October 15, 2016

I would never receive an Ig Nobel. The research I propose would cause no laughs, only tears

Sir, it was with great interest I read Tim Harford’s discussion on the Ig Nobel price “In praise of ridiculous research” October 15.

I immediately thought of researching: why regulators did not define the purpose of banks before regulating these; why regulators did no empirical research on what causes bank crises before imposing credit risk weighted capital requirements for banks; why regulators never considered that allowing banks to leverage differently their capital, and the support they received from society base on the perceived risk of assets, would distort the allocation of bank credit to the real economy; why regulators did not understand that further reducing the opportunity of those who are perceived as risky to access to bank credit, could only increase inequality… and so on.

That research sure sounds ridiculous, can't be!, but in fact it "might actually tell us something about the world".

But then I entered into Ig Nobel’ site “Improbable.com” and read: “ Improbable research is research that makes people laugh and then think”

Clearly I would not qualify. These regulatory failings have and are producing too much suffering, and so the research I propose would never elicit laughs, only tears.

@PerKurowski ©