Thursday, April 13, 2017

For Sonyt: Acting Fast versus Fasting Act

Think big, start small, act fast’: public sector innovation, Singapore style by David Donaldson

T. Pham, U. of Sydney. “This post updates a previous very popular post 100 Active Blogs on Analytics, Big Data, Data Mining, Data Science, Machine Learning as of March 2016 (and 90+ blogs, 2015 version). This year we removed 26 blog sites from the previous list that does not meet our active criterion: at least one blog in the last 3 months (since Oct 1, 2016). 
QUESTION ASKED: How likely is another Korean War?
That may depend entirely on whether Kim Jong-Un understands that his regime — nor likely his own personal self — would not survive a Second Korean War, now that even China seems to have had its fill of his antics

Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel Harvard Business Review

 Migrants Are Being Sold At Open Slave Markets In Libya


My other Randomest of Bus stop browsing ... On a rainy evening and in post daylight saving darkness:

Washington Post op-ed: There’s a Quick and Easy Way to See Trump’s Tax Returns, by Daniel Hemel (Chicago)

As the freshman Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch will have ‘cafeteria duty’ and a few other hazing rituals How do you keep a new Supreme Court justice’s head from getting too big? Start by making him take notes and answer the door at the justices’ private meetings. Then remind him he speaks last at those discussions. Finally, assign him the job of listening to gripes about the food at the court’s cafeteria. That’s what awaits Neil Gorsuch, who joined the Supreme Court on Monday as the “junior justice,” the freshman of the nine-member court. The menial duties for the newest justice are a part of tradition, but not a bad deal for a job that comes with lifetime tenure and the prestige of a high court seat.

Five 5 Free Classes That’ll Earn You More Money This Year

Cook Islands, a Paradise of Untouchable Assets  


Dina Pomeranz (Harvard), Paul Carrillo (George Washington) & Monica Singhal (Harvard),Dodging the Taxman: Firm Misreporting and Limits to Tax Enforcement:

Reducing tax evasion is a key priority for many governments, particularly in developing countries. A growing literature has argued that the ability to verify taxpayer self-reports against reports from third parties is critical for modern tax enforcement and the growth of state capacity. However, there may be limits to the effectiveness of third-party information if taxpayers can make offsetting adjustments on less verifiable margins. We present a simple framework to demonstrate the conditions under which this will occur and provide strong empirical evidence for such behavior by exploiting a natural experiment in Ecuador. We find that when firms are notified by the tax authority about detected revenue discrepancies on previously filed corporate income tax returns, they increase reported revenues, matching the third-party estimate when provided. Firms also increase reported costs by 96 cents for every dollar of revenue adjustment, resulting in minor increases in total tax collection.