David Shemano:
If the imbalance of military power favors the Israelis, why do the Israelis have to give up so many more prisoners than what they receive in exchange? Should it not be the opposite if military power determines the terms of the trade?
the exchange shows that the value of an Israeli life is equal to that of 50 Palestinian lives. If that doesn't represent Israel's relative power, I don't know what does. Daniel Davies also responded:
nope; standard Ricardian argument from comparative advantage. Israel finds it cheap to produce Arab hostages but cannot produce Israeli hostages at all. Hizbollah can't produce Arab hostages and can only produce Israeli hostages at very high cost. Therefore, the terms of trade suggest an exchange rate under which Israeli hostages are very expensive (because they are produced by the scarce factor of production ie terrorists) but Arab hostages are very cheap (because they are produced by the IDF which is not a scarce factor of production). The frightening thing is that I could easily produce a version of this argument with graphs and charts to illustrate my point. The terrifying thing is that a political sociology journal would probably publish it.
good neoclassical economic training allows one to crank out models all day. Great training teaches self-restraint, so that the journals aren't cluttered with such models. They don't teach such restraint at the U of Chicago and its satrapies, so that Gary Becker's minions keep on producing garbage. (His version involves dressing up simple ideas with all sorts of unnecessary math to awe the reader.) -- Jim Devine / "You need a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
