved their poppy cultivation to outlying deserts. Over the past few years, militants and opium farmers have increasingly found common cause.


A largely British-financed alternative crop program made significant headway at first in persuading farmers to switch crops, but few farmers could do as well as they had with opium.


Habib Zahori contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.



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Lawyers in Ohio football rape case want trial moved






(Reuters) – Attorneys for two Ohio teenage football players accused of raping a 16-year-old student have asked that the trial be moved because potential witnesses are afraid to come forward in defense of the boys, one of the lawyers said on Monday.


Walter Madison, the attorney for one of the accused rapists, Ma’lik Richmon, said social media efforts to bring the alleged rape into the national spotlight have led to an atmosphere of intimidation and coercion.






“This has a chilling effect on witnesses who could come forward to be part of this process so my client can get a fair and full proceeding,” he told Reuters. “So, we’re left without the opportunity to make our case. That’s pretty serious.”


Richmond and Trenton Mays, both 16 and members of the Steubenville High School football team, are charged with raping a 16-year-old fellow student at a party last August.


The two students are set to be tried as juveniles in February in Steubenville, a city of 19,000 about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh.


Madison said his client’s mother has had to change her cell phone number multiple times due to threats and harassment.


Last week, the online activist group Anonymous made public a picture allegedly of the rape victim, being carried by her wrists and ankles by two young men, and of a video that showed several other young men joking about an alleged assault.


Madison said that Richmond is not seen in the video.


A county sheriff under fire for how he has handled the high school rape investigation faced down a crowd of protestors on Saturday and said no new charges will be brought against anyone involved in the case.


Activists say there had been a cover-up by local officials to protect the integrity of the high school’s football program.


Meanwhile, a petition to the White House calling for the two rape suspects to be tried as adults reached 25,000 signatures Monday, the threshold required to receive a response from the Obama Administration.


Moving the case to the adult court system would allow for a jury trial and a more severe penalty, the petition says.


“This is a serious offense and this needs to be an example for everyone that this type of behavior should not, and will not be tolerated in our society,” it says.


The petition, created December 25, more than doubled its number of supporters overnight. It had 11,000 signatures on Sunday.


It was submitted to the White House through its online petition website, We The People. Now that it has the required 25,000 signatures, the Obama Administration will give an official statement at some point in the future. The petition has no legal impact.


(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Andrew Hay)


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Bethenny Frankel: I Feel Like a Failure After Divorce















01/09/2013 at 10:55 AM EST







Bethenny Frankel (left) and Ellen DeGeneres


Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.


Bethenny Frankel documented her marriage to Jason Hoppy on television – and now she's opening up about her divorce on television, too.

"I can't just only be on reality TV and show everything when it's fairy princess, fairytale, and then not take my hits when I have to," she says on Wednesday's The Ellen DeGeneres Show. "Just going through something personal you have so many different emotions, and I feel like a bit of a disappointment to all of you. And, I feel like a failure."

"You are not a disappointment. You are not a failure," DeGeneres says.

"I feel like a failure. I really put it out there. I wanted the fairytale," Frankel responds. "I thought I had it. And [daughter] Bryn is my fairytale ... Love is everywhere. It's the road and you're on it. It has peaks and valleys, and that's what it is, but I don't know how people go through this because this is excruciating."

News of the split between the Skinnygirl mogul, 42, and Hoppy first broke just before the holidays with Frankel releasing a statement. "It brings me great sadness to say that Jason and I are separating. This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family," she said at the time.

Frankel then filed divorce papers in early January.

The couple married in 2010 and are parents to daughter Bryn, 2½.

As for her decision to divorce, Frankel tells DeGeneres she "wanted to rip the Band-Aid off" so she could "start to heal," but that she struggles with what lies ahead.

"You know everything and one day you don't know. So I'm scared. I'm older. And I want to be able to say to people ... It's about what I do now ... I never thought I'd be a role model but I think to some people I am or have been," she says.

"This is an important time because it's about what I do next. How I handle myself now with grace, with dignity. Now is the time that matters."

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down


WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.


Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.


"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.


But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.


Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.


The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.


Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.


Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.


But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.


Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.


Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.


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Wall Street rises as Alcoa gives lift to earnings season

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street rose on Wednesday after Alcoa got the earnings season under way with better-than-expected revenue and an encouraging outlook for the year.


Alcoa Inc said it expects global demand for aluminum will continue to grow in 2013, though the company kept a cautious tone as worries lingered over a looming U.S. budget confrontation. Shares of Alcoa, the largest aluminum producer in the United States, rose 0.5 percent to $9.18.


Still, investors are wary about the outcome of the fourth-quarter earnings season. Profits were expected to beat the previous quarter's lackluster results, but analyst estimates were down sharply from where they were in October. Earnings were expected to grow by 2.7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.


But the lowered expectations leave room for companies to surprise investors even if their results aren't particularly strong, analysts said.


"Clearly no one is expecting a stellar earnings season. With the number of companies that lowered guidance over the last few weeks, I think there's some concern that we could see companies disappoint," said Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward Jones in St. Louis.


"However, based on the fact that many companies have lowered guidance, that means they've put the bar so low they could crawl over it, and I would expect what we'll see is some relief as earnings come in."


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 67.00 points, or 0.50 percent, to 13,395.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 5.50 points, or 0.38 percent, to 1,462.65. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 10.07 points, or 0.33 percent, to 3,101.88.


Among other earnings, Constellation Brands , whose labels include Robert Mondavi and Ravenswood wines, rose 0.4 percent to $36.30 after it reported higher profit and raised its earnings forecast.


Apollo Group Inc slid about 10 percent after it reported lower student sign-ups for the third straight quarter and cut its operating profit outlook for 2013. Apollo's shares were last at $18.83.


Dish Network Corp late Tuesday announced a bid for Clearwire Corp that trumped Sprint Nextel Corp's $2.2 billion offer, setting the stage for a battle over the wireless service provider.


Clearwire was up 7.5 percent at $3.14, while Sprint lost 2 percent to $5.85.


Hard drive maker Seagate Technology rose 4.6 percent to $32.83 after it raised its second-quarter revenue forecast.


(Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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