In Transition

As you probably notice, I've decided to make this an anonymous blog. I enjoy the blog for what it is--a scrapbook for ideas and experiences. I've long worried that the informal nature of the blog might make me appear less serious as an economist. When the question why should good economists blog requires an answer, it's a signal that it's a risky venture.

In general, I'm a very cautious person. Further, when it comes time to get a job, I'd like potential job market committees to focus their attention on the body of work that I've put years of work into. And I think they would like that as well. That said, putting myself in their shoes, it would be tough to resist looking at an applicant's blog that turned up from a google search.

Riding the Wave

One of the reasons I started this blog was to help me stay current/connected to the outside world. Of course, this is a relative statement because "the outside world" might mean world of economics outside of the specific papers I'm working on as much as it means the outside world outside world. In any case, I think it's been helpful for both. And it has helped me generate a few research ideas I may pursue in the future.

At the same time, it's my nature to be a very streaky person and lately I've been focusing my energy rather exclusively on writing up a paper. I've learned to embrace my streakiness. When a wave of energy/focus/enthusiasm comes along, I go with it as long as I can. This includes activities like cooking and reading along with the academic stuff. Pacing oneself is overrated--doing less today probably will not make one do any more tomorrow.

As for the paper, I'm eager to finish it and I think I'm fairly close. I started working on it a little less than two years ago. The process has been a roller coaster. I've wanted to burst into my advisors office with the latest exciting results many times. I've wanted to throw my computer out the window many more times. That said, I'm happy with how it's shaping up. And I'm pretty sure my next/other papers will go more smoothly and more quickly with this one under my belt. (Why? First of all, mean reversion. Second, this is the first paper I started.)

Anyhow, I guess this is to say that the recent post drought is likely to continue for awhile. Then again, perhaps this post signals a blogging streak.

What I want for Christmas

My favorite blogs with longish posts to be podcasted. Mostly The Becker-Posner Blog. Also Dani Rodrik.

3 Most Influential Blogs

To me, personally, in no particular order:

The Becker-Posner Blog
When I first started reading The Becker-Posner Blog, I was amazed by their insights. After a while, I realized that they are simply applying neoclassical economic theory time after time. But they wield it powerfully. If one had no previous knowledge of economics, this may be the best place to start learning. The posts are well thought out and tackle big issues. Sometimes the positions they take are somewhat predictable but I always take this as a good signal about my own economic insight. Think about it this way--if you're writing a paper, for example, it's probably not a bad idea to wonder "what would Becker and Posner think about this?"

Art de Vany
This one has had the biggest impact on my day to day life. Most of the posts deal with how to eat and exercise in a way consistent with the conditions under which humans evolved. For about nine months before I started reading, I had diet hopped--I had lost 20 lbs but stagnated for the previous few months. Then I started following Art's suggestions when eating at home--lots more vegetables and fruits and no more starches. Another 10 lbs fell off pretty quickly. The great thing is that it's not like "being on a diet" at all so I don't have much of a desire to stop. That said, I haven't implemented the advice on exercise and I don't hesitate to indulge every now and then.

Marginal Revolution
While this blog is great for daily entertainment and economic insights, it's best for its "life hacks." My favorites include:

• The game to keep a museum exciting. In every room you visit you pick which piece you'd take if you were a burglar.
  
• Stop reading that book if you're not into it! (Perhaps this is common sense but for many, myself included, it's hard to do. I think people tend to view reading books as an accomplishment which makes not finishing books seem like failure. Or perhaps people like to be able to definitively say they didn't like something. Neither of these is a good argument for continuing to read something you're not excited about.)
  
• Don't try to eat healthy in restaurants. They specialize in unhealthy food. Make up for it by eating healthy at home.

EDIT: Gabriel weighs in with his three most influential blogs.

Levitt In Trouble Again?

Yesterday, he posted the following:

This is What Happens to People Who Listen to Too Much AC/DC...

They grow up to write economics papers like this one, which looks at whether participants in lab experiments get closer to efficient outcomes when exposed to one lead singer of the rock band AC/DC versus another.

I hope for this guy’s sake he has tenure.

Levitt didn't realize that the paper was a joke. The professor who wrote the paper emailed him with the real story. Here's Levitt's correction:

There Is Hope For Economics: The AC/DC Paper Was a Joke

I am delighted to report that the economics paper on AC/DC I blogged about yesterday was meant as a joke. It takes a lot of work to run an experiment on real people, just for a gag paper. It turns out they meant to play the same AC/DC song in both treatments, but made a mistake and accidentally played two different songs. Thus the genesis of the joke paper.

I still think this leaves Professor Oxoby with a bit of explaining to do as to why they were playing AC/DC as part of an experiment in the first place, however.

The comments on this second post, including one by Oxoby who posts the email he sent to Levitt, show that some aren't happy with the correction. Is Levitt in the wrong or are the people leaving comments too uptight?

A very short while back, Levitt blogged about "what [he] would do to maximize terror if [he] were a terrorist with limited resources": Part I, Part II, Part III. People didn't like that one very much either.

The Benefits of Blogging

I pitched a paper idea to one of my advisors this morning and she was pretty enthusiastic about it. Yay for me! I take this as evidence that blogging can be productive since the idea was a direct result of reading blogs and writing this blog.

Now, back to "real work."