Category: Education

If your contribution as an economist is very fundamental, other people will use that contribution whether or not they were your students.  Lots of people use, or critique, the assumption of rational expectations.  So the inventors of RE don’t need students to propagate their fame.  Alfred Marshall’s fame today is mostly independent of the students he had (or did not have).

Having fundamental contributions is correlated with quality but within the top tier of quality there is considerable variation.  Arrow and Lucas had relatively fundamental contributions but in contrast Milton Friedman, Larry Summers, Robert Barro, and Olivier Blanchard are all more applied.  Their demand for students should be higher.  If you are an empirical economist, but invented an econometric technique which is fundamental, your demand for students should be relatively low.  Students might also prefer advisors who are less "fundamental," for fear of being overshadowed or from wanting to avoid the winner-take-all tier of the market.

Since at top schools the percentage of "fundamental" economists is declining over time, we would expect the distribution of doctoral students, across faculty, to become more even.

I thank Amanda Agan and some of her friends for a useful conversation on this topic.

We feel a deep pleasure from realizing that we believe something in common with our friends, and different from most people.  We feel an even deeper pleasure letting everyone know of this fact.  This feeling is EVIL.  Learn to see it in yourself, and then learn to be horrified by how thoroughly it can poison your mind.  Yes evidence may at times force you to disagree with a majority, and your friends may have correlated exposure to that evidence, but take no pleasure when you and your associates disagree with others; that is the road to rationality ruin.

Here is the link.  I like that phrase, "rationality ruin."  I am, of course, more of a pragmatist and less of a Platonist than is Robin.  But still, Robin is the daily tonic I wish to take.

If there has been a conspiracy among liberal faculty members to
influence students, “they’ve done a pretty bad job,” said A. Lee
Fritschler, a professor of public policy at George Mason University and
an author of the new book “Closed Minds? Politics and Ideology in
American Universities” (Brookings Institution Press).

The
notion that students are induced to move leftward “is a fantasy,” said
Jeremy D. Mayer, another of the book’s authors. When it comes to
shaping a young person’s political views, “it is really hard to change
the mind of anyone over 15,” said Mr. Mayer, who did extensive research
on faculty and students.

Here is the story.

Ben Casnocha has some suggestions for making good personal and career contacts:

How to find a hidden gem? Hints from my post on de-emphasizing popular filters: seek out introverts. Seek out people under age 30. Seek out people who are bad at marketing.

Recognize and discount the celebrity effect. Spend time with
people who also have time to spend with you. My bet is you’ll have a
more rewarding relationship.

This is the same Ben who went to a talk of mine in Zurich and introduced himself to me.  I’m not under 30.  In any case, I agree with his bottom line:

The only reason to try to meet with Mr. Busy and Rich for 10 minutes is
if you have a very specific request or need. If you’re just trying to
"network" or build a relationship, don’t waste your time.

John Smith reports:

I am ready to move on – perhaps for a career where deadlines are
honored, ideas are exchanged and gimmicks and fads are routinely
avoided because they distract from advancing the mission of gaining and
sharing knowledge. Yes, it is time to find another line of work, where
I can enjoy the fruits of my labor, even if I realize that the grass is
grayer, if not greener, elsewhere.

John Smith is the pseudonym of a professor at a liberal arts
college. He asked to remain anonymous because he is continuing to teach
while he is job-hunting and doesn’t want his comments to reflect on his
institution.

It seems to boil down to Larry Iannaccone’s model of religion:

Bearman and Brückner have also identified a peculiar dilemma: in some
schools, if too many teens pledge, the effort basically collapses.
Pledgers apparently gather strength from the sense that they are an
embattled minority; once their numbers exceed thirty per cent, and
proclaimed chastity becomes the norm, that special identity is lost.
With such a fragile formula, it’s hard to imagine how educators can
ever get it right: once the self-proclaimed virgin clique hits the
thirty-one-per-cent mark, suddenly it’s Sodom and Gomorrah.

Here is much more, on the general question of why the teenage children of evangelicals get pregnant so often.  The first question is whether they do, adjusting for all the proper demographics.  Second, I wonder if there isn’t also a combined lifecycle/genetic effect.  Maybe if you’re rowdy when you’re young, you’re religious when you’re old, but the kids that pop out are on average rowdy too.

All of the reasons I am opposed to multiple choice exams are predicated on the assumption that I understand the material and that multiple choice exams hinder me from demonstrating what I know. If, however, I didn’t know the material, or didn’t know it well, then I might be led to believe that I’d be better off with a multiple choice exam. After all, with multiple choice exams, at least there would be a chance I could "recognize" something and at least I have something to pick from. On a short answer exam, if I don’t know the material I’ll end up sitting there staring at blank sheets of paper for the entire exam period. Psychologically I think being able to pick an answer to a bunch of questions (even if the answers are wrong) is more comforting than having a bunch a bunch of blank spaces. A 50% is a 50%, regardless of whether you filled in all the bubbles and missed half or if you had a bunch of blank space on a short answer test. But while taking the test, the student will feel more confident filling in the bubbles than anything else.

Here is much more, from this blog, via Andrew Sullivan.  The piece could use a longer discussion of the law of large numbers, but it makes many points of interest.

David Colander and co. give us a whole paper on this topic:

This data suggests that the presence of an unrestricted-entry business program has a positive impact on the satisfaction levels of economics majors. When such programs exist, the economics major is not forced to balance both the goals of students who would rather be in business programs with the goals of students who would study economics either way; therefore the economics major can more easily suit all of its students’ demands.

There are many more tidbits, including the following:

Students generally considered the majors more difficult at liberal arts schools than at state schools. The difference is most pronounced in economics, considered hard by 25.4% of state school students compared to 40.2% of students at liberal arts schools. At research liberal arts school, the major was considered even harder; 44.2% of students considered the economics major hard.

p.7 warmed my heart and p.11 gives the main reason for becoming an economics major: "I did well in early courses, and found it interesting."  That Smithian explanation is more important than the quest for job opportunities.  The paper is here.  Hat tip to Pluralist Economics Review.

Tens of thousands of teachers are blocking highways and seizing
government buildings across Mexico to protest a federal education
reform ending their longtime practice of selling their jobs or giving
them to their children.

…At the heart of the conflict is the "Alliance for Quality Education," a
national plan to professionalize teachers and hold them accountable for
their students’ performances. The plan was ratified in May by Mexican
President Felipe Calderon and Elba Esther Gordillo, the leader of the
country’s 1.6 million-member National Education Workers Union, and sent
to Mexico’s 31 state governments and Federal District for approval.

To buy a good teaching job costs at least $6,000.  Here is the article.  This issue is very important for the future of Mexico.  I thank John Thacker for the pointer.

The most popular game for Icelandic families in 2009?

Go Fish!

What’s the capital of Iceland?

About $20

Iceland was a currency posing as a bank.

I went to an ATM today, and it asked to borrow a twenty till next week.

Quote of the day (from a trader): "This is worse than a divorce. I’ve lost half my net worth and I still have a wife."

In Soviet America, banks rob people because that is where the money is!

Those are from this comments section.  Do you know any such jokes?

(The fictional 18th century heroine, Moll Flanders, recognized that a high self-regard can be dangerous, arguing that women who believe themselves beautiful are easier to seduce: “If a young woman once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts the truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for she believes herself charming enough to captivate him, ’tis natural to expect the effects of it.”)

Here is the link.

Noah writes to me:

Big fan of the blog.  I was wondering whether there’s a reason other than historical accident why the public library model only exists for media like books and music.  I understand the argument that books produce a social benefit that the government should be in the business of subsidizing, but surely there must be other goods with that kind of benefit that can be similarly lent out.  Take the example of tools, most of which are rarely used.  Is there a public good in having a mechanically-fluent citizenry that would justify a system of public tool libraries?  Or is there anything else you think it would make sense to build libraries around?

Reserves, it would seem, and maybe they will waive the overdue fines as well and perhaps even the lost reserves fines.  Mark Thoma ponders an AIG bail-out.

Somebody who knew President Bush well once remarked to me. "You’ll notice he never asks questions."

"Why not?" I said.

"Because he doesn’t know what it’s okay for him not to know."

I am interested in the principle, not in discussion of President Bush.  Hat tip to Ross Douthat.