Don Boudreaux, chairman of the economics department of George Mason University, monitors the economic coverage of major papers with a free-market eye. Often, he writes to the editors, also posting those queries on his Web site, cafehayek.com. In the past, the Sun has run a selection of his letters. Here are some recent epistles:

4 May 2007

Editor
The Atlantic

Dear Editor:

Clive Crook notes that “America stands lower in the ranking of income mobility than most of the countries whose data allow the comparison, scoring worse than Canada, all the Scandinavian countries and possibly even Germany and Britain” (“Rags to Rags, Riches to Riches,” June 2007). But he incorrectly concludes that this fact shows Americans to be less likely than citizens of these other countries to move significantly up and down the income ladder.

Calculations of income mobility typically rest upon income quintiles. Each quintile represents one-fifth of all households in a country, ranked according to income. An instance of mobility occurs when a household moves from one quintile to another. Now consider two hypothetical countries — Rooseveltia and Reagania. Per-capita incomes are identical in both countries, but Rooseveltia’s incomes are more equally “distributed” than are Reagania’s. Therefore, in Rooseveltia the income earned by the median household in, say, the bottom quintile is closer to the income earned by the lowest household in the fourth quintile than is the case in Reagania. It follows that movements between quintiles are likely less frequent in Reagania than in Rooseveltia EVEN IF households in Reagania regularly experience larger income gains and losses over time.

The same statistical artifact arises if, all else the same, Reaganians are wealthier than Rooseveltians: higher national income practically means larger differences between the incomes earned by households at the bottom of any quintile and incomes earned by households at the top of that same quintile. So a dollar amount increase in income that catapults a Rooseveltian household from the second to the first quintile might, if also earned by a Reaganian household, leave that household in the same quintile as before.

Because incomes in the U.S. are both less equally “distributed” and generally higher than in much of the rest of the world, the fact that measured income mobility in America is lower than elsewhere does not mean that Americans are less likely to make significant moves up and down the income ladder.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman
Department of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, Va.

20 August 2006

The Editor
New York Times Magazine
229 West 43rd St.
New York, N.Y. 10036

To the Editor:

Jonathan Ceniceroz writes of Rochas clothing-designer Olivier Theyskens that his “somewhat worried and tortured gaze is emblematic of all those who envision and create fine art amid the behemoth of the corporate complex” (Letters, August 20). Boo hoo.

Rochas’ corporate owners — first Wella, and then Procter & Gamble —enabled Mr. Theyskens for the past five years to enjoy substantial financial backing for his designs. Unfortunately, Mr. Theyskens’ design group has consistently lost money. Does Mr. Ceniceroz believe that P&G should keep Rochas afloat simply to let Mr. Theyskens “follow, completely, his muse?” More generally, would P&G be a better corporate citizen if it kept subsidizing a money-losing clothing line that is affordable only by the hyper-rich?

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman
Department of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, Va.

27 August 2006

The Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, N.Y. 10036

You assert that “the quality of the teacher corps is more crucial to school reform than anything else” (“Exploding the Charter School Myth,” August 27).

This claim makes no more sense than would a claim that, say, the quality of the engineering corps is more crucial than anything else to improving the economic performance of North Korea.

Just as economies perform better as they become less politicized and more competitive — as each consumer enjoys more direct and meaningful choices over which suppliers to patronize and which to abandon — schools will perform better only if teachers and administrators confront real incentives to perform well as judged by parents.

Such incentives are impossible when schools are run by bureaucrats, overseen by politicians, are fully financed by taxpayers, face little competition, and have captive customers who pay nothing directly for the “services” they are forced to consume.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman
Department of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, Va