Hi all,
Ok, so I’ve just been co-chair of a conference so I’m going to be honest: I am exhausted. I was advised to just link to every paper that was presented and post my favourite shake it off gif at the end for the nineteenth time, but I’m going to try and do the right thing. And then collapse in pile on my bed and sleep for a day (without having to shout at people to make sure they move from the coffee room to the main conference hall in time). Grrr.
1. One speaker from the conference I will link to the work of is Raul Sanchez de la Sierra. Raul joined us at about 5am (or something ridiculous like that) California time and his presentation on data collection was extraordinary – so far ahead of what any of us are doing that very few of us could even think of the appropriate questions to ask. His paper on stationary bandits (as opposed to stationery bandits, who were out in force in the conference, judging by the number of pens I lost) is a bravura performance of economic reasoning and extraordinary data collection.
2. Globalisation and the forces against it came up repeatedly at the conference, so this next one feels appropriate: Tyler Cowen’s says globalisation isn’t slowing down, it’s just moved within national boundaries. This is called nation building, and if he wants to redefine globalisation like this, he also needs to take into account all the nation building that already took place over the last two hundred to three hundred years. Getting the baseline right takes him right back to square one – or worse.
3. Dietz Vollrath, possibly my favourite growth economist currently working, writes a largely critical (highly, highly critical) piece about Eric Hobsbawm, easily my favourite historian and writer of the 20th century. Dietz strongly criticises much about him – his lack of empirics, some of his theses; but he finds one idea in particular difficult to shake off – that the sense of social disruption that economic change brings about is huge; but unevenly huge. And those who are affected (socially) least are often those who benefit the most. In the modern era, this means you: if you read this e-mail you’re probably not a blue collar worker in a declining industry, but an overeducated professional or academic, one of those people who the changes we’re undergoing is going to favour, not render unnecessary. Dietz ends with this line: “if one includes social disruption in the accounting, then structural shifts between sectors/industries/locations are perhaps the most important aspect of economic growth to consider, even more than the growth rate itself.” This is strong stuff, especially from an empiricist and economist of his quality.
4. I have linked to the economics of David Evans many times, and have encouraged as many of my colleagues as possible to attend his talks. Here’s a totally different endorsement of my favourite economic polymath – his blog on African literature, this time looking at a “feminist mystery [that] turns the thriller genre on its head”, the Lazarus Effect by HJ Golokai.
5. Another link about globalisation, but at least it’s a happy one. “The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that the median U.S. household made $56,516 in 2015, up 5.2 percent from 2014 after adjusting for inflation. That’s the first increase since 2007…” We spent some time grappling with the problem of earned income at the median in our conference, and the news was all bad. If only I’d read this, I might have left slightly happier. I almost never end these links on a piece of economics that makes you happy, so that’s all from me, and Taylor Swift be damned (or you can scroll back up to the intro).
Have a great weekend, everyone!
R
