The Indelible Bonobo Experience

Rich men, who would benefit least from redistribution, were more likely to be opposed to it — but only when they also had large biceps. There was a negative correlation between the two, so that rich men with less muscle strength were more open to redistribution. In men of lower socioeconomic status, the correlation was reversed: stronger men were more in favor of redistribution, while men with smaller muscles were less likely to support it. (via Study: Men’s Biceps Predict Their Political Ideologies - Lindsay Abrams - The Atlantic)

• IMPLICATIONS: Evolutionarily speaking, write the authors, “it is a fitness error for weaker contestants to attempt to seize resources when they cannot prevail and for stronger ones to cede what they can cost-effectively defend,” at least in men. For women (again, in terms of evolution), physical conflict is rarely worth it. Regardless of the high-minded ideas we may have about how our ideologies are formed, their findings suggest, whether we argue in favor of the common good or our own self-interest is to some degree influenced by who would win should it come down to an arm wrestle.

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• The full study, “The Ancestral Logic of Politics: Upper-Body Strength Regulates Men’s Assertion of Self-Interest Over Economic Redistribution,” is published in the journal Psychological Science.

Most Ph.D. students spend their days reading esoteric books and stressing out about the tenure-track job market. Thomas Herndon, a 28-year-old economics grad student at UMass Amherst, just used part of his spring semester to shake the intellectual foundation of the global austerity movement. (via Grad Student Who Shook Global Austerity Movement — Daily Intelligencer)

• Herndon became instantly famous in nerdy economics circles this week as the lead author of a recent paper, “Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff,” that took aim at a massively influential study by two Harvard professors named Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.  Herndon found some hidden errors in Reinhart and Rogoff’s data set, then calmly took the entire study out back and slaughtered it. Herndon’s takedown — which first appeared in a Mike Konczal post that crashed its host site with traffic — was an immediate sensation. It was cited by prominent anti-austerians like Paul Krugman, spoken about by incoming Bank of England governor Mark Carney, and mentioned on CNBC and several other news outlets as proof that the pro-austerity movement is based, at least in part, on bogus math.
• When Herndon and his professors published their study, the reaction was nearly immediate. After Konczal’s blog post went viral, Reinhart and Rogoff — who got a fawning New York Times profile when their book was released — were forced to admit their embarrassing error (although they still defended the basic findings of their survey). And today, another UMass Amherst professor,Arindrajit Dube, followed up on Herndon’s paper with additional proof that there were serious theoretical and causal problems (as opposed to just sloppy Excel work) in the Reinhart-Rogoff study. Observers have been raising serious questions about what Herndon’s work means for the future of austerity politics, and Reinhart and Rogoff’s respectability as scholars.