From the sluggish checkout procedures in Paris grocery stores, you'd never know that a French company, Carrefour, is the most efficient, productive supermarket chain in the world. You might guess, however, that most of its success has occurred outside France. (By way of background, see this NYT column I wrote on Bill Lewis's terrific book The Power of Productivity and download this Lewis article.)
Dave Demerjian of Wired News reports on how airlines are using math to expedite boarding. The article is well worth a full read, but here's an excerpt:
America West Airlines, which became US Airways after a recent merger, has led the way in rethinking passenger boarding, working with engineers at Arizona State University to develop a system that speeds the process by reducing interference between passengers.
According to Tim Lindemann, US Airways' managing director of airport services, streamlining the boarding process was one part of a larger effort to reduce turnaround times at what was then America West. "We were looking at every possible way to shave time off the process," he says.
Convinced that there was a statistical solution to the problem, Lindemann approached Arizona State University's industrial engineering department. "We have a great university in our backyard, and hoped they could help," he says. "The engineers there immediately understood the problem we were trying to solve, because they had witnessed it themselves. They had been on our flights."
Professor René Villalobos and graduate student Menkes van den Briel began reviewing boarding systems used by other airlines. "The conventional wisdom was that boarding from back to front was most effective," says van den Briel. The engineers looked at an inside-out strategy that boards planes from window to aisle, and also examined a 2002 simulation study that claimed calling passengers individually by seat number was the fastest way to load an aircraft.
The two then developed a mathematical formula that measured the number of times passengers were likely to get in each other's way during boarding. "We knew that boarding time was negatively impacted by passengers interfering with one another," explains van den Briel. "So we built a model to calculate these incidents."
Villalobos and van den Briel looked at interference resulting from passengers obstructing the aisle, as well as that caused by seated passengers blocking a window or middle seat. They applied the equation to eight different boarding scenarios, looking at both front-to-back and outside-in systems. "Ultimately, the issue America West needed to address was time," explains van den Briel. "We figured a system that reduced interference between passengers would also cut boarding time."
I'm sure the operations research is good, but airlines have some tough behavioral issues to deal with too. Passengers all want to board first. Some flout the rules, knowing that most airlines ignore line cutting. (A confrontation slows the boarding process.) And, at least on some flights, most passengers are actually entitled to early boarding, thanks to their--our--illustrious frequent flyer status.
It's the political economy, stupid. (Nasty phrase, that.) Texas has no income tax, which means public services are funded by sales and property taxes. Everyone, regardless of income or legal status, pays sales and property taxes, either directly or indirectly through rent. California, by contrast, relies heavily on a very progressive income tax that doesn't fall on people who are paid off the books or who don't earn much money in the first place. Liberals who support immigration should rethink their love of progressive income taxes.
Reliable sources inform me that the NYT's absurd disclosure form for freelancers no longer applies to the Book Review or magazine.
I have no problem with editors asking lots of questions about possible conflicts as, indeed, the Book Review editors do. But most conflicts won't be caught by a one-time form, because they're either unanticipated or new. And expecting a freelancer to disclose every connection under the sun just to do a single article is ridiculous. (Is it relevant to a book review on development economics that I once gave a speech at Target? It is relevant, of course, if the author of the book is a close friend, but the form doesn't ask you to list everyone you know.) The whole venture strikes me as a way for editors to cover themselves--"Well, he didn't mention it on his disclosure form"--when scandal erupts.
I'm off to Paris, to speak at the design school Créapole and give my mom a Parisian visit for her 70th birthday. In a bon voyage email, a friend sent us this link to a great panoramic view of the city.
Science magazine has a mini-profile of Sally Satel, with news of how her experience seeking a kidney transplant "awakened her to the 'horribly broken' state of organ transplantation rules in the United States."
Sally is planning a mini-conference at the American Enterprise Institute, focusing on solutions to the organ shortage. "We will not debate whether there should be market mechanisms," she explains. "We are stipulating that they are in order. We will go from there to discuss ways to design them and overcome barriers." The conference is scheduled for June 12 at AEI and will be open to the public. I'll be participating, along with people who are actually experts on the subject. Here's the lineup:
Buy Or Die: Market Mechanisms to Remedy the Organ Shortage
Lloyd Cohen, George Mason University School of Law
Mark Cherry, St. Edward's University, Department of Philosophy, author of Kidney for Sale by Owner: Human Organs, Transplantation and The Market(Georgetown U Press)
Newt Gingrich, AEI
Michele Goodwin, De Paul University College of Law, author of Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts
Benjamin Hippen, nephrologist and UNOS advisory committee member
Virginia Postrel, The Atlantic, author, The Future and Its Enemies
Sally Satel, AEI
At $3.50/gallon Mickey Kaus is channeling an observation I made when L.A. gas crossed the $2.00 mark: "After a week in L.A., with a car for a few trips downtown, I'm starting to feel pretty friendly toward high gas prices. Having to pay more than $2 a gallon does wonders for the traffic."
Grocery shopping doesn't have to be an annoying chore. Thanks to stores like Wegmans and (the overrated IMHO) Central Market, some people make it a weekend recreation, reports Maria Puente in USA Today. Here's an excerpt:
These companies say they're successful because they have figured out how to tempt customers away from the convenience of 7-Eleven and the low prices of Wal-Mart by teaching employees to build relationships with shoppers through personal service.
"They're making shopping more aspirational and pleasurable," says Andrew Seth, co-author of Supermarket Wars. "They show customers they care about them, and they give them great food."
The result: America is both a Wal-Mart nation and a Wegmans nation. And even Wal-Mart is trying to look more like Wegmans or Whole Foods: The retailer just announced it's going to double its organic offerings in many of its 3,800 stores. Likewise, Safeway has tried to follow the Whole Foods and Trader Joe's model by introducing its Lifestyle stores, which feature such amenities as hardwood floors and more prepared meals.
"It used to be the three most important things for a supermarket were location, location, location," says Michael Sansolo of the Food Marketing Institute.
"Shoppers now are willing to drive to experience something they feel brings them value, and not just in the monetary sense. For some, it's Wegmans; for others it's Wal-Mart."
And for many, it's both, or even more. "Shoppers are actually increasing their channel surfing," says Laurie Demeritt, president of the market research firm the Hartman Group in Bellevue, Wash. "They might go to Wal-Mart to stock up on (bulk items). And when they want to buy hormone-free milk, they'll go to Wild Oats."
And if you want to find Diet Coke on a Sunday or Monday, you'd better go somewhere besides my neighborhood Albertson's.
I wrote this Reason editorial 10 years ago, but with a few tweaks of the names and numbers it could run tomorrow. Here's the opening:
In 1994 and '95, paper prices skyrocketed. The cost of magazine paper rose by about 10 percent a month, hardly the sort of hike you can simply pass on to subscribers. Most publishers, including REASON, dealt with the increase by printing fewer pages and adding fewer new subscribers than they'd planned. Newspapers were even harder hit: Escalating newsprint prices drove many to lay off hundreds of employees, raise prices, and, in some cases, go out of business. It was not a happy time in the publishing industry.
Yet as far as I know, no one in the Clinton administration ever called a press conference to address the "paper crisis." Congress never held hearings on the subject. CNN never led the evening news with tales of how paper buyers were struggling. Newt Gingrich never posed for photos in front of giant rolls of newsprint. Bob Dole never denounced the president for his lack of "leadership" on the matter.
And that's as it should be. There was no crisis, nothing requiring an emergency response from government. By historical standards, paper wasn't even that expensive; its price was just higher than expected, and rising rapidly. Government policy had exacerbated things--in this case, through recycling mandates that led paper companies to invest in converting, rather than expanding, capacity--but the main cause of the price jump was plain old ordinary tight supply hit by expanding demand. The higher prices gave both consumers and producers important information about the state of the market. In response, buyers bought less. Sellers started to produce more. And prices eventually crept down.
That's how prices work. They convey information. They give people feedback about what's happening in the world. They produce responses. They go up and down. And while sellers may experiment with different levels, always seeking the most profitable ones, no one in particular gets to decide where prices will end up. They are out of control.
Recently, we've had a "gas crisis." From February through the end of April, retail gasoline prices jumped about 12 percent nationally, 21 percent in California. What's interesting about the latest "gas crisis" is how, despite a brief flurry of media attention and political pontificating, it looks a lot more like the "paper crisis" than like the real gas crises of the 1970s. There are no long lines at the pump or threats of "odd-even" rationing based on your license plate number. You can fill your tank on Sunday, and every station has gas- -for a price. The government interventions that distorted energy markets in the 1970s, and put drivers through hell, have disappeared.
This crisis isn't a crisis. It's just a price increase, the sort of signal consumers adjust to every day. No hysteria is called for.
Anyway, I thought we were supposed to be using less gasoline--to save the planet, annoy the Saudis, whatever. But I guess that was just talk.
If you can turn a preference for local produce