Thoughts on Politics, Economics, Sociology, and Such
they want you to diethey want you to die of coldthey want you to die of measlesthey want you to die of hungerthey want you to die of AIDSthey want you to die of dioxinthey want you to die of cancerthey want you to die pregnantthey want you to die giving birththey want you to [ ]
[Note: This mostly defunct blog is not, in any way, a baking or cooking blog. But I needed somewhere to host this recipe, so here it is!] Pumpkin Breadsmith Challah Adapted from Breadsmith Challah Pan de Calabaza in A Blessing of Bread by Maggie Glezer. Notes This recipe aims for the bakery-style lightness of the [ ]
As part of my last big dissertation push, I ve spent the last month reading through introductory economics textbooks published 1890-1960. The variety and content of these textbooks has been very interesting*, and in addition to many relevant passages for my own work on the history of economic statistics and macroeconomic thinking, I ve also come across [ ]
Tonight is the beginning of Game of Thrones, Season 5, and thus it also marks the anniversary of when Cersei Lannister circulated what was perhaps the greatest memo ever written in Westeros. Titled, “issues with various Houses,” it noted in passing that basically none of House Lannister’s unification and pacification efforts were working well, and [ ]
Philip Cohen published an interesting post using Web of Science data to show how academics talk about inequality in the 1980s to present. Phil looks at variations of the phrase race, class, gender , and the rise of social inequality over social stratification , in the titles of journal articles. Here s another slice at the topic. I used [ ]
I am very pleased to announce that Administrative Science Quarterly has just posted the online version of my forthcoming article with Russ Funk, Derivatives and Deregulation: Financial Innovation and the Demise of Glass–Steagall. Here s the abstract: Regulators, much like market actors, rely on categorical distinctions. Innovations that are ambiguous to regulatory categories but not to [ ]
Josh Barro wrote a somewhat controversial op-ed in the NYT attempting to apply the Coase theorem to the negotiation between passengers on a plane about whether or not to recline their seats. Economist Greg Mankiw and political theorist Jim Johnson each posted a short reaction to the paper. See if you can spot the difference [ ]
Let s coin a new phrase: statistical optimism. Statistical optimism refers to the belief that if only we had better statistics about X, and that everyone was made aware of those statistics, then we would make better decisions about X and some set of problems would go away without any major changes in the institutions actually [ ]
The 2014 Junior Theorists Symposium is just three weeks away! Below, please find an updated schedule. JTS 2014 will be held at the University of California Berkeley in 60 Evans Hall. A complete list of paper abstracts is available here (pdf link). If you have any questions, please contact Jordanna Matlon and myself at juniortheorists@gmail.com. [ ]
Dear Readers! First, a bit of housekeeping. I ve been officially recruited onto the Scatterplot blogging team. So, for the time being, substantive posts about sociology and related topics will likely be posted over there (e.g. this piece on clarifying the debate over replication in the social sciences). I ll save this blog for more personal updates [ ]