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Conversations with Tyler / episode intelligence

Hal Varian on Taking the Academic Approach to Business

19 Jun 2019 25 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Hal VarianTyler Cowen

Claim mix

belief 11prediction 4evaluation 3observation 2commitment 2preference 1recommendation 1disagreement 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

25 published records

01 / observation

The problem is, the things that we really wanted to get a probability assessment on were things that were so sensitive that we thought we would violate the SEC rules on insider knowledge because, if a small group of people knows about some acquisition or something like that, there is a secret among this small group.

“The problem is, the things that we really wanted to get a probability assessment on were things that were so sensitive that we thought we would violate the SEC rules on insider knowledge because, if a small group of people knows about some acquisition or something like that, there is a secret among this small group.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

03 / commitment

We have actually done a little research into this question but only on one aspect, namely, looking at online shopping. And I will tell you, if you live on a farm in the Midwest, you love online shopping.

“We have actually done a little research into this question but only on one aspect, namely, looking at online shopping. And I will tell you, if you live on a farm in the Midwest, you love online shopping.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

08 / belief

I think, from what I could tell looking at the experimental literature, that naïve players do have a winner’s curse, but they learn over time to shade their bids in a way that gives them a better outcome.

“I think, from what I could tell looking at the experimental literature, that naïve players do have a winner’s curse, but they learn over time to shade their bids in a way that gives them a better outcome.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

11 / belief

I think what they found was that having a well-organized, high-quality, readily available complete access to music was much more attractive than cobbling something together using some sort of back doors and other things of that sort.

“I think what they found was that having a well-organized, high-quality, readily available complete access to music was much more attractive than cobbling something together using some sort of back doors and other things of that sort.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

18 / observation

You have countries around the world where capital controls have been biting, and there are several places where people are very anxious about getting their money out of the country because of political instability or other things.

“You have countries around the world where capital controls have been biting, and there are several places where people are very anxious about getting their money out of the country because of political instability or other things.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

21 / evaluation

If you look at that theory of fairness that I worked on — actually my thesis was on that topic — everything seemed to work out nicely if you just have a fixed pot of goods, and you wanted to divide them in a fair way.

“If you look at that theory of fairness that I worked on — actually my thesis was on that topic — everything seemed to work out nicely if you just have a fixed pot of goods, and you wanted to divide them in a fair way.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

22 / evaluation

The economics of sales has really found its home on the internet because you look at users: Some people search for the lowest price, and they have all these tools to find it.

“The economics of sales has really found its home on the internet because you look at users: Some people search for the lowest price, and they have all these tools to find it.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

24 / disagreement

One is, there’ll be this highly personalized pricing that will leave consumers with no surplus whatsoever. That story seems, to me, to be ridiculous because it’s so easy for consumers to conduct this kind of search and try to find a lower price.

“One is, there’ll be this highly personalized pricing that will leave consumers with no surplus whatsoever. That story seems, to me, to be ridiculous because it’s so easy for consumers to conduct this kind of search and try to find a lower price.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

25 / prediction

You go to the auction that’s sort of second best because then you have a better chance of beating the dealer. So there’s a lot of — I don’t know — common-sense sort of strategies that people use in this, and I think there are inefficiencies that could be exploited, at least at these small-scale auctions with nonprofessional buyers.

“You go to the auction that’s sort of second best because then you have a better chance of beating the dealer. So there’s a lot of — I don’t know — common-sense sort of strategies that people use in this, and I think there are inefficiencies that could be exploited, at least at these small-scale auctions with nonprofessional buyers.”
Speaker
Hal Varian
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler
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