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)

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: 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: 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.

• 
  
  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).



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.
  

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...

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! :-).

Sunday night econlinks

• Bilingualism and early child development: very interesting brand-new research in PNAS (institutional or individual subscription needed, else only abstract is free). And yes, bilingualism clearly pays off, if you were wondering.

• Vienna and the largest Swiss cities top Mercer's quality of living index for '09, while Munich appears to be the winner if you account simultaneously for both quality of living (position 7) and infrastructure (position 2). "München mag Dich" indeed, as they say.

• There are many problems with (some of) these suggestions concerning reforming the academe and pre-academe, but there should indeed be a continuous debate on these issues. Proposals 3,4 and 5 could be ok with me in the current format; the other three are presented in an unnecessary radical perspective, despite being debated many times before and shown not to be that simple as they seem at first sight. Via Gabi Istrate, on Ad Astra. An interesting corrolary here is the following: why not decentralize completely the process and leave it up to each university to organize itself as it fits it best (e.g. by offering tenure or not, by having "generalist" or "specialist" departments etc) ? In the long run the best academic/educational system would win (by attracting the best/most students, by generating the highest-earning/most succesful graduates etc.)? Of course, to some extent these differences exist even now, but more among "unusual" types of academic/research institutes and "typical" universities.

• Going Dutch -- the article would like to give an "American perspective", but ends somewhere midway and misses much of what I would have expected. Oh, and 18 months... come on! After 18 months you know yet nothing about Amsterdam, not to mention the whole of Netherlands (even after long discussions with Geert Mak) ... I'd love to read his opinions after 80 months... As for 'Socialism gone Wild', the author could try his chance a bit more to the North of Europe :-).

Test your Macroeconomics knowledge

...by doing this NYTimes 18 multiple-choice questions quiz (via Greg Mankiw).

This is obviously piece of cake if you did any (ok: any decent) introductory Economics courses (if you did not do any Econ but read frequently the economic news and understand some basics, you should still be able to answer correctly at least 10 of the 18 questions-- my own approximation here), but I still like the way they structured the multiple choices: I actually had to stay more than a few seconds for some of the questions :-).

Sunday night econlinks

• Reviewing the reviewers, with cross-disciplinary insights. Who would have thought that Economics is somewhat like History? :-). Thanks to Daniel for the link!

• The Prisoner's Dilemma in practice or 'Who's got the Golden Balls'? :-). Greg Mankiw already decided to use it for his econ classes :-).

• The Economic Journal announces two interesting changes in terms of its submission/refereeing process, aiming at speeding up and raising the bar in the peer review process: i) Referees will not be individually paid anylonger, but the 10 best referees every year will each get a 500 pound prize. ii) In terms of submission process, submission of editorial letters and previous referee reports at other journals is encouraged. Read the whole letter. I think that whether i) works in speeding and improving the refereeing process is really an empirical quest, but ii) should be clearly adopted formally also by other journals.

• Definitely a necessary debate within the structural vs. reduced-model economics context. I think/hope that this was just the warming up stage :-). Some extremely interesting contributions so far, all from top names in the Econ field: i) Marschak's Maxim nowadays; ii) Instruments of Development; iii) Better LATE than nothing. Not entirely on the same frequence, but somewhat of a prelude--third bullet point and earlier links therein.

• Bill Easterly's secret to succesful aid.

• We know quite a bit about the bad ones by now, e.g. from everyday's news... So time to hear more about the good pirates. (There should be of course no question about the best pirates ).

Econlinks

• "If the Obama administration fails to revive the economy, will it be because Summers is too influential over economic policy, or not influential enough?"

• How much capsaicin would you like/can you stand? For the true chili aficionados among you, perhaps the Dorset naga? I'll pass on that one :-).

• E-cigarettes are en vogue. An option that could ensure the perfect exercise of the freedom of choice, without the typical negative externality such as passive smoking for the others.

• The only company without liquidity problems in these hard times...

• Bryan Graham's note to potential PhD students. Some specificities to UC Berkeley Econ, but otherwise general enough-- might be a good idea to have something like this on your webprofile, if you plan to have doctoral students...

• The Leprechaun bailout (hat tip to Greg Mankiw).

• Lars von Trier's "Dogville" (IMDb, RottenTomatoes) as an illustration of general equilibrium properties: an Economists' Voice brief article by Harmgart and Huck (earlier ungated version)

Science article on the Ad Astra organization of Romanian scientists

Reaching for the stars in Romania. Nice article on Ad Astra, Romanian science and education in general-- and also nice brief profiling of Razvan Florian and Liviu Giosan, the Ad Astra "founding fathers". A bit annoying that Science is reacting only now in this regard, but better later than never...

Update: in the same Science edition, "At home in Bucharest, for better and for worse"

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....

The fringe benefits of failure

Possibly the best short read of the week. In any case, surely the best speech for a class of university graduates I've ever happened onto. J.K. Rowling, the benefits of failure and, more than anything, the importance of imagination (You can also watch the video of the speech- if not loading, it is also on YouTube already, in several copies...).

(HT to Greg Mankiw).

And here's an advice from the the lecture above that my younger (and older...) friends would do well to retain (there are plenty others, so read the whole speech linked above very carefully); we'll have this one as quote of the week:

There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.

And I'll even add a second-best this week (though, ultimately, very likely my personal favourite from Rowling's speech)

Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two.

Econlinks today

• Esther Duflo on a topic that deserves much more attention among policy makers: the need to insure the very poor against food price variability

• Here's the most ridiculous thing I've heard so far, within the academic publishing business: deliberately slowing things down by sitting a whole month on each submission before doing anything with it. Via Andrew Gelman. Something like this might well be practiced by more journals and in many fields ( and surely I am thinking mostly about my own field here...) than currently known: could explain a substantial part of (complementing the fact that referees are not easy to find and they might be slow themselves, see also here) the often exaggerated times before one gets back referee reports etc. I think it just shows the incapacity of those editors to function as editors, if that is the case. And obviously excessive crowding/queueing can be solved in this context, similar to many other contexts involving congestion, by raising submission fees (despite the apparent objection of some people, which Gelman also mentions, that people don't have the money for it-- give me a break, I'd say: if you are indeed such an underpaid academic, probably you can't produce the quality required for that top journal anyway; and for universities in places that really run low on budgets and remuneration in general, like Africa, Eastern Europe etc., some reduction or waiver could be in place).

• "Econometrics: qu'est-ce que c'est?" or econometrics as taught at University of Michigan (where also other Econ professors seem to be very talented inasmuch as music is concerned) :-). I think many economics/ econometrics professors elsewhere could learn something from this-- it isn't for nothing that most students consider econometrics courses the most boring courses they (have to) take... Here's the academic website of the excellent performer above, in case anyone wants to contact him for advice in teaching.

• Discussion on the merits of (further/ re-) regulating financial markets: Becker and respectively, Posner. I believe Posner is for some reason becoming too skeptical of the powers of the free market, so I'll strongly recommend only Becker's analysis this time :-).

• Collected advice for young economists (via Tyler Cowen on MR), from senior economists. I have read all of these pieces before (though, unfortunately, haven't always followed the advice in there...), but it is excellent to have them in one place.

Wanted in Romania: Engineers

Romania's finally got a field where it is an uncontested world leader: the shortage of talent on the labour market. Engineers, skilled manual trades and executives are the top missing ones. This is according to the latest survey of Manpower Inc. on talent shortages worldwide. Read also a brief Euroactiv summary on Romania's position in this hierarchy. It would be interesting to know (beyond speculation) where have all these skilled people gone, that is, the distribution by receiving country (obviously we're talking primarily brain drain here), but I am not aware of any study having investigated that (comment away if you have any relevant info here).

(in Romanian on Ad Astra, via Alex Cabuz and Razvan Florian)


PS. A while ago I posted on the Scandinavians complaining about the shortage of skilled workforce (1st bullet point). They seem to be doing rather well compared to Romania, however...

Econlinks today

• Why the Bayesian statistician cannot stand Bayesian statistics: I actually thought he meant it... for a few seconds. Best academic April 1st prank this year.

• "Insead, for example, has set up a virtual campus on Second Life, to complement its physical campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and in Singapore. Classes attended entirely by Second Life avatars have been held on the virtual campus." More on this FT article on recent trends in business education.

• The first Romanian Economics journal indexed ISI. While this in itself is not bad, in Romania they still live under the impression that ISI-indexed, per se (alternatively, publishing in any ISI-indexed journals) is divine: a journal can be indexed ISI and be total crap, as de facto many Economics ISI-journals are. If Professor Klein had only known (did they tell him?) what he did when accepting to be in this editorial board, next to such world famous Romanian economists, with publications in all the very top Econ journals... I guess he might indeed be getting old (though nothing short of extremely sharp, scientific-wise, last I saw him debating was in a conference to celebrate 100 years since the birth of Jan Tinbergen in Rotterdam, April '03). But I honestly wish them success: they could start by burning their previous editions (read some of articles in the already published numbers-- & neah, don't worry, for several of them you won't need any prerequisite to see where they're headed) and perform a radical change-- that if they want to ever move from the bottom of the (ISI...) quality distribution, which they've just joined. Via Razvan Florian, on Ad Astra (in Romanian).

• Some will say he's homo economicus in person, but Landsburg is brilliantly defending the case for foreclosures (an article in Slate, a month ago).

Econlinks for 23-02-'08

• "[...] it is surprising and disturbing that, at a time when the premium for skills has increased and the return to graduating high school has risen, the high school dropout rate in America is increasing. America is becoming a polarised society. Proportionately more American youth are going to college and graduating than ever before. At the same time, proportionately more are failing to complete high school." Read the whole article on education trends in the USA by Jim Heckman and Paul LaFontaine, on VoxEU (with references to the research papers they quote).

• a nice interview in the latest Royal Economic Society (RES) newsletter with one of my favourite economists, Avinash Dixit. The interviewer is Andrew Oswald; since the newsletter is not yet available for download on the RES site, you can download the interview (PDF) from Oswald's site. Here's an excerpt dealing with Dixit's aversion towards reviewing long papers (same here, though, on the other hand, I admit to being guilty of having written some very long papers :-)):

[...] here is my reaction as I read, say, page 50 of the 70 page paper. I am reminded of the character Elaine in the show Seinfeld. [...] She is watching the movie of The English Patient. Finally she bursts out “quit telling your stupid story about your stupid desert and just die”. That’s what I think when I am on page 50 of a 70 page paper. Even a really good one!

• Larry Summers goes into business. Part-time, for now. Probably Summers is one of the few academic economists (top academic economist: this guy is a recipient of the John Bates Clark medal, for instance) to have had quite a wide range of top jobs (the ones outside the typical academic activity as professor at Harvard: Secretary of the Treasury, President of Harvard University, and now managing director of a hedge fund firm).

• Gary Becker and respectively Richard Posner on corporate philanthropy, more specifically analyzing Gates's speech at Davos. Link this to my previous entry on Easterly's criticism to Bill Gates's new notion of 'creative capitalism'.

Econlinks for 18-02-'08

• An excellent (& extensive) interview with Susan Athey, the most recent winner of the John Bates Clark medal. Here's one of the best parts:
  
  

  Finding the applications that resonate with the students or the population in general and then showing them how a little bit of structured thinking can substantially improve their understanding — I think that’s where you get the power of economics. I’m still amazed that in the business world how having a coherent and structured way of approaching problems can allow someone like me to walk into an industry meeting and talk to people who are brilliant people managing large companies and still have unique insights for them. That’s because I have these really powerful tools at my disposal. Economics allows you to think several layers deeper. Without that structure, you just get lost in a muddle.

  
  

• Greg Mankiw rules again with his "Principles of Economics" class at Harvard. Probably Mankiw's is the most popular class of Economics in the world; the Economics world should in that case acknowledge Mankiw as "THE Economics Teacher".
  

• Here's Steven Levitt answering (some of) the criticism of John DiNardo. I've mentioned DiNardo's criticism here (1st bullet point). DiNardo might have been bored indeed :-), but Levitt carefully selects which points to tackle in his reply; he eventually addresses (true, very well) some of the relatively minor ones and leaves the gist of the critique unanswered...
  

• This IS NOT my reason for not using Facebook and declining every invitation to do so (don't even bother). I think the author of this text in The Guardian has little comprehension of economics, freedom to choose and the like, not to mention that at times he borders on paranoia. As long as users are perfectly informed of their rights and obligations, there is nothing to do with, e.g., invasion of privacy, to choose randomly from the 'sin list' of the article linked above. My rationale is much simpler: my opportunity costs would outweigh any eventual benefits from being active on Facebook or related 'social networking' sites. I however see them perfectly justified and a great business idea.