Econlinks: The Dale T. Mortensen Nobel edition

• The most recent event under this heading is the Northwestern conference in the honor of Dale-- with some very good and some not so good presentations...-- featuring also some  very (and some not so) entertaining speeches by former Mortensen students, co-authors, advisers etc, either at the dinner at the Northwestern Allen Center on Friday evening, or at the drinks & snacks session at Beverly and Dale's splendid home (photo with Ija on their balcony) on Saturday evening. Read also this Northwestern Univ. article about the event.  If you ask me, Guido Menzio had both the most interesting presentation ("Social Insurance for Frictional Wage Inequality") and by far the best speech (let us call it "Guido, may the Force be with you!"); unfortunately, neither of them is available online, too bad if you were not there.
• Now rewind: I have first mentioned about Dale's Prize here, as some of us really were with Dale in Denmark when he got the magic phone call (this happened after I had correctly predicted Diamond, Mortensen and Pissarides winning the Prize in Economic Sciences, the day before). I'll try to organize the following links on chronological order since.
• Listen to the initial phone interview between the Nobel Foundation's Adam Smith and Dale (you might have heard about the funny Adam Smith phone call to Ned Phelps's home some years before; people are somewhat more prepared to Adam Smith calling them since...).
• Here's Dale's answering machine message about the Prize to Beverly Mortensen: have your sound on as well-- this is super funny.
• I have uploaded on Flickr one of my short videoclips from the John Abowd seminar in Aarhus, at the Aarhus School of Business (ASB), Dep of Econ building, which started with champagne for Dale (unfortunately the sound seems to have gotten lost on the way...). All spontaneusly organized my myself, Valerie and Frederic: I think we managed quite well. I even made sure these visiting guys were not missing the start of the party (even if Shimer thought I am trying to trick him to get him to the seminar--duh..., Rob!...-- when I called with the Dale-won-the-Nobel news)
• The first Aarhus Univ journalist & photographer arrived for Dale (hallway of the ASB's Frichshuset) and here's a very first Dale video interview, just outside the Frichshuset, in which Dale tells the Danish reporter that yes, the Danes can also feel proud because of his winning the Prize.
• After a first full day of interviews and photo sessions for Dale, the first dinner party takes place at one of my very favorite restaurant in Aarhus, Klassisk 65. Thanks to Valerie for helping me with the organization (we had planned the dinner at Klassisk for that day in any event; with Dale winning the Prize in that day, we had to try hard to include more people on the reservation list, and plan in  much more detail). Watch the official TV2 documentary (very slow, be patient) from the place, including the by now famous Dale-sabring-the-champagne-bottle moment(s). I uploaded one of my own videoclips from Klassisk as well (again no sound). 
• A nice video capturing Dale's returning to Chicago from Denmark, with family and the NU brass band welcoming him at O'Hare. 
• One advantage of being  affiliated both with Aarhus and Northwestern is that I got to participate in all the Dale Mortensen-parties! Obviously Northwestern had to rise up to the occasion, and I think they managed well: there were several events, including two parties--one Department of Economics-wide, one NU-wide -- organized in relation to Dale's winning the Prize. Here's the best moment from the first NU party, where, having heard of Dale's champagne-sabring demonstration in Denmark, he was asked to confirm his skills also in Evanston-- and I had the honor to assist (clip borrowed from Jeff Ely on Cheaptalk). Here's a fantastic picture, the ultimate proof of Dale's champagne-sabring mastery! 
• An article with a link to a clip containing the best moments from the NU-wide reception for Dale; Janice Eberly and Bob Coen in particular prepared wonderful speeches. Some other NU press articles with video- and photo- links: Dale winning the Nobel and first reactions from NU Econ faculty colleagues, summary of and photos from the celebrations in Stockholm; see also some other Dale Mortensen photos from Stockholm and not only, collected on the Nobel Foundation site.
• There are also by-products of winning a Nobel prize, such as: getting a whisky bottle and-- if, justifiably, you thought that was no big deal-- a whole building named after him, at Aarhus University (with the participation at the opening, of the other Nobel Laureate at Aarhus, Jens Skou, and of the DK crown prince) ; a permanent parking spot and some other very visible (temporary) honors, at Northwestern University; hanging around with Mr. President-- good, better (my own photo capture of the framed pictures adorning the walls in the Mortensens' apartment). 
• You can also check out some more related pictures and videos that I collected (some belong to Aarhus University, some to Northwestern University, some to the Nobel Foundation, some are mine --including from the Econ Prize lectures, which I watched live, online, on my laptop, from Chicago-- I tried to specify everywhere whom they belong to  in order to observe copyright issues-- comment on this post or contact me if you observe anything wrong or unclear in that sense) and uploaded on my Flickr acount.
• Finally: the best way to learn (more) about last year's Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is to browse through the corresponding pages on the Nobel Foundation's website. There is a great wealth of material in there (and more will be uploaded in the future, including, e.g., autobiographies of the Laureates), such as informative articles-- both brief and longer--, interviews, documentaries, photos etc. For instance, you can read what the 2010 Prize in Economic Sciences is about in a popular version for the larger audience (related, a "speed read" version; even an "illustrated" version); you can also go on and inspect the more detailed, technical, version with further references (or go through the concise three-page version by Rob Shimer); see also an interview with Per Krussell describing the work of the 2010 Econ Nobel Laureates; watch a documentary about the lives and work of the three Laureates; a video interview of the three Econ Prize winners with Adam Smith (including opinions about teaching and training their graduate students, I thought that was very informative!); watch the Econ Prize lectures of Mortensen, Diamond, Pissarides; the Banquet Speech of Dale (on behalf of the three Economics Prize winners) etc.

2011 San Pellegrino world top restaurant ranking

See here the top 1-50. And I am proud to note that I have tried by now 4 places in the 2011 world top 12, namely:

• Noma (1): been there twice already, see here impressions (and some pictures) from the first time, the second was a lunch in October last year-- still have to get hold of those pictures online somewhere. Vale?
• Alinea (6): been there exactly a month ago, details yet to come.
• Per Se (10): visited for lunch during a brief but intense visit to NYC in November 2010, promised I would write impressions soon. I liked it more than Alinea, for starters...
• Les Créations de Narisawa (12): end 2009, there is a whole saga behind this. This is also the one place that I believe still has a lot of growing chances. Can only go up in the world rankings, looking forward to seeing that materialize.

Remark as well that Noma, Alinea and Narisawa are respectively the 2011 top restaurants on the three continents I know (to a little extent) so far. 

Labour markets, between heaven and hell

[...]heaven is where women and older people work like Swedes, the young work like the Dutch and the unemployed find jobs like the Danes. Hell is where workers get into unemployment like the Americans and out of it like the Italians.

"A special report on the world economy", The Economist

Dale

Not that I want to brag or anything but... please check this out again and then go to the Nobel prize site to see who won this year's Prize in Economics (by the way, last year I predicted Hart, Holmstrom and Williamson, hence I also got there one of the awardees-- just in case you were wondering if I predict the same every single year).  

Anyway, while you can check out all the press release on the 2010 Econ Nobel prize directly from the source etc., some very brief and fast personal points on Dale Mortensen. I feel privileged to currently have Dale as my postdoctoral guide and host at Northwestern University (and to have known him over the years, particularly via the LMDG research group in Aarhus, but in fact already from my PhD years at the Tinbergen Institute Amsterdam--when probably in 2003 or so I took my first search and matching short course with him teaching it); I am also grateful to have taken part in several events organized by Beverly and Dale Mortensen in Chicago/Evanston; and, it so happened that I was having lunch with Dale and a couple of others here in Aarhus-- yep, you have to be in the right place, at the right time!-- some hours ago (and minutes before the actual Nobel prize announcement) when he received that phone call from Stockholm. That is pretty amazing, you know, to be part of this very moment... all that suspense and then the smiling confirmation... with Dale stating he is not supposed to acknowledge anything yet :-)... Thus we started John Abowd's invited seminar here at the Aarhus School of Business (of course Dale went on with attending undisturbed the seminar-- a scientist to the end!) with champagne and the live online Econ Prize announcement from Sweden.

Finally, at this very moment they do not seem to have put up a picture of Dale on the Nobel prize site yet (while they have found portraits of Peter Diamond and Chris Pissarides), so I'll just place up a photo with Dale and Beverly in their kitchen in Evanston, this summer, preparing to serve (some very lucky) us an absolutely delicious Mexican dish. Congratulations once again, Dale Mortensen!

PS. Pictures/videos from after the prize announcement might follow late...r on, depending when/if I have time to actually sort them out.

Econlinks: Kamelåså et al

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  Before I come up with my Econ Nobel forecast -- a week to go, stay tuned-- let us take a look to the 2010 Nobel Ig prizes related to Economics. The Economics Ig Nobel itself is perhaps not very unexpected this year--though not very creative either (I wonder whether Oliver Stone is behind this too; his latest movie gets pretty mediocre reviews-- IMDb, RottenTomatoes-- despite all the hype). The "Management" Nobel Ig reads much better (but I still need to check out that paper): "Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random. REFERENCE: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study,” Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, Physica A, vol. 389, no. 3, February 2010, pp. 467-72."

• Mankiw's excellent advice for all new college freshmen. Do learn some Economics, Statistics, and Finance, (ok, even Psychology, though this is second order) for your own sake... Couldn't have phrased it better.

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  He rocks no matter the topic, or context. Colbert for President (Stewart can make an ideal Vice-President).

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  What would happen if Lars von Trier were in charge with marketing Denmark. Not that the real (at least, intended, later withdrawn) ad  was much smarter. (With thanks to Fred for the links). If you ask me, the Danes should hire these Norvegians for the perfect branding job. Anyhow, good or bad PR, I am heading that way (momentarily with a headache in Schiphol's Crown Lounge). Inter alia, training a bit for future chilly times in Chicago.

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  And finally, keeping it in Scandinavian context: Magnus beat the world. And he got a date with Liv Taylor: I'd say that's worth the effort. See also his interview on the Pauw and Witteman Dutch TV show, before the world match (partly in Dutch, but you'll manage).



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.

Noma rulez!

The 2010 S. Pellegrino world top 100 restaurants came out yesterday: René Redzepi's Noma is la crème de la crème ('10 S. Pellegrino profile).

No doubt you recall I had dinner there less than a month ago. Detailed impressions to come later, time permitting; meanwhile I link to Valérie's yummy pictures from the event. Try to imagine the taste.

Also worth noting in this year's ranking

• Chicago's Alinea advances three positions, to an honourable world top 7: perfect synchronization with my arrival in town. You are allowed to wish me Bon Appetit already.
• Remaining in top thirty, at position 24, is the wonderful Les Créations de Narisawa; earlier I wrote in detail about my superlative Tokyo culinary experience.
  

PS. Thanks to Dale-- another very satisfied Noma alumnus-- for the 2010 S. Pellegrino ranking link.

High expectations

[...] We’ve been busy traveling around in the Nordic regions and we have been finding a number of simply phenomenal ingredients that we have flown into town for our use: Horse mussels, deep-sea crabs and langoustines from the Faeroe Islands, which are living right up until the moment they are served to our visitors. Halibut, wild salmon, cod and seaweed and curds from Iceland. Lamb, musk ox, berries and the purest drinking water from Greenland. In much the same fashion, we are constantly scanning for new sources of inspiration in Denmark, especially, as well as the other Nordic regions, for purposes of securing reliable sources of top-quality raw produce. This pertains both to very costly ingredients and also to ingredients of a more everyday character that we feel have come to be overlooked in the formulation of a salient Nordic approach to cooking: cereals, hulled grains and legumes, which you will come to experience here in the context of surprising preparations. [...]

The verdict on the top exponent of new Nordic culinary craft after the weekend.

Danish

...in Norvegian perspective. More. Didn't know vikings can be that funny.

PS. The milkman can start anytime a PhD in Economics.

(with credits to Hans-Martin)

Bar Rouge and the evils of drinking

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I am extremely busy and promised several VIPs who read my blog (I am flattered!) that I would focus fully on research, so the posting frequence has (to) decrease(d) somewhat. But still, I just cannot abstain: here's the quote for the week. Or maybe it should be the quote for the whole year. We'll see; I might need/prefer some Champagne eventually...

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

Henny Youngman

This is the best motto from the cocktails list at Bar Rouge, of Skt. Petri Hotel fame (see also here, if you have the legal drinking age), a most interesting place in Copenhagen that I've recently explored (credits to Frederic, the Belgian who knows Copenhagen by heart). If you pass by, try "East & Hold Up" (votka, Aperol, pineaple, lime, and passion fruit); or, if the other bartender is there, maybe you will get "Captain Nemo" (Hendrick's gin, Noilly Prat, orange bitters, & a baby squid)-- in that case, let me know how it tastes.

PS. Overall verdict: almost as interesting as Michael Mina's Clock Bar, last year in San Francisco (more on which here--last paragraph-- where it is revealed that "Boulevardier" did not have the "Last Word").

Popcorn theories and winter. In Kolding

Just returned from a very interesting CCP Workshop on Personnel Economics, where we found out about respect, CSR, trust, and a lot more, proving once again that we are most ruthless economic imperialists. Kolding can be a pitoresque place (fantastic for workshops & co!)-- especially when you literally see winter taking over-- though I still think I wouldn't have liked the alternative of "Aarhus University" starting as "Kolding University". Among the workshop highlights: some excellent informal chats with Eddie Lazear about the popcorn vs. domino effect of financial shock propagation and all things related (including a couple of captivating stories from his recent past in the US Government); and, obviously..., my very own presentation on pay for performance and wage patterns in Portugal, the prologue of a will-be-great paper on this important theme, joint with Miguel-- what were you thinking, that we only drank port in Portugal last summer? :-).

Sunday night econlinks

• Good, Gelman is even more pissed off with Greenspun's to-a-large-extent-nonsense than I was: 9th bullet point.

• The culture of Old Europe (aka, new European Union...), via Gabi Istrate; I've also promised him I would carefully look at/comment on this: the promise is still there, the time-- not yet... :-).

• I am very curious how big this can/will get. After all, a whole Nobel might be at stake (I confess: I never really liked Gore, on any dimension; I still think he is submediocre or worse; however, I thought/still think that some of the climate guys/gals who won within the IPCC were more than decent...). This is not so much about scepticism (of any kind/degree), but first and foremost about scientific honesty. Seemingly a very rare quality today.

• The current world chess champ was in Romania some days ago, but nobody within the national mass media seems to have noticed. Of course not, they are all busy with one of the most pathetic presidential elections ever; they always manage to keep themselves busy with the least important things.

• The battle of the IT giants takes every possible form. In case you're wondering whom I am putting my money on, here's something to help you; these guys seem to know what's important for tomorrow: a small step in that direction with a (preliminary version of) automatic captioning for YouTube .

• I guess I am not in such of an intimate relationship with Tokyo after all (despite this...), since I didn't manage to meet any of the city's "groundbreakers" (though ok, fine, between me and you only: the truth is that I've been playing hard to get with Tao Okamoto)

• Only reinforces one point Easterly (and a minority of others) has been stressing all the time; this is how development should be done: help them to help themselves.

• The underrated Economist: A.C. Pigou.

• The research agenda of some of my LMDG colleagues: enter Rasmus Lentz and co-authors.

• "[s]urely the biggest police action we have ever had in Danish history" or one of the rare occasions when I am glad that I am not closer to Copenhagen...

After this, what is left for us to write?

... so is said to have rhetorically wondered a deeply impressed Schubert, after witnessing a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet no. 14 in C sharp minor, Opus 131. And so must repeat yours truly after listening to his favourite Beethoven string quartet, flawlessly performed by the Takács Quartet, in the Lille Sal of the Aarhus Musikhuset-- a mere couple of hours ago.

The program contained three pieces, strategically chosen from the three distinct creativity periods of Beethoven, namely: the String Quartet no. 1 in F major, Op. 18, from the early period (1799); the String Quartet no. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74 (the "Harp"), from the middle period (1809); and the already mentioned Op. 131, a late Beethoven quartet (1826). I have known the Takács Quartet, for quite a while now, for their superlative recording of Béla Bartók's string quartets (I would not miss a Bartók concert with them for anything in the world!), and have found out much more recently (why?!) of their perfect, highly acclaimed, recording of Beethoven's three "Razumovsky" Quartets (Op. 59) plus the "Harp". Hence, on the one hand I had very high expectations; on the other hand, especially since the Op. 131 is my most treasured of all Beethoven's quartets, I nonetheless knew that I would not be easily impressed... But they did deliver beyond my expectations! I have found a Guardian review of their performance from just a week ago, in Norwich, where The Takács played the same pieces from tonight (in the Nov 8 performance); that to a great extent seems to summarize also my impressions. Else, indeed, there isn't much left that we could write; perhaps, as on-site reporting, only that their first violonist, Dusinberre, was so much out there, into the music, when playing the last movements of the Op. 131, that he inadvertently used his mouth as well a couple of times-- now that is what I would call true passion :-).

Finally, since I cannot leave you without any concrete 'musical feel' of all this, I have searched all of YouTube and here is my gift to you: firstly, I have found the First Movement of the Op 131, by the Takács Quartet themselves (and there is nothing piu espressivo than this rendition here, just as required by the great Ludwig van; I have to get hold of this late Beethoven quartets recording immediately!); secondly, I have managed to retrieve the whole Op 131, albeit interpreted by a different quartet (I personally strongly prefer the Takács, but these folks are not bad at all). Enjoy!

PS. Last time I saw a performance of a string quartet close to this level was in Amsterdam, some months ago: Schubert's String Quartet no. 15, in the interpretation of the Artemis Quartet (though, for a fair comparison, one should also take into account the differences between the two locations: Aarhus's Musikhuset is more than decent, but, in all honesty, not even close to replicating the unique acoustic features of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw).

Econlinks

• Endless Summers (via Mankiw). Supercilious he might well be, but some of us still find him absolutely fascinating-- I think I am (in the process of) understanding why :-). Earlier (first bullet point).

• On the poetic prehistory of development economics: a very interesting post by Adam Martin on Easterly's Aid Watchers blog.

• They cannot be blamed for defending/arguing what's in their best interest (click on the British flag in the upper right corner to get to the article in English, if you do not see it immediately through the link above); however, in my opinion, their general case is overstated: most of the translation services as hitherto understood are redundant. There is still a case (and a premium) for translation services from/to Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese & the like, but certainly not for European to European languages, and certainly not in countries from Scandinavia or Benelux...

• Top 100 best films of the decade (?). To be honest, I have seen to date only one film from their top 10. But I did see quite a few from the range 10-20 and, if this hierarchy makes any sense, I ought to definitely see anything that beats the movies at positions 16, 20 or 21, which are all in my very own all-time top 26. Quite impressive is also that Romanian director Cristi Mungiu's film "4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile" is number 14 in this ranking (this movie is in my priority to-see list). See also my earlier entry on The December Children.

• Market-design presentations at a conference in honour of Paul Milgrom, by some of the world's best researchers in this field (via Al Roth on Market Design)



• Did you forget about the Romanian '09 Presidential Election Prediction Markets?! Participate: it's fun!

The new Danish ranking of journals

Ridiculous, if you ask me (needless to state, this is a very personal opinion). Unfortunately, in Economics (you find that category under "Samfundsøkonomi" in the linked pdf), there will be many years till Denmark will catch up with the best places in the Netherlands, for instance (see here an Economics journal ranking of the Tinbergen Institute (TI) , which has its imperfections-- such as Journal of Finance placed in the 'AA' category... -- but it is way way better), in competitiveness, attitude in this context etc. Not to mention the top places in US or UK (NB: the non-existence/ non-marketing of an explicit journal ranking on the (web)sites of those departments does not mean the non-existence of a very strict, informal hierarchy -- decisive in hiring and, especially, promotion decisions--, in many ways similar in spirit to the one of the TI linked above!).

The simple test the folks who made up this hierarchy (there was and still is a lot of disagreement among them apparently, this solution seems to be a compromise solution) should(have) subject(ed) themselves to is the following: if you are in the process of deciding where to submit the best paper you ever produced as yet, i.e. something you are satisfied with and very proud of, would you submit it to Econometrica, AER, JPE, QJE, ReStud, or to any of the other places (yes, some extremely good, much better than others paired with them..., but just somewhat below the very top category), which are placed in the same category in this ranking (if I were them, I would ask this question to any potential candidate I would consider hiring in my Danish Econ department). That first hierarchy level (labeled "2" in the pdf) can/should be further split in at least 3 sublevels (even the general editors of those journals in question would all agree; I doubt they were asked when this ranking was made up...). I won't even touch on assessing the fact that the rest of the journals were all bunched together in a second hierarchical level (labeled "1" in the document). This is not about my being obsessed with rankings, this is about having an idea about scientific quality. And about proper incentives.

PS. The hilarious thing is that some would like to add even more journals that nobody reads/cites to these two categories.

Timeless Dances (On Fado and Didge Fusion)

... performed by a fantastic crew of the Queensland Ballet, on their European Tour. François Klaus's choreography is pure genius work, while William Barton is a most fascinating didgeridu virtuoso and composer (not to mention that he also proved to possess great vocal skills and to play top guitar). Here's an excerpt-- the only one I have managed to find on YouTube-- apparently from the very premiere of the show a year ago in Australia, identical to what I saw a couple of hours ago at the Musikhuset in Aarhus; this is from the final part, arguably the best, of Klaus's Timeless Dances arrangement, carried out on an electric guitar-didgeridu fusion background. Enter Queensland Ballet & William Barton!

My other absolute highlight (naively attempting to further differentiate somehow: every part in the program was a highlight!) from tonight's ballet agenda was Klaus's perfectly choreographed and superbly executed pas de deux in Chant d'Amour; music-wise, a succession / combination of two songs from Madredeus's O Paraíso album (ironically, this album is thought to be the one that marks Madredeus's split with its fado roots; I would say that it is debatable to what extent each individual track still claims that heritage), "A Andorinha da Primavera" and respectively "Coisas Pequenas", interpreted by the one and only Teresa Salgueiro (earlier on Madredeus; more on Portugal & fado). Timeless indeed!

My whereabouts

From tomorrow till Sunday I'll be attending the Conference on "Structural Models of the Labor Market and Policy Analysis" at Sandbjerg, inter alia meeting once again several friends/ co-authors/ mentors. Ex ante, the program looks great, notwithstanding my non-presenter role this time (unlike the analogous conference last November, in London). Here's more on the Sandbjerg Manor, a close-to-ideal conference location (some say this place is "too dark"... well, duh... we are in Denmark; moreover, I am from Transylvania: darkness is good for my kind).

My first (and last) public karaoke performance

...represents the validation of my long held opinion that I have no comparative advantage whatsoever in this area. My team partner for this impromptu exercise, Ian Walker, among other things the current editor-in-chief of Labour Economics, performed rather reasonably, but there was no chance to ultimately rank decently among the brave competitors-- my colleague economists from the Aarhus School of Business, some of them natural born karaoke stars-- precisely because of teaming up with yours truly. As a consequence (and I credit Ian Walker with the quote of the week), "[I] shall remain a referee for Labour Economics forever". Still, there could/would/should be some attenuating circumstances to consider: the event took place in an unlikely hotel restaurant room in Viborg with what looked like improvised (initially malfunctioning) equipment, the choices were from a limited set of (only) Abba songs and, crucially, I was forced in the show without being provided with sufficient wine beforehand... :-)

Anyway: though we butchered the song, we still ought to thank the true masters for the music!

Econlinks (old and new)

• To blurb or not to blurb, this is the new question...

• Pigovian taxation on everybody's understanding, by Greg Mankiw

• Denmark at the frontier once again (with Tyler Cowen spotting it very fast): free gym membership as long as you show up every time...

• Beer or wine and science (this is really fun, by the way and perhaps expected? :-)). I guess they don't separate serious drinkers of Belgian beer from the rest of beer drinkers, though, so that my friends still stand a chance :-).

• Jim Heckman on early interventions and importance of early child environment (his Marshall keynote lecture at the EEA-ESEM in Milano about a month ago was linked to this and much more detailed, by the way-- in my opinion the best keynote at the EEA-ESEM this year).

• Necessarily on the mother of all bailouts proposal-- Zingales with the best perspective so far. More bailout: most serious US Economists united against it. One prominent economist did not sign this, however, and sees it justified (in a way),

A bit of (interesting) Aarhus University history

I was away, in Amsterdam, on the occasion of the 80 years anniversary of the Aarhus University (AU); hence I've only read now the AU rector's speech . It turns out to be quite informative and most of it has got a lot of sense, while remaining at the same time concise, rare species in terms of public speeches nowadays :-). In particular, it's interesting to learn how one of the very young good universities (youngest European university in the updated Shanghai world top 100) got started (though-- nota bene-- a "top/good university", in general, should not say much without further info; if your specific department / institute within that university is currently topping all charts, now that is something else; a lot of decent people I know seem to be quite confused over this issue).

PS. Now that I've read this, I am actually very glad that some people were reasonable enough not to have this university in Kolding. Does not mean that I start adoring Aarhus as yet, but still: Kolding?!-- maybe for fishing....