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 he...
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Game: The Room
Posted on 9:44 AM by Unknown
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.Recommend...
Thursday, September 12, 2013
In praise of payday lenders
Posted on 7:15 AM by Unknown
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 everythi...
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Interdisciplinary Seminar in Quantitative Methods
Posted on 7:35 AM by Unknown
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...
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Cheaters welcome at Harvard
Posted on 12:51 PM by Unknown
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 insi...
Fantasy economics
Posted on 12:48 PM by Unknown
A proposal (apparently serious) for a REPEC fantasy economist league.I am speechless.Hat tip: Charlie Br...
Monday, September 9, 2013
Assorted links
Posted on 1:37 PM by Unknown
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...
Florida kills its economics doctoral program
Posted on 7:32 AM by Unknown
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...
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Ronald Coase, RIP
Posted on 4:07 AM by Unknown
Sad news about the passing of Ronald Coase, but it is hard to argue with living to 1...
State education expenditures
Posted on 2:00 AM by Unknown
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" t...
Play: My Name is Asher Lev
Posted on 1:57 AM by Unknown
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.Recommend...
Monday, September 2, 2013
Book: Paying for the Party by Armstrong and Hamilton
Posted on 7:41 PM by Unknown
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...
San Francisco Lusty Lady closes
Posted on 10:47 AM by Unknown
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 he...
Assorted links
Posted on 6:48 AM by Unknown
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 instapund...
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Hooking up with the data
Posted on 2:49 PM by Unknown
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 th...
Washington 38, Boise State 6
Posted on 6:37 AM by Unknown
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 he...
Michigan 59, Central Michigan 9
Posted on 6:25 AM by Unknown
Michigan's victory over "will lose for food" Central Michigan was as dominating as it was dull to watch.annarbor.com coverage here.Next week against Notre Dame should be more interesti...
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