Dodging a bullet does not even begin to describe this near debacle, with Akron having shots into the end zone on the final four plays!
Local news coverage here.
Local news coverage here.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
My daughter and I have been playing "The Room" for the last couple of weeks. It is more of a puzzle than a game, and we have been doing it cooperatively rather than competitively which makes it even less game-like, but it is great fun. The puzzles are hard enough that you have to think a bit, but not so hard that you don't figure them out in finite time (and, of course, there are walkthroughs to be had all over the interwebs). And the game is visually stunning. Indeed, that may be its strongest feature. The sounds are fun too.
Recommended.
Recommended.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
From the Atlantic, something I never thought I would see: a thoughtful, empirically grounded defense of payday lenders and other alternative financial service providers for the poor written by a non-economist.
The piece does a very good job of highlighting the strengths of ethnographic work.
Of course, the policy paragraph at the end falls short of the standard set by the remainder of the discussion, but I suppose one can't have everything.
The piece does a very good job of highlighting the strengths of ethnographic work.
Of course, the policy paragraph at the end falls short of the standard set by the remainder of the discussion, but I suppose one can't have everything.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Local readers will be keenly aware that the most obvious thing that we lack around here is enough seminars to go to each week. After all, there are only two labor seminars, two public finance seminars, two development seminars, two macro seminars, an economic history seminar, an econometric seminar, a Ford School faculty work-in-progress seminar, two international / trade seminars, a health economics seminar, a new energy / environment economics seminar, two applied micro / IO seminars, a high theory seminar, the population center seminar, the survey research center seminars (including the joint program in survey methodology as well as a series specific to the PSID and another series), the quantitative methodology program seminar, the STEIT seminar, the research center on group dynamics seminar and probably some others that I am forgetting.
Given that we live in the center of a "seminar desert", I am delighted to note the arrival of a new seminar that looks to become one of my favorites: the ISQM or Interdisciplinary Seminar on Quantative Methods. You can find the schedule here. The initial meeting today features my friend Susan Murphy from the statistics department on (what I would call) statistical treatment rules. I'll be there.
Given that we live in the center of a "seminar desert", I am delighted to note the arrival of a new seminar that looks to become one of my favorites: the ISQM or Interdisciplinary Seminar on Quantative Methods. You can find the schedule here. The initial meeting today features my friend Susan Murphy from the statistics department on (what I would call) statistical treatment rules. I'll be there.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
This survey of the incoming class, reported in the Harvard Crimson, is a bit troubling.
Of course, this is what folks at Chicago suspected all along.
Hat tip: anonymous insider
Of course, this is what folks at Chicago suspected all along.
Hat tip: anonymous insider
A proposal (apparently serious) for a REPEC fantasy economist league.
I am speechless.
Hat tip: Charlie Brown
I am speechless.
Hat tip: Charlie Brown
Monday, September 9, 2013
1. How to save Microsoft? Sounds like things have come a long way from when they used to mock the corporate culture at IBM (e.g. "the guy with the neuron is in today").
2. Dissecting a year of ESPN SportsCenter.
3. Klaus Zimmerman on how Europeans can learn useful lessons about inequality from the US.
4. Being an "ambassador" for the UM-Notre Dame night game.
5. Advice on applied econometrics from David Giles. I would generalize (1) to "get to know the basic patterns in the data really well before doing anything too sophisticated." I would tone down (7) a bit, but not too much. I would translate (9) as "be a casual Bayesian".
Hat tip on #2 to ASAK.
2. Dissecting a year of ESPN SportsCenter.
3. Klaus Zimmerman on how Europeans can learn useful lessons about inequality from the US.
4. Being an "ambassador" for the UM-Notre Dame night game.
5. Advice on applied econometrics from David Giles. I would generalize (1) to "get to know the basic patterns in the data really well before doing anything too sophisticated." I would tone down (7) a bit, but not too much. I would translate (9) as "be a casual Bayesian".
Hat tip on #2 to ASAK.
Coverage from the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Florida Alligator (alternative) student newspaper.
How can you be a flagship and not really have an economics department - let alone imagine that you will make it into the upper tier of public universities?
How can you deal with 600-some undergraduate majors with six faculty members and no gradual students?
More broadly, something is very wrong with Florida's accounting process. Economics majors are really cheap to produce: they consume almost entirely large chalk-and-talk lecture classes, along with a bit of computing. There are no expensive labs or other equipment, and not many small classes. The university should see the department as a profit center. That they do not suggests something is amiss with their budget process (probably having to do with accounting across units, in this case the busyness school and the arts and sciences faculty, as hinted at in the article).
Another way to think about this is as a selective salary cut for the remaining economics faculty. Graduate programs are essentially part of faculty compensation along with being an input into undergraduate teaching. Killing the doctoral program is an indirect reduction in faculty compensation, one that Florida can probably get away with given that the few faculty remaining in the department are relatively close to retirement and so unlikely to move.
Crazy.
Hat tips: Sarah Hamersma who, thankfully, has escaped to Syracuse.
How can you be a flagship and not really have an economics department - let alone imagine that you will make it into the upper tier of public universities?
How can you deal with 600-some undergraduate majors with six faculty members and no gradual students?
More broadly, something is very wrong with Florida's accounting process. Economics majors are really cheap to produce: they consume almost entirely large chalk-and-talk lecture classes, along with a bit of computing. There are no expensive labs or other equipment, and not many small classes. The university should see the department as a profit center. That they do not suggests something is amiss with their budget process (probably having to do with accounting across units, in this case the busyness school and the arts and sciences faculty, as hinted at in the article).
Another way to think about this is as a selective salary cut for the remaining economics faculty. Graduate programs are essentially part of faculty compensation along with being an input into undergraduate teaching. Killing the doctoral program is an indirect reduction in faculty compensation, one that Florida can probably get away with given that the few faculty remaining in the department are relatively close to retirement and so unlikely to move.
Crazy.
Hat tips: Sarah Hamersma who, thankfully, has escaped to Syracuse.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Sad news about the passing of Ronald Coase, but it is hard to argue with living to 102.
I quite liked this CATO site that grades states on the transparency of their published numbers on educational expenditures (and not just because the title is a great pun).
Particularly interesting is the evidence on the lack of public knowledge of expenditure levels presented under the "Why Care" tab.
Particularly interesting is the evidence on the lack of public knowledge of expenditure levels presented under the "Why Care" tab.
My Name is Asher Lev has one more week to go at the Performance Network in Ann Arbor and is well worth the time. All three actors, especially John Seibert who plays several roles, turn in strong performances.
Recommended.
Recommended.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Armstrong, Elizabeth and Laura Hamilton. 2013. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
This book describes the results of a five year study of the residents of one (all-female) floor of one dormitory in one year at a very-thinly disguised Indiana University. It features an impressive amount of interview and observational evidence gathered in part via the extended presence on the dorm floor of members of the research team (one of whom is in the sociology department here at Michigan).
The book divides the students into three tracks: socialite, striver and achiever, and then describes, in two chapters for each path, the students who were more and less successful at the path. Lurking in the background - this is sociology, and usefully so - are the institutional constraints that channel students into particular paths and out of others and that help determine who succeeds and who fails within a chosen path. For the socialite path, for example, it is relevant that the university offers a number of degree programs that reward social skills as much as academic ones.
I found three aspects of the book particularly useful. First, the book is fantastic on the micro-foundations of mismatch. The mismatch emphasized here, unlike that in the economics literature, is social class mismatch, rather than academic preparation mismatch. I think the economics literature (including my papers) misses an important part of the story in that sense. This aspect of the book reminded me of the descriptions of class-based mismatch in Black Ice, which I read a long time ago (and also recommend).
Second, the book illustrates what it looks like when students from families where no one has gone to a four-year university (or maybe even a community college) show up on campus without much information about how things work and without much in the way of resources to help them figure it out. It is a real challenge for researchers in this area, who know how higher education works inside and out, to put themselves in the shoes of students who, not unreasonably given their environment, appear astoundingly clueless at times. This lack of information is important when thinking about dropout rates and about time-to-degree. Paying for the Party provides a good reminder of how it feels not to understand the institution very well.
Third, I found (as I nearly always do) the discussions of research methodology quite interesting. Some of them are relegated to an appendix. If you get the book, you should read them anyway. I thought they were some of the most interesting bits. This sort of ethnography with a group of subjects who all know each other and so talk about each other and talk about the research with each other raises all sorts of interesting questions that I had not thought about before in terms of research design and research ethics.
One always approaches the policy chapter in social science books by non-economists with some trepidation. Perhaps because my expectations were so low, this one was better than I expected. It still has some howlers, such as the pointless suggestion of doing away with the university's semi-pro basketball and football teams. But more broadly what it does (though not always on purpose) is illustrate that Americans expect universities to be lots of different things: finishing school for rich girls, gateway to social mobility for the rural and urban working class (and occasionally the poor), social class replication device for the upper middle class, bastion of the life of the mind, research powerhouse, and so on.
What I took away from the book is not that one of these purposes should predominate but that the university should try to make sure that students can make informed and successful choices about which aspects they want to indulge. It is very clear that the university studied in this book does not do a good job of this. First and foremost, it assigns students who are not party animals to the party dorm and then leaves them there without clear and easy pathways to get out. Moreover, the book is full of tales of hopeless counselors and of students who have no idea how to navigate the university and no idea how to get someone to help them do so. These are customer service basics for a university.
The authors want to draw broader conclusions than simply how to better run a large public university. I was fine with some of what they had to say, but in other cases I thought that they went astray by over-generalizing from one floor in one (party) dorm in one cohort. Still, Paying for the Party is very much recommended for those interested in the inner workers of academia from the student's viewpoint.
This book describes the results of a five year study of the residents of one (all-female) floor of one dormitory in one year at a very-thinly disguised Indiana University. It features an impressive amount of interview and observational evidence gathered in part via the extended presence on the dorm floor of members of the research team (one of whom is in the sociology department here at Michigan).
The book divides the students into three tracks: socialite, striver and achiever, and then describes, in two chapters for each path, the students who were more and less successful at the path. Lurking in the background - this is sociology, and usefully so - are the institutional constraints that channel students into particular paths and out of others and that help determine who succeeds and who fails within a chosen path. For the socialite path, for example, it is relevant that the university offers a number of degree programs that reward social skills as much as academic ones.
I found three aspects of the book particularly useful. First, the book is fantastic on the micro-foundations of mismatch. The mismatch emphasized here, unlike that in the economics literature, is social class mismatch, rather than academic preparation mismatch. I think the economics literature (including my papers) misses an important part of the story in that sense. This aspect of the book reminded me of the descriptions of class-based mismatch in Black Ice, which I read a long time ago (and also recommend).
Second, the book illustrates what it looks like when students from families where no one has gone to a four-year university (or maybe even a community college) show up on campus without much information about how things work and without much in the way of resources to help them figure it out. It is a real challenge for researchers in this area, who know how higher education works inside and out, to put themselves in the shoes of students who, not unreasonably given their environment, appear astoundingly clueless at times. This lack of information is important when thinking about dropout rates and about time-to-degree. Paying for the Party provides a good reminder of how it feels not to understand the institution very well.
Third, I found (as I nearly always do) the discussions of research methodology quite interesting. Some of them are relegated to an appendix. If you get the book, you should read them anyway. I thought they were some of the most interesting bits. This sort of ethnography with a group of subjects who all know each other and so talk about each other and talk about the research with each other raises all sorts of interesting questions that I had not thought about before in terms of research design and research ethics.
One always approaches the policy chapter in social science books by non-economists with some trepidation. Perhaps because my expectations were so low, this one was better than I expected. It still has some howlers, such as the pointless suggestion of doing away with the university's semi-pro basketball and football teams. But more broadly what it does (though not always on purpose) is illustrate that Americans expect universities to be lots of different things: finishing school for rich girls, gateway to social mobility for the rural and urban working class (and occasionally the poor), social class replication device for the upper middle class, bastion of the life of the mind, research powerhouse, and so on.
What I took away from the book is not that one of these purposes should predominate but that the university should try to make sure that students can make informed and successful choices about which aspects they want to indulge. It is very clear that the university studied in this book does not do a good job of this. First and foremost, it assigns students who are not party animals to the party dorm and then leaves them there without clear and easy pathways to get out. Moreover, the book is full of tales of hopeless counselors and of students who have no idea how to navigate the university and no idea how to get someone to help them do so. These are customer service basics for a university.
The authors want to draw broader conclusions than simply how to better run a large public university. I was fine with some of what they had to say, but in other cases I thought that they went astray by over-generalizing from one floor in one (party) dorm in one cohort. Still, Paying for the Party is very much recommended for those interested in the inner workers of academia from the student's viewpoint.
The Atlantic reports on the demise of what is surely the only unionized, worker-owned peep show.
I liked this line: "... to dismiss the idea that vulgarity and uplift can coexist side-by-side is to deny the degenerate magic of San Francisco."
My post about the Seattle Lusty Lady closing a few years ago is here.
I liked this line: "... to dismiss the idea that vulgarity and uplift can coexist side-by-side is to deny the degenerate magic of San Francisco."
My post about the Seattle Lusty Lady closing a few years ago is here.
1. Michigan dorm cafeterias drop their trays. Does this count as an application of behavioral economics?
2. Seattle Public Library breaks the record for book dominoes.
3. The war on (some) drugs just keeps on giving. Can we stop now?
4. Great stuff from Camille Paglia.
5. Prospective grad student fail. At Western Ontario, we had a job candidate tell us that their adviser said they could be the "next big thing".
Hat tip on #2 to Charlie Brown. #3 and #4 via instapundit.
2. Seattle Public Library breaks the record for book dominoes.
3. The war on (some) drugs just keeps on giving. Can we stop now?
4. Great stuff from Camille Paglia.
5. Prospective grad student fail. At Western Ontario, we had a job candidate tell us that their adviser said they could be the "next big thing".
Hat tip on #2 to Charlie Brown. #3 and #4 via instapundit.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Another moral panic done in by empirical work.
What if all of the moral panics were just ways to sell newspapers (or their more modern equivalents) and to bring money, power, and ill-gotten warm glow to those who exploit them?
What if all of the moral panics were just ways to sell newspapers (or their more modern equivalents) and to bring money, power, and ill-gotten warm glow to those who exploit them?
First, the most obvious take-away from watching a game featuring two teams running fast offenses is that it is just a lot more fun to watch because there is less downtime between plays.
Second, wow! The Huskies looked great and Boise State looked, especially in the second half, frustrated and flat.
Seattle Times coverage here.
Second, wow! The Huskies looked great and Boise State looked, especially in the second half, frustrated and flat.
Seattle Times coverage here.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
The NYT has some thoughts on the matter.
Two factual errors right of the bat:
More importantly, how is it a fact that economics has no predictive power? Economists find evidence consistent with their theories all the time. The journals are filled with such evidence. Demand curves sure seem to slope down pretty much always and everywhere. Socialism (the real kind where the government runs the economy) actually did collapse due to the coordination problems outlined in the socialist calculation debate. Even more esoteric bits of economics like signalling models have fine bodies of evidence. This sure seems like predictive power to me.
As with other articles of this sort, the authors suffer from two primary confusions. First, they confuse a subset of macroeconomics with all of economics. More importantly, they fail to see that a theory that predicts what we cannot predict is itself interesting, useful and compelling. John Cochrane at Chicago has made this point forcefully on his blog (not the exact post I remember ... couldn't find that one). Indeed, they fail to even mention this possibility.
A secondary confusion is that they talk as though theory were useful for policy without evidence, a view in the spirit of that advanced by some Austrian economists. In my experience, knowing the sign of a relationship, which is what theory typically provides, rarely suffices to make actual policy choices. Usually you need magnitudes as well, as theory often lays out forces operating in opposite directions.
In short, I read this piece as a great big muddle.
Hat tip: Tanya Byker
Two factual errors right of the bat:
The fact that the discipline of economics hasn’t helped us improve our predictive abilities suggests it is still far from being a science, and may never be. Still, the misperceptions persist. A student who graduates with a degree in economics leaves college with a bachelor of science, but possesses nothing so firm as the student of the real world processes of chemistry or even agriculture.Trivially, many economics degrees (including mine) are bachelor of arts degrees rather than bachelor of science degrees. This is easy to check, these science-minded authors (and the armies of fact-checkers at the NYT) could not be bothered.
More importantly, how is it a fact that economics has no predictive power? Economists find evidence consistent with their theories all the time. The journals are filled with such evidence. Demand curves sure seem to slope down pretty much always and everywhere. Socialism (the real kind where the government runs the economy) actually did collapse due to the coordination problems outlined in the socialist calculation debate. Even more esoteric bits of economics like signalling models have fine bodies of evidence. This sure seems like predictive power to me.
As with other articles of this sort, the authors suffer from two primary confusions. First, they confuse a subset of macroeconomics with all of economics. More importantly, they fail to see that a theory that predicts what we cannot predict is itself interesting, useful and compelling. John Cochrane at Chicago has made this point forcefully on his blog (not the exact post I remember ... couldn't find that one). Indeed, they fail to even mention this possibility.
A secondary confusion is that they talk as though theory were useful for policy without evidence, a view in the spirit of that advanced by some Austrian economists. In my experience, knowing the sign of a relationship, which is what theory typically provides, rarely suffices to make actual policy choices. Usually you need magnitudes as well, as theory often lays out forces operating in opposite directions.
In short, I read this piece as a great big muddle.
Hat tip: Tanya Byker
Friday, August 30, 2013
I'm So Excited got amazingly half-hearted reviews given that it comes from famous Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. I agree that it is not his best, but it is a pleasant enough bit of fluff in his signature style. I suspect that it is just a bit too 70s for our more serious age.
It is worth noting, too, that both the NYT and the other review I looked at (can't recall just where) interpret the movie outside its Spanish cultural context. Spain is still both getting over the extreme cultural conservatism of the Franco years and trying to distract itself from pretty serious economic challenges.
In any case, recommended, if you don't mind a lot of sex, drugs and disco (including a truly hilarious dance routine to the song in the movie's title).
It is worth noting, too, that both the NYT and the other review I looked at (can't recall just where) interpret the movie outside its Spanish cultural context. Spain is still both getting over the extreme cultural conservatism of the Franco years and trying to distract itself from pretty serious economic challenges.
In any case, recommended, if you don't mind a lot of sex, drugs and disco (including a truly hilarious dance routine to the song in the movie's title).
As we appear to be about to embark on another ill-considered war, this list of 20th century US foreign policy mistakes (he calls them Shatners for reasons explained in his post) from Dan Drezner is particularly apposite.
I would drop the one about the League of Nations and replace it with one about entering World War 1. I would replace one of the others, I am not sure which, with the failure of the US to open its doors wide to immigration by European Jews during the 1930s.
I would drop the one about the League of Nations and replace it with one about entering World War 1. I would replace one of the others, I am not sure which, with the failure of the US to open its doors wide to immigration by European Jews during the 1930s.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
The Seattle Times on the look and feel of the remodeled Husky Stadium, which premieres this Saturday with Washington's season-opening game against Boise State.
Addendum: you can even get a jigsaw puzzle of the new stadium.
Addendum: you can even get a jigsaw puzzle of the new stadium.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Koedel, Cory. 2011. "Higher Education Structure and Education Outcomes: Evidence from the USA." Education Economics.
This paper documents substantial differences across states in their higher education (HE) structures and highlights several empirical relationships between these structures and individuals’ HE outcomes. Not surprisingly, individuals who are exposed to more-fractionalized HE structures are more likely to attend small public universities and less likely to attend large public universities. Exposure to more-fractionalized structures is also associated with increased degree attainment and increased exits from the in-state public-university system (to private and out-of-state public universities). These findings highlight potentially important tradeoffs related to state policy on HE structure.
Older (non-gated) version here.
I like this paper not because I find the causal estimation that convincing but because I think it addresses a really interesting and important topic that is rarely studied or even discussed, which is the optimal design of public state university systems. If you read the literature, there is lots of praise for Clark Kerr and the California system, but this largely has to do, I think, with the fact that he was a charismatic and well-known administrator, not because of any particular body of systemic evidence. This paper provides some descriptive evidence on the variation in fractionalization among states and attempts a causal analysis. Because the only real variation is cross-sectional (as university systems are slow-moving beasts), this is at best suggestive, but it is also all you can do. There is more to be done here along e.g. the quality dimension.
This paper documents substantial differences across states in their higher education (HE) structures and highlights several empirical relationships between these structures and individuals’ HE outcomes. Not surprisingly, individuals who are exposed to more-fractionalized HE structures are more likely to attend small public universities and less likely to attend large public universities. Exposure to more-fractionalized structures is also associated with increased degree attainment and increased exits from the in-state public-university system (to private and out-of-state public universities). These findings highlight potentially important tradeoffs related to state policy on HE structure.
Older (non-gated) version here.
I like this paper not because I find the causal estimation that convincing but because I think it addresses a really interesting and important topic that is rarely studied or even discussed, which is the optimal design of public state university systems. If you read the literature, there is lots of praise for Clark Kerr and the California system, but this largely has to do, I think, with the fact that he was a charismatic and well-known administrator, not because of any particular body of systemic evidence. This paper provides some descriptive evidence on the variation in fractionalization among states and attempts a causal analysis. Because the only real variation is cross-sectional (as university systems are slow-moving beasts), this is at best suggestive, but it is also all you can do. There is more to be done here along e.g. the quality dimension.
1. A truly awe-inspiring pun, all the better for including the word "penultimate", which is one of my favorites.
2. A history of the bikini from Slate. I had no idea where the name came from but now I know.
3. Some history about the newly renovated law quad at Michigan.
4. Everything is okay now.
5. I really enjoyed this page that MR linked to about things that everyone in an occupation knows that outsiders do not.
Hat tip on #1 to Tanya Byker. #4 via the Honest Courtesan.
2. A history of the bikini from Slate. I had no idea where the name came from but now I know.
3. Some history about the newly renovated law quad at Michigan.
4. Everything is okay now.
5. I really enjoyed this page that MR linked to about things that everyone in an occupation knows that outsiders do not.
Hat tip on #1 to Tanya Byker. #4 via the Honest Courtesan.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Wow. There was a noticeable collective drawing in of breath at the end of the (well-populated) screening of Blue Jasmine last night at the Michigan Theater. It is that good. And Cate Blanchett's performance is really that good.
NYT review here. They like it too.
Highly recommended.
NYT review here. They like it too.
Highly recommended.
1. What to do when the neighbors are too loud in bed (from the Atlantic!)
2. Piers of the realm. I want to visit one of these piers.
3. A pinball machine museum near Ann Arbor.
4. Signs you might not be a real libertarian, from the Daily Kos (?).
5. Update on Timbuktu from the FT.
2. Piers of the realm. I want to visit one of these piers.
3. A pinball machine museum near Ann Arbor.
4. Signs you might not be a real libertarian, from the Daily Kos (?).
5. Update on Timbuktu from the FT.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
I tried Belly Deli last week at the suggestion of my teaching assistant for my graduate course this fall. It is in the space that No Thai! vacated when they moved to larger digs in the ground floor of one of the new luxury student apartment buildings.
Belly Deli offers Asian Fusion food, including the tasty pork "Belly Sammy" that I had.
And they surely deserve some bonus points for picking a name that is a pun on a euphemism for diarrhea.
Recommended.
Belly Deli offers Asian Fusion food, including the tasty pork "Belly Sammy" that I had.
And they surely deserve some bonus points for picking a name that is a pun on a euphemism for diarrhea.
Recommended.
1. Borders resurfaces in Singapore
2. Arbor Hills shopping center opens across the street from the Whole Foods temple.
3, Sue Dynarksi explains Finnish educational success.
4, Does this critique actually apply to more than one famous economist? I don't think so.
5, Ginger Ambition offers post-graduation life advice.
2. Arbor Hills shopping center opens across the street from the Whole Foods temple.
3, Sue Dynarksi explains Finnish educational success.
4, Does this critique actually apply to more than one famous economist? I don't think so.
5, Ginger Ambition offers post-graduation life advice.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
1. NPR on the anniversary of the drive-in theater. I have an especially fond memory of the Fife drive-in.
2. Politics Texas style, with cats. It is indeed a marvel that anything works at all.
3. Is Linda Lovelace a good guide to the adult film industry?
4. The shrinking (relative) role of tenured professors. I am not sure that this is such a bad thing.
Hat tip on #2 to Charlie Brown.
2. Politics Texas style, with cats. It is indeed a marvel that anything works at all.
3. Is Linda Lovelace a good guide to the adult film industry?
4. The shrinking (relative) role of tenured professors. I am not sure that this is such a bad thing.
Hat tip on #2 to Charlie Brown.
Ehrman, Bart. 2006. The Lost Gospel of Judas Escariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed. Oxford University Press.
This book tells the tale of a lost gospel found in Egypt late in the last century and ultimately liberated into the public eye by National Geographic. Really, there are two stories here, perhaps three. One story is the history of the manuscript itself, the highlight of which is a 16 year stay in a safe-deposit box in a bank on Long Island. It turns out that this is a bad way to store ancient papyrus manuscripts. Who would have guessed? The other story, or stories, relates the contents of the gospel, and describes their relationship to the gnostic Christianity of the centuries immediately after Jesus' death. This gospel is unique in that it treats Judas as the hero among the disciples. An important part of the second story, then, is why someone might write such a gospel, what it might mean that they did, and how it fits in with various ancient theologies. I found the book fascinating throughout, though it has the feeling of being a tiny bit rushed (perhaps to meet the timetable of the National Geographic special) and it is aimed a little lower in terms of the reader's prior knowledge than the other Ehrman books I have read (though it is still not a book for general readers).
Recommend if you are into such things.
This book tells the tale of a lost gospel found in Egypt late in the last century and ultimately liberated into the public eye by National Geographic. Really, there are two stories here, perhaps three. One story is the history of the manuscript itself, the highlight of which is a 16 year stay in a safe-deposit box in a bank on Long Island. It turns out that this is a bad way to store ancient papyrus manuscripts. Who would have guessed? The other story, or stories, relates the contents of the gospel, and describes their relationship to the gnostic Christianity of the centuries immediately after Jesus' death. This gospel is unique in that it treats Judas as the hero among the disciples. An important part of the second story, then, is why someone might write such a gospel, what it might mean that they did, and how it fits in with various ancient theologies. I found the book fascinating throughout, though it has the feeling of being a tiny bit rushed (perhaps to meet the timetable of the National Geographic special) and it is aimed a little lower in terms of the reader's prior knowledge than the other Ehrman books I have read (though it is still not a book for general readers).
Recommend if you are into such things.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
1. Law professors misbehaving.
2. Blimpy Burger: the final hours.
3. Capital-labor substitution in fast food.
4. Fun with statues.
5. Megan is correct about brokers. Avoid them.
Hat tip on #1 to Charlie Brown.
2. Blimpy Burger: the final hours.
3. Capital-labor substitution in fast food.
4. Fun with statues.
5. Megan is correct about brokers. Avoid them.
Hat tip on #1 to Charlie Brown.
I am generally in agreement with what Miles and Noah have to say, but would add or alter a few bits:
1. By all means do not just focus on the top five or 10 or 15 programs. The poster child here is probably Amitabh Chandra (now at the Kennedy School), whose doctorate is from Kentucky. On my very first visit to Kentucky back in my assistant professor days, I was assigned to meet with Amitabh and told to talk him out of staying at Kentucky for his doctorate. I failed, but his career seems to have turned out fine anyway. The reason it turned out fine is that the faculty at Kentucky, who already knew Amitabh as a stellar undergraduate, treated him like a colleague throughout his doctoral studies. He got a lot more attention and opportunity than he would have at a top program. Example number two is my colleague Martha Bailey, whose doctorate is from Vanderbilt. What Amitabh and Martha have in common is a lot of internal drive, which you need to make this strategy work because there is less external pressure from peers and faculty outside the top departments.
2. You should take more than just one statistics course. If your college offers an upper econometrics track for undergraduates (many do, and Michigan will soon) take the whole thing. If an upper track is not available, be sure you do what you can and think about taking some courses in the statistics department as well.
3. Learn to program if you do not already know. Pretty much any reasonable programming language will do. Once you have learned one, others (including statistical packages like Stata or Matlab) are much easier to learn.
4. I think there can be more value in doing an MA first than Miles and Noah. This is particularly true if your undergraduate record is a bit weak and/or if you are unsure you really want to do a doctorate. The trick is then picking the correct MA program. Many are aimed at mid-career people adding a credential and not at people thinking about a doctorate. I recommend in particular the programs at UBC and Toronto. They have the added bonus of plugging you into a somewhat different network and letting you experience life in another country (assuming you are not Canadian).
5. It is harder to get someone to hire you as a research assistant, even at a zero money wage, than Miles and Noah suggest. The time cost to the professor is really large of having a research assistant. Paying that time cost for someone who turns out not to produce - it happens! - is something faculty really try hard to avoid. So if you want to do this, it is probably best to first make a good impression in a class, or in someone else's class who is willing to write an email of introduction for you to the person you want to work for.
6. Think about taking, or at least auditing, first-year graduate courses at your undergraduate institution. I did this at Washington, taking Gene Silberberg's excellent first quarter of graduate micro.
7. Getting a doctorate at a biz school with an economics group is at least as good as a straight-up economics program. It is easier to get in and you will likely have more financial aid and a nicer place to work. The same holds for some policy school doctoral programs.
1. By all means do not just focus on the top five or 10 or 15 programs. The poster child here is probably Amitabh Chandra (now at the Kennedy School), whose doctorate is from Kentucky. On my very first visit to Kentucky back in my assistant professor days, I was assigned to meet with Amitabh and told to talk him out of staying at Kentucky for his doctorate. I failed, but his career seems to have turned out fine anyway. The reason it turned out fine is that the faculty at Kentucky, who already knew Amitabh as a stellar undergraduate, treated him like a colleague throughout his doctoral studies. He got a lot more attention and opportunity than he would have at a top program. Example number two is my colleague Martha Bailey, whose doctorate is from Vanderbilt. What Amitabh and Martha have in common is a lot of internal drive, which you need to make this strategy work because there is less external pressure from peers and faculty outside the top departments.
2. You should take more than just one statistics course. If your college offers an upper econometrics track for undergraduates (many do, and Michigan will soon) take the whole thing. If an upper track is not available, be sure you do what you can and think about taking some courses in the statistics department as well.
3. Learn to program if you do not already know. Pretty much any reasonable programming language will do. Once you have learned one, others (including statistical packages like Stata or Matlab) are much easier to learn.
4. I think there can be more value in doing an MA first than Miles and Noah. This is particularly true if your undergraduate record is a bit weak and/or if you are unsure you really want to do a doctorate. The trick is then picking the correct MA program. Many are aimed at mid-career people adding a credential and not at people thinking about a doctorate. I recommend in particular the programs at UBC and Toronto. They have the added bonus of plugging you into a somewhat different network and letting you experience life in another country (assuming you are not Canadian).
5. It is harder to get someone to hire you as a research assistant, even at a zero money wage, than Miles and Noah suggest. The time cost to the professor is really large of having a research assistant. Paying that time cost for someone who turns out not to produce - it happens! - is something faculty really try hard to avoid. So if you want to do this, it is probably best to first make a good impression in a class, or in someone else's class who is willing to write an email of introduction for you to the person you want to work for.
6. Think about taking, or at least auditing, first-year graduate courses at your undergraduate institution. I did this at Washington, taking Gene Silberberg's excellent first quarter of graduate micro.
7. Getting a doctorate at a biz school with an economics group is at least as good as a straight-up economics program. It is easier to get in and you will likely have more financial aid and a nicer place to work. The same holds for some policy school doctoral programs.
I did not know about this fellow Vikram Seth until yesterday. I will venture to say that this is a fairly unusual career path.
Hat tip: Caroline Theoharides
Hat tip: Caroline Theoharides
Friday, August 16, 2013
You can now watch the videos and look at the slides from a conference on "The Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Research University Today" that was held here in Ann Arbor in the spring.
You can watch Paul Courant and me talk about the labor market effects of college and college major in the Thursday morning session. Watching myself is not as cringe-worthy as I was expecting. Keep in mind that the audience includes zero economists; instead it is mostly deanish types.
The conference was a fascinating cultural experience for me as it was very much not my usual crowd.
And I was surprised to see that what I think of as pretty short hair, relative to my halcyon youth in the late 1970s, actually looks pretty shaggy on the video.
You can watch Paul Courant and me talk about the labor market effects of college and college major in the Thursday morning session. Watching myself is not as cringe-worthy as I was expecting. Keep in mind that the audience includes zero economists; instead it is mostly deanish types.
The conference was a fascinating cultural experience for me as it was very much not my usual crowd.
And I was surprised to see that what I think of as pretty short hair, relative to my halcyon youth in the late 1970s, actually looks pretty shaggy on the video.
The folks at seekingarrangement.com (not safe for particularly puritanical workplaces) got the Daily Mail to bite on their press release about the many teachers on their website looking for financial aid.
Hat tip: anonymous colleague
Note to younger readers: the title of the post refers to this Van Halen song, which has a slightly different spin on the matter.
Hat tip: anonymous colleague
Note to younger readers: the title of the post refers to this Van Halen song, which has a slightly different spin on the matter.
Monday, August 12, 2013
The Determinants of Mismatch Between Students and Colleges
Eleanor Wiske Dillon and Jeffrey Andrew Smith
NBER Working Paper No. 19286
August 2013
ABSTRACT
We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort to examine mismatch between student ability and college quality. Mismatch has implications for the design of state higher education systems and for student aid policy. The data indicate substantial amounts of both undermatch (high ability students at low quality colleges) and overmatch (low ability students at high quality colleges). Student application and enrollment decisions, rather than college admission decisions, drive most mismatch. Financial constraints, information, and the public college options facing each student all affect the probability of mismatch. More informed students attend higher quality colleges, even when doing so involves overmatching.
At last!
Addendum: Here is the write-up from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Note that the Chronicle treats the release of an NBER "working paper" as publication despite that absence of peer review (of the paper; the researcher has to be peer reviewed to get into NBER). Perhaps the NBER should rename their series to "Self-published papers by NBER affiliates".
Addendum: Here is the write-up from Insider Higher Ed, based on the author's interview with me.
Eleanor Wiske Dillon and Jeffrey Andrew Smith
NBER Working Paper No. 19286
August 2013
ABSTRACT
We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort to examine mismatch between student ability and college quality. Mismatch has implications for the design of state higher education systems and for student aid policy. The data indicate substantial amounts of both undermatch (high ability students at low quality colleges) and overmatch (low ability students at high quality colleges). Student application and enrollment decisions, rather than college admission decisions, drive most mismatch. Financial constraints, information, and the public college options facing each student all affect the probability of mismatch. More informed students attend higher quality colleges, even when doing so involves overmatching.
At last!
Addendum: Here is the write-up from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Note that the Chronicle treats the release of an NBER "working paper" as publication despite that absence of peer review (of the paper; the researcher has to be peer reviewed to get into NBER). Perhaps the NBER should rename their series to "Self-published papers by NBER affiliates".
Addendum: Here is the write-up from Insider Higher Ed, based on the author's interview with me.
1. When bad things happen to good people at Georgetown.
2. Matt Damon is a public policy hypocrite. Who knew?
3. On the economics of lesbian bars in NYC.
4. WTFWJD? I am with the vicar on this one.
5. The Economist on the history of Gibraltar. These little nationalist flare-ups are always a distraction from a government's domestic failures.
Hat tip on #4 to Charlie Brown.
2. Matt Damon is a public policy hypocrite. Who knew?
3. On the economics of lesbian bars in NYC.
4. WTFWJD? I am with the vicar on this one.
5. The Economist on the history of Gibraltar. These little nationalist flare-ups are always a distraction from a government's domestic failures.
Hat tip on #4 to Charlie Brown.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
In Toronto, you can rent Limba the elephant for your wedding from the Brownsville Zoo. She comes complete with a trainer, a handler, food and wedding attire!
And all for only CA$6500 for four hours.
And all for only CA$6500 for four hours.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
This story about the low-paid interns at the Nation almost seems too good to be true.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Megan McArdle on recent policy talk about the minimum wage.
The problem of confusing short run and long run impacts (or simply forgetting the distinction entirely) is hardly unique to the literature on minimum wages. The literature on "the" elasticity of taxable income has exactly the same problem. I think the underlying problem is the same in both cases (and in many others), which is that it is easier to provide compelling identification for short run effects than long run effects, and applied economics these days is too often willing to trade off policy relevance and the economics of the problem in exchange for clever and compelling identification.
With minimum wages, I think most of the story is about the substitution of capital for labor as in my favorite paper about the minimum wage.
The problem of confusing short run and long run impacts (or simply forgetting the distinction entirely) is hardly unique to the literature on minimum wages. The literature on "the" elasticity of taxable income has exactly the same problem. I think the underlying problem is the same in both cases (and in many others), which is that it is easier to provide compelling identification for short run effects than long run effects, and applied economics these days is too often willing to trade off policy relevance and the economics of the problem in exchange for clever and compelling identification.
With minimum wages, I think most of the story is about the substitution of capital for labor as in my favorite paper about the minimum wage.
Monday, August 5, 2013
A participant observer tale from the NYT.
I think more (conditional) randomization would make admissions to top schools both objectively fairer and more obviously fair to the students and parents (and the taxpayers).
And one is reminded of the line "Oh what a tangled web we weave ..."
I think more (conditional) randomization would make admissions to top schools both objectively fairer and more obviously fair to the students and parents (and the taxpayers).
And one is reminded of the line "Oh what a tangled web we weave ..."
1. A bit of maternal humor.
2. Lesson #1: diversify your portfolio.
3. Whatever happened to Tawana Brawley?
4. Wise words on inequality from Clive Crook.
5. Deans gone wild at UCLA.
Hat tip on #1 to Lisa Gribowski and on #2 to Charlie Brown. #3 and #5 via instapundit.
2. Lesson #1: diversify your portfolio.
3. Whatever happened to Tawana Brawley?
4. Wise words on inequality from Clive Crook.
5. Deans gone wild at UCLA.
Hat tip on #1 to Lisa Gribowski and on #2 to Charlie Brown. #3 and #5 via instapundit.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
I am surprised I never saw this piece before, which is surely the best thing I have ever read about Monica Lewinsky.
... a publication denied?
The NYT details a discussion of this issue in history.
Letting the dissertator choose seems like the best way to go to me, though no embargo should last more than a few years.
Hat tip: Charlie Brown
The NYT details a discussion of this issue in history.
Letting the dissertator choose seems like the best way to go to me, though no embargo should last more than a few years.
Hat tip: Charlie Brown
Physicians Treating Physicians: Information and Incentives in Childbirth
Erin M. Johnson, M. Marit Rehavi
NBER Working Paper No. 19242
Issued in July 2013
Abstract:
This paper provides new evidence on the interaction between patient information and financial incentives in physician induced demand (PID). Using rich microdata on childbirth, we compare the treatment of physicians when they are patients with that of comparable non-physicians. We exploit a unique institutional feature of California to determine how inducement varies with obstetricians' financial incentives. Consistent with PID, physicians are almost 10 percent less likely to receive a C-section, with only a quarter of this effect attributable to differential sorting of patients to hospitals or obstetricians. Financial incentives have a large effect on C-section probabilities for non-physicians, but physician-patients are relatively unaffected. Physicians also have better health outcomes, suggesting overuse of C-sections adversely impacts patient health.
Erin M. Johnson, M. Marit Rehavi
NBER Working Paper No. 19242
Issued in July 2013
Abstract:
This paper provides new evidence on the interaction between patient information and financial incentives in physician induced demand (PID). Using rich microdata on childbirth, we compare the treatment of physicians when they are patients with that of comparable non-physicians. We exploit a unique institutional feature of California to determine how inducement varies with obstetricians' financial incentives. Consistent with PID, physicians are almost 10 percent less likely to receive a C-section, with only a quarter of this effect attributable to differential sorting of patients to hospitals or obstetricians. Financial incentives have a large effect on C-section probabilities for non-physicians, but physician-patients are relatively unaffected. Physicians also have better health outcomes, suggesting overuse of C-sections adversely impacts patient health.
Friday, August 2, 2013
1. A reminder of the good old days. Is Monica Lewinsky really 40?
2. Weiner campaign intern meltdown.
3. Private security in Detroit.
4. Dan Drezner on honest book acknowledgements.
5. Ann Arbor comes in second (!!!!) in a ranking of college towns from livability.com.
2. Weiner campaign intern meltdown.
3. Private security in Detroit.
4. Dan Drezner on honest book acknowledgements.
5. Ann Arbor comes in second (!!!!) in a ranking of college towns from livability.com.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Sunday, July 28, 2013
This piece from thinkprogress goes into some depths on the Kennedy School dissertation that led Jason Richwine to get fired from the Heritage Foundation.
It includes quotes from several people I know. I can certainly repeat what they and some of the others quoted in the article have said about the quality and seriousness of Richwine's dissertation committee.
The author is a bit more surprised than he should be that some dissertations are better than others, even at Harvard, but otherwise does a pretty nice job as a non-specialist dealing with a complicated topic and the somewhat arcane process by which dissertations get produced.
Hat tip: ASAK, on a roll with interesting things to read
It includes quotes from several people I know. I can certainly repeat what they and some of the others quoted in the article have said about the quality and seriousness of Richwine's dissertation committee.
The author is a bit more surprised than he should be that some dissertations are better than others, even at Harvard, but otherwise does a pretty nice job as a non-specialist dealing with a complicated topic and the somewhat arcane process by which dissertations get produced.
Hat tip: ASAK, on a roll with interesting things to read
We had to buy a new car last week, something I had managed to avoid since my Western Ontario days. My main memory from that purchase, which was in 1999 (!) was the joy of having the salesperson at the Honda dealership in London, Ontario lie to my face. Fortunately, I had followed the then-current advice about getting other offers via fax, plus I had read Consumer Reports so, though the experience was quite unpleasant, I did not get taken to the cleaners too seriously.
It struck me at the time, and it still strikes me now. that making the experience so unpleasant probably leads people to buy cars less often, and so may, on net, make the car industry worse off, relative to an equilibrium of posted prices and honest dealing. I suspect though that it is not in the interest of any individual dealer, and perhaps any individual brand, to go it alone in that regard. Saturn did not persist, despite its posted prices. I am told that now Mini occupies the posted price niche, though there are many ways to take advantage other than via the base sales price for the car.
What struck me about this round of car-buying is that the information environment is much richer. The document above is something I got via American Express. I believe that the same underlying firm also provides information via Consumer Reports. Our salesperson also provided a similar, but less informative (just the mean, not the distribution) document from Edmunds. The document above shows the distribution of purchase prices for the particular model of CR-V that we ended up buying over some time period in my local area. We stopped going back and forth with the dealer when we got down to about the 20th percentile of that distribution. As you would expect, each additional reduction in the negotiated price became more time consuming and less pleasant to accomplish. The 20th percentile is about where MC = MB given our time costs and tolerance for aggressive interaction.
We had a relatively (and relatively is a very important modifier here) unobjectionable salesperson. What struck me in standing around the dealership and also in our one conversation with the manager is that most of the staff other than our salesperson almost seem to deliberately dress and act like carnival hucksters. Is this really profit maximizing? Our guy had a different approach. He was a bit chubby and rumpled and not as slick as the others; for that reason, he came off as more honest and sincere. The night we went to pick up our car he had several other customers and no one else in the dealership had any, so apparently his approach is working.
In any case, we like the car. I hope it lasts at least as long as my sadly departed Civic so that I don't have to go through the buying process again any time soon.
Oh, and a free paper idea. It seems to me that the much richer informational environment should have led to a reduced variance in sale prices. If you write the paper, please send me a copy.
1. What Bill Gates reads (short answer: lots of pop social science).
2. Someone should tell this reporter at the Seattle Times, and the mayoral candidates she writes about, that treating unconditional earnings differences between subgroups as if they mean something serves only to demonstrate ignorance of the relevant literature.
3. Literacy test for voters (not all voters, of course) in Louisiana before the civil rights era. How did the people who wrote and administered such things sleep at night? Or sit through a church service?
4. Avoiding budget hotels in China.
5. Cool space shuttle booster video.
Hat tip on #2 to Ken Troske.
2. Someone should tell this reporter at the Seattle Times, and the mayoral candidates she writes about, that treating unconditional earnings differences between subgroups as if they mean something serves only to demonstrate ignorance of the relevant literature.
3. Literacy test for voters (not all voters, of course) in Louisiana before the civil rights era. How did the people who wrote and administered such things sleep at night? Or sit through a church service?
4. Avoiding budget hotels in China.
5. Cool space shuttle booster video.
Hat tip on #2 to Ken Troske.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The Way, Way Back is a mighty mountain of sugar, but it is charming and well-done sugar.
A.O. Scott has a fine review at the NYT; there is no politics in the movie to throw him off. I particularly like this bit: "the older actors provide a vivid omnibus of the varieties of adult awfulness."
Recommended.
A.O. Scott has a fine review at the NYT; there is no politics in the movie to throw him off. I particularly like this bit: "the older actors provide a vivid omnibus of the varieties of adult awfulness."
Recommended.
Consider this teacher in North Carolina, who seeks a raise via moral suasion.
If we suppose that her husband makes as much as she does, so that they have a household income of $62,000, that puts them in the 62nd percentile of the US household income distribution and the 96th percentile of the world income distribution, according to this calculator. Even if we suppose that her husband makes only $20,000 per year (2000 hours at $10 per hour), which seems unlikely given positive sorting in the marriage market on education and income, the percentiles are 57 and 95.
There are several issues here, more than one can address in a single post. But one important one often negotiated in discussions of teacher pay is compensating differences. Many people like to teach. That drives teaching wages down, as implicitly part of the compensation is doing a job that one wants to do, and receives praise for doing from others, rather than, say, selling used cars. Teachers should make less in dollar terms than other jobs that require the same skills / investments but lack the non-pecuniary payoff. Formally, the margin teacher should be indifferent not between the money wages of their two best labor market options, but the utility levels associated with their two best options. Also, teachers in government schools, once they have taught for a while, essentially face zero employment risk. The labor market should (and likely does) price this aspect of the job as well, and it too will lead to lower teacher money pay.
I hope she finds a teaching job she likes better in another state.
Hat tip: ASAK
If we suppose that her husband makes as much as she does, so that they have a household income of $62,000, that puts them in the 62nd percentile of the US household income distribution and the 96th percentile of the world income distribution, according to this calculator. Even if we suppose that her husband makes only $20,000 per year (2000 hours at $10 per hour), which seems unlikely given positive sorting in the marriage market on education and income, the percentiles are 57 and 95.
There are several issues here, more than one can address in a single post. But one important one often negotiated in discussions of teacher pay is compensating differences. Many people like to teach. That drives teaching wages down, as implicitly part of the compensation is doing a job that one wants to do, and receives praise for doing from others, rather than, say, selling used cars. Teachers should make less in dollar terms than other jobs that require the same skills / investments but lack the non-pecuniary payoff. Formally, the margin teacher should be indifferent not between the money wages of their two best labor market options, but the utility levels associated with their two best options. Also, teachers in government schools, once they have taught for a while, essentially face zero employment risk. The labor market should (and likely does) price this aspect of the job as well, and it too will lead to lower teacher money pay.
I hope she finds a teaching job she likes better in another state.
Hat tip: ASAK
Thursday, July 25, 2013
I tried very hard to get the nice Boston Globe reporter to talk with my colleague Justin Wolfers instead of me but was ultimately unsuccessful. As a result, I am quoted in her piece on Larry Summer's Feldstein lecture at the NBER Summer Institute yesterday, saying things that were plainly obvious to everyone in the audience.
Hat tip: Steve Woodbury
Hat tip: Steve Woodbury
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Ferguson, Craig. 2009. American On Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot. New York: HarperCollins.
Craig Ferguson is my favorite (by a fair distance) among the late night hosts. This book is his autobiography. It is pretty up front about his travails with drugs and alcohol and how he overcame them. It is pretty funny too. It also does a nice job of illustrating the combination of hard work, luck, and help from your friends that underlie career success. At the same time, my sense is that Craig understates both his ambition - the book portrays him sort of wandering from success to success, but my model says you can't get where he got without more drive and focus than he admits to - and the burdens he imposes on his romantic partners. Still, I found it well worth reading.
Recommended, if you like Craig's brand of humor and/or enjoy recovery narratives.
Craig Ferguson is my favorite (by a fair distance) among the late night hosts. This book is his autobiography. It is pretty up front about his travails with drugs and alcohol and how he overcame them. It is pretty funny too. It also does a nice job of illustrating the combination of hard work, luck, and help from your friends that underlie career success. At the same time, my sense is that Craig understates both his ambition - the book portrays him sort of wandering from success to success, but my model says you can't get where he got without more drive and focus than he admits to - and the burdens he imposes on his romantic partners. Still, I found it well worth reading.
Recommended, if you like Craig's brand of humor and/or enjoy recovery narratives.
This piece has some pretty good advice. Some comments on individual items:
1. Quotas. There are a good idea, especially for female faculty who often get showered with invitations for things because organizers want diversity (demographic diversity, that is; there are other kinds of diversity, though you might not know it if you spend all your time in academia) on whatever committee or panel or whatever they are organizing. It is important to adjust the quotas to reflect your likes and dislikes and strengths and weaknesses. Do more of what you like and less of what you don't like. For example, I could never get by on five trips a year. The one thing to avoid, though, is setting the quotas so low that you irritate your colleagues by not doing your "share" of the scut work. Of course, in a well-functioning department, assistant professors should be mostly shielded from this anyway.
2. The "feel good" email folder is a really great idea. I have two of these, one of which consists only of praise from my dissertation adviser.
3. I agree that it is important to have some fun now. Taking breaks and doing something different can improve morale and clear your mind. Both enhance productivity as well as raising overall utility.
4. I would add that it is important to work smart as well as working hard. Take a very hard look at your work process and be sure that the things you do and the way you do them all pass cost-benefit tests. I observe in myself and in others an occasional tendency to confuse doing something related to work with actually getting work done. These are not the same.
Hat tip: ASAK
1. Quotas. There are a good idea, especially for female faculty who often get showered with invitations for things because organizers want diversity (demographic diversity, that is; there are other kinds of diversity, though you might not know it if you spend all your time in academia) on whatever committee or panel or whatever they are organizing. It is important to adjust the quotas to reflect your likes and dislikes and strengths and weaknesses. Do more of what you like and less of what you don't like. For example, I could never get by on five trips a year. The one thing to avoid, though, is setting the quotas so low that you irritate your colleagues by not doing your "share" of the scut work. Of course, in a well-functioning department, assistant professors should be mostly shielded from this anyway.
2. The "feel good" email folder is a really great idea. I have two of these, one of which consists only of praise from my dissertation adviser.
3. I agree that it is important to have some fun now. Taking breaks and doing something different can improve morale and clear your mind. Both enhance productivity as well as raising overall utility.
4. I would add that it is important to work smart as well as working hard. Take a very hard look at your work process and be sure that the things you do and the way you do them all pass cost-benefit tests. I observe in myself and in others an occasional tendency to confuse doing something related to work with actually getting work done. These are not the same.
Hat tip: ASAK
The NYT article on hookups that I blogged about the other day generated a lot of activity on the interwebs, including this piece from Slate, another piece from Slate, and this piece from the Atlantic.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Performance Gender Gap: Does Competition Matter?
Evren Ors, Frédéric Palomino, and Eloïc Peyrache
Journal of Labor Economics
Vol. 31, No. 3 (July 2013) (pp. 443-499)
Abstract:
Using data for students undertaking a series of real-world academic examinations with high future payoffs, we examine whether the differences in these evaluations’ competitive nature generate a performance gender gap. In the univariate setting we find that women’s performance is first-order stochastically dominated by that of men when the competition is higher, whereas the reverse holds true in the less competitive or noncompetitive tests. These results are confirmed in the multivariate setting. Our findings, from a real-world setting with important payoffs at stake, are in line with the evidence from experimental research that finds that females tend to perform worse in more competitive contexts.
This is one of my favorites among the papers that I handled as an editor at JoLE. It is cooler than the abstract makes it sound because the abstract does not give a clear sense of the unusual but compelling institutions that provide the foundation for the findings.
Evren Ors, Frédéric Palomino, and Eloïc Peyrache
Journal of Labor Economics
Vol. 31, No. 3 (July 2013) (pp. 443-499)
Abstract:
Using data for students undertaking a series of real-world academic examinations with high future payoffs, we examine whether the differences in these evaluations’ competitive nature generate a performance gender gap. In the univariate setting we find that women’s performance is first-order stochastically dominated by that of men when the competition is higher, whereas the reverse holds true in the less competitive or noncompetitive tests. These results are confirmed in the multivariate setting. Our findings, from a real-world setting with important payoffs at stake, are in line with the evidence from experimental research that finds that females tend to perform worse in more competitive contexts.
This is one of my favorites among the papers that I handled as an editor at JoLE. It is cooler than the abstract makes it sound because the abstract does not give a clear sense of the unusual but compelling institutions that provide the foundation for the findings.
Monsters University is what you get when put Monsters Inc and Revenge of the Nerds into a blender. The animation is gorgeous and Billy Crystal is always good fun. And it is always of interest to see how higher education is portrayed in popular culture. And, of course, lessons are learned and we all become better people.
The NYT reviewer agrees about the animation but wishes they had made a different movie by putting Brave into the blender instead of Revenge of the Nerds. Well, perhaps.
Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours with your kid. If you do not have a kid, then take a pass.
The NYT reviewer agrees about the animation but wishes they had made a different movie by putting Brave into the blender instead of Revenge of the Nerds. Well, perhaps.
Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours with your kid. If you do not have a kid, then take a pass.
1. Only in Ann Arbor: the saga of the "violin monster" at Art Fair.
2. Markets in everything: transgender shoes in Ypsilanti.
3. Rotating skyscraper.
4. Prof. or hobo? Test your knowledge.
5. Will Wilkinson on DC and the living wage. I really like the phrase "moral outsourcing".
Hat tip #2 to Charlie Brown, on #3 to Jackie Smith and on #4 to Anne Fitzpatrick.
2. Markets in everything: transgender shoes in Ypsilanti.
3. Rotating skyscraper.
4. Prof. or hobo? Test your knowledge.
5. Will Wilkinson on DC and the living wage. I really like the phrase "moral outsourcing".
Hat tip #2 to Charlie Brown, on #3 to Jackie Smith and on #4 to Anne Fitzpatrick.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Ortved, John. 2009. The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History. New York: Faber and Faber.
I quite like the Simpsons, and this book is a pretty good introduction to various backstories about how the show got going, changes in the animation shop in the early years, the inevitable creative battles and so on. I particularly enjoyed the material about the mechanics of the process of how the show gets created each week.
The format consists of rearranged bits of interviews done by the author (or occasionally from published sources) interspersed with explanatory bits of authorial narrative. I suspect I would have preferred a book that was all narrative, but it is the author's book, not mine.
Recommended if you are into the Simpsons.
I quite like the Simpsons, and this book is a pretty good introduction to various backstories about how the show got going, changes in the animation shop in the early years, the inevitable creative battles and so on. I particularly enjoyed the material about the mechanics of the process of how the show gets created each week.
The format consists of rearranged bits of interviews done by the author (or occasionally from published sources) interspersed with explanatory bits of authorial narrative. I suspect I would have preferred a book that was all narrative, but it is the author's book, not mine.
Recommended if you are into the Simpsons.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Champion hypocrite and persecutor of the innocent Eliot Spitzer wants that comptrollers office so badly, and wants those book sales so badly, that he is willing to endure a pretty serious hazing on the Colbert Report.
I am not usually a big Colbert fan but the writing on this one soars above his norm. The line about Charlie Rose is my favorite.
Via TPM
I am not usually a big Colbert fan but the writing on this one soars above his norm. The line about Charlie Rose is my favorite.
Via TPM
Thursday, July 18, 2013
1. Drunken island monkeys.
2. Free speech versus occupational licensing in Kentucky.
3. Virginia Postrel on how to save Barnes and Noble. I agree with the diagnosis but am not sure that the cure is fully worked out yet ...
4. Expressing your views about the IRS via performance art.
5. Markets in everything: Portland's vegan strip club.
Hat tip on #1 to Jackie Smith. #4 via instapundit.
2. Free speech versus occupational licensing in Kentucky.
3. Virginia Postrel on how to save Barnes and Noble. I agree with the diagnosis but am not sure that the cure is fully worked out yet ...
4. Expressing your views about the IRS via performance art.
5. Markets in everything: Portland's vegan strip club.
Hat tip on #1 to Jackie Smith. #4 via instapundit.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
I did not follow this particular media circus very closely, but this Slate piece by William Saletan seems to me to provide a compelling summary of the enterprise.
1. The NYT on heterogeneous treatment effects and statistical treatment rules in medicine. The author's knowledge sort of runs out before the end of the article, but it is still pretty interesting.
2. Cool old cars in Minnesota. Ann Arbor had its (very) mini version of this last Friday.
3. Economics and video games.
4. What Amanda Knox reads.
5. Don't go driving in Russia.
Hat tip on #1 to portside.org. Hat tip on #2 and #5 to Jackie Smith.
2. Cool old cars in Minnesota. Ann Arbor had its (very) mini version of this last Friday.
3. Economics and video games.
4. What Amanda Knox reads.
5. Don't go driving in Russia.
Hat tip on #1 to portside.org. Hat tip on #2 and #5 to Jackie Smith.
The University of Washington, my undergraduate alma mater, has instituted a "diversity" course requirement on top of the regular "distribution" requirements designed to provide some breadth to undergraduate course-taking.
I think the key bit in the Seattle Times article is:
Hat tip: (Dean) Ken Troske
I think the key bit in the Seattle Times article is:
[Dean] Gregory, though, characterized the final policy as “a very modest curriculum requirement.”Charlie Brown likes to talk about a mythical software package called "PC Deanspeak" whose function is to translate the language of deans (deanish? rubbish?) into ordinary English. Running this bit through my mental version of PC Deanspeak leads to "We made the requirement so small, and the number of courses that count so large, that it will not actually change anyone's course-taking behavior, but it will make those annoying activist kids go away."
“It doesn’t complicate the curriculum,” he said. “We were careful not to do that.”
Hat tip: (Dean) Ken Troske
Monday, July 15, 2013
The NYT has made the startling discovery that college students sometimes fool around, even when they are not in a relationship, and often after consuming alcohol.
Now that's news! Move over National Enquirer!
And I am sure that nothing like that ever happened back when I was in college. No sir. Not one bit.
Perhaps equally entertaining is the author's attempt to instill in parents an odd combination of fear for their innocent children and regret that their own college lives did not feature as many drunken late night booty calls as some students enjoy today.
The careful reader might also note that the universities covered in the story are elite schools where many students are unlikely to stick around in the local area after graduation. I bet the story is different at a school like Western Michigan, where most students will stick around or, at most, move to Chicago. Lack of expected geographic mobility changes the benefit-cost calculus on relationships started in college, as does less exclusively career-focused life ambitions.
And it almost goes without saying, as it is the Times, that there is no random sample to be found, so the results of the writer's survey cannot be generalized in any meaningful way beyond the individuals at hand. Of course, I am sure that students willing to have extended conversations with a reporter about their drunken hookups are pretty close to a random sample. Aren't you?
In fact, if you read along farther, you discover that a large fraction of college students are not leading wild lives at college at all. Though who knows how good these numbers are either, for the author makes no effort to document whether they come from a scientific survey or not. Still, 40 percent having intercourse with zero or one person during college (that's five years at risk for many students, in a target rich environment) is hardly the orgy the first part of the article makes college life out to be.
The newspaper of record, indeed.
Note to younger readers: the subject of the post is a play on this book by Art Linkletter.
Via instapundit.
Now that's news! Move over National Enquirer!
And I am sure that nothing like that ever happened back when I was in college. No sir. Not one bit.
Perhaps equally entertaining is the author's attempt to instill in parents an odd combination of fear for their innocent children and regret that their own college lives did not feature as many drunken late night booty calls as some students enjoy today.
The careful reader might also note that the universities covered in the story are elite schools where many students are unlikely to stick around in the local area after graduation. I bet the story is different at a school like Western Michigan, where most students will stick around or, at most, move to Chicago. Lack of expected geographic mobility changes the benefit-cost calculus on relationships started in college, as does less exclusively career-focused life ambitions.
And it almost goes without saying, as it is the Times, that there is no random sample to be found, so the results of the writer's survey cannot be generalized in any meaningful way beyond the individuals at hand. Of course, I am sure that students willing to have extended conversations with a reporter about their drunken hookups are pretty close to a random sample. Aren't you?
In fact, if you read along farther, you discover that a large fraction of college students are not leading wild lives at college at all. Though who knows how good these numbers are either, for the author makes no effort to document whether they come from a scientific survey or not. Still, 40 percent having intercourse with zero or one person during college (that's five years at risk for many students, in a target rich environment) is hardly the orgy the first part of the article makes college life out to be.
The newspaper of record, indeed.
Note to younger readers: the subject of the post is a play on this book by Art Linkletter.
Via instapundit.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Hendel, Ronald. 2013. The Book of Genesis: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
This short (and small) but very rich book details the history of scholarly and popular interpretations of Genesis from pre-Christian times to the present. Broadly speaking, the story has three parts, starting with figural interpretations, both apocalyptic and Platonic, followed by more literal interpretations in the Protestant era, followed by critical literary readings in modern times. An initial chapter sets the context with a history of the text itself. The book is well informed by the relevant scholarship (and the author is himself a leading scholar) but is written for the intelligent non-specialist. I learned a great deal, especially in regard to the earlier figural readings.
Recommended for those into such things.
This short (and small) but very rich book details the history of scholarly and popular interpretations of Genesis from pre-Christian times to the present. Broadly speaking, the story has three parts, starting with figural interpretations, both apocalyptic and Platonic, followed by more literal interpretations in the Protestant era, followed by critical literary readings in modern times. An initial chapter sets the context with a history of the text itself. The book is well informed by the relevant scholarship (and the author is himself a leading scholar) but is written for the intelligent non-specialist. I learned a great deal, especially in regard to the earlier figural readings.
Recommended for those into such things.
1. Elevation Burger comes to Ann Arbor, and comes recommended by UM alum Adam Cole.
2. How a Fed President spends his time. Narayana was a couple years ahead of me at Chicago, and married one of my friends from my year.
3. Cool old photos, some of Detroit.
4. Is wine tasting bunk? Your worst suspicions confirmed. I do think I could sort out the wretched stuff they serve in coach on Delta from all other wines.
5. RePEc ranks economists by cohort (i.e. by year of doctoral completion). Note that the ranking is only among those economists who have taken the time to enter their information into the RePEc database.
#2 and #5 via Matt Kahn's blog. #3 via instapundit.
2. How a Fed President spends his time. Narayana was a couple years ahead of me at Chicago, and married one of my friends from my year.
3. Cool old photos, some of Detroit.
4. Is wine tasting bunk? Your worst suspicions confirmed. I do think I could sort out the wretched stuff they serve in coach on Delta from all other wines.
5. RePEc ranks economists by cohort (i.e. by year of doctoral completion). Note that the ranking is only among those economists who have taken the time to enter their information into the RePEc database.
#2 and #5 via Matt Kahn's blog. #3 via instapundit.
From Martian's Daughter, by Marina Whitman, daughter of John von Neumann. Marina is on the faculty of the Ford School here at Michigan.
Hat tip: Sarah Turner
Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour Restaurant, where I worked back in the days when I was in high school and it was a national chain, returns to Northern California later this month. Working at Farrell's was great fun, and I learned a ton of labor economics (maybe that should be personnel economics) as well, though I did not realize that's what it was at the time.
Can Seattle be far behind? There used to be a Farrell's in Ann Arbor too. Fingers crossed ....
Main Farrell's site here. More history here.
Can Seattle be far behind? There used to be a Farrell's in Ann Arbor too. Fingers crossed ....
Main Farrell's site here. More history here.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Friday, July 12, 2013
1. A success of Britain's National Health Service from the Sun (which source signals correctly that it is moderately NSFW)
2, The church of beer, in Denmark of course (and with a video including Canadian content!)
3, The American Statistical Sociological (!) Association is taken over by women.
4. Substituting capital for labor: steel industry edition.
5. Seva moving to Westgate. They should have a downtown branch too - students will never find their way out to their new location.
Hat tip on #1 to Lars Skipper (and just how did Lars miss #2?). Hat tip on #3 to ASAK.
2, The church of beer, in Denmark of course (and with a video including Canadian content!)
3, The American
4. Substituting capital for labor: steel industry edition.
5. Seva moving to Westgate. They should have a downtown branch too - students will never find their way out to their new location.
Hat tip on #1 to Lars Skipper (and just how did Lars miss #2?). Hat tip on #3 to ASAK.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Jack Klugman played Oscar Madison in the television version of the Odd Couple, which was a favorite of mine back during my heavy television-viewing years.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
1. Rob Mercer on tradition. Why does Canada produce so many good comedians? One suspects it has something to do with living next door to the US.
2. Singing anesthesiologists.
3. Oliver Sacks on turning 80. Nicely done.
4. The effect of too much rain on the Ann Arbor Summer Festival.
5. On facebook firings.
Hat tip on #1 to Lisa Gribowski, on #2 to Jackie Smith and on #5 to Charlie Brown. #3 is via MR.
2. Singing anesthesiologists.
3. Oliver Sacks on turning 80. Nicely done.
4. The effect of too much rain on the Ann Arbor Summer Festival.
5. On facebook firings.
Hat tip on #1 to Lisa Gribowski, on #2 to Jackie Smith and on #5 to Charlie Brown. #3 is via MR.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Greg explains the bonds that link classical liberal and lefty economists on the occasion of his lefty student, Jason Furman, taking over as chair of the council of economic advisers. The piece is well done though I would have said more about how, at least in DC, economists can easily put aside their usually minor differences about where on the Pareto frontier they would like to end up in favor of the much more challenging task of trying to bring policy within a light-year or two of the Pareto frontier.
His piece also reminded me of a story that my undergraduate mentor Paul Heyne (who seems to be on my mind a lot lately) used to tell about going to interdisciplinary conferences that would include him, as the classical liberal economist, some sort of lefty economist to present a contrasting view, and a bunch of scholars from other disciplines. Invariably, according to Paul, the discussions would evolve into the two economists versus everyone else. How economists think about problems really is much more important than what in most contexts are minor differences about equity and efficiency on the frontier.
His piece also reminded me of a story that my undergraduate mentor Paul Heyne (who seems to be on my mind a lot lately) used to tell about going to interdisciplinary conferences that would include him, as the classical liberal economist, some sort of lefty economist to present a contrasting view, and a bunch of scholars from other disciplines. Invariably, according to Paul, the discussions would evolve into the two economists versus everyone else. How economists think about problems really is much more important than what in most contexts are minor differences about equity and efficiency on the frontier.
This is a fun political thriller that takes place in an alternate universe in which the FDA, the EPA and the ambulance-chasing shyster lawyers looking to file class-action suits all do not exist, and so must be replaced with over-educated, painfully earnest and happily egalitarian performance artists. It is this alternate world that confuses A.O. Scott, who says something about the "contradictions of capitalism" in his review, which seems odd given that the movie is really all about government failure rather than market failure.
In any case, at the end of the day the movie's politics exist as a sort of NYT editorial page wet dream (i.e., and this is a spoiler, the misguided performance artists all misbehave because they had bad home lives and the way to deal with problems is for educated people to work through peaceful means), and can be more or less ignored in favor of the fine acting.
Recommended, with caveats
In any case, at the end of the day the movie's politics exist as a sort of NYT editorial page wet dream (i.e., and this is a spoiler, the misguided performance artists all misbehave because they had bad home lives and the way to deal with problems is for educated people to work through peaceful means), and can be more or less ignored in favor of the fine acting.
Recommended, with caveats
Monday, July 8, 2013
That the southern states dominate is not surprising. What is surprising is that Wisconsin and Ohio (or O-Lie-O as the local t-shirts in Ann Arbor have it these days) both end up in a higher category than Michigan.
Hat tip: ASAK
Hat tip: ASAK
1. Managerial chaos at the (at least formerly) very cool Tabard Inn in DC. I stayed at the Tabard for my job talk at Maryland back in the day.
2. A strange story of missing identity from the Seattle Times. I like it that rich guys in Texas who are friends with their congressman can use the social security administration as a free private investigator.
3. The science of the slinky, in slow motion.
4. Photos of the renovation of the Chicago Theological Seminary as the new home of the economics department.
5. The pentametron. Cool.
Hat tip on #1 to Austin Kelly. Hat tip missing on #2. Hat tip on #3 to Dan Black. Hat tip on #5 to ASAK.
2. A strange story of missing identity from the Seattle Times. I like it that rich guys in Texas who are friends with their congressman can use the social security administration as a free private investigator.
3. The science of the slinky, in slow motion.
4. Photos of the renovation of the Chicago Theological Seminary as the new home of the economics department.
5. The pentametron. Cool.
Hat tip on #1 to Austin Kelly. Hat tip missing on #2. Hat tip on #3 to Dan Black. Hat tip on #5 to ASAK.
I am reminded of Paul Heyne's emphasis on the point that moral energy is scarce like all other resources, with the implication that it is best to rely on incentives when possible, and to save the moral energy for contexts in which incentives perform poorly. One can think of "pure" communism / communitarianism as an attempt to rely entirely on moral energy for allocation. That moral energy is scarce is then why it fails.
Hat tip: Don Hacherl
Sunday, July 7, 2013
We saw Kings of Summer at the Michigan Theater last night.
I quite liked this movie and so was puzzled by the NYT review, which seems to completely miss the point. Complaining about the realism of the local police in a vaguely magical realist coming of age story is a bit like complaining about all the noisy space explosions in Star Wars or Star Trek. Yeah, sure, but so what?
In any case, the movie is a light-hearted bit of fun that does a nice job of capturing the angst of the teen years, particularly the way that even minor parental quirks become magnified into the equivalent of the gulag. It is also very much a movie about teen boys, and stands out for not implicitly or explicitly making them look like idiots. Oh, and the (not unrelated to the gender theme) biblical allusions are cool.
Recommended.
I quite liked this movie and so was puzzled by the NYT review, which seems to completely miss the point. Complaining about the realism of the local police in a vaguely magical realist coming of age story is a bit like complaining about all the noisy space explosions in Star Wars or Star Trek. Yeah, sure, but so what?
In any case, the movie is a light-hearted bit of fun that does a nice job of capturing the angst of the teen years, particularly the way that even minor parental quirks become magnified into the equivalent of the gulag. It is also very much a movie about teen boys, and stands out for not implicitly or explicitly making them look like idiots. Oh, and the (not unrelated to the gender theme) biblical allusions are cool.
Recommended.
1. No free speech for Urban Outfitters. One wishes that Urban Outfitters would fight back, but it is easy to see why they do not, given the lack of institutional limits on the bad behavior of state attorney generals.
2. Institute for Social Research timeline.
3. Anti-GMO and science.
4. Real estate agents misbehaving.
5. Yet another (!) new bookstore for Ann Arbor.
Hat tip on #1 to Scott Wood and on #4 to Charlie Brown.
2. Institute for Social Research timeline.
3. Anti-GMO and science.
4. Real estate agents misbehaving.
5. Yet another (!) new bookstore for Ann Arbor.
Hat tip on #1 to Scott Wood and on #4 to Charlie Brown.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
The Miami Herald offers a nice report on the dubious employment magic of STEM degrees.
The bits at the end are pretty funny. First the president of Florida International University (FIU) says that people should gets liberal arts degrees because it is impossible to predict what sorts of jobs they hold when they finish college. Then the chancellor of the University of Florida system says that the problem is exactly the reverse, that there is not enough central planning and micro-management of degree choices.
And, of course, shortages are all about prices and restrictions on entry, at least in all but the shortest run.
Tentative bottom line: the folks in Florida are making it up as they go along and really have no idea what their students should major in.
The bits at the end are pretty funny. First the president of Florida International University (FIU) says that people should gets liberal arts degrees because it is impossible to predict what sorts of jobs they hold when they finish college. Then the chancellor of the University of Florida system says that the problem is exactly the reverse, that there is not enough central planning and micro-management of degree choices.
And, of course, shortages are all about prices and restrictions on entry, at least in all but the shortest run.
Tentative bottom line: the folks in Florida are making it up as they go along and really have no idea what their students should major in.
Reason provides a sad tale of misguided "certificate of need" regulation of the transplant market in DC.
Even if you think this sort of regulation is a good idea, the regulators at least should read the latest (and I would say the most compelling) research on the subject.
Even if you think this sort of regulation is a good idea, the regulators at least should read the latest (and I would say the most compelling) research on the subject.
So let's see, does having lots of sex make you look younger or does looking younger than your age help you have lots of sex?
One is tempted to say that they need to find an instrument, but someone might interpret that as a bad pun, so I won't.
Hat tip: Charlie Brown
One is tempted to say that they need to find an instrument, but someone might interpret that as a bad pun, so I won't.
Hat tip: Charlie Brown
1. The third amendment (!) in Henderson Nevada.
2. Automated essay grading demystified and (sort of) defended.
3. Graduation advice from a small, non-random, but still interesting sample of economists
4. NRO on Hoxby and Turner. The interpretation of the Hoekstra paper could be a bit more subtle, but otherwise not too bad.
5. The FT on the changing industrial organization of English cricket.
2. Automated essay grading demystified and (sort of) defended.
3. Graduation advice from a small, non-random, but still interesting sample of economists
4. NRO on Hoxby and Turner. The interpretation of the Hoekstra paper could be a bit more subtle, but otherwise not too bad.
5. The FT on the changing industrial organization of English cricket.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Kammen, Michael. 2010. Digging Up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
This bit of academic fluff is great fun indeed. I picked it up at Shakespeare and Company in Paris and got through it pretty quickly. While the author goes to some effort to find commonalities and themes, and indeed there are some to be found, most of the pleasure here is just looking at the past through the unusual lens of exhumations and reburials. People in the distant past (and even some people in the not so distant past) have worried a great deal (and for a variety of reasons) about the locations of particular bones, and reading about their obsessions makes for entertaining and enlightening reading. Oh, and in spite of the title, some notable international reburials are covered as well.
Recommended.
This bit of academic fluff is great fun indeed. I picked it up at Shakespeare and Company in Paris and got through it pretty quickly. While the author goes to some effort to find commonalities and themes, and indeed there are some to be found, most of the pleasure here is just looking at the past through the unusual lens of exhumations and reburials. People in the distant past (and even some people in the not so distant past) have worried a great deal (and for a variety of reasons) about the locations of particular bones, and reading about their obsessions makes for entertaining and enlightening reading. Oh, and in spite of the title, some notable international reburials are covered as well.
Recommended.
CBT = cognitive behavioral therapy. The paper discussed in this NPR story was one of the highlights of this year's Institute for Research on Poverty Summer Research Workshop. Plus you get to hear Jens Ludwig coin the word "Seinfeldian".
1. Dilbert does Krugman. Ouch!
2. How can police in a college town not be able to distinguish sparkling water from beer?
3. No heroes please. One could frame this as a Canada / US thing but I think it is really of a piece with the general zero tolerance / lawsuit avoidance bureaucratic paranoia and butt-covering that is common to schools in both countries.
4. Rest area photography from Atlantic Cities.
5. The Economist on the prostitution market in the UK (where it is mostly legal): demand is down (due to the recession) and supply is up (due to the recession). What happens to prices is left as an exercise for the reader.
Hat tip on #2 to Charlie Brown and on #3 to Scott Wood.
2. How can police in a college town not be able to distinguish sparkling water from beer?
3. No heroes please. One could frame this as a Canada / US thing but I think it is really of a piece with the general zero tolerance / lawsuit avoidance bureaucratic paranoia and butt-covering that is common to schools in both countries.
4. Rest area photography from Atlantic Cities.
5. The Economist on the prostitution market in the UK (where it is mostly legal): demand is down (due to the recession) and supply is up (due to the recession). What happens to prices is left as an exercise for the reader.
Hat tip on #2 to Charlie Brown and on #3 to Scott Wood.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
There is substance to the criticisms that A.O. Scott up offers in the NYT. It would indeed be enjoyable to see a movie Star Trek that was like the more thoughtful episodes of the original or second television series. Still, this movie, which no one would call particularly thoughtful, is a lot of fun, and surely ranks above the median among Star Trek movies.
More prosaically, my dad the engineer would be pleased that the Enterprise actually has seat belts in this particular universe. He used to complain every time the Enterprise would get hit by something and all the characters would fly around the bridge on the original series, all because they had no technology for strapping themselves in. And I really liked the line "We're vulcan, we embrace technicality." I have some friends like that.
Elizabeth's review: "That was intense".
Recommended
More prosaically, my dad the engineer would be pleased that the Enterprise actually has seat belts in this particular universe. He used to complain every time the Enterprise would get hit by something and all the characters would fly around the bridge on the original series, all because they had no technology for strapping themselves in. And I really liked the line "We're vulcan, we embrace technicality." I have some friends like that.
Elizabeth's review: "That was intense".
Recommended
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
1. Advances in civil liberties in Cleveland.
2. Coney Island update. When I was there in the late 1980s, it was notable mainly as an urban ruin. Glad to see that things are looking up.
3. One more reason not to look at p*orn at work.
4. Benny Hill, Ernie, and the fastest milk cart in the west.
5. Slate on what place names mean.
Hat tip on #1 to Charlie Brown and on #4 to Peter Dolton.
2. Coney Island update. When I was there in the late 1980s, it was notable mainly as an urban ruin. Glad to see that things are looking up.
3. One more reason not to look at p*orn at work.
4. Benny Hill, Ernie, and the fastest milk cart in the west.
5. Slate on what place names mean.
Hat tip on #1 to Charlie Brown and on #4 to Peter Dolton.
Cengage has gone bankrupt, and owes Greg $1.6 million.
Thought question: what does the negative income shock do to his labor supply?
This is likely bad news for Jeff Wooldridge too. His excellent undergraduate text, which I use in my ECON 406 class every fall, is also published by Cengage.
Addendum: apparently the bankruptcy is not a problem for Greg.
Hat tip: Ken Troske and others
Thought question: what does the negative income shock do to his labor supply?
This is likely bad news for Jeff Wooldridge too. His excellent undergraduate text, which I use in my ECON 406 class every fall, is also published by Cengage.
Addendum: apparently the bankruptcy is not a problem for Greg.
Hat tip: Ken Troske and others
Here is what he has to say.
It will be interesting to see where he ends up. I hope it is not in a US prison.
It will be interesting to see where he ends up. I hope it is not in a US prison.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
... or, when bad things happen to good people, at Madison and at Princeton.
1. Nick Gillespie at reason on Alec Baldwin's latest scandal.
2. P.J. O'Rourke on space.
3. The story of one of Hitler's food tasters.
4. David Warsh on Charles Manski's new book (among other things).
5. Kaleidescope
2. P.J. O'Rourke on space.
3. The story of one of Hitler's food tasters.
4. David Warsh on Charles Manski's new book (among other things).
5. Kaleidescope
Monday, July 1, 2013
In honor of Canada Day, which is today for those readers who do not attend to such important matters, a bit of fun from the Onion.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
A list of euphemisms, drawn from the published literature, for results that do not obtain statistical significance at conventional levels.
Of course, it makes little sense to set up an arbitrary, binary cutoff level for the p-value, but that is, sadly, the world that we live in as we await the casual bayesian revolution.
Hat tip: Jianlin Wang
Of course, it makes little sense to set up an arbitrary, binary cutoff level for the p-value, but that is, sadly, the world that we live in as we await the casual bayesian revolution.
Hat tip: Jianlin Wang
Saturday, June 29, 2013
The evaluation of the Trade Adjustment Act that I posted about before has finally been released. You can find it on DOL ETA's web page.
The evaluation was performed by Mathematica Policy Research on behalf of the US Department of Labor. I would say (and I might be biased as I provided some comments at various points) that the authors have done the best they could with the available data and variation. We could, of course, have better data and variation if we really wanted to.
The evaluation was performed by Mathematica Policy Research on behalf of the US Department of Labor. I would say (and I might be biased as I provided some comments at various points) that the authors have done the best they could with the available data and variation. We could, of course, have better data and variation if we really wanted to.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
1. Could it be worse? Well, yes.
2. Deconstructing Georgetown Mall in Ann Arbor.
3. I Dream of Jeannie (and so does Bill Clinton).
4. David Warsh spanks Paul Krugman
5. Steve Martin as the Great Flydini
Hat tip on #1 to Dan Black and on #5 to Jackie Smith
2. Deconstructing Georgetown Mall in Ann Arbor.
3. I Dream of Jeannie (and so does Bill Clinton).
4. David Warsh spanks Paul Krugman
5. Steve Martin as the Great Flydini
Hat tip on #1 to Dan Black and on #5 to Jackie Smith
Monday, May 27, 2013
1. Cool pictures of old plane crashes.
2. A very Ann Arbor story involving obsessive house construction and opinionated neighbors.
3. I agree with Tyler that this is provoking and well worth reading.
4. What academic statisticians make.
5. Are banks more moral than porn stars?
#1 via the agitator. Hat tip on #5 to Charlie Brown.
2. A very Ann Arbor story involving obsessive house construction and opinionated neighbors.
3. I agree with Tyler that this is provoking and well worth reading.
4. What academic statisticians make.
5. Are banks more moral than porn stars?
#1 via the agitator. Hat tip on #5 to Charlie Brown.
Check out the Society for Metal Music Studies and read an interview with a metal studies sociologist.
A taster from the interview:
Great stuff.
Hat tip: a speaker at this conference.
A taster from the interview:
Q: What, in your view, is the dividing line between “metal” and “rock”?I guess that means metal goes up to 11.
A: Metal is one louder.
Great stuff.
Hat tip: a speaker at this conference.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Abstract
A growing interest in and concern about the adequacy and fairness of modern peer-review practices in publication and funding are apparent across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Although questions about reliability, accountability, reviewer bias, and competence have been raised, there has been very little direct research on these variables.
The present investigation was an attempt to study the peer-review process directly, in the natural setting of actual journal referee evaluations of submitted manuscripts. As test materials we selected 12 already published research articles by investigators from prestigious and highly productive American psychology departments, one article from each of 12 highly regarded and widely read American psychology journals with high rejection rates (80%) and nonblind refereeing practices.
With fictitious names and institutions substituted for the original ones (e.g., Tri-Valley Center for Human Potential), the altered manuscripts were formally resubmitted to the journals that had originally refereed and published them 18 to 32 months earlier. Of the sample of 38 editors and reviewers, only three (8%) detected the resubmissions. This result allowed nine of the 12 articles to continue through the review process to receive an actual evaluation: eight of the nine were rejected. Sixteen of the 18 referees (89%) recommended against publication and the editors concurred. The grounds for rejection were in many cases described as “serious methodological flaws.” A number of possible interpretations of these data are reviewed and evaluated.
Gated version of the full paper here.
Hat tip: John Bound
A growing interest in and concern about the adequacy and fairness of modern peer-review practices in publication and funding are apparent across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Although questions about reliability, accountability, reviewer bias, and competence have been raised, there has been very little direct research on these variables.
The present investigation was an attempt to study the peer-review process directly, in the natural setting of actual journal referee evaluations of submitted manuscripts. As test materials we selected 12 already published research articles by investigators from prestigious and highly productive American psychology departments, one article from each of 12 highly regarded and widely read American psychology journals with high rejection rates (80%) and nonblind refereeing practices.
With fictitious names and institutions substituted for the original ones (e.g., Tri-Valley Center for Human Potential), the altered manuscripts were formally resubmitted to the journals that had originally refereed and published them 18 to 32 months earlier. Of the sample of 38 editors and reviewers, only three (8%) detected the resubmissions. This result allowed nine of the 12 articles to continue through the review process to receive an actual evaluation: eight of the nine were rejected. Sixteen of the 18 referees (89%) recommended against publication and the editors concurred. The grounds for rejection were in many cases described as “serious methodological flaws.” A number of possible interpretations of these data are reviewed and evaluated.
Gated version of the full paper here.
Hat tip: John Bound
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