User talk:Jarry1250/Archive 8

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About copyright Status in some of my images

I noticed that lately all the images for the article Santo Domingo Metro that i uploaded were recently tagged for deletion due to lack of proof that the creators of this images truly released the image into the public domain. However, i have contacted the creator of the images and i'm the process of verifying the status to avoid deletion of these images. Is there any possibility that i could get an extension to avoid the deletion of all these images (more than 15). As of now, they are all scheduled for deletion. Please, if you are an administrator help me extend that deadline before all the images are deleted. Here[1] there is a formal letter that i sent to the creator of the images, i'm awating his response. Please help me out. EdwinCasadoBaez (talk) 16:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Ilovetheopenweb, CC-By-SA and attribution

Hi Jarry, just to let you know re this that while the content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, it still constitutes a copyvio unless we attribute the source as required by the license. Templates such as {{dual}} and {{CCBYSource}} can be used for this purpose. I've added the attribution to the aforementioned article, this is just for future reference. Thanks for taking care of the listing though, there's a general lack of bodies in copyright-areas. Best, – Toon 16:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Exciting is not a word often associated with reviewing text for copyright problems, so any time that you do spend in such areas is much appreciated. There's plenty of copyright work to go round - WP:CCI and WP:CP to name some others. – Toon 17:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

GA review of PPF

Hi Jarry,

Just to let you know I've begun the GA review of Production-possibility Frontier. I look forward to working with you on the article over the next few days. Best wishes, --Ktlynch (talk) 22:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello jarry

I'm asking for help with the images of Santo Domingo metro. I dont know much about the copyright process of images but i contacted the owner of the images in the gallery of Santo Domingo Metro and he said he already e-mailed wikipedia to allow permission of free-use of his images. He sent the e-mail last week but the "warning for deletion due to lack of free-use of the images" is still posted in each of the images. how long does it take wikipedia to process e-mails sent to them?? please help!!!EdwinCasadoBaez (talk) 13:31, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem: Whitethorn Woods

You placed a dated PROD on Whitethorn Woods with the concern, "Screams copyright violation (i.e. official blurb)." You seem to have it right on; material from Maeve Binchy's web site and from Amazon UK appear to have been added by to different users. I have marked off the problematic section and listed the page at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 March 27. Are there other problems with the page, or do you think a rollback to an earlier version would satisfy your concerns? If this will suffice, we may want to remove the PROD. Cnilep (talk) 14:49, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Image problem

Hey,

You answered my section about Nobel Prize images on the Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Nobel Prize Images. I have answered again. Do you have time to check on them one more? There or on Talk:Nobel Prize?

I'd be very happy if you could help me! --Esuzu (talk • contribs) 08:43, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not wiki" et al.

Thanks for your gentle and lighthearted correction of a newbie's foul-mouthed faux pax. I'm still ROFL over WP:NOTWIKI. I'd been wondering about exactly that point, for exactly the reasons discussed therein, but I simply hadn't gotten around to checking on it yet. (Even though the WP community as a whole does indeed have "all day," individual contributors have only a limited number of hours that they are willing and able to devote to WP during any given time period, e.g., a 24-hour "day." When I posted that message to you last evening, I'd reached the point when I had to choose between preparing and eating dinner or reading more WP how-to's and articles on policy and procedure. By that time, I already had a headache from reading so many of those [see Diminishing MU, a very good article] that, as I mentioned, I didn't get to spend any time on my primary objective, your PED article. Even more important than the headache, my wine glass was empty, and that tipped the scale definitively in favor of dinner.)

So I acknowledge and bewail my manifold sins and wickedness, and I do earnestly repent and am heartily sorry for my misdoings, etc. (BCP) but I don't think I'll put the

This user feels physical pain when hearing others refer to Wikipedia as "Wiki".

template on my user page yet. I've been presumptuous enough already by promoting myself to "en-5," which was perhaps in such flagrant violation of some WP protocol of transcendant import that Eternal Damnation by The Editors may soon descend upon me.

Right now, I'm late for tea, so I shall write no more. My trenchant observations about WP:WIP will have to await another day. I remain, sir, your humble and ob'dt s'vt, --Jackftwist (talk) 22:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)  ;-)

A Random Walk Through the WP Econ Project

LOL -- I just stumbled across the "Service Awards" page. Finally, noble goals toward which one can strive. (Any legitimate award that includes a coffee cup stain is worth having! And Grammar Ninja -- one's heart positively races.)

I spent several hours today -- way too much time, really -- reading at least a dozen articles linked to by the PED article and those it links to.* (See "Grammar digression" below.) It probably doesn't surprise you to learn that I am utterly aghast at what I saw. Lots of laudably good intentions, but woefully lacking in execution. Most of my time was spent compulsively outlining edits in my head, my fingers poised over the keyboard, until I came to my senses and moved on to the next article, only to repeat the cycle. (I did yield to temptation and make a few minor edits -- correcting grammar, typos, obvious mistakes in terminology, etc.) I feel as though I'm in the intellectual equivalent of a muddy trench in the Great War, shell-shocked but nevertheless about to go over the top yet again into a hail of bullets from the bloody Huns' machine guns.

I guess the upside is that I have a limitless outlet for my twin compulsions to teach and to correct papers, at least as long as my interest and my stamina hold out.

"If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign server farm
That is for ever ..."

...well, not exactly England, I guess, but Rupert Brooke seemed somehow appropriate in the context of the Great War metaphor.

I won't be very active over the next 2 weeks while I prepare my income tax return. April 15 is the deadline for our federal/national taxes.

• (Grammar digression: Grammar pedant that I am, I nevertheless subscribe to the dictum sometimes attributed to Churchill: "A preposition is a word you may end a sentence with." I learned that in "shool" [i.e., school] but that's another joke.) --Jackftwist (talk) 03:15, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

WikiCup 2010 March newsletter

We're half way through round two, and everything is running smoothly. Hunter Kahn (submissions) leads overall with 650 points this round, and heads pool B. TonyTheTiger (submissions) currently leads pool C, dubbed the "Group of Death", which has a only a single contestant yet to score this round (the fewest of any group), as well five contestants over 100 points (the most). With a month still to go, as well as 16 wildcard places, everything is still to play for. Anything you worry may not receive the necessary attention before the end of the round (such as outstanding GA or FA nominations) is welcome at Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews, and please remember to continue offering reviews yourself where possible. As always, the judges are available to contact via email, IRC or their talk pages, and general discussion about the Cup is welcome on the WikiCup talk page.

Although unrelated to the WikiCup, April sees a Good Article Nominations backlog elimination drive, formulated as a friendly competition with small awards, as the Cup is. Several WikiCup contestants and judges have already signed up, but regular reviewers and those who hope to do more reviewing are more than welcome to join at the drive page. If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn, Fox, iMatthew and The ed17 Delivered by JCbot (talk) 22:16, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Price elasticity of demand

The article Price elasticity of demand you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within seven days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:Price elasticity of demand for things which need to be addressed. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs/^Vote! 02:21, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations on GA status for PED article

Most Exalted Grand Tutnum, BKCCS., etc., etc. --

My heartiest congratulations on the elevation of the PED article to GA status! It's very well deserved and probably overdue. Can one's KCMG. be far behind? Or surely a "K," as a minimum?

(At least, the PED Talk page shows the award, although your user page doesn't yet, so I hope I'm not being premature. And hmmm ... that seemed rather easy. One mixed review and within 18 hours or so, et voilà! C'est un fait accompli! Not to be in too much of a hurry -- what? a Yank in a hurry? surely not -- but how long must one wait to apply for "A" status without seeming too shamefully self-aggrandizing?)

I saw the reviewer's comments late this morning (U.S. Eastern Time -- I'm in Washington, D.C.) and yielded to the temptation to begin a response immediately, despite the looming specter of my income tax return. (Oh, the drudgery!) I wasn't the least surprised when your response beat me to the punch, but then you have roughly a 5-hour head start on me because of the time difference! I undoubtedly spent way too much time experimenting with formatting, because I'm still learning as I go. (Would it be presumptuous and whinging for a newbie to say that the syntax for formatting seems quaintly ... uh ... antiquated?).

After I saw your reply, my sense of urgency faded, so I did some long-overdue research looking for sources on lump-sum taxes. There's an error in the diagram in the "tax incidence" article, which also appears in the PED article. That diagram shows a per-unit tax, also known as an excise tax or a specific tax, not a lump-sum tax. A lump-sum tax is something entirely different, and I'm having trouble finding a clear definition, as well as an example that most WP users would immediately understand intuitively. Examples abound, but they're either not very good ones or not widely applicable. E.g., most Brits would easily understand that your TV license fee is a lump-sum tax, but that example wouldn't mean much to most people in the U.S. I'll get around to correcting the tax incidence article eventually, and I think the article on supply and/or demand also uses the same diagram.

I don't know how to fix the diagram, though, so if you have a few spare moments sometime, delete "lump sum" from that label on the graph. The label should read just something like "Amount of the tax," or more precisely, "Amount of the tax per unit." "Magnitude" is unnecessarily verbose. I finally got around to finishing my comments on the reviewer's comments earlier this evening. I thought they might still be worth posting because they covered a few things your response didn't and expanded on a few others, so having them on the record would help complete the audit trail/history of some revisions. But after I clicked the "Save" button, my comments seem to have vanished into the ether -- they're nowhere to be found. (I'm aghast that WP doesn't seem to have at least a limited "save as draft" option -- even my cell phone has one for text messages!) FortunateIy have about 95% of the text backed-up by copying and pasting into Word, as long as that doesn't introduce any formatting anomalies. I'll try to reconstruct the whole comment Friday, time permitting.

I'll also continue to contribute to the PED article as my schedule permits, but after all, "we have all day"!  :) And so many other articles represent attractive "targets of opportunity."

BTW, a few days ago, you left a message on my Talk page and I replied to it. Unfortunately, I replied on my Talk page, not yours. Your request on your Talk page to leave messages for you there evidently hadn't sunk in yet! So my (insightful, trenchant) comments still await your perusal on my talk page. There's only 1 other message there right now, so it'll be easy to find! There's absolutely nothing vital there, but you may find some of my comments marginally informative or mildly amusing.

Congrats again, and may your success increase! --Jackftwist (talk) 07:26, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!!

Thank you so much for your help with Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force/ILDS-ICD! ---kilbad (talk) 17:37, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

PED article: A few points of possible interest

Over the past few days, I've made a number of minor wording changes, additions, etc., primarily to clarify (I hope!) the revised item. I don't think any of them are likely to ruffle any feathers, at least not enough to start an editing war. (Although one never knows, I suppose.)

But I do want to mention just a few of the changes that you might be interested in knowing about, or possibly even consider worthy of further discussion.

1. In the table that describes the terminology for the various possible ranges of PED, I added 2 alternative terms for the case where PED = 1. The label for that case isn't very standardized in the textbooks or the literature, which can be quite confusing to the average student or other reader. To a grammar pedant like me (and you?), it turns out to be like the sound of fingernails scraping a chalk board. (Do you still have chalkboards in schools?)
   1. The term "unit elastic" is probably the most frequently used term, at least by a slim margin, especially in introductory texts. Personally, I've never liked it because it's gramatically incorrect, or at least awkward. "Unit" can be either and adjective or a noun, but in neither case can it properly be used to modify the adjective "elastic."
   2. "Unitary elasticity" is probably a close 2nd place to "unit elastic," but it suffers the same grammatical malady: one adjective modifying another.
   3. "Unit elasticity" is grammatically correct -- an adjective modifying a noun -- but it's rarely seen. It also suffers the minor disadvantage of not being grammatically parallel in form with all the other cases as they're (correctly) labeled in the table: "relatively elastic/inelastic," "perfectly/infinitely elastic," and "perfectly inelastic." All of these have an adverb (properly) modifying an adjective. (The one-word terms, "Elastic/inelastic," pose no problem.) So this term isn't ideal, either, but I could easily live with it.
   4. "Unitarily elastic" is both grammatically correct (adverb + adjective) and is grammatically parallel with the terms for all the other elasticity values. Eureka! Problem solved. Except its almost never used in textbooks.
   5. The only thing we can do about this conundrum is to provide the readers with all the alternatives so they at least know they all mean the same thing. (I didn't raise this question on the article's Talk page because we're probably the only 2 who care, and I'm not even sure about you! And obviously the same problem exists for all the other types of elasticity -- supply, income, cross-price, etc.)
2. Under the "Elasticity and revenue" section, the last sentence in the paragraph beginning "Because of the inverse nature ..." had a pretty significant omission: it should read "...is equal to the percentage change in quantity demanded...," but "percentage" got left out somehow. (The proof is very simple.)
3. In the last sentence before the "Elasticity and revenue" section, I replaced "slope" with "gradient." Is "gradient" typically used in the UK to refer to the slope, i.e., the 1st derivative? If so, I'll gladly change it back. But otherwise, slope is the term we want here. In a mathematical context (vs. the slope of a road, etc.), gradient is a more complex concept that applies only to vectors, not simple functions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackftwist (talk • contribs) 00:44, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
4. I haven't touched this next problem yet, but I just realized this morning: I think the "Tax incidence" section is "back-asswards" (including the label under the diagram)! I've double-checked my reasoning against several other sources, but I didn't want to touch the text until I've looked at it again with fresh eyes and a clear head, as well as until I have time to do the corrections very carefully. That probably won't be until at least Monday, so if you want to tackle it, help yourself.

Finally, on a different aspect of the article: I hope to be posting a series of discussion points on the Talk page over the next few days, although again, probably not starting until Monday. For ease of reply and discussion, I plan to break the comments into a number of separate posts, each one on a distinct topic, or possibly on a small number of closely related topics. Almost all of the comments apply just to the PED article, but a very few will address some WP policy issues. In particular, I believe the "no synthesis" guidelines are much too restrictive, especially for quantitatively oriented topics like PED. Although I do agree completely with the intent of the policy and support it in the main, I believe the guidelines for implementing it potentially limit us from doing some straightforward things (primarily simple mathematical derivations) that would benefit articles in the Econ Project but for which we might not be able to find a specific source to cite, or at least couldn't do so without an unreasonably time-consuming search. (As I understand the current guidelines, they prohibit anything beyond simple arithmetic.) But more on this anon.

BTW, did you leave a message for me Friday, by any chance? I received and Orange Box notice, but when I clicked on the link, I couldn't find any new message anywhere.

Happy Easter! --Jackftwist (talk) 00:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

PPF Section on Interpretation

Your original message

Could you briefly assist with the Interpretations section of Production possibility frontier? It doesn't need more, I don't think (since we're writing a general purpose encyclopaedia) but it does desperately need some references. My problem is that I can't equate those sentences with higher-level literature I've seen, but I thought you might be able to. Ta, and Happy Easter if you are so persuaded. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 11:20, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

---

I'm shifting the discussion to here because (1) it might be useful to separate this topic from all the others, in case it needs further discussion, and (2) if the latter happens, counting the number of indent levels would drive me slightly bonkers.

Yes, I think I can provide adequate references. Actually, the Bator article in your list of references may do the trick quite nicely, but let me take a closer look. (Years ago, that article was extremely helpful to me in understanding this topic.)

Potential sources abound, because deriving the PPF from the Edgeworth-Bowley box is standard stuff in many intermediate- and advanced-level texts on price-theory. (Above the intro level, micro is very frequently called "price theory," for obvious reasons. Many textbook titles and advanced-level courses use that term in their titles instead of "micro"!) The PPF is very often one of the final topics in such texts and courses, because it takes a term's worth of micro theory to build the extensive set of tools necessary to do the derivation and understand it -- sort of an intellellectual orgasm, to which the rest of the course is foreplay! :)

At the macro level, texts in international trade theory also have to cover that material near the beginning, because much of the remainder of the course rests on those 2 fundamental tools. The same is true for texts and courses in "welfare economics," which is an important but mind-numbing (to me, at least) advanced application of micro theory. (And "welfare" in this context means the broader sense of that term, not its pejorative use as a synonym for the dole.) And although it may seem odd, PPFs are rarely covered in macro texts and courses above the intro level, possibly because the PPF is sort of a transitional concept that links micro theory to total economic output. Beyond toting up the monetary value of total output (i.e., GDP), macro is less concerned with the efficiency and output composition issues the PPF addresses (i.e., where on the PPF diagram the economy is operating) than with more general aspects of fiscal and monetary policy. The latter do potentially affect efficiency and output composition, but the PPF just isn't the tool of choice for that analysis.

BTW, did you write the PPF article originally? I suspected you might have done -- it resembles the PED article in both quality and writing style.

Actually, the PPF article was already very high on my list of topics to tackle next, after ironing out a few more aspects of the PED one, but I'll put an even higher priority on it now. I'd been tempted to post some comments on it sooner, but 2 of the earlier comments gave me pause. First, in the one about higher marginal costs and diminishing marginal returns (titled "Section 1"), which appears to have been written by someone with some knowledge of this topic: I think the indented part, about the reason for the concavity, is correct, or basically so. But I've got some doubts about his final sentence. Second, "Diseconomies of scale" are another complication, but I can't tell what the 2 comments under it have to do with that title. In fact, I don't really understand their point(s) at all. What "+ slope" of the PPF is he talking about? (And it's the same person who wrote the comment "Section 1"!) In sum, this is a much more complex topic than anything in the PED article I can think of, and I need to do a lot of reviewing, probably starting with the Bator article. :)

But tonight, one of my favorite TV programs comes on -- Aussie-rules football. Cheers, --Jackftwist (talk) 22:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The Elasticity_(economics) article

Yes, Elasticity (economics) does repeat a lot of material that's covered elsewhere.

I was initially put off by it when I first read it a couple of weeks ago because it uses the (∂ ln Q / ∂ ln P) formulation as its very first definition, instead of the basic, intuitive definition used in PED. That form of the definition is totally meaningless to the beginning student or casual WP reader. Although that form is indeed covered at the intermediate course level (sometimes) and the advanced level (probably always), even then it's usually the last form mentioned, and it's usually in an "Oh, BTW..." fashion and often only in a footnote! He doesn't mention the basic definition until much later. In the fullness of time, I might get around to fixing that.

(OBTW, the partial derivative equation in the PED article presents some problems of its own that I want to tinker with, too. Among other things, I'm pretty sure there's a typo or mix-up of notation in it. I'll explain later on the PED Talk page. I hope "radek" will comment on my post. He sounds a lot like he's an economist -- or at least has had a lot of micro courses.)

After you mentioned the other Elasticity article, I took a second look at it, though. Setting aside its repetition and poorly chosen introduction, it does do several things quite well. For one thing, the writing style is far superior to many of the other econ articles -- and to many WP articles in general. With a few exceptions, the spelling, punctuation, and grammar are correct, and he/she uses simple, direct sentences -- the latter almost to the point of being boring. But I'll take that bit of boredom hands down over the literary atrocities committed by many of the other authors (present company excepted, of course!). The article could still use some editing to clarify its content, but it's nevertheless a very good start in many respects.

In addition, his section on E_D vs. slope is absolutely superb! I don't think I've ever seen a better one in any textbook. (I made a few strictly minor edits to it this morning.) I had wanted for quite awhile to expand on that point in the PED article, but now I'd like to just lift his paragraph in toto to use as a starting point! (Is that permitted? Perhaps with the original author's permission, if he's still around, and obviously with appropriate reference explicitly given to the source?) Oddly, though, his brief treatment of E_S is superficial and incomplete.

He also mentions a key property of elasticity -- that it's a dimensionless quantity (or "pure number"), although he leaves the point until almost the very end. That's long been high on my list of things to add to the PED article, but it needs to be an integral part of the initial definition and description of E_D, close to the beginning of the article.

And yes, it's often been said that the expression "a short email/post/etc. from Jack" is an oxymoron! Some of it is indeed rambling, and I should discipline myself more strictly about that. But most of it comes from a lifetime of teaching this material to introductory students, knowing which points they're most likely to find confusing, and trying to prevent that confusion by making my original discussion of the points clearer, which usually means longer. Also, it's well known that all written forms of communication, including emails, posts, etc., are highly prone to being misunderstood, and the back-and-forth written exchanges necessary to (try to) taclarify the point take much more time than it would take face-to-face. So again, I just err on the side of over-explaining from the beginning. I plead guilty, M' Lord, and throw myself on the mercy of the court!

Cheers, --Jackftwist (talk) 18:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

PED article & graphs

Thanks for correcting the graph in the tax incidence section. I finally corrected the legend on the graph as well. In my experience, beginning-level students find incidence of taxation to be a pretty difficult concept, so I can only imagine what a casual WP reader with limited micro background would think. As a result, I expanded the explanation slightly, which I hope makes a tricky topic a bit easier to follow. (Brevity is not always an asset in cases like this!)

Because your response to one of my earlier comments revealed you to be the graphics god behind some of the graphs in the econ articles, I feel less reluctant in asking a question I've been wondering about: what graphics software do you use to produce the graphs? I read some of the Help articles on graphics software, and most of it was the proverbial Greek to me. As an economist, I firmly believe in the advantages of comparative advantage based on specialization of resources, and software definitely isn't my comparative advantage. :) I've had my hands full enough so far just learning barely enough basics about wiki markup and LaTeX syntax to get by!

As I understand it, SVG and PNG files are the WP-preferred file formats, but I didn't find the discussion of alternative software very helpful. (Cf. "comparative advantage," supra.) So if you could point me in the right direction, I should be most grateful.

My current interest is in producing a graph to illustrate 3 very easy graphical techniques for interpreting PED in geometric terms (using the ratios of distances on the graph that are very easy to visualize), which I mentioned in an earlier message. The legend under your graph from Marshall's Principles give 1 of the 3 ratios. Unfortunately, Marshall's graph lacks 1 labeled point necessary to demonstrate 1 of the other 2 ratios, so I can't use his graph for the complete derivation. (Besides, his notation and labeling are very confusing to the beginner, and he labels his axes generically as x and y instead of the more intuitive p and Q.) I looked for another graph I to use, but I couldn't find an appropriate one. These graphical "tricks" are particularly useful in determining whether the demand for a good at a given point on a nonlinear demand curve is <, =, or > 1, because the elasticity of that curve at the point in question conveniently equals the elasticity of the straight line that's tangent to it at that point. (The proof is "intuitively obvious to the astute student," as textbooks like to say.

BTW, I definitely didn't intend my earlier comment about the wiki markup language to be a complaint. I just meant that, considering the range of convenient point-and-click formatting features already provided by the editing page, I'm surprised there aren't buttons to format indentation levels and bulleted lists, instead of requiring what is truly syntax typical of the late-1980s era! (I know that's long before your time, of course. And at the time, we considered it magical, if somewhat tedious. But in today's point-and-click, WYSIWYG world, well ....)

Hmmm ... not as brief as I'd hoped, but you'll survive. But fortunately for you, my wine glass is empty again and it's time to dine! Cheers, --Jackftwist (talk) 01:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

PPF article -- revisions to "Position" section

I originally intended just to add "natural disaster" to the factors that could cause an inward shift of the PPF (e.g., the recent earthquakes in Haiti, especially, and Chile, but to a lesser degree there). But then I yielded to the temptation to reword a few other items I already had on my list of things to do. The primary revisions:

• 1st sentence: I switched "technology & management" with "production function" in the parentheses. In the texts I'm familiar with, "technology" is the overwhelming favorite term to use in defining the PPF, because that term is intuitive to even the most casual reader or newest student. Production functions are an unfamiliar abstraction to those readers and a subject of interest only to more advanced students and researchers.
  • "Management" has a more complex role. To the extent we're talking about organizational methods, techniques, managerial innovations, and other management know-how or "technology," many writers do consider that an appropriate aspect of technology in the context of the PPF and production functions. But the more mundane aspects of management -- the day-to-day stuff, like what WP Editors spend a lot of their time doing :) -- are typically considered part of "Labor," 1 of the 4 traditional and fundamental categories of the (non-technological) resources of production. So "management" is, in effect, a composite factor of production, partly labor and partly capital (or technology).
    • But some economists argue that it's more appropriate to consider organizational methods, techniques, etc. as part of "human capital," and hence part of the Labor resources. Innovations or improvements in management technique result in a higher-quality labor resource, just as increases in education and training do. (Personally I tend to favor this interpretation, but I'm somewhat sympathetic to the other POV, too. It's not at all a simple, clear-cut distinction.
• 2nd paragraph: I expanded the explanation of biased growth a bit and tried to show the link between your excellent example from the 1st sentence of that paragraph and how the capital vs. consumer goods mix in any one year affects the position and shape or slope of the PPF for the following years. I'm still not completely satisfied with how that came out, but it'll do for now.

BTW, please correct any of my errors that (unintentionally) substitute American English for the Mother Tongue. I've looked at some of the WP guidance on the subject, and although I don't claim to be fluent in British usage, I was already aware of many of the obvious differences (e.g., colour vs. color, prioritise vs. prioritize, and whether the comma or period goes inside or outside the quotation marks). But I'm much more likely to err on such subtleties as "towards" and "grey" vs. "gray." (We tend to use "toward," "outward," etc. most often, especially in more formal settings, but we occasionally add the "s" in informal lapses.) And I'm almost totally at a loss over your rules on collective nouns, e.g., "the team has" vs. "the team have." In some cases, your rules seem to be the opposite of ours. I definitely don't intend the following claim in any derogatory way, but U.S. rules on this appear to be much simpler. Or maybe that's just because I'm accustomed to them! --Jackftwist (talk) 20:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

A few comments re PPF "Interpretation" section

I'd honestly thought this was going to be just a short note, but as I got into it, I realized I needed to try to summarize a substantial portion of an intermediate course in microecon, if you were to make any sense out of my comments! I should've just made the changes in the article, and if you didn't like them, too bad! :)

I also have question I need to ask you to clarify a point in the 3rd paragraph of this section, but I'll defer it to a later message -- which I really do think will be brief. (Promises, promises ...)

1. In the 1st paragraph (micro), I'm delighted that you mentioned generalizing the basic model to n goods. In fact, that's sufficiently important that I think it should definitely be mentioned much earlier in the article, probably in the first section and/or the head (is that the correct WP term?). It also fits better there.

• The application of the PPF to the individual firm is pretty standard stuff (although very rarely mentioned below the advanced-level courses), at least to the extent that the firm can produce 2 or more products. (Many can't, or choose not to.)
• But bear with me here, while I try to summarize the last few weeks of a decent intermediate micro course.
  • The primary context for the PPF in micro is that it can be derived from the Edgeworth_box, which you'll recall is constructed for a 2-firm world (if you want to do it graphically, vs. purely mathematically).
    • But note that each firm is assumed to specialize in producing only 1 of the products, not both of them. The axes on the Edgeworth box aren't the 2 products; instead they're 2 inputs (again, to do it graphically), usually capital and labor, that each firm uses in various combinations to produce its single product.
    • The inside of the Edgeworth box consists of isoquants that represent various levels of output based on each firm's production function for combining the 2 inputs to produce the single product it's specializing in.
    • Inside the box, the Contract_curve connects all the tangency points between the 2 firms' isoquants. Each tangency point represents a level of output of each of the 2 products that's efficient in the sense that both resources are fully employed (see Pareto_efficiency).
      • Woops, clarification of correct econ terminology needed here: when you go to either the Edgeworth box or the contract curve link, you find a box whose axes are (correctly) labeled with products (outputs) for consumption, not inputs for production. And that's the only way dear old Francis Ysidro Edgeworth ever drew it or intended it to be used.
        • Unfortunately, the references you consulted in your research employed the sloppy, but all too common, practice of wrongly applying the name "Edgeworth box" to what should correctly (and unglamorously) be called a production box, for which WP doesn't yet have an entry. The 2 types of boxes employ the same ingenious technique, but their labels and contents are completely different!
          • Fortunately for the astute student like you, the basic concept is the same, and the contract curve has the identical conceptual interpretation in both cases: the points along the curve are all Pareto efficient. (I don't know for sure, but I suspect someone adapted the Edgeworth box idea to develop the production box.)
  • The critical point: Given the contract curve, we can enjoy the intellectually orgasmic experience of deriving the PPF. (But my students usually claim that the experience wasn't as "good" for them as it was for me, alas.)
  • Maybe I should do an article on the production box. The diagrams are already basically done in the other 2 articles; I'd just have to change the labels on the axes and curves!  :)
• In stark contrast and importance, applying the PPF model to the individual consumer or household is very rarely mentioned outside certain small subspecialties. Although it's certainly technically correct, it's such a minor application that I don't think it deserves pride of place as the 1st example in this section!

2. 2nd paragraph (macro): I believe this should be the 1st paragraph of the section, but I'd like to reword this point slightly to read, "From a macroeconomic perspective..." instead of "In macroeconomics..." The reason for splitting hairs like this is somewhat confusing and hard to explain, so bear with me again.

• As I mentioned in an earlier post (I think), the PPF is actually a conceptual bridge between micro and macro, but if one wants to be a macroeconomist, then one crosses that bridge and never looks back! (And because the PPF is a bridge concept, the distinction between its micro and macro applications is somewhat artificial.)
  • As explained at length above, the intricacies of deriving the PPF from the Edgeworth box are usually found in the intermediate micro (not macro) course.
  • I think I also mentioned earlier that macroeconomics as a discipline somewhat surprisingly rarely ever mentions the PPF at all! Instead, macro focuses much more on monetary and fiscal policy, which is where the glamorous and interesting applications are (hence, where one's path lies to office as a senior economic advisor in some government capacity and eventually to one's K).
  • Some intermediate and advanced macro courses do include some coverage of economic-growth theory, but the PPF is much too elementary a tool for most purposes in that field. Yes, one way to depict economic growth is as an outward shift in the PPF. But the student learned that back in the introductory course, and there's not much more the PPF can contribute to growth theory, except a general awareness that biased growth is sometimes an issue to be addressed.
  • Finally, again referring to my earlier message, the PPF and the production box play an absolutely huge role in international trade theory, which pretty obviously has major macro implications, especially in places like the EU countries and Japan, where trade is such a large percentage of GDP (much less so in the U.S., but still significant).
    • Yet, at least in the U.S., macro courses -- and big-time macroeconomists -- tend to leave that subject to the specialists in international trade and finance.
    • If you're getting the impression that macroeconomists are a snooty lot, you've got the right idea. Not as snooty as econometricians and financial economists, but close enough.

I somehow doubt this was as good for you as it was for me. :) --Jackftwist (talk) 00:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Adam Posen

On April 8, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Adam Posen, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 06:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back & queries re PPF article

Sorry to hear you've been under the weather and certainly happy to hear you're feeling better. I was worried I'd scared you away or worn you down with my tsunami of posts.

Yes, they most certainly would resemble a wall of text on a small screen. They do on a larger screen, too! I was appalled last night when I noticed their accumulated bulk.

Thanks especially for the information on Inkscape. Yes, the ability to make minor modifications to an existing SVG image is a definite advantage, and I think it's all I need right now, considering how many PPF and S-D diagrams there are about. (BTW, very nice work on the PPF graphics. I won't hesitate to steal them!) The WP article on graphics software mentioned that some SVG software is incompatible with Internet Explorer, which is what I use, so I was a bit worried. I could switch to another browser, but we're required to use IE at work, so it's easiest for me just to stick with it at home, too. Graphics software tends to be one of my comparative disadvantage (perhaps even absolute disadvantage) skills, so we'll see how quickly I pick it up. And I definitely won't be downloading it for another week or so, after I've finished my tax returns, which WP consistently lures me away from.

A few queries/comments on the PPF article:

1. In the current "macro" subsection under "Interpretation":

• Note that the sentence, "An economy may have productive efficiency but not allocative efficiency," directly contradicts the current wording of the last sentence of the "Efficiency" section, "In addition, a single point on the PPF represents perfect allocative efficiency, where the correct combination of both is produced to maximise social welfare." (I hope Standish didn't really say that!)
  • What the 2nd sentence should say, I think, is something like, "In addition, a single point on the PPF may also represent allocative efficiency, if the combination of the two goods it represents also maximises social welfare."
    • The "may" is a critical qualification to the statement, as covered in excruciating detail by the articles and talk pages at Allocative_efficiency, Welfare_economics , Hicks-Kaldor_criterion, and Social_welfare_function, plus some of the articles the latter one links to.
      • These articles remind me why I loathe welfare economics and avoid it as much as possible. The only thing the field can conclude for certain about maximizing social welfare is that there's not very much of any significance that one can conclude for certain about maximizing social welfare!
• I not sure what to do with the last sentence of that paragraph: "Markets and other institutions of social decision-making (such as government, tradition, and community democracy) may lead to the wrong combination of goods being produced (and the wrong mix of resources allocated) compared to what individuals would prefer, given what is feasible on the PPF."
  • Based on the articles cited above, I'm not sure it's correct. But even if it is, I don't think I could explain why -- so it (obviously?) can't stand on its own without further explanation. Any suggestions?
• Pedantic grammatical digression: I omitted "perfect" in my revision in the 1st bullet above because allocative and productive efficiency are absolutes -- you either have them or you don't. They are inherently "perfect" according to the criteria that define them. Hence adding "perfect" to them is redundant, equivalent to saying "most highest," "most greatest," "most supreme," etc.
  • I even cringe at "serious crisis" and "mass exodus," both of which are ubiquitous. Wasn't The Exodus -- the word's origin -- massive per se? I do, however, grudgingly accept "minor crisis" as somewhat facetious. -)

2. It's tediously mundane, but the current structure of the subheadings needs some tinkering with. Remarkably, something as ordinary as the table of contents reflects the problems:

• "Indicators" just isn't the right term for current 3 subheadings. "(Basic) Properties (of the PPF)" more accurately describes the material in that section, although I'm not totally sold on that, either. (The parentheses indicate possible variations. It shouldn't surprise you that I tend to prefer longer, more descriptive headings over brevity just for brevity's sake.)
  • But using "Properties" has some unintended consequences ("externalities"!) -- i.e., shape and position are also properties, which means they should become subheadings under that section, leaving the small "Interpretation" section as the only remaining major section.
  • And even that may get a lot shorter, because whatever survives of the "macro" paragraph would fit much better under the "Efficiency" section
  • The final paragraph is fine (with some editing), but it would fit much better under "Efficiency," too. I.e., the the points on the contract curve are productively efficient, by definition.
  • That leaves only the short "micro" paragraph, so I'm not sure it merits a "major section" all by itself.

Glad to have you back among the living. --Jackftwist (talk) 23:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

PPF article -- references & revisions in process

BTW, I'm in the process of drafting some revisions that I hope will address most, perhaps all, of the matters I raised above concerning the PPF article. I think I've also located adequate citations, as you'd originally asked, but I want to look a little further for just a few more that may perhaps be better. I haven't made any revisions to either the citations or the article yet, though, for want of time. Most of the article revisions need to be made all at once, because they involve reorganizing some of the current text. I probably won't have much time to work on either until after Apr 15, when I must file my income tax return! --Jackftwist (talk) 01:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Adam Posen

On April 11, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Adam Posen, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 09:52, 11 April 2010 (UTC)