1. From the ok for me but not for thee department: NY Mayor Bloomberg is photographed nibbling on some Cheez-Its (0.5g of trans fats per serving) after leading NY's ban on trans fats.

2. MIT economists Jonathan Gruber and David Rodriguez find:

Our best estimate is that physicians provide negative uncompensated care to the uninsured, earning more on uninsured patients than on insured patients with comparable treatments. Even our most conservative estimates suggest that uncompensated care amounts to only 0.8% of revenues, or at most $3.2 billion nationally.

Not that it'll stop the socialized medicine crowd but this paper is very important because it rebuts one of the alleged failings of the current system.

3. Cato's David Boaz nominates someone for The Diff (previous installments here, here, and here).

4. Mark Steyn's column on capitalism as the real agent of change is a must read. See especially the paragraphs on John Edwards.

5. Carpe Diem posts on Krugman's recession forecasts and mortgage fraud via fake paystubs.

6. MR is hosting a book forum on Tim Harford's The Logic of LIfe. I got an advance copy and read it over Christmas break. I thought it was superb; I am pleased to see someone pushing back against the behavioral economics tide of the past few years.

7. I also read and liked John Lott's Freedomnomics. I would have liked it better if it had less emphasis on rebutting of Freakonomics. I don't think Freakonomics is flawless (I hated the chapter on baby names), but I thought Lott's constant harping on it was tiresome. Moreover, like Russ Roberts comments on Lojack and concealed handguns, I don't think of Lott's and Levitt's work as opposites.

I think both books miss a plausible explanation for the reason realtors take longer to sell their houses and get higher sales prices. Many people who put houses on the market do so because they are moving out of town. They have higher monitoring costs to make sure the house isn't burglarized. They also have higher transactions costs to consummate a sale from out of town. These factors push someone moving out of town (or across a large city like Chicago) to sell faster and at a lower price. Realtors, on the other hand, probably are not moving out of town and therefore have lower costs to hold out a bit longer for a higher price. I also suspect that it is somewhat common for realtors to deliberately own two (or more) houses at once. They then put both on the market and sell the one that draws the more attractive bids. People who are not planning to simultaneously market two homes may face liquidity constraints that nudge them to sell their first home sooner (and at a lower price) before taking on their next home.