1a Editie a Conferintei Economistilor Romani din Mediul Academic din Strainatate (ERMAS). Comunicat al Coordonatorilor.

La adresele web http://www.conferinta.econacademia.net si respectiv http://www.econ.ubbcluj.ro/ermas2014 veti gasi programul recent actualizat al Primei Editii a Conferintei Stiintifice a Economistilor Romani din Mediul Academic din Strainatate (ERMAS), gazduita de Universitatea Babes-Bolyai (UBB), Facultatea de Stiinte Economice si Gestiunea Afacerilor (FSEGA), la Cluj-Napoca, intre 18-22 August 2014 (potentiale completari/ actualizari pana la versiunea finala sunt posibile). Link-uri directe (PDFs) la structura generala a programului, si respectiv la programul detaliat pe sesiuni.

Inregistrarea tuturor celor interesati sa participe in audienta conferintei se face exclusiv prin formularul UBB-FSEGA http://www.econ.ubbcluj.ro/ermas2014/formular.php pana la data maxima de 30 iunie 2014. 

La conferinta ERMAS 2014 vor prezenta lucrari stiintifice si/sau vor participa in diferite dezbateri de interes public (vedeti si mai jos, si detaliat in program) in jur de 50 de economisti romani de succes (realizat sau potential), afiliati unora dintre cele cele mai renumite universitati sau institutii de cercetare, in domeniul stiintelor economice, din. e.g., SUA, Canada, sau tari ale Uniunii Europene, incluzand institutii din Romania. Pe langa acestia, invitati speciali in sesiuni tip masa-rotunda/ dezbatere deschisa sunt cativa reprezentanti cheie ai mediului de politici economice, precum si ai invatamantului superior si cercetarii, din Romania. Conferinta este o premiera absoluta in Romania, atat din perspectiva stiintelor economice, cat si a oricaror discipline stiintifice (plus popularizare/ dezbatere stiintifica), in general. Cateva sute de persoane, cu predilectie din mediul academic, dar si din alte medii precum cel antreprenorial, guvernamental, ONG, mass-media, vor participa, in expectanta, in audienta conferintei (cateva zeci fiind deja inregistrate).

Pe langa partea principala a programului conferintei, constand in prezentarile de lucrari stiintifice contribuite sau invitate din sesiunile paralele, sau prezentarile "keynote" din sesiunile plenare, atragem explicit atentia asupra unor sesiuni speciale, de potential interes general:

- sesiune de dezbatere pe politici economice de mare interes pentru Romania: luni dupa-masa, 18 august

- sesiune de sfaturi pentru tinerii si mai putin tinerii economisti: marti seara, 19 august

- sesiune dezbatere despre starea, politica si managementul cercetarii stiintifice din Romania, cu focus pe cercetarea economica: miercuri seara, 20 august

- sesiune de scurte comunicari-rezumat de cercetare folosind date din/ direct relevante pentru Romania: joi dimineata, 21 august

- sesiune despre viitoarele editii ale conferintei ERMAS- si alte activitati relevante ale Econacademia: joi seara, 21 august

Informatii complete despre initiativa, inclusiv despre tintele si asteptarile de termen scurt si lung ale conferintei ERMAS (in expectanta, anuala), sunt disponibile pe http://www.conferinta.econacademia.net. Pentru orice noutati si actualizari: https://twitter.com/econacademia sau http://www.noutati.econacademia.net.  

Toate aceste informatii se pot evident disemina liber (eventual adaptat corespunzator), prin orice mediu de comunicare. 

Asteptam sa va intalnim la ERMAS 2014,

Coordonatorii ERMAS 2014: Sebastian Buhai (Stockholm University), Mihai Copaciu (Banca Nationala a Romaniei), Cosmin Ilut (Duke University) si Cristian Litan (Universitatea Babes-Bolyai)

PS. In momentul acesta-- deci la pranz, 6 iunie 2014-- mai sunt exact 5 locuri ramase pentru persoane potential interesate de a participa in cursul asociat ERMAS 2014, "Big Data Econometrics" (BDE), instructor Otilia Boldea, Tilburg University. Inscrierea se face in baza principiului "first come, first served", pana maxim la 30 iunie. Detalii complete despre curs, inclusiv modalitatea de inscriere (atentie: inscrierea la curs e SEPARATA de inregistrarea ca participant in audienta conferintei; in particular, toate persoanele inscrise la BDE, si interesate de conferinta, trebuie sa se inregistreze si in audienta conferintei, folosind formularul UBB-FSEGA mentionat mai sus; mutatis mutandis, persoanele inregistrate in audienta conferintei nu sunt automat inscrise si la curs, inscrierea la curs presupunand in prealabil primirea unui email confirmare de la instructorul cursului, conform instructiunilor)

Facts and fantasy about the financial crisis

I find it the most lucid summary (and criticism) of almost everything influential that has been published on the financial crisis so far. Some of the books are reviewed too briefly, and some newer ones are completely omitted, but nonetheless I think this is the most concise and useful general-purpose article written on the crisis as yet. Currently you can download Andrew Lo's "Reading about the financial crisis: A 21-Book Review" from his website (PDF version dated Jan 9, 2012). It is prepared for the JEL-- hence you should be able to find it also in one of the their next issues, perhaps in an updated version.

A special mention: the "Fact and Fantasy" section of the article covers the startling misinterpretations (some of them still awaiting to be corrected!), by several prominent academics, policy makers, and journalists, of the 2004 change in the SEC Rule 15c3-1 concerning leverage restrictions of certain financial institutions. It is beyond alarming how fast and easy some of these errors propagate even among what-ought-to-be-connaisseurs-- and how long and hard it takes for them to be discovered and debunked thereafter. The following edifying quote from Lo's article cannot be emphasized enough: 

[...] Only the most neurotic of academics would dig further to attempt to refute a "fact" that jibes with his or her intuition and preconceptions. This example should serve as a cautionary tale for all of us, and underscores the critical need to collect, check, and accumulate data from which more accurate inferences can then be drawn. Without the immutable hard platform of objective facts on which we can build an accurate narrative of the crisis that stands the test of time, there's little hope for scientific progress as the waves of public opinion toss our perspective in one direction or another. This is one of the most compelling reasons to read more than one account of the financial crisis, and to seek out those books that may not agree with our preconceptions, just in case we've been inadvertently misled through faulty "facts".

* update: the selected quote above is from the October 24, 2011 version of Lo's article; it is slightly different in the Jan 9, 2012 PDF version linked above. I have a preference for the older version, hence I leave that one here.

My Nobel Econ 2011 prediction

I say "Ernst Fehr, Matthew Rabin, and Richard Thaler for their contributions to behavioral economics" (I even bet 3$ on this, but for some yet unclear reason that pool has closed, with my money returned). In any case, I think it would be highly suspicious if I got it right also this time, given I got it perfectly last year and almost perfectly the year before that.

PS. By the way, as you must have noticed, although I've momentarily reduced the frequency of my blogposts, I've been posting brief impressions on my twitter. 

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.

Econlinks: The applied maths edition

• Serious fight on evolutionary theory ground. The bulk of evolutionary theorists seem to be set on taking Nowak et al to the guillotine, but there is also a small minority of fans: among them, my former Tinbergen Institute colleague Matthijs van Veelen (see a picture of him from when he was older, wiser, sporting a big white beard; NB: yours truly is the junior black-and-yellow fellow at his left, learning on the job) and his co-authors have a nice correspondence in Nature supporting Novak et al. PS. Note also that one co-author of the controversial paper is Romanian mathematician Corina Tarnita (whom, allegedly, many girls would/should like to have as role model)
• The wave equation and tsunami propagation: a concise exposition by Terry Tao. Brings back nice memories of my maths classes at Utrecht University.
• Life arithmetic with (unavoidable?) implications: "Life is short. Have an affair".
• New chess strategies (more)? Now to the good guys: the latest (and seemingly, last) Amber chess tournament was clearly won by Aronian-- followed in the combined rankings by Carlsen and Anand: these three are in my view also the only consistent, long-run runners in the chess marathon. And related: Carlsen's bold decision to challenge a by-now-obsolete chess world championship format.  
• Greg Mankiw with the correct (and scary) budget arithmetic. 
• This is piece of cake, walk in the park: should have focused on predicting Burgundy 2011 vintage quality :-). But agreed, it was better than mine.
• A trip through a Mandelbox. Via Alex Tabarrok at MR.
• The science of stout foam. Or: the time of cheaper Guinness is nye! I confessed already that I had chosen a great Condrieu (relative to the other wines I had at Alinea, this was the one unforgettable) on St. Patrick's, but obviously I still fancy the good old Irish stout! 
• On continuous harmonic spaces (the original paper). Shows that consonance and dissonance  in music are to a considerable extent routed in nature and can be described/defined mathematically, beyond cultural or time relativism. We like it!

What I have been reading

A couple of books I have read within the past few weeks, most of them on my Kindle 3G device(*):

Scott Berkun's "Confessions of a Public Speaker" (get the Kindle edition): the author is a professional speaker, in front of audiences large and small, hence he has got some very helpful tips for anyone who ever needs to engage in public speaking, mostly drawn from his own experiences. These tips range from the a priori preparation for your speech, to engaging your audience, to knowing what to do when you have a too large room and too few people in there etc.What is missing, but understandably so given the author's career, is the treatment of academic public lectures, which can be quite different than any other public types of speech-- nevertheless a series of Berkun's recommendations work perfectly also for academics. The book is at the same time a very fun reading.

***

Jason Zweig's "The Little Book of Safe Money: How to Conquer Killer Markets, Con Artists, and Yourself" (get the Kindle edition): useful advice for small investors (that can be probably summed up by the following quotes "for most small investors, an indexed bond mutual fond is the best way to go" and "[d]on't invest in leveraged and inverse ETFs. Leave them to professional traders" ...) and adapted particularly for the US audience (you do find for instance very helpful info on the so-called '529 plans,' including some online links to compare various such plans, in case you are interested in that). Definitely not for more sophisticated investors (some of you, readers of this blog) or for people who've read much more detailed stuff on financial investments earlier (although I am myself in this category, sometimes it is useful to consult other perspectives at a more elementary level). A tad too cautious and limited on scope and purpose. Anyhow, if you are a beginner and (plan to) live in the US, by all means do read this book.

***

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's "Superfreakonomics" (get the Kindle edition). I find this better written than their first Freakonomics success (see, e.g., the first bullet point here for some of the huge debate on that earlier book)-- probably experience and learning on the job-- though it contains as little economics as the first one (it is written more in an investigative journalism style: Dubner obviously has the feeling for what sells and what not). That being said, I still think it is eventually a great service even to the economics  academic community (at least in drawing attention to the range of situations/phenomena that economics can be applied to; NB: I personally doubt it would give the/a too wrong impression of what economists do and should do-- if anything, it might convey the idea that some economists know very well how to sell their books,), and probably that writing it in more 'econo-prose' would have reduced its popularity. I would particularly recommend it to any non-economists, for sure (e.g. last winter I noticed the Romanian translation of the book is already out, and made it present to a good old Transylvanian friend of mine-- in function of his reaction I might offer it to my parents as well). By the way, related, the Freakonomics documentary is currently available for instant viewing on Netflix (I correct myself: right now their site is down, but it is the first time I do not see it functioning), if you are in US and have access to that service-- I plan to watch it one of the next days.

***

And now to my two favorites in this set: 

John Adams's "Hallelujah Junction. Composing an American Life" (unfortunately not available on Kindle): this is one of the best autobiographies I have ever read, within the musical realm and beyond. Honest, full of wit, style, and extremely informative-- and that to say the least. As somebody who's listened to a large set of Adams's compositions (and working on the remaining ones...) and who regularly follows his blog, I simply had to read his autobiographical piece in order to have access to Adams's detailed perspective on both his  own work and his general ideas of music (composition, interpretation, intrigues, all the hoopla), politics, life, everything... Highly recommended: one of those books that you simply cannot stop reading once you have started. I'll most likely refer to passages or ideas from "Hallelujah Junction" in many of my future blogposts.

Steven Landsburg's "The Big Questions" (get it on Kindle): I will only tell you that this book is from my perspective really scary, in that its author appears to think about  crucial stuff --i.e. mathematics, economics, physics, philosophy, tax policies, trade, sex, religion, life, Universe etc.-- in an almost identical way to yours truly (ok: I should maybe phrase it as "I think almost exactly like him"-- after all he was there before me...). In any case, even if you've known all the time and agreed all the way with everything in the book (though he does cover an enormous range of topics, requiring that you'd be an extremely well read person), Landsburg's exposition is one of the clearest I've ever encountered (this is true also for his previous books, some of them recommended earlier on this blog; I will only say here that I even used an earlier quote from him as one of the "propositions" --"stellingen", in Dutch-- to go along with my PhD thesis defence-- see under IX in this list). In particular, he's got the rare ability to explain in few paragraphs, mainly by means of easy examples and analogies, some highly complex material (try explaining quantum physics or deontological vs. consequential ethics to the non-initiated!), albeit he needs to strip them down to the bare essence (but then again this is a popularizing book, aimed for a wide audience). Landsburg's writing style is also something I personally like a lot: he's got just the right amounts of humor, irony, and even the tiny bit of arrogance (why not?) mixed in his book. Check out also Landsburg's "The Big Questions" blog, something I've followed and enjoyed since its very start. I end with a larger quote from the introductory chapter of "The Big Questions" that is likely to give you a good feeling of Landsburg's 'creed' and goal in this book (as well as the similarity with my own academic training and beliefs, c.f. the scary/eerie part from above):

"[...] I went on to a career of research in teaching in both mathematics and economics, with a little dabbling in physics along the way, but I never lost sight of my fascination with the big questions of philosophy: Where did the Universe come from? Why is there something instead of nothing? How is knowledge possible? What justifies a belief? How can we tell right from wrong, and good from evil? How should we live our lives?

Philosophers have useful ways of thinking about these questions, but so do people  who are not philosophers. Physicists know something about the origins of the Universe; mathematicians know something about the patterns of reality; economists know something about how our choices affect the lives of others, which is not distinct from the problem of distinguishing right from wrong. I've come to believe that these disciplines provide some of the best available tools for chipping away at the problems of philosophy.

When a man  with a hammer tells you that everything looks like a nail, you should doubt his objectivity. When a man who knows some math and economics tells you that the problems of philosophy can be solved with math and economics, you're entitled to exactly the same reaction. But in this case I believe the causality runs the other way: I was drawn to math and economics because they illuminate the big questions. I saw the nails and went out to find a hammer. [...]"

(*)which is absolutely fantastic and you must have it, despite 1. the fact that David Letterman cannot find page numbers on the Kindle books -- and hates it because of that; 2. the fact that each Kindle book costs more if you buy it outside US-- function of the IP address from where you log in to your Amazon account when buying it (before investigating and realizing this, I did actually buy quite a few Kindle books during my European winter holidays-- and ended up paying about 50 bucks more than I would have paid, had I bought them here in the US). In any case, I am the owner of more than 100 Kindle books already (yes, Amazon, I expect some loyalty awards!): given my fairly long commuting time between Lakeview, where I live, and Northwestern Univ in Evanston, I can read up to two or three books in good weeks.

Econlinks: The Freudian interlude

• Seinfeld's spongeworthy Elaine, an unusual, limited-purpose --but very thorough-- option theory application, by the one and only Avinash Dixit.
•  All passé now, but hopefully you did pick your favorite Cupid. 
• New academic econ world order... but only if you fail to control for the quality of the journals  those papers are published in (my conjecture is that if you take only the top 5-10 journals, the US-EU average gap actually widened). Unfortunately, most European academic economists still believe that publishing  frequently into journals (almost) nobody can remember the names of, or reads, actually makes any difference (other than locally). Pretty Freudian, if you ask me.
•  Compensating wage differentials for sexual harassment? Via: Tabarrok's politically incorrect MR example. 
•  Ely has a good analysis of an (the?) ubiquitous situation arising in the econ (not necessarily  junior) job market. Hamermesh's post on Freakonomics is more related to that than you'd first think. 
• Finding the G-spot; next will be tasting it. 
• Massive reorganization of science funding in Europe... Something promised every four years or so; at least in that practice they are consistent. I don't really know why they aim to change these things ever so often, seemingly just to leave their mark, instead of making sure something actually works well, for once . Very European, and very Freudian...
•  Looks a bit shaky research-wise, but let's take it at face value for now: heterogenous effects of the scent of a woman (I guess Colonel Frank Slade had a simpler, yet practical, view of life). In all cases, a related (albeit equally shaky...) study reaches what looks to me like the right conclusions, which even Slade aka Pacino could adhere to: "Our investigation, however, demonstrates that implicitly preventing people from attending to desirable relationship alternatives may undermine, rather than bolster, the strength of that person’s romantic relationship" HT: Freakonomics.
  
  
  

Econlinks: Of (visual) art, old and new

• The third and the seventh: imagination materialized or Alex Roman's computer generated art. Via Michael Nielsen. 
• Staying in CG: meet Julia Map, of Google ancestry. And since we're here, read how the fractals changed the world --which was in a way also part of the obituary to Father Fractal, Benoit Mandelbrot, who passed away a couple of months ago; see a better one from the Economist. My own brief memories of him: I met Mandelbrot at a workshop on economics with heterogenous agents (WEHIA) at Essex University, back in 2005. Before his keynote speech, he introduced himself in the following very humorous way (paraphrasing): "Hi, I am Benoit Mandelbrot. And I am not dead yet. [pause] I tell you that because I have just met somebody in the corridor who told me: 'OMG, you are Benoit Mandelbrot. I thought you were dead for a long time now' ". 
• Meet Jeremy Mayer, tamer of the typewriter. "I disassemble typewriters and then reassemble them into full-scale, anatomically correct human figures. I do not solder, weld, or glue these assemblages together- the process is entirely cold assembly. I do not introduce any part to the assemblage that did not come from a typewriter". 
• Back to the traditional, but impressively executed: meet Camille Seaman. From the "Last Iceberg series" statement: "Nick Cave once sang, 'All things move toward their end.' Icebergs give the impression of doing just that, in their individual way much as humans do; they have been created of unique conditions and shaped by their environments to live a brief life in a manner solely their own. Some go the distance traveling for many years slowly being eroded by time and the elements; others get snagged on the rocks and are whittled away by persistent currents. Still others dramatically collapse in fits of passion and fury."
• On the art of fiction: interview with Michel Houllebecq, born provocateur. Hat tip MR.
• And yes, she is back online (hopefully she is now here to stay)! Meet my friend Anna, talented photographer and undercover economist. 

Grand challenges for social, behavioural and economic sciences

What this is about: SBE 2020.

244 white papers in SBE available on the NSF site.

The white papers in Economics. Note that some of these papers are not available on the NSF site as they were submitted after their deadline, hence this is not really a subset of the earlier 244; moreover, more might be added at this link (I would not be surprised to count ultimately more here than the total number of papers on the NSF site, after all Econ work is never over-- last bullet point).

(hat tip to Al Roth)

Econlinks: In degrees of awesomeness

• Greg Mankiw seems to be arguing for a European-type separate master + PhD graduate Econ program-- such as those at LSE, Oxford, Pompeu Fabra, Tinbergen Institute, and (I guess) the newish Paris School of Economics entity-- rather than the US-type graduate PhD package, which comes with a (usually elective) master on the way (that is somewhat ironic, given the desire of the typical high-aspiring European place to ultimately emulate the US top places). In any case, assessing the total costs and benefits of these two alternatives remains a difficult empirical quest.
• Awesome grants, via Michael Nielsen.
• MR has linked to direct evidence that the History academic job market was hit way harder (e.g., this year lowest number of positions in a quarter century) than the Economics academic job market (and most likely than any other discipline's job market), which is almost back to the pre-recession level. (My wise friend Daniel, the historian of science with whom I talked several times about this, was absolutely right in his intuitive assessment) 
• Awesome (albeit late) discovery. After reading Gelman's WSJ story, I am decided to request a priori a "kill fee provision", whenever I am asked again to write stuff for various non-scientific outlets; I had similar experiences with a couple of Romanian (some, not surprisingly, now defunct...) newspapers, and, in particular, with the (very surprisingly, still surviving...) Aarhus School of Business internal press. Except that I ended up wasting time and not getting any 'kill fee' for it. Sometimes you have to learn from your own mistakes.
• Creative love song for Friedrich Hayek. Great, as so far Keynes seemed to get all the love (plus the hangovers, true): last bullet point. 
• Very well presented classic economic arguments for raising public college tuition fees by Gary Becker and Richard Posner. Digest them carefully, as they might appear counter-intuitive (witness the frequent nonsensical arguments against such tuition raises) even to intellectuals -- those without training in and/or understanding of Economics. 
• Awesome reply to comment in the scientific journal world. 
• As controversial as outputs of such activity might currently be, concretely gathering brains in such 'intellectual ventures'--in fact: literally leading to brainstorming-- is just awesome. The idea in itself is of course not new, Myhrvold just had the will-- and financial means!-- to implement it on such a scale

Econlinks: On crises. And opportunities

• Crises and opportunities in Balkan science policy (start, more). A word of caution for my Romanian pals, among whom a new risk of self-denying optimism-- expected to turn into the usual complacency-- appears contagious: con calma, this is at best a mediocre start (though, granted, a start it is). Not to mention that before reaching (competing with?) the West, the East needs to tackle (be inspired by?) the more (and increasingly so) academically attractive South.
• ...in which it is revealed that crises may hide huge opportunities. Earlier on the Kseniya phenomenon.
• A wealth of economic ideas? Taxing prostitution in the Netherlands and witchcraft in Romania.  Good luck.
• Chess crisis: what did they give Magnus to drink/smoke in Holland?! In words.
• Opportunities? Best predictors of the number of heterosexual sex partners.
• Somebody save Maastricht, tourists will desert it. 
• In praise of reading and fiction: Mario Vargas Llosa like no other. Also, hopes that the Literature Nobel Committee has finally decided to do a Nobel Committee job.

Econlinks: The 'Economics and Reality' edition

• Harald Uhlig has an interesting recent paper entitled "Economics and Reality"  (intentionally recalling Sims's 1980 ECMA, indeed) . While he discusses the relationship between Economics and Reality (yep, isn't that what you all hope to hear?) mainly in terms of Macroeconomics (you know, the black sheep of the family), I thought he does that in an informative and at the same time very concise way. Hence, highly recommended; I'll quote his end (optimistic, for once...) summary, to get you in the mood: "Reality, i.e. empirical evidence influences economic thinking and theory and vice versa -- but it does not do so in textbook fashion. Jolted by new empirical and theoretical insights and subjected to the fickleness of attention, the frontier of our sciences lurches forward to the unknown territory of ever more profound understanding. If it moves in circles, it hopefully does so on even higher levels. Practical economics and economic policy follows, with considerable distance. Perhaps, this is how it has to be."

• Colbert vs. Mankiw Part 1. Mankiw vs. Colbert Part 2. And here's how it all got started. Obviously we want serious blood, this is just teasing each other. We want more, we want war: we want the Colbert-Mankiw interview! It ain't gonna be easy, after all recall that his Harvard Econ colleague Freeman was a disaster on the Colbert Report (here is an updated link that seems to work)-- albeit his other Harvard colleague Fryer did eventually pretty well (3rd bullet point). But Mankiw is no nonsense, so this could be tough :-). Bets are open!
  

• Hopeless and hapless Romania: well, you do get what you wish for..., where "disappointing" is a euphemism. 
• A must read (also for philosophers and 'other social scientists'): Avinash Dixit's " My Philosophy of Economics, Life, and Everything (Not!)", the sequel to his by now (in)famous "My System of Work (Not!)" . As smart and humorous as always.
• And finally. Off with you, Mr. Pitt: here cometh the Age of the Wimp!

Beyond Pico della Mirandola

How do you get talented, self-absorbed, often arrogant, incredibly bright people to work together?

Warren Bennis, "The Secrets of Great Groups", Leader to Leader, 1997

Econlinks: Of Maths, Efficiency, and Language

• Terry Tao brief and informative on the 2010 Fields medalists (Le Monde est aussi très heureux et honoré pour Ngo et Villani, "deux facettes de l'école mathématique française"). Read also Tao's intro to the winners of the Nevanlinna, Gauss and Chern prizes.
  

• Interesting interview of Michael Nielsen with Cameron Neylon on practical steps towards open science (and, as it turns out, on useful advice beyond that)
  

• Gelman (channelling Palko) on 'teaching yourself Mathematics' (that was better than his acting somewhat confused and perhaps too much as a-- his own--discipline zealot in commenting on Banerjee and Duflo's review)
  

• Landsburg on efficiency and honest goal stating in policy analysis (see also Reinhardt's NYT column that started Landsburg). And another critical instance/application of (in)efficiency, via Barro.
  

• Languages shaping the way we think (and why I would have no chances with geographic idioms like Guugu Yimithirr or truth-revealing languages like Matses)
  

• Last but not least: two ok obituaries for Tony Judt, one in The Economist and one in the NYRB.
  

Weekend econlinks: The quest for perfection

• Gelman writes a useful overview on causality and statistical learning (caveat lector: I have only read through Angrist and Pischke's book, among the three Gelman mentiones; that one is very well written, but aimed at junior graduate students at best: hence, the book's tag "an empiricist's companion" is overselling it; and that has nothing to do with Josh Angrist kindly "advising" me to change my PhD topic/focus, sometime in my beginning graduate years, because 'nobody serious would be interested in structural modelling' :-)). I guess I would position myself more within the “minority view” set, represented here by Heckman (I wouldn’t say that is really a "minority" within Economics alone, by the way), but the usefulness of these debates cannot be questionned. And an outsider's (to Economics) opinion, such as Gelman's, is always more than welcome. Related, the WSJ talks about statistical time travelling to answer interesting counterfactuals; I have a feeling I'll stick to my structural guns for now...

• An excellent article on the junior meritocracy and the perils of standardized testing at very young ages. I share most of the worries expressed therein and indeed agree that the marshmallow test would say at least as much, and probably more, than a standardized intelligence test, in the case of toddlers. My general take is that young humans have much more complex personalities than usually warranted, in ways that elude any catch-all type of tests: after all, some even fall in love at 3 years old.

• The perfect, employer-focused, resume. Uses creativity somewhat differently than its more modern counterparts; I am sure Leonardo would be the one to get all the flyouts and job offers today, as his modern CV were obviously recession-proof.

• The ubiquitous problem with such academic et al rankings (which I brought over and over, including in earlier posts and articles, particularly concerning the academic ranking obsession in Romania, where they also-- still! -- have problems understanding that a publication 'anywhere in ISI' can be total nonsense) is that they try to rank overall, ie. over all disciplines, often over (too) long periods of time etc. The only meaningful hierarchies in science are those done on specific disciplines and, even better, subdisciplines, and over shorter periods of time, thus revealing top new places etc. Then, inter alia, one would not be able to claim that biological sciences are advantaged, since there would be a within-discipline focus. I haven’t heard a single serious (but plenty of marginal) scientist(s) stressing the relevance of the rank of her/his university/institution over that of her/his department/research group. Politicians and journalists should take note, too.

• The perfect chef? That is intriguing enough: I would certainly like to know whether one can trace his whereabouts anywhere around Chicago, in the near future. And the (allegedly) perfect place for the greatest wine-- Rekondo, San Sebastian-- for the far(ther) future.

• Gastronomic sacrilège: where have all the great cheeses gone-- roquefort, camembert, brie de Meaux, Saint-Félicien, gruyère, comté, münster, pont l’évêque, cantal, reblochon, tomme de Savoie, crottin de chavignol?! Worse, together with the cheese, soon gone might be oysters, and epsilon common sense... Quo vadis, France?

• Searching for the perfect chess player, human or machine... Put your money on AI; leave poker for humans.

• The most exciting scientific upshot I've heard about in a great while: explaining the tip-of-the-tongue moments. It comes finally clear (although at this stage I understand it is still just speculative/conjectural, and needs more testing) why polyglots (such as I like to consider myself...) have more of a problem in remembering specific words than people who use a single language: “ […] this kind of forgetfulness is due to infrequency of use; basically, the less often you use a word, the harder it is for your brain to access it." Good, I will feel much better when invoking 'lapsus memoriae' next time :-).

• The quest for the better, simpler, (American) living times: old, but superb Daily Show clip, via Tabarrok, on MR

• Economics research in perfect worlds.


• How very true, though my feeling is that the battle for the brightest junior (and not only) Economists is far from over. It is sadly not Europe overall that might offer an alternative for European economists (not a chance: for starters, Europe needs to cut that embarrasing red tape where academics depend on useless, worthless, ridiculous bureacrats, and to think of attractive real wages... ), but Canada and Australia, which look more and more like worthy competitors to the USA (top; the bulk is way worse than pretty much anywhere in western Europe) places (related, earlier).

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...

It's always the 3rd referee!

Even in 1945...
(with thanks to Alex and YouTube)

Econlinks

• The top 100 global thinkers, according to Foreign Policy. With the usual caveats: some should clearly not be there, others are missing (even from the first 5 positions, say...) etc. Highly subjective, but well, a top...

• Terry Tao makes a nice and concise exposition of some of the most beautiful parts at the intersection of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (oh, nostalgia...), including quick reviews of classical and quantum mechanics.

• Some super nice games/quizzes via Steve Landsburg. Indeed be careful, some are highly addictive. For instance, The Paradoxion Express.

• Probably London's very first Indian restaurant (related, earlier- 2nd bullet point). With thanks to Daniel!

• The way forward for art: private funding with the right incentives for donors/funders. I think this ought to work also for universities, including public European ones... which are notoriously bad at this task, as we all know (with the important caveat that, especially in these European universities, the persons in charge of alumni networks and the like should really be the brains and not the (sub)mediocrities-- which seems to be the default in a lot of such places, even beyond the obvious fact that these are typically people with more /a lot more spare time; perhaps they/we should understand/decide that this is too important a job to leave to those with time to "spare" on it...-- only the brains can attract other brains and...their money).

Weekend econlinks

• Sharing information in scientific research: yes/no/when. Interesting, but the analysis here is applicable only in the context of some sciences (arguably, not most). Moreover, sharing by means of co-authorship is discussed at best indirectly (if one is willing to expand on their repeated interaction game thread...). But my major "disagreement" has to do with their upshot: my conjecture is that know-how sharing is, ceteris paribus, over all disciplines, U-shaped in the degree of competition (and, since I also believe that, overall, very high competition dominates very low competition equilibria, you already know what my prior of the ideal is). Remains however an open empirical question for now.

• We are what we ate: Tony Judt's culinary autobiography. Reminds me that (fortunately) I have only got to know top Indian restaurants in London (in general, Londonese Indian cuisine is probably, up to now, my favourite in the world; though surely there is a variance): a lot must have changed.

• Stanford also jumped in Google's bandwagon of online (dissertation) publishing.

• David Brooks on "the other education": concise and well written. I usually call this second education "exposure". The vast majority of people I've met hardly had any.

• Hyperopia... as a concern.

• Cheaptalk on the election process of Econometric Society Fellows. Not extremely surprising or, for that matter, singular within Economics; after all, they almost forgot Hurwicz for the Nobel Prize..., for largely the same reason: most of the people who used to propose and lobby for him died at some point... I think Ely is right: focus on the young people-- at least that would be an attempt to solve the problem for the future... And yes, for potential candidates why wouldn't you just look to the Econometrica editions (Lones Smith's suggestion in the comments)...

• Music critic review: mode d'emploi, by John Adams.

• Sex toy research. Or Ariely in the quest for another Nobel Ig :-). Goes without saying that I am extremely interested in the results.

• Philip Greenspun on universities and economic growth; via Razvan, on Ad Astra. First impression: he writes much and he misunderstands a lot; particularly the Economics of it all (no, he is not qualified to understand what is clear and what is controversial in Clark's book, to give but one example). Also, doesn't seem to realize (not sure whether qualifying this as voluntary misrepresentation would be better or worse...) the difference between statistical and anectodal evidence. And, in general, he doesn't seem to have decided whether his target is to make people incensed at or interested in what he has to say. BUT, although he errs nearly everywhere else, I agree that a. much change is needed in the way teaching in most universities is done nowadays (see also the 3rd bullet point here on opinions on the value of college education & all that jazz); b. he has some very decent ideas there (others had/have them too) and c. these changes would not cost too much, with the benefit very likely to outweigh that cost. (Probably) Inadvertently, Greenspun is actually arguing for a "Japanese approach" (which the Japanese apply to both teaching and on-the-job training): give a rather broad ("customer-based", if you want some context) training, be able to/ focus on study/work in teams, always help the new/junior ones etc. etc. There is however a known problem with the (standard) Japanese perspective to (life-long) education that I am not sure Greenspun is aware of... Simply put, you really do not want to give no/wrong incentives at the very top of the ability distribution.

• One of the two prediction markets on the 2009 Romanian Presidential Election is now closed and cashed-out (the other one is also "closed", but waiting for the final results on Dec 6th), as the official First Round results of that election are out. Several participants won (virtual) money (yours truly included), but the congratulations go to Dan, as he is the one who won the most (a fortune!). Which means that he is obviously going to pay for the (very good: e.g. the French on this list?) wine, with the occasion of our next meeting :-).

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! :-).