To be fair, if we are talking about this as “stimulus” and NOT as some way to get hospitals to use technology that they stubbornly refused to employ despite it being in their best interest. then the “pushing forward’ of this consumption by a couple of years passes the stimulus test. At a cost of $48 million per additional hospital adopting? Is that big or small? Who knows. Again, I am sure this will get wide press coverage and thoughtful conversation.
Using micro data from the European Social Survey, conducted in various years between 2002 and 2013, we find consistently large negative effects of schooling on self-reported religiosity, social religious acts (attending religious services), as well as solitary religious acts (the frequency of praying) … We find that more education, due to increased mandatory years of schooling, reduces individuals’ propensity to believe in the power of lucky charms and the tendency to take into account horoscopes in daily life
If there is ANYTHING that I am sure of of high school and college education is that they are teaching kids that lucky charms, metaphorically speaking, do exist. And as for superstition, I just had students write me a simple essay on why “capitalism sucks.” I quite enjoy reading these sorts of things – but in every single essay the reason I was told it stinks is because of things like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Now, I’ve never defined capitalism nor do I employ the word in my intro class any more. No one I knew took economic history and no one I knew actually studied much economics. Yet the “evidence” of capitalism’s suckiness is a 100-year old episode that is probably printed in every AP History book about the greed and avarice unleashed in America by capitalists exploiting workers for their own gain. Whether that particular story is told properly or not is not my point of course.
Have a great week.
No superstition involved in standing up hatless with hand over heart while the musical rendition of a Francis Scott Key poem is played before a hockey game, is there?
Nothing like being reinvigorated by the prose of the NBER. I thank WC for weeding through it.
Regarding stimulating appliance sales to save the planet and GE, just a half hour ago I stuck a wire down the wash arm of my dishwasher, the most recent of several efforts to remove calcium deposits that have evidently built up over the years. I bought the dishwasher in the Reagan era, my first dishwasher; prior to that, I was the dishwasher. I remember it had one of those stickers on it that bragged of its energy efficiency, and most of the time I have voluntarily run it on the shortest cycle, which makes me think I should get a two thousand dollar tax credit.
I have bought new appliances voluntarily before. After the old ones stopped working or leaked, I did happen to buy the best model that fit the space, had a reputation for reliability, and had convenient features.
But I will not be defeated by this dishwasher, and will only buy a new one unless it is irreparable.