Most promising photoblog in the ROblosphere

True talent is true talent and you can't pass by without noticing it. So I decided not to. In my (always subjective, of course) opinion Cristina Grosan's photoblog is the very best (young) photoblog I had the chance to fall upon, within the Romanian blogosphere. Who is Cristina Grosan? I do not have more direct information about her than the bits from this short (and very smart) interview with her (in Romanian). However, neither is more background necessary; from the photos and accompanying texts (all superlative) on her blog, I already know her enough: I am honoured to add her blog among my bloglinks. And I think I am right to keep my expectations very high inasmuch as she is concerned. Ad majora, Cristina!

Quote for week 4th- 10th of October '07

And who are the peple who like just about everything, from Chinese pipa music to Bach to Algerian Rai to Stockhausen to bebop to 1920s blues? They are either musical professionals or nerdy upper-middle-class professionals, usually with some experience living abroad. That's me. Sadly I am no less predictable than the Grand Rapids stoner.

Tyler Cowen, "Discover Your Inner Economist"

Read previous quote of the week.

Econlinks for 07-11-'07

• "Cheap talk" incentives for better grades. You never know, it might actually work; let's see if Bloomberg actually implements this.

• Ed Glaeser with a very interesting piece on gender differences in aggresiveness and policy ideas. And yes, as things currently stand, Greg Mankiw might be very right that Glaeser just said goodbye forever to the Harvard Presidential chair :-).

• Surprinsingly, by the slimmest of margins, I am not a quant... (thanks to Greg Mankiw for the pointer)

• Colbert dropped his bid for the White House (though he only announced it some days ago): "Although I lost by the slimmest margin in presidential election history — only 10 votes — I have chosen not to put the country through another agonizing Supreme Court battle[...] It is time for this nation to heal" ; nevertheless, he claims it is not over :-)

• Heel goed, Wendy (interview on YouTube, in Dutch)! My friend and former Tinbergen Institute colleague Wendy Janssens is very briefly describing the research undertaken in her PhD thesis (with focus here on the importance of social capital in a development program from India). The latest prize her thesis won is the "Societal Impact Award" for 2007 (this after she won already the Amsterdam Institute for International Development/World Bank dissertation award) . Gefeliceteerd en ad majora!

Econlinks for 01-11-'07

• The RePEc blog appeared recently. Looks interesting at first sight, though some ideas in very recent posts do not appear so sensible (such as this one).

• 100% Gary Becker: an entry by Steven Levitt, with further links. One could not have enough space and time to discuss all Becker's contributions to Economics (and to science, in general) in one post: suffice to say here that some of my economist friends call him "The God" :-).

• My friend and former Tinbergen Institute colleague Otto van Hemert made it on the Marginal Revolution blog, where Tyler Cowen introduces his latest (co-authored) research on subprime mortgages in the USA (skimmed through the paper for now, will have to find more time to read it thoroughly). This surely should give him some attention beyond the academe :-).

• Spinning ballerina: the KO (via Freakonomics). Blogged about that also here and here.

• "After nearly 15 minutes of soul searching" he "heard the call" and decided to enter the Presidential election for the USA: "Nation, I will seek the office of the president of the United States. I am doing it!". So, Americans, vote for Steve Colbert!

Quotes for week 21st to 27th of Oct '07

Bărbata nu pentru o bere obişnuită se duce la Irish [Pub].

La patru dimineaţa zâmbetul chelnerului e un cadou.

Mezei Nelli, "Noapte Lunga la Timisoara"

Read the quote of the previous week.

Does knowledge of economics make you happier?

The read of the week. The author of Bluematter is "[a]n occasionally tactless economist [who] opines on economics, politics and everything else. " And who choses to remain anonymous on the following grounds: "This blog reflects my personal views and is in no way representative of those of my employer or my mum. To make sure no misunderstanding arises and their lives stay stress-free, I will remain anonymous." Brilliant, concise and simply brilliant!

But here's the gist of his answer to the question we are all interested in (I couldn't have phrased this better and for the moment I can't think of anything to add to it):

"...the answer is yes. Here's why:

1. I cherish my consumer surplus. I value most of the stuff I buy way more than what I have to pay for them; vanilla ice cream makes me happy beyond belief, and the same is true for the music of Dream Theater and the (soon to be purchased) Apple iphone. And what am I asked to pay for them? Peanuts.

2. I cherish my producer surplus. I am getting paid way, way more than the salary that would make me indifferent between supplying labour and staying at home.

3. I never have regrets: I did the best I could given the information available to me at the time. Judging I could have done better using information I acquired at a later date makes as much sense as regretting the existence of gravity. On a related topic, I understand the irrelevance of sunk costs.

4. While I do care for my welfare in relative terms, my welfare in absolute terms looms large in my utility function - and, boy, look how its value has been growing.

5. The selfishness of my fellow human beings does not make me anxious or depressed. Adam Smith (or was it Mandeville?) taught me that humans, selfish as they are, can make happy societies. And perhaps more to the point, they can make me happy.

Found about the above via Tyler Cowen, on MR. And we have to give Tyler the credit for his equally brilliant conclusion: "Only the fixed point theorem prevents him from reaching pure bliss." :-)

Zoitica, esti barbata!

Descoperirea saptamanii: de departe, cel mai promitator nou blog din ClujBlogRoll. Ingrediente majore in posturile de pana acum: stil, acel epsilon necesar de imprevizibilitate si, mai ales, elementul "exposure". Un debut de exceptie (perfectibil, dar reusit) a carui implicatie nu poate fi decat "I'll be returning soon, hungry for more" (yep, Anton Ego becoming my alter ego...).

PS. Sa nu ma dezmint :-), totusi: putin mai multa atentie la forma nu ar strica (da, am inteles ca romana e pentru tine a doua limba; in cazul tau, insa, cu foarte putin efort in plus, cred ca ai putea sa scrii textele fara greseala-- si da, practica te va ajuta enorm aici) . Sugestia e evident de prioritate secundara; cata vreme continutul ramane superlativ, you rock!

The spinning dancer and the actual evidence

Steven Levitt questions (quite convincingly, despite the small sample size and possible selection issues) the main "predictions" associated with the direction people see this ballerina spin. Levitt (who also sees the dancer turn only clockwise, as I do) shows that probably all associations in the article were reversed and the left column should have been the right column (next to that, it also appears that it isn't even true that most people see the dancer turn anti-clockwise)... I thought so, since I deemed most of them speculations, to start with. Well, too bad for the risk taking behaviour, that one I did not mind :-).

Quote/movie scene for week 14th- 20th of October '07

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so [...]

Anton Ego, character in the movie "Ratatouille"

Listen to Ego's full review on YouTube -- my selected movie scene of the week-- with the food critic superlatively dubbed by Peter O'Toole throughout the movie. I should also say that Ratatouille (IMDb, RottenTomatoes) just made it to my top 25 movies.

Read previous week's quote.

See previous movie scene of the week.

Econlinks for 21 Oct '07

• Preston McAfee brings a second noteworthy innovation to Economic Inquiry (I also blogged about the first one since he came as editor to that journal): "We now have a miscellany section. Miscellany operates like the JPE section of the same name, publishing humor and curiosities. Humor is purely a taste determination and being funny for an academic is like being tall for a dwarf. Submissions for the miscellany should indicate so on the manuscript. A good idea is to title the paper "Miscellany: The Simple Economics of Complexity." " The quote was from the the page on the policies of the Economic Inquiry. See more on this from the new editor of the Economic Inquiry humor section (with hints of how humorous that would be).

• Greg Mankiw with some super interesting links to new papers on our genetic sense of fairness (the papers he is talking about are published in the PNAS and respectively, Science).

• The Right vs. Left Brain test (via Tyler Cowen on MR). I have to confess that I only see the ballerina spin clockwise, no matter how hard I try to spot also the reverse spinning (apparently most people can only see the anti-clockwise spinning: that is very curious for me). Right hemisphere use and risk taking behaviour it is, then (the rest of the characteristics associated with one or the other type are pure speculation, I'd say).

• The economics of gold digging, via Steven Levitt. The most interesting part is Levitt's discussion of the initial female Craiglist post and the succesive male answer. In particular the following Levitt quote should be saved for future reference; it suggests there is still hope in this profession, despite the initial odds :-)

"I wouldn’t expect male economists to marry very well. Firstly, they tend to think like the guy who wrote this letter. Secondly, they tend to be nerds. Thirdly, they make very little money when they are young because they get so much education, even though their lifetime income is quite high. Yet I think it is fair to say that the economists I know have married stunningly well (myself included). We’ve all been puzzling over this fact for the fifteen years I have been in the profession. As of yet, no one has come up with a good explanation. I doubt it could be perfect foresight on the part of the women we marry."

• A concise Economist article (relatively easy read, I'd say, also for those outside academia or Economics) on the three Nobel Economists of this year. See also my previous post on the winners, with links to their homepages.