Sunday econlinks

• One of the reasons I just love reading Landsburg: he is acid and funny. Here's something that hopefully will open a longer exchange between him and Krugman: I really think Steve Landsburg is the proper counterpart to Paul Krugman in any debate (NB: Mankiw is great, but too serious and not engaging--understandably-- enough in the type of debate Krugman seems to love). And I tell you beforehand that I shall bet all my money on Landsburg :-). This for instance should be kept for posterity: "But sometimes I think Paul Krugman is out to top them all, by excelling in two activities that are not just disparate but diametrically opposed: economics (for which he was awarded a well-deserved Nobel Prize) and obliviousness to the lessons of economics (for which he’s been awarded a column at the New York Times)."

• The semicolon is dead; long live (or rather: resurrected is) the interrobang?!

• Who should go to college and who should pay for it: with many specialist opinions (via MR). Signalling seems to be dominating as point of view, though I myself think that university also has a genuine positive effect (I agree that matters most for the students in the top of the ability distribution). Else, all might be boiling down in the limit to competition between cats with fraudulent diplomas (via boingboing, via MR).

• Kirman has been writing about these things for quite a while now (with high frequency recently), and almost always on such a revolted tone; these things are happening within Economics, for quite some years now, much of what he mentions is mainstream or closeby (think of social interactions and networks, herding behaviour in finance etc). Plus arguing for discarding these old and well known models (my belief is that most serious economists are very well aware of their limitations for each specific context), just for the sake of discarding them, is madness (who is ideologue here?...). I really don't think this is the way one should argue for different approaches. All my respect for Alan Kirman's scientific work, but with his (especially recent) comments he does seem to go/fall a long way in the direction of non-Economists misinterpreting Econ fundamentals (first bullet point), or, worse, of the several nonsense people writing now and then in The Guardian, e.g. here (6th bullet point) or here.

• The "10 simple rules for scientists" collection at PloS Computational Biology (via MR). Some are redundant, others are great; within the latter category, I think everybody should memorize the "10 simple rules for doing your best research, according to Hamming" (though ok..., rules 5 and 10 are very much location-specific :-)).

• La mémoire refoulée de la Roumanie-- le communisme reste "une abstraction".

• Tim Harford on the "Jamie Oliver Feed Me Beter" experiment in UK schools. Features recent econ research analysing effects of that experiment, by Michele Belot and Jonathan James; you can download a draft version here. The preliminary results suggest that good food has considerable positive effect on educational outcomes. Extrapolating: so stop telling me not to spend my money on Michelin-starred restaurants :-).

• The young Viking is on top of the world right now, according to the unofficial 14 Nov ELO ratings (though I am dissapointed he let Kramnik win the Tal Memorial this year, Carlsen tying for second with Ivanchuk). See also a (happy) Norwegian article on the matter(via Susan Polgar).

• I think "wine critics/commentators" should move-- what they should have done a long time ago-- to identify / classify wine quality ranges, rather than preserve the current practice of grading on a 1 -100 scale. In any case, the last paragraph in this article is the one to retain.

• Less then a week left before the Prediction Markets on the upcoming Romanian Presidentials close: don't waste the opportunity to trade your favourite Presidential stock! :-).

(Many) Econlinks for the Weekend

• A nice, brief VoxEU note of Willem Buiter on negative nominal interest rates (and their potential desirability). Greg Mankiw also tackled the topic earlier.

• If you're at all into arithmetics (and not only) you might like this concise exposé on very big numbers (think Ackerman series, Busy Beavers and the like if you are dubious about what "very big" stands for in this context...). Inter alia, this reminds me that many many years ago :-), when I was starting highschool, one of my life goals was to prove the Goldbach conjecture. I guess meanwhile I started looking for easier life targets :-).

• We absolutely love Blonde Parades -- though I wouldn't necessarily ask a financial crisis as prerequisite :-).

• Harvard in BIG trouble?...

• Pacepa and the former Romanian car industry (that he does get at all WSJ editorial space I find rather amazing in the first place, that he uses it to give advice to the USA gov on the failed car companies is, well... just fantastic :-)...). Hmm, at least he's got an interesting "style", shifting the entire blame on his former superior(s)... There isn't much Economics in there of course, as he after all admits himself..., but I would have liked at least some more precision in the numbers (and no, "billions" in "The Oltcit project lost billions" is not what I would call a good approximation)

• This is the only bullet point connected to the "pathetic" label of this blogpost. Levitt oddly calls it "reasonably interesting" on Freakonomics (I also do not agree with all Levitt's further opinions on the apparent "macro problem", but well, I guess he is well versed in Macroeconomics to know it better :-)), but I find this Guardian editorial "interesting" only inasmuch it shows the difference in Economics education between the "Economics editor" (sic!) of The Guardian and other Economics editors at, say, WSJ, NYTimes, The Economist, or FT... Inter alia, I wouldn't pretend that everybody understands the work of Bonhomme and Robin forthcoming at the ReStud (or for that matter, any other work in a top 5 research journal within Economics, which perhaps is not aimed to really everybody?), but indeed from an "Economics editor" we would perhaps expect a little bit more that the appraisal "divorced from reality" (merely from reading the abstract and nothing further in the text, since else our author would have found plenty of "reality"...). But Economics à la The Guardian it is, now you know what to read :-).

• Who's a bigger villain for Development: Mugabe or Anopheles/ Sachs or Easterly...? I guess you ought to know by now what I think in this mater, but that should not stop you from making your own opinion :-).

• In a rather vague Reuters article Romania comes 3rd in a top of "new wine regions". A pity they do not mention any Romanian wine de facto in that top, since the variance in the quality of all wines produced in the above mentioned regions is... well, infinite.

• Interesting facts & thoughts by Dan Hamermesh on (incentive...) bonuses for papers with multiple co-authors. Should they be designed as function of 1/N or 1/SquareRoot(N), where N the number of co-authors etc.? Perhaps we should also know what other disciplines do, if anything, in this regard, in Economics indeed there seems to be a (very surprising) heterogeneity of such practices among various Departments/Institutes.

• It might be the first time ever..., but yes, the Historian won against the Economist (my good old friend Daniel, Harvard trained Historian of Science too, will surely be very pleased to hear this:-) ). I would never allow Paul Krugman in such competitions again, this is bad for the whole Econ field :-). The good thing though is that the Historian won with (the true) Economics arguments :-).

• Average citation rates by field (through Ad Astra). One trend not emphasized in the article's discussion following the table is that in some fields the citation impact is very low on the short run (1-3 years), but increases much faster over the the longer run (8-10 years). This is why for instance Economics gets a higher average citation impact than Mathematics or Computer Science overall, though in the short run (eg, the two years span that the Thomson ISI citation ranks are typically constructed on) is equally "de-cited". Consider switching to Molecular Biology if you're after citations :-).

The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics ONLINE

...highly recommended for anybody interested in Economics, with or without much formal background in this science.

Start, for instance, with an excellent short exposition of "the Economics of Communism", by Bryan Caplan (recall him as the author of this book you should in no way miss).

PS. "Concise" is really the key word in the title. In other words these authors truly practice what they typically preach as economists, showing perfect understanding of the opportunity cost of time :-).

Roncea vs. Liiceanu & co

Iulian Comanescu posteaza ceva extrem de interesant pe blogul propriu.

Nu m-as mira ca multe din acuzele aduse lui Liiceanu (si altora din "grupul" sau) sa fie valide, dar din pacate cel care arunca piatra este tocmai bufonul Roncea, un zero barat al jurnalisticii, cu stilu-i binecunoscut (am mai vorbit despre gargaunii 'mnealui si sunt sigur ca omul nostru e nerabdator sa se afle iarasi in centrul atentiei cat de curand). Raspunsul lui Liiceanu e zero, nul, nada (desi ar fi avut ocazia sa raspunda imediat: probabil insa ca nu ar putea raspunde cum ar dori la toate acuzele- nimic neasteptat), preferand sa diminueze din vizibilitatea scandalului prin 'trecerea acestuia prin justitie': intr-adevar strategia "first best" in caz ca a fost prins cu musca pe caciula... Deci doar doua vorbe despre "articolul" lui Roncea. Pe langa faptul ca fiecare fraza e terminata cu cate-o flegma- nothing but "Roncea style"- in loc sa o tina pe partea de acuzatii obiective la Liiceanu, care ar trebui neaparat lamurite (eg. plagiat, renuntarea la anumite pasaje "compromitatoare" in noi editii ale 'operelor' sale, antedatarea unor articole, pentru a aparea ca facand parte din disidenta etc.), Roncea face un talmes-balmes in care- era inevitabil- apare clar si tenta nationalista: vezi eg. sectiunea unde il acuza pe Liiceanu de "tradare" fata de Noica (daca e ceva pentru care Liiceanu ar trebui admirat la Humanitas, primul - si poate singurul- lucru ar fi publicarea acestei carti, in particular dat fiind background-ul relatiei sale cu Noica; daca cineva are probe contrarii ar trebui sa publice o carte raspuns s.a.m.d., dar cenzura nu e un raspuns). O alta idiotenie majora care iti sare in ochi e inversunarea lui Roncea impotriva intelectualilor si NGO-urilor care ii sustin pe Basescu sau Macovei, dar din cu totul alte motive decat cele pentru care eu, de exemplu, ii consider patetici pe respectivii semnatari; in plus sa nu uitam ca Roncea si grupurile sale afiliate erau initiatori si semnatari ai unei si mai mari tampenii, "salvati icoanele" (link la Dan, care le-a sugerat solutia ideala)- dar ipocrizia e doar un cusur minor intre multele neajunsuri ale lui Roncea... LOL.

All in all. Una e ca Roncea nu poate scrie decat subiectiv, fascinat de extrema dreapta, legiune & co (in toate articolele sale, de cand lumea; intrebarea e de ce nu a ajuns in cadrul echipei de la Romania Mare si face in continuare pui la Ziua- trebuie ca e foarte iubit de cineva acolo)- si asta e problema lui personala si pe mine cel mult ma amuza; alta e insa consecinta- si aici e pierderea tuturor- ca intreg articolul isi pierde credibilitatea si eventualele sectiuni (curatate de flegmele lui Roncea...) care ar trebui serios investigate, vor fi aruncate la gunoi, la pachet (singurul care jubileaza fiind Liiceanu...). WTF l-a lasat pe bufon sa scrie articolul din Ziua, doar materialele referitoare la plagiat etc., au fost adunate si de altii? Sau, prin prostia si nebunia lui, e singurul care ar fi scris ceva "impotriva" lui Liiceanu, chiar avand sub nas probe care ridica cel putin niste intrebari? Asta ar fi intr-adevar foarte, foarte trist pentru jurnalismul nostru.

Conjuratia imbecililor

S-a scris deja foarte mult in presa (si in blogosfera...) despre raportul Tismaneanu, cuvantarea lui Basescu, circul lui Vadim & co s.a.m.d. Din ce am am apucat sa citesc in fuga (ramane desigur sa parcurg intregul raport- continutul acestuia fiind categoric cel mai important- si nu condamnarea per se pronuntata de Traian Basescu), de departe cel mai bine scris articol pe marginea evenimentelor din context mi s-a parut Conjuratia imbecilor, scris de Doru Buscu, in Cotidianul. Practic nu exista nici un fragment din acest articol cu care sa nu fiu de acord. Cateva pasaje excelente, numai bune de diseminat in blogosfera:

"Povestea comunismului nu s-a sfirsit insa aici, fiindca chimia lui complicata inca produce reactii. Avem cadavrul si cosciugul, dar tribul orfanilor ia de buna promisiunea fantomei. Vadim nu e un nebun solitar, ci simptomul unei haite. Un fir vizibil, inmuiat in trecut, leaga solidar o intreaga comunitate de mutanti. Copiii institutionalizati ai socialismului nostalgic, adoptati neatent de anii ‘90, si-au pastrat intact genotipul chiar daca au facut democratia la seral. Reteaua lor redevine activa ori de cite ori discursul anticomunist se radicalizeaza.Cind pericolul e anuntat prin trimbita secreta, conjuratii sar din amorteala si redevin avocatii absurdului, deloc jenati ca logica lor a facut burta pe la cantina partidului."

"Inventarul acestei conjuratii retardate e vast si ar cere poate o noua Comisie Tismaneanu. Modelele exemplare stralucesc insa zi de zi si dau predicate retelei din profunzime. Ele sint idolii Romaniei indelung prostite, maglavitii expirati ai saraciei cu duhul. Iar cirdasia cu trecutul se dovedeste inca rentabila: creditul electoral cu buletinul se bizuie pe imbecilii sai."

Pirvulescu vs. Ceausescu

First: sincere congrats to Tihamer for the subjects he tackles on his blog (I also used a previous post of his as inspiration - and material- for writing my recent post on 'Magyarorszag'). An excellent idea of Dan to invite him to the ClujBlogRoll !

I had a previous post on the excellent documentary potential of YouTube, inter alia, on issues related to Ceausescu and his regime. This one here could be seen as a sequel to that entry. Moreover, I also wrote about the very informative material on Romania hosted by the US Library of Congress. The event captured in this YouTube material (appearing first in Tihi's post mentioned above) is shortly described in that US Library of Congress material, here. I take out the corresponding excerpt:

"The Twelfth Congress witnessed an unprecedented attack on Ceausescu's personal leadership by a former high-ranking party official, Constantin Pirvulescu, who openly opposed Ceausescu's reelection as general secretary, accusing him of putting personal and family interests above those of the party and the country. He accused the congress of neglecting the country's real problems in its preoccupation with Ceausescu's glorification. Observers noted that this unprecedented attack came from a man who could not be accused of pro-Soviet sentiments, because he had been a staunch defender of PCR autonomy. Nor could he, at the age of eighty-four, be accused of personal ambition. Pirvulescu's remarks were, according to press reports, evidence of discontent in the party ranks. Pirvulescu was stripped of his delegate credentials, expelled from the congress, and placed under strict surveillance and house arrest. "

The same Pirvulescu was later one of the 'retired senior communist officials" who signed the March 1989 letter against Ceausescu's regime. The precise excerpt:

"In March 1989, a letter addressed to Ceausescu criticizing his dictatorial policy reached the West. Written by a group of retired senior communist officials, it accused Ceausescu of violating international human rights agreements, including the 1975 Helsinki Final Act (Helsinki Accords); ignoring the constitutional rights of citizens; mismanaging the economy; and alienating Romania's allies. The signatories called for a halt to the systematization program of destroying rural villages and forcibly relocating peasant families (see Land , ch.3). The letter was signed by former General Secretary Gheorghe Apostol; former Politburo member and Deputy Prime Minister Alexandru Birladeanu; Constantin Pirvulescu, a co-founder of the PCR; Corneliu Manescu, a former Romanian foreign minister and onetime president of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly; and Grigore Raceanu, a veteran party member. Many analysts considered the letter the most serious challenge to Ceausescu's rule to date. The regime relocated and isolated all signatories and reportedly subjected them to other repressive measures. The United States expressed official concern for their safety, and several other Western governments subsequently limited their relations with Romania. "

By the way, you need to be very attentive (so I have to congratulate myself: I was!) to notice one of the very few (I say) mistakes of this material on Romania available at the US Library of Congress, since one name is missing from the list of the persons who signed. This letter is indeed known in Romania as "Scrisoarea celor 6" (English: "The letter of the 6") and there are only 5 people mentioned. The forgotten one (maybe voluntarily?- then it would be interesting to see why) is the late Silviu Brucan.

But once again, here's the YouTube video (for me this is amazing: it is the very first time I see this and so it will be most likely for most of you- truly fantastic documentary evidence!) depicting the intervention of Pirvulescu at the 12th Romanian Communist Party Congress (unfortunately the clip is missing the end of the 'debate', maybe somebody who has that could put it up on YouTube?- somebody in the comments section on YouTube says that the sequel of has another 17 minutes). Of course, if somebody had the time to write down everything that was said there in English, our foreign guests would profit more. I might come back to this post with specific comments on the speeches.

The US Library of Congress on Romania

To my shame (and my ultimate frustration) I have only found this excellent, objective, accesible, compact source on Romania very recently. My overall impression: this is the best snapshot on Romania's historical, geographical, social, political, economic and military aspects I've ever run into, devoid of futile passions, gross incompetencies and other such features that plagued every single such study that I consulted before. The qualified use of extensive and diverse sources (including studies published by the Romanian "specialists" in the communist era), the presentation of adverse perspectives when uncertainty over issues is far from being eliminated (eg. the description of the history, demography, social and political contexts of Transylvania) and the clear acknowledgement of the study's limitations (such as general lack of data sources and reliable information on the internal situation in the 1980's) are particularly strong points of this research. I was very much surprised to find much more about certain issues (eg. amazing details from the demographic policies of the communist regime after the 1950's or much more on the policies regarding ethnic minorities etc.) than I had actually imagined before starting. And the best part is that everything seems to concur with previous (most often partial) information I had from the few sources I considered sufficiently objective.

There should be (there will be!) enough room to comment/discuss/ expand on particular topics touched on here, but for now I highly recommend you to go through this material. I simply couldn't stop reading it all, once I started (fortunately, it is sufficiently concise to make such an endeavour plausible). This material has been in hardcopy within the US Library of Congress until relatively recently- 2003- when apparently it was also made available online, together with similar studies on many other countries, all part of research commissioned by the US Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998. These studies are the so-called "Area Handbooks" of the US Libray of Congress.

As the authors claim, the study was concluded in 1989, hence the events from December '89 and the period thereafter in Romania are not covered. However, there is a small section of the study that tries to overview the "awakening". One could perhaps start with that. Although in my opinion this is not necessarily characterized by the same professionalism as the main body of the study (justifiable on the grounds that it was written ex-post the main study), I very much agree with its partial conclusions and the main line of analysis employed. Moreover I think the title chosen for this chapter is inspirational: indeed we were then almost free. Unfortunately, we also remained almost free until the very moment. Before debates ignite on whether this is a mishap and part of our destiny or whether we did it with our own hand, here's a proposal for a bet: will the next study of the Library of Congress find us still almost free?

! (added 11th of October 2006) Meanwhile I found out also the official Library of Congress site for this source. Inter alia, it also has an updated country profile for Romania, from July 2005.

Tismaneanu vs. Goma

Scriam acum cateva saptamani ca invitatia lui Vladimir Tismaneanu pentru Paul Goma de a face parte din comisia de investigare a comunismului ar fi fost o initiativa excelenta (ex-post apare ca dorinta a lui Traian Basescu si deloc a lui Tismaneanu, mais enfin, tot o idee foarte buna). Imi exprimam insa rezerva fata de faptul ca Goma ar fi putut lucra cu membrii acestei comisii. Din pacate scepticismul meu (si nu doar al meu) se pare ca fost fondat: Ziua publica astazi un raspuns al lui Goma la declaratia lui Tismaneau din 20 aprilie. Ruptura s-a produs si chiar in mod radical (nimic neobisnuit insa relativ la experientele anterioare ale lui Goma...). E drept ca Goma nu poate fi singurul vinovat aici- nu voi discuta mai mult pe tema asta acum, voi face insa un link si la niste reactii dure referitoare la Tismaneanu numit coordonator al acestei comisii-, insa din pacate, din punct de vedere pur pragmatic (pana la urma asta conteaza), Paul Goma nu mai cred sa poata colabora cu nimeni, nici acum, nici mai tarziu. Si gasesc ca asta e o mare pierdere.

Si despre ce as vrea sa scriu astazi

• intai de toate despre faptul ca mergem iarasi inapoi in materie de educatie si cercetare in Romania. Si scriam exact despre asta si intr-un interviu pentru noua revista Cultura acum cateva saptamani (numarul respectiv nu a aparut inca online dar interviul in forma ne-editata va fi publicat in postul meu urmator), insa nu ma gandeam sa se indeplineasca intocmai... Acolo spuneam ca nu pot spune ce va face Hardau dar deocamdata e prea mare tacere...ceea ce nu prevesteste nimic bun...si ca tot ce trebuie sa faca 'mnealui e sa continue reformele lui Miclea. Ori vezi cum intelege dumnealui (si nu doar dumnealui, din pacate Hardau e doar unul dintre cei multi) lucrurile astea... Excelente replicile prompte in Gandul (prin doamna Vergu), Cotidianul (prin Iuliana Gatej) si- ca de obicei- a Ad-Astra. Din nefericire deci ideea cu "mandria locala" a ministrului Hardau era doar uvertura la adevarata compozitie.
• despre faptul ca in sfarsit s-a pus in functiune ceva ce trebuia facut de mult si cel putin la prima vedere se pare ca Tismaneanu e cel mai nimerit sa fie in charge: studierea crimelor comunismului. Cel putin prima lui initiativa de a-l invita pe Goma in comisie e absolut laudabila. Desigur Goma mai trebuie sa si vrea sa lucreze cu altii si acum are ocazia. Si cel mai important: sa nu fie iarasi o furtuna intr-un pahar cu apa (idem CNSAS unde inca asteptam ceva, orice).
• despre o idee absolut formidabila de a organiza intership-uri pentru studentii romani din strainatate, in Romania. Ar trebui extrapolat si la doctoranzi, cercetatori etc., ceva ce unii dintre noi au mentionat deja de multa vreme. Un singur lucru mi se pare nepotrivit in anuntul asta si anume ultima fraza: "peste 70% dintre tinerii romani aflati in strainatate isi doresc sa se intoarca in tara dupa incheierea perioadei de studii – aceasta este concluzia unui sondaj operat in perioada Romanian International University Fair 2005, aceasta fiind, de altfel, si realitatea care a condus la dezvoltarea programului Internship in Romania". Cauzalitatea functioneaza exact invers, dar oricum e bine ca unii - deocamdata putini- au inceput a sesiza corelatia. La mai mare!
• despre ceva ce ar trebui copiat imediat in Romania. La generatiile "senioare" de pe la noi senilitatea apare deja de la varste fragede in comparatie cu octogenarii niponi (realitate trista, nicidecum nu parodiez...), deci brain training-ul ar putea deja ajuta de pe la 50 incolo...stiu ei japonezii ce stiu si am impresia ca sunt intotdeauna cu un pas inaintea celorlalti.