Hagar and the Horrible

I haven't yet read Hager's book. But reporting on the book tells me, of things relevant to my interests:

• WhaleOil often posted pieces written by corporates (or their intermediaries) attacking their enemies, without attribution, and for pay. 
• Some of Whale's attacks on Doug Sellman's nanny-state anti-alcohol advocacy (and assorted other food, beverage and tobacco health lobbyists/researchers), and Whale's own nanny-state anti-RTD advocacy, were paid pieces commissioned via Carrick Graham.

James Dann quipped:

ridiculous that the alcohol lobby would pay whale oil for attacks against Doug Sellman when @EricCrampton will do it for free
— James Macbeth Dann (@edmuzik) August 18, 2014

Indeed.

Assuming that all of the stuff that Hager put up about Whale's "Infomercial" posts, as summarised by others, is correct, the most damning is the one on RTDs. Whale had had a bit of a reputation for not liking nanny-state interventions or those academics who spend a lot of time pushing policies restricting our access to those substances - and especially where they're doing it on government grants. The anti-RTD posts were off-key. Either Slater was less consistent than I'd have expected, or something else was up.

I expect that the other bits were inframarginal, in that they were consistent with what I'd have expected Whale would have said anyway if he'd written them himself. The payments there perhaps don't reflect well on some of the sponsors, but I doubt they changed what Whale was going to say anyway on those kinds of topics.

Whale apparently had to be paid to note that Doug Sellman's blaming of excessive alcohol advertising for drunks' stealing alcohol-based hand-sanitizer was batty. I'll say it for free: it's a bit nuts to blame alcohol advertising for drunks stealing and drinking alcohol-based hand-sanitizer. We occasionally hear stories about folks stealing a lamb or two for home slaughter and consumption. Should we blame BBQ Culture? NZ Beef & Lamb advertising? No. It's also a bit odd to cast Sellman's blaming of excessive advertising as "evidence-based", as I cannot imagine any study exists looking at theft of and consumption of hand sanitizer as it varies with the intensity of alcohol advertising. It's assertion. I'm also asserting that it is really rather implausible that ads for Woodstock or whatever else are to blame for kids' stealing hand sanitizer. I've previously asserted that, contra Sellman, Woodstock ads are hardly likely to cause middle-aged women to think it's ok to have affairs with their sons' friends. While Sellman does do some evidence-based work, he also engages in a lot of advocacy that's not nearly as rigorous.

For the record, here at Offsetting:

• You will never find a post written by somebody other than the post's listed author. I'll sometimes blockquote from anonymous correspondents, or from named correspondents, but I don't put others' copy up on my name. 
• I have never taken pay for a post. I've not been offered pay for posts either, other than the spam ones everybody gets for link-exchange things. So I guess I can't say I've successfully resisted serious temptation either. Anybody willing to offer me a million bucks for a post is welcome to try though; I would require payment in advance of discussions.
• I sometimes get tips for material for posts, or for things I should OIA, from all kinds of places. Ministries, industry, NGOs. I don't want to out what are sometimes whistleblowers and sometimes other insiders. If the topic looks fun I'll have a look at it and will post something on it if I think it's blogworthy and if I have time to get around to it. Those often have "A correspondent points me to...". I recognize that every single one of these correspondents has his or her own game going on and treat things accordingly.
• I disclose where relevant. As summary of past and current things, little of which should be any kind of surprise:
• I wrote a report on the social costs of alcohol for NABIC, the Australian alcohol industry group;
• I presented some of that report's findings for NABIC in Oz;
• After I'd done a similar report for free in NZ in 2009, the Brewers flew me up to Beervana to talk about my results and gave me a free ticket to the event. It was really pretty fun. More fun than insinuations from the antis that I'd been secretly paid to write that report.
• The Brewers Association of Australia and New Zealand supported my work at Canterbury from December 2013-June 2014 through a deal with the University where I spent about a day a week providing them advice on reports and articles about which they wanted analysis, doing a bit more work on alcohol's social costs for a one-day workshop in Oz, and laying the groundwork for some longer-term projects that, alas, ended with my leaving Canterbury.
• Because I felt bad that I hadn't gotten as much done as I'd hoped to with the project's truncation, and partially because the topic's inherently interesting, I did a bit of analysis on advertising and sponsorship regs to present at the Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship, mostly pointing to and explaining Jon Nelson's very nice metastudy on advertising. I wasn't paid to do that work, but I wasn't out of pocket for the same-day flight to Auckland to present. The "I felt bad about it" only covered that I spent time on it, not the content of the analysis.
• In the interregnum between finishing at Canterbury and starting at NZI (and evenings for a bit before finishing at Canty), I did some expert witness work on the effects of on-licence closing times for the local alcohol hearings at Tasman; I'm likely to present at the Wellington LAP hearings as well in a month or so. The Hospitality Industry Association had me do that work, but it's expert witness stuff under court guidelines: my assessment of the evidence, rather than advocacy. I think that the evidence being put up by the police in favour of heavily restricted closing times is pretty biased and missing any of the lit that suggests closing times has very little or no effect on bad outcomes; some of the evidence put up in favour of there being substantial benefits from early closing times also has some ...issues. But I've not been blogging about it because it seems unwise to put up all my findings here when the Police lawyer's been trawling the blog for ad hominem attacks; putting up all the bits of analysis while the hearings haven't yet finished seems ill-advised. I don't think the overall body of evidence is consistent with strong reliable benefits from reduced closing times: there's way too many findings of no effect. I'll post on it when it's all done, but with disclosure that it was part of that expert witness work. I tweeted from the hearings but haven't posted on them. I'd also provided a bit of advice to Independent Liquor on evidence around RTDs.
• I might pick up other side consultancy work from time to time where time constraints permit and where a project looks fun, but if I blog on that topic, I'll note that I've done funded work on it. 
• I think that's it. Other minor bits and pieces like getting a bottle of wine as honorarium for giving a talk here and there aren't really worth going through.
• Oh, I now work for the New Zealand Initiative, a Wellington think-tank whose members are listed on their website. I don't have to clear blog posts here with them or anything like that though. The most you might notice would be that I start bugging you to attend NZI functions here in Wellington, or blogging more on the research coming from NZI as I'll have far more of a hand in it.

I think that's about it. Feel free to hate my views, conclusions, and methods if you like, but know that they're my views, conclusions, and methods.

I likely need to get around to reading Hager's book. I'm curious whether we'll get an iPredict contract on whether Collins survives to the election. The covariance between that stock and PM.National would be interesting, as would some Granger causality tests.

Alcohol work

Until now, the only bit of paid work I've done on alcohol-related matters was an analysis of the Collins & Lapsley figures on the social costs of alcohol for NABIC. That was handled as a consultancy contract through the University's Research and Innovation office.

I've been interested in alcohol policy issues for rather a while. Since moving to New Zealand, I'd loved the kind of drinking and brewing environment that's been enabled by our regulatory and tax structures. On landing here, we joined the University Wine Club, which maintained an excellent cellar and introduced us to all that New Zealand had to offer. Then we started discovering New Zealand craft beers at the University of Canterbury Staff Club. Charles, the bartender, stocks great beers and runs beer tastings, often hosted by Ralph from Three Boys' or Richard from Dux de Luxe. New Zealand's the kind of place where a home brewer can gauge market demand for his product at farmers' markets, then go on to open a brewpub. So long as you pay your excise if you're selling product commercially, the government doesn't much get in the way.

And so I've taken it as my bit of the 'critic and conscience' duties at Uni to keep an eye on regulatory and tax policy in the area. It bothers me when basic statistics are misrepresented to purport that there's some kind of drinking crisis going on; it bothers me more when economic method is abused in support of regulatory policies more likely to do harm than good.

For the next three years, and potentially longer, I will be able to devote a bit more of my time to this area. The Brewers Association of Australia and New Zealand has entered into a three-year agreement with the University to free up a bit of my time that I might spend it on alcohol-related research and policy work that interests me.

The contract between the Brewers and the University maintains pretty strict academic freedom. While I'll be having some chats with them about which projects we both might find interesting, I maintain IP rights over everything I do and so can blog or publish as I like. The three year contract is subject to renewal at the end of the second year, so if I wind up doing a bunch of work they don't like, well, I'll have another year to keep at it before the contract winds up. And since everything between the University and the Brewers, my job doesn't depend on keeping anybody happy.

I'll use Andrew Leach's Q&A about his Enbridge Professorship as model here.

What are the basic terms? The Brewers Association is paying the University an amount roughly comparable to 20% of my salary plus overheads. In addition, the award provides a discretionary research fund of $5,000. The award does not change the terms and conditions of my employment agreement with the University of Canterbury and does not change my rank; I remain Senior Lecturer. As internal accounting within the Department, but without variance to my employment contract, my teaching and other obligations will be reduced by roughly 20% to permit me time to work on alcohol policy related research.

Does this mean that the Brewers Association is paying part of your salary? Yes and no. The Brewers are providing the University with funding roughly equivalent to 20% of my cost to the University; the University pays my salary.

Can the position be revoked at the Brewers' request? No. But, the contract is only for three years. In two years' time, the Brewers, the University, and I will have the opportunity to discuss extending the arrangement. Either way, my employment agreement with the University will not change.

Are you required to be supportive of the Brewers' actions, statements, or policy preferences? No. The only expectation is that I'm able to spend some of my time at the University working on issues related to alcohol policy. The contract between the University and the Brewers strictly stipulates my full independence; academic freedom is also built into my employment contract with the University.

Does the arrangement specify subjects that you should or should not address in your research? The award does not place restrictions preventing me from undertaking any areas of research. I will be talking with the Brewers about the research projects I might undertake over the next three years, but the contract isn't particularly limiting. The Brewers will expect that I be available to provide quick economic analysis of research and policy around alcohol - the kind of analysis I've been providing on the blog and in other forums over the past several years anyway.

Do you expect me to believe you aren't conflicted by this arrangement? I cannot control others' beliefs. I invite the concerned reader to look back over the several past years' worth of alcohol policy analysis and commentary on this blog. Whatever bias I might have towards standard economic methods and methodological individualism is pretty well established. I expect that haters are gonna hate regardless of whether my work on alcohol issues is funded.

I'd balk pretty hard if academic freedom ever came under threat as consequence of this arrangement. I can't see any mechanism by which the Brewers could try to compromise my academic freedom. I also expect it would be exceptionally contrary to their interests to do so. But were it ever to come up, I'd be going pretty quickly to my Head of Department and Pro-Vice Chancellor to seek redress or to cancel things.