Academic humor aside: final exam edition

PoliSci faculty: which movie is a more appropriate moniker?

One of our students, Gil Guerra, suggested that this picture from our Pi Sigma Alpha Honors luncheon…

reminded him of this picture from the movie “Wild Hogs”…

Cute.

We’d prefer to think that the picture of us reminds him and all of our students of this picture from the movie “Reservoir Dogs” instead…

Heh.  Let’s go to work!

Baylor Faculty Senate passes resolution criticizing administration

A purely inside-the-academy discussion from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Baylor University’s Faculty Senate has passed a resolution by a vote of 29-0 chastising the administration for its lack of shared governance, the Waco Tribune-Herald reports. The resolution is a response to an alarming jump in the number of faculty members denied tenure by Baylor University’s administration despite the approval of their departments and the university-wide tenure committee.

Here’s the text of the Faculty Senate resolution.

Side note to our non-academic readers: Welcome to the mysteries of tenure and promotion… One of the great constants of the universe is that there appears to be no rhyme or reason to the decisions of a given T&P committee.  While we can’t say that we blame Baylor’s faculty for being disgruntled, chastising their university’s administration right before finals ratchets up the contentiousness just a bit.  Baylor’s commencement ought to be a barrel of laughs.

Our advice to their President and Provost: Watch your back!

China: Inside the Dragon

“Chinese history has become the story of average citizens. But there are risks when a nation depends on the individual dreams of 1.3 billion people rather than a coherent political system with clear rule of law,” Peter Hessler writes in National Geographic as part of the special issue devoted to China:

After 1900, when the Boxer Rebellion swept across Beijing, every decade included at least one major political upheaval. Usually these events were violent, ranging from the Japanese invasion to the Cultural Revolution to the massacre around Tiananmen Square in 1989. Together they made for a troubled century, which was why my students wrote so delicately about the past.

Perhaps this awareness of a painful history was also why the 1990s turned out differently. It became modern China’s first decade without a major upheaval, and thus far the 21st century has also been peaceful. And yet despite the lack of political change, the nation has been radically transformed. For three decades the economy has grown at an average annual rate of nearly 10 percent, and more people have been lifted out of poverty than in any other country, at any other time. China has become home to the largest urbanization in human history—an estimated 150 million people have left the countryside, mostly to work in the factory towns of the coast. By most measures the nation is now the world’s largest consumer, using more grain, meat, coal, and steel than the United States. But apart from Deng Xiaoping, it’s difficult to credit these critical changes to any specific government official. The Communist Party’s main strategy has been to unleash the energy of the people, at least in the economic sense. In today’s China, government is decentralized, and people can freely start businesses, find new jobs, move to new homes. After a century of powerful leaders and political turmoil, Chinese history has become the story of average citizens.

But there are risks when a nation depends on the individual dreams of 1.3 billion people rather than a coherent political system with clear rule of law. China faces an environmental crisis—the nation has become the world’s leading emitter of carbon dioxide, and there’s a serious shortage of water and other basic resources. The gap between rich and poor has become dangerously wide. The difference between urban and rural incomes is greater than three to one—the largest since the reforms began in 1978. Each of these problems is far too broad to be solved, or even grasped, by the average citizen. And because the government continues to severely restrict political freedom, people are accustomed to avoiding such issues. My students taught me that everything was personal—history, politics, foreign relations—but this approach creates boundaries as well as connections. For many Chinese, if a problem doesn’t affect them personally, it might as well not exist.

Like that ex-girlfriend who just won’t leave…

An amusing quote from David Kahane in National Review today (hat tip to Taylor on this one):

“She’s not going to quit because she has nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do. She lives for this, and without it, she has no life. In fact, without it, she doesn’t exist at all.”

Heh.  Er, uh, I mean, ouch! 

By the way, Hillary’s chances to win the nomination are now down to 2.5%…

Pictures from the PoliSci honors luncheon…

A few pics from last week’s Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honors Society luncheon and induction.  We are justifiably proud of all of you!

Correlation does not imply causation: professional sports facilities and economic development

Admittedly, because finals are starting, I’ve been a bit preoccupied and am coming into the game a little late on this one.  I wanted to piggyback on the discussion by Tom Kirkendall, Dennis Coates, and Anne Linehan regarding stadia and economic development.

I’ll toss in my two-cents by offering up two of the better scholarly studies on the economic impact of professional sport franchises and stadia.  The first study is by John Siegfried and Andrew Zimbalist: “A Note on the Local Economic Impact of Sports Expenditures,” Journal of Sports Economics, Vol. 3, No. 3, 361-366 (2002).  Here is the abstract (unfortunately, the article is gated unless you have an academic subscription):

Most campaigns for public support of new stadiums argue that the new sports facilities and teams boost the local economy.  This argument of economic development has been persuasive even if it is not correct.  This article looks at economic impact multipliers to determine if the impact is overestimated and misrepresented by politicians seeking to pass a referendum that will use public money to subsidize a new stadium.  This study estimates that a standard local economic impact multiplier exaggerates the effects of funding a sports stadium/team by over 400%.

Well… there’s a surprise.  Local boosterism oversells the impact of a new stadium.

The second study is by Mark Rosentraub: “The Local Context of a Sports Strategy for Economic Development,” Economic Development Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3, 278-291 (2006).  It’s also gated, but here is the abstract:

Three streams of research offer results in conflict with the conclusion that governments that provide tax dollars to build sports facilities are wasting money. Hamilton and Kahn and Rosentraub and Swindell found instances where the value placed on the intangible benefits of teams could exceed the cost of facilities. Carlino and Coulson’s analysis indicated the presence of a National Football League franchise accounted for an 8% increase in rent levels, and Santo’s work, also using regression models, found regions with teams and new facilities had higher income levels. Despite possible regional gains, the value of a sports investment rests on its context and the outcomes for the city and county that invested in the facilities. This analysis focuses on the outcomes for Cleveland and then offers a framework to assess the range of economic effects on investor communities.

So… the value of a pro sports team and stadium depends on the “context” of the investment, eh?  In the case of the proposed Dynamos’ Downtown stadium, I’ll venture to guess that “context” means that the ownership makes a load of money on the public’s dime.  Just curious, but if Continental Airlines or Texaco/Shell were to threaten to move from Houston, would we have politicians falling all over themselves offering to build a state-of-the-art Downtown office tower in order to entice these companies to stay?

Contrary to the boosterism of the Greater Houston Partnership, the Harris County/Houston Sports Authority, and Mayor White, professional sports teams just do not have the economic benefit that they ballyhoo.  If they did, perhaps some actual research studies and economic impact analyses would be displayed for all to see via HCHSA’s, the Partnership, and/or Mayor White’s websites?  But they’re not there. Why? If there is some statistically significant scholarly research lurking at HCHSA, the Partnership, or City Hall that would act as a counterfactual bulwark to the growing evidence that pro sports teams are, at best, an economic and political luxury for a city or region, then show it.

In fact, there is little in the way of tangible economic benefits from a professional sports team unless you’re: 1) an owner who can use a threat to move to engage in some legalized extortion, 2.) a politician who can claim that they “saved” the team, and/or 3.) happen to be in souvenir or beer concession sales… There sure as hell isn’t much of a direct, positive economic benefit to the people who subsidize billionaire owners and millionaire players: the taxpayers — you know, the ones that actually foot the bill.

Always count on the ability of a professional sports franchise owner to either entice or panic local and state politicians into dropping hundreds of millions of public dollars into a new facility (or facilities in the case of Houston), based on both bad economic research and the misguided notion that a city/region’s self-esteem is somehow tied to a professional sports franchise.

For fun — and consternation — take a look at Field of Schemes…

Gas prices could be worse — a whole lot worse…

Not that it’s any consolation, but it could be worse… between 2 - 3 times worse, actually.  Ugh.

Some comparative data from the the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration:

Joy.  Can we finally establish a branch campus of UST in The Woodlands soon???

Dilbert channels academia, government, and politics…

Heh.

Courtesy of Dilbert.com. The “Mash-ups” (reader-submitted punchline changes to the strip) are pretty funny, too…