by Tom Standage
How car colours reflect Britain’s national mood
Car buyers are said to choose vehicles that reflect their personality. In Britain the colour may also reflect the national mood. In the late 1990s Britons bought cars in bright primary colours, perhaps mirroring the optimism of the early years of Tony Blair’s New Labour administration. In the following years, as the economy ticked along steadily, they went for sensible greys and silvers. As economic hardship followed the financial crisis, sentiment turned darker as black cars predominated.
The popularity of white cars is harder to explain. Once so unpopular that police forces stopped using them because resale values were so low, white cars go hand in hand with Britain entering new territory when David Cameron’s coalition government starting making inroads with policies that reversed the country’s gloomy mood. Or perhaps draining a car of colour is another way of not making a firm choice. At least the reversion to black is easier to comprehend, as the haplessness of Theresa May’s government and worries over Brexit have darkened the outlook for Britain’s drivers.
Back to black
Britain, new car registrations, by favourite colour
Sources: Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders; Ipsos MORI
Why Swedes overpay their taxes
How abnormal are Swedes, and other people in the Nordic region, in paying tax? A general stereotype for Europe holds some truth: unlike tax-shy southern Europeans, those in the far north pay up readily to get comprehensive, efficient government services – and to live in societies with unusually equitable income distribution. In Sweden, even after years of slashing high taxes (an inheritance tax went in 2005, another for wealth disappeared in 2007 and corporate tax is low, at 22%), the share of the national income claimed by the state remains high. The OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, reckons Sweden’s government spent over 51% of GDP in 2014. Income-tax rates for the well-off can be as high as 57%. And the Swedes comply. Sociologists, economists and others have long debated this readiness to cough up for the common good. Lutheran beliefs about the importance of supporting the whole community might be a factor, along with a strong sense of cultural homogeneity. Or maybe the generations spent huddling together to survive long, dark winters played a role.
February 2017 brought a new puzzle, however, with evidence that some Swedes had been deliberately overpaying their taxes. Official figures published that month showed tax revenues had poured in far faster than expected during 2016. Sweden’s government ended up with a budget surplus of 85bn kronor ($9.5bn) for the year, and nearly half of that, 40bn kronor, was the result of tax overpayments by firms and individuals. This appeared to be deliberate. It also posed a conundrum for civil servants responsible for making repayments and managing the funds. What was going on?
This was not evidence, in fact, of a new or extreme culture of Nordic eagerness for paying tax. Instead the explanation is financial, a bizarre result of the existence of negative interest rates. Starting in March 2015, Sweden’s central bank kept rates below 0%, as did other Swedish banks, in a broad effort to avoid deflation. At the same time, the government promised to pay a positive interest rate – 0.56% – for any funds that had been overpaid in tax, upon their return to the taxpayer. Even though this interest payment was subsequently cut to zero, individuals and companies were better off storing their savings with the government in the form of overpaid tax, rather than watching them shrink in the bank as a result of negative interest rates.
Officials and politicians would usually crow about a growing budget surplus. But Sweden’s official bean-counters are not cheering. Borrowing from taxpayers (by taking in their overpayments, and then paying them back) costs more than raising funds in other ways. Nor is it entirely clear how quickly those who have overpaid will demand their money back, which makes it tricky to manage the flow of money. Sweden’s negative interest rates, which had been expected to rise in early 2018, were instead extended, which suggests that overpayment of taxes will also go on longer than expected. It sounds like the sort of problem a government in southern Europe would be delighted to have. In Sweden, however, officials would much prefer taxpayers to cool it – and pay a bit less in tax.
Mapping the world’s mega-rich
High-net-worth individuals
Global wealth*, $trn
Source: Capgemini
*Individuals with at least $1m of investable assets
The global number of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) grew by 7.5% to 16.5m in 2017, according to the World Wealth Report by Capgemini, a consulting firm. HNWIs have at least $1m in investable assets, excluding their main home, its contents and collectable items. Total HNWI wealth came to $63.5trn in 2017, with the highest proportion concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region. The expansion of wealth in the Asian-Pacific region slowed to 8.2% year-on-year, as a result of declines in the performance of stockmarkets in China and Japan. But if Asian wealth (the biggest source of new future growth) grows by 9.4% a year, global HNWI wealth will exceed $100trn by 2025.
Why nobody knows how many Nigerians there are
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, a designation it wears with pride. It had more than 182m citizens in 2015, according to the World Bank, and is poised to have the world’s third-largest population, behind India and China, by 2050. But those figures are based on Nigeria’s 2006 census, which probably exaggerated the number of people. Parliamentary seats and central government money are handed out to states based on population, giving politicians an incentive to inflate the figures. In 2013 the head of the National Population Commission (NPC), Festus Odimegwu, said that neither the 2006 census nor any previous one had been accurate. He resigned soon afterwards (the government at the time said he was fired).
Counting Nigerians has been controversial since the colonial era. The country was stitched together from two British colonies: a largely Christian south and a Muslim-dominated north. In the lead-up to independence in 1960, the British were accused by southerners of manufacturing a majority in the north, which they were thought to favour. In 1962 unofficial census figures showed population increases in some south-eastern areas of as much as 200% in a decade. The full data were never published and northern leaders held a recount, which duly showed they had retained their majority (their region had apparently grown by 84%, rather than the originally estimated 30%). This politicking led to coups, the attempted secession of what was then known as the Eastern Region, and a civil war.
The north–south divide has remained salient; there is still an unwritten rule that the presidency should alternate between a northerner and a southerner. Allegations that the north has manipulated its way to a majority continue. The censuses of 1973 and 1991 were annulled. In 2006 arguments flared when 9.4m people were counted in the northern state of Kano, compared with just 9m in Lagos, the commercial capital. The Lagos state government conducted its own, technically illegal, census and came up with a figure of 17.5m (probably a vast overestimate). A new national census has been repeatedly delayed. The NPC’s estimate that it will “gulp” 223bn naira ($708m) may mean the count is put off indefinitely.
Even using other methods, Nigeria’s population has proved tricky to pin down. Africapolis, a French-funded research project, employed satellite mapping to estimate the population of towns and cities in 2010. It found that several cities, mostly in the north, had hundreds of thousands fewer people than the 2006 census counted. But even those data are not entirely trustworthy: it later transpired that the researchers had underestimated urbanisation in the densely populated Niger delta. Until there is an accurate, impartial census it will be impossible to know just how many Nigerians there really are. That means government policy will not be fully anchored in reality – and it will not be possible to send resources where they are most needed.
Why Chinese children born in years of the dragon are more successful
Dragons have long been revered in Chinese culture. As a result, children born in the dragon years (or “dragon child
ren”) of the zodiac calendar are thought to be destined for success in later life. Naci Mocan and Han Yu, two economists at Louisiana State University, decided to probe this superstition.
The researchers note that Chinese parents certainly seem to prefer raising dragon children than, say, sheep children. The number of babies born in China spiked in 2000 and 2012, the two most recent years of the dragon. Birth rates in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia follow a similar pattern. But China’s “one-child policy” made it difficult for parents to time the births of their children to correspond with years of the dragon, which reduced the effect of the zodiac calendar on births.
Children fortunate enough to be born in dragon years seem to flourish at school. The authors looked at the test scores of some 15,000 Chinese secondary-school pupils, and found that relative to their peers, dragon children received better grades in both their Chinese and their English exams. Moreover, analysis of a different data set showed that they were 11 percentage points more likely to go to university than others. These findings held true when accounting for family background, cognitive ability and self-esteem. What is different about dragon children, the researchers argue, is how much their parents believe in them.
Dragonborn
China
Sources: “Can Superstition Create a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?
School Outcomes of Dragon Children of China” by Naci Mocan and Han Yu, Louisiana State University; government statistics
*On exams with average scores of 70
Parents of dragon children tend to spend both more money and more time educating them. Such parents are more likely to speak to teachers and enrol their children in kindergarten. They also dish out more pocket money. At the same time, dragon children are given fewer chores around the house. When these factors are controlled for, the academic edge of dragon children disappears; there is, it seems, nothing inherently special about being born in a dragon year. Instead, the success of dragon children, the authors argue, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sexual selection: love, sex and marriage
Why the sperm-bank business is booming
Once a practice associated with students looking to make a quick buck, sperm donation has penetrated the ranks of big business. The AIDS epidemic that began in the 1980s ended the informality surrounding the business, and as the costs and risks around testing and handling donated sperm increased, medics pulled out and entrepreneurs swiftly filled the gap. Today savvy sperm banks – particularly those that are able to export – can make a very decent income supplying a growing and changing market. How do businesses make money in the jizz biz?
Two things have provided entrepreneurs with fertile ground. First, a patchwork of regulatory intervention means that in certain countries the flow hasn’t kept up with demand. In several places, including Britain, anonymous donation has been outlawed. In other countries donors cannot be paid. Both reasons help explain why sperm banks in such places often struggle to recruit donors; the long waiting lists caused by low donor-counts can lead to customers shopping abroad. Second, as acceptance of modern family structures grows, so too does demand for a key missing ingredient. Where the vast majority of customers were previously heterosexual couples who were having trouble conceiving, today many if not most are either lesbian couples or single women. In some countries such women are forbidden from being treated with donated sperm, encouraging them to shop abroad. The smartest businesses have picked up on such gaps in the market and sell their stuff direct to sperm banks and clinics that struggle to recruit donors in their home markets. Possibly an even bigger money-spinner is selling directly to end-users. Thanks to the internet, dry-ice and DHL, customers can now shop for sperm from more or less anywhere and have it delivered to their homes.
Some American sperm banks boast that a donor can make up to $1,500 per month, which presumably requires near-abstention from personal pleasure. The normal rate for a single donation is around $100. One donation can usually be split into as many as five vials, which in turn sell for between $500 and $1,000 each. Most customers buy several. Despite the costs involved – notably for recruiting donors, testing and retesting, storage and marketing – the margins are engorged. Still, sperm banks have to work hard to compete for customers; some distinguish themselves by emphasising the safety and security of their “product”. Others focus on the “user experience” by modelling their websites on popular dating sites, where customers can filter candidate donors by particular features such as eye colour, education or hobbies. Some banks will charge extra for information ($25 for a childhood picture and so on) or sell premium subscriptions – giving extra information and early access to new donors – for hundreds of dollars more.
Even the most radical free-market liberals struggle with the question of whether sex cells (and other bodily tissue) should be as easy to trade as any other product. To protect the interests of donor-conceived children, there is a strong case for having basic regulation in place to ensure that all vials are tested for certain diseases before they can be sold. But morally driven policies about who can conceive using donated sperm are both discriminatory and, in the age of e-shopping, ineffective. More generally, overly restrictive policies, shortages and higher prices (they have roughly doubled over the past decade) seem to be driving customers to other sources of supply, including an international grey market that is distinctly dodgy. National regulators would do better to jump on the bandwagon rather than trying to stand in its way.
How porn consumption changed during Hawaii’s false alarm
The threat of nuclear holocaust, familiar to Americans who grew up during the cold war, is alien to most today. On Saturday January 13th 2018 fears of annihilation re-emerged. At 8.07am Hawaiians awoke to a startling emergency alert on their phones, which warned them that a ballistic missile was inbound and that they should seek immediate shelter. It was not until 8.45am that the government revealed that the alert was sent in error, and that there was no threat. The episode, though horrifying for those involved, provides a unique window into the human psyche. Unsurprisingly, Google searches for phrases like “bomb shelter” surged during those confusing minutes. But less predictably, another website also saw its traffic fluctuate wildly that morning: Pornhub.
Data from the world’s most-viewed pornography site show that visits from Hawaii plummeted immediately after the missile alert hit, and did not regain their usual levels until around 15 minutes after the threat was revealed to be a false alarm. But as Hawaiians returned to their regular lives, many apparently took to the internet to alleviate their pent-up anxieties. Traffic, as compared with an average Saturday, peaked at 9.01am, when visits to the lewd website rose to 48% above their normal levels. Hawaiians’ exuberance did not last long. By 9.30am, Pornhub data show it was business as usual in America’s 50th state.
What a relief
Hawaii, Jan 13th 2018, traffic to Pornhub compared with an average Saturday, % difference
Source: Pornhub
Why transgender people are being sterilised in some European countries
The road to sex reassignment covers some very difficult terrain, ranging from hormone treatment and possibly surgery, to social stigma and discrimination. In many European countries, gaining legal recognition for reassignment is extremely difficult. Citizens of Malta, Ireland, Denmark and Norway can simply notify the authorities of their decision. Elsewhere the process requires judicial consent or even the diagnosis of a mental disorder. Switzerland, Greece and 18 other countries (mostly in eastern Europe), also have a final hurdle: sterilisation. Why is this the case?
The requirement for sterilisation has dark echoes of eugenics. In the early 1970s Sweden became the first country in the world to allow transgender people to reassign their sex legally. But it enforced a strict sterilisation policy, on the grounds that such people were deemed to be mentally ill and unfit to care for children. (The World Health Organisation still lists “transsexualism”, which it describes as “a desire to live
and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex”, as a mental and behavioural disorder.) Sweden’s eugenics laws, which imposed sterilisation on women deemed mentally defective or otherwise handicapped to a degree “which makes them incapable of looking after their children”, lapsed only in 1976, after 42 years. But sterilisation remained a condition for sex reassignment until 2013. By this time, other countries had followed suit and adopted the same approach.
Amnesty International estimates that the European Union is home to around 1.5m transgender people (those whose gender identity differs from their biological sex). Though Europe is widely seen as progressive on LGBT rights, transgender rights specifically still lag. The processes involved in sex reassignment vary greatly between countries, most of which require a complex combination of medical interventions and legal paperwork. Compulsory sterilisation is perhaps the most controversial measure, provoking criticism from LGBT activists and the United Nations. States in which the idea of a man giving birth, or a woman fathering a child, are considered inconsistent with family values may cling to these clauses. But in April 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of three French complainants on the grounds that forced sterilisation violated their right to a private and family life – something guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
