Transylvania, Scania, Jutland

I have just arrived in Kolding (remember Kolding in winter time? It is even more beautiful now) for a workshop tomorrow, after a short wedding detour to Helsingborg, which looks and feels way more exciting than seen from Hamlet's side of the Øresund (or Öresund, if you fancy Swedish more than Danish). This, in turn, followed some busy days in Cluj --Transylvanian citadel unable to compete landscape-wise with Scandinavian harbours & fjords, but managing instead several decent cafés/wine bars/beer gardens that start to look capable of rewarding one's hard days' nights. At the cost of detail, I'll spare your waiting and tell you upfront that Café Bulgakov won the hard-fought contest, both in terms of atmosphere and food quality (dramatic improvement since a few years ago); where, obviously, '"I'm judge and jury and executioner too'"... If they worked on expanding the selection of Belgian beers--beyond the lovely, but lonely, Leffe--and considered polishing their wine list, I would see them as top contender for the Transylvanian café in Cluj.

PS. I know you are anxiously waiting for my Shanghai impressions. And for my Boston foodies recommendations. And for details of my half-hour NCN (=Napoca Cable Network) live interview in their "Cluj zi de zi" rubric, a couple of days ago. Soon.

Sunday night econlinks: Submit the paper right now!

• The Tilburg Univ "Econ Schools Ranking". It is indeed using a rather decent pool of journals (for period 2004-2008) and moreover, you can construct your own top by choosing subsets of those journals (such as top 5 only, if you wish). Not a bad idea.

• Tabarrok on the issue of publishing referee reports. This by no means new, in fact I also had a few thoughts on this, inspired by others (inter alia, former editors at top journals, e.g., the PNAS) who had had such ideas etc.

• A pity they decided to close before I managed to assess them... While I honestly hope Ferran Adrià will revisit this decision, I cannot help noticing that this simply paves the way for the would-be King of Restaurants: El Bulli is dead, long live Noma! I promise to tell you more about Noma in the first week of April.

• (A noteworthy) LEAP forward at Harvard (via Al Roth, at Market Design). The sort of interesting academic initiatives that European universities would be wise to imitate (hope dies last)...

• Art catastrophes happen everywhere, quite frequently.

• The sustainable, meat-eating, vegetarians. And, (in a funny way) related, a great "Hústorta" short movie, by a promising young director, Jakab-Benke Nándor (with thanks to Dan). By the way, this Toldi restaurant in Cluj Napoca, on Clinicilor 23, (tried for the first time with the occasion of my recent trip there) is indeed a place where they know how to prepare meat. In general. So if you want good meat, definitely a place to try. The problem is that there is not much else than meat there... Literally. And they could do so much more. The service and ambiance are pretty decent, though they could invest in more/better marketing (online included, for instance).

• An ancient rejection letter (and more background to it). Would be a pity if this were not submitted to Economic Inquiry (first bullet point), for instance.

• Good: Jay McInerney apparently takes over the wine column at WSJ. Let us hope he's gonna be as entertaining as in Bacchus & me (first bullet point).

• Time to put all these culinary-links-Chicago in order and save for future reference, before I get there (blame the EU Commission if I am late): Chicago's great culinary middle ground. Assuming I will not go every second day to Avec (which I've tried twice by now) and above (looking very much forward to).

• Posner and Becker on consumer competence, in particular about whether any regulation concerning obesity is necessary. Or proof of the fact that Becker has a Nobel in Economics, while Posner only believes he should get one...

• And, finally for today, under the heading "Econ work is never over", this is a perfect advice for people like myself: "Submit the paper right now! Submit the paper right now!" Brilliant. Via Jeff Ely, at Cheaptalk.

Klausenburg, anno 1865

WHEN you leave Szamos Ujvár, the road passes straight over a plain, with little or nothing to relieve the monotony. A Hungarian village or two, a nobleman's mansion with the surrounding farm-buildings,-that is all, until the tall spire and the various towers of Klausenburg rise before you. The town takes you by surprise, entering it from the north; the main street is broad, with many stately buildings in it, and the square with the Catholic church in the centre, seems to belong to a larger town than Klausenburg really is. Though it has but 25,000 inhabitants, which is less than the population of Kronstadt, its general appearance makes it seem the more considerable town of the two. The capital of the Barzenland is neat and compact, the houses are none of them high; and owing to its position among the hills, which gives it such enviable beauty, there is no possibility of broad streets and an open square in the centre of the town, as is the case in Klausenburg. Here there is plenty of room and to spare, and it would seem as if the Saxon founders-liking spacious dwellings, and needing them probably for their families and servants--had determined to make use of it.

All the old buildings are essentially German in their architecture and arrangements. The ironwork before the windows, the balconies, railings, the spouts for the water running from the gutters of the roof,-each bears its own unmistakable impress; the hand and skill of the German handicraftsman is everywhere to be recognized. Those first settlers were evidently well to do in the world,-comfortable citizens, who, if they did not care for luxury, valued at its full a good substantial dwelling, giving evidence that its possessor was also a man of substance.

The above is a fragment from Chapter XXVII of Charles Boner's "Transylvania. Its Products and Its People", published in London, in 1865. The whole book is available online, part of a very welcome research project at DXARTS/CARTAH, University of Washington-- which collects, inter alia, a bunch of other, old(er), books/translations about Romania et al, in digital format.

On Cluj, property prices and (local) ambitions

I'd have many problems with some of the ideas put forward in there (eg. Emil Boc's role in Cluj's development for instance is highly overrated-- a cost-benefit analysis would most likely arrive at the opposite conclusion; the whole idea of the article is to convince people to invest in advertised property on that site, hence the general upward bias in the assessment; there is then the entirely ignored idea of spurious rises in property price, aka a possible bubble on everybody's language etc.-- but let's ignore all the shortcomings for the moment), but, overall, this short (two months old) article from 'Property Secrets' makes an interesting point. E.g., it sums up quite well the idea that Romanian cities have recently engaged in a tough (but welcome) competition to attract investment and expand (in multiple dimensions). And I tend to agree that Cluj-Napoca is, in several ways, on the right path; as for being the "second city" in Romania, that's a known known, so to speak, for some time (neah, neither Iasi, nor Constanta can beat us there, if you ask me). But the comparison term should be the world's league of second cities though; true ambitions should transcend national borders. Especially when it's about Romania's borders.

Despre ce as fi vrut sa scriu saptamana trecuta

...dar timpul nu mi-a permis:

• despre economistii de notorietate mondiala care au fost intr-un fel sau altul asociati cu Londra. Un material scurt, concis si foarte bine venit in sensul asta e pe site-ul Institutului de Studii Fiscale (pe care il vizitam in conjunctie cu Departamentul de Economie al University College London (UCL) anul trecut pe vremea asta). Si apropos, scheletul imbracat al lui Bentham e intr-adevar intr-unul din holurile UCL-ului, nu e o gluma...
• despre "greva" studentilor francezi- cam tarziu, pentru ca au reusit sa ingroape CPE-ul definiv. Adio reforme. Ar fi fost ceva sa demonstreze impotriva formei in care (ar fi trebuit relaxate conditiile de concediere pentru toata lumea, nu doar pentru tineri) legea a fost enuntata, dar nu impotriva intentiei- si cand realizezi ca altadata studentii se revoltau pentru libertate, egalitate, fraternitate si nu de dragul de a se revolta. O fi avand de Villepin problemele lui dar aici a fost mai destept decat multi altii si a incercat ceva (digresiune: monsieur Sarkozy a profitat din nou si s-a abtinut deliberat de la comentarii-sincer, il prefer pe Villepin, mais enfin, chestie de gust). Ma rezum la atat si va indic si comentariile excelente (ca de obicei) ale lui Richard Posner si Gary Becker pe blogul lor comun- pe care vi-l recomand daca vreti sa invatati ceva din ce inseamna gandire economica- si articolul surprinzator de bun al Valentinei Pop din Cotidianul.
• despre faptul ca UBB-ul intentioneaza sa-si dubleze bugetul de cercetare (super!) sperand, intre altele, ca asta va atrage "in curand un premiu Nobel la Cluj" (sic! fara umorul tipic romanesc- macar de ar fi umor- nu s-ar fi putut...oare de ce trebuie sa strice jurnalistul o stire care arata ok, ba era si pozitiva, cu tampenii din astea).
• despre faptul ca unul din motivele pentru care UBB-ul vrea sa-si dubleze bugetul (vezi paragragul precedent) este ca ar dori sa ajunga in clasamentul primelor 500 universitati din lume. Si aici fac legatura cu celalalt subiect despre care as fi dorit sa amintesc, excelenta recenta realizare a Ad-Astra (care fara indoiala va fi continuata in toti anii urmatori) constand in publicarea unui top general si pe domenii al tuturor universitatilor din Romania, in functie de publicatiile cercetatorilor de aici. Evident exista si probleme cu ierarhia asta bazata strict pe impact factor-ul ISI, dar in cazul Romaniei suntem deocamdata departe de a ne ingrijora pentru aceste detalii- despre care voi discuta in posturi viitoare pe blog.

Wiki-Cluj

Cum nu voi mai avea probabil timp deloc saptamana viitoare, un al treilea post pe astazi nu ar trebui sa fie considerat prea mult... De data asta despre Cluj...

Dan Anghel a avut acum cateva zile ideea excelenta de a aduna bloggerii clujeni (dupa modelul iesenilor, care ne-au luat-o se pare inainte- ei, nu-i bai, ardeleanu' e mai lent de felul lui, dar treaba o face pefect) pe ceea ce ar trebui sa devina - categoric!- un loc foarte vizitat in viitor, ie. blogul blogurilor clujene: Cluj BlogRoll. Pornind de aici e clar ca bloggerii respectivi- evident ne-excluzandu-ma!- ar trebui sa scrie now and then si despre Cluj- ca minima obligatie. Deci un prim entry despre Cluj in paragraful urmator.

Incep prin a introduce ceea ce cred eu (let me know if I am wrong!) ca este cea mai informativa descriere a Clujului online: Clujul pe Wikipedia, avand in plus toate sansele sa ramana (sau sa devina, daca mai sunt indoieli in privinta dominantei curente...) oricand cea mai informativa prezentare, fiind in continua transformare- o resursa dinamica. Am descoperit-o recent dand un browse intre "articolele fructuoase" Wikipedia, adica acele articole considerate excelente din punct de vedere al materialului informativ (in particular trebuie sa marturisesc ca inventia metodologiei wiki mi se pare o adevarata revolutie in ceea ce priveste comunicarea si mai ales, colectarea informatiei- si cred ca va avea un rol mult mai important din acest punct de vedere in viitor). Toti cei capabili- probabil cei mai calificati fiind nativii clujeni- sunt desigur invitati sa dezvolte mai departe aceasta colectie de informatii. Mie mi se pare deja un material excelent, cu destule avantaje comparative chiar fata de numeroasele monografii despre Cluj care mi-au cazut in mana pana acum. In plus are ca link un ghid turistic al Clujului in wikitravel - bunicel, cu toate ca ar mai fi destule de adaugat si un inceput de materiale multimedia despre Cluj in wikimedia commons- aici categoric mai este loc de multe altele, sunt doar cateva poze deocamdata.

Tot intre proiectele folosind tehnica wiki si cu potential in ceea ce priveste Clujul se numara si recenta idee a lui Sorin Matei (in colaborare cu Angela Dobrescu) in care orasele Romaniei ar fi prezentate din perspectiva locuitorilor lor. Si acest proiect mi se pare unul cu potential enorm. Deci clujeni, la treaba!