Walking the walk after talking the talk

Kansas City sports blogger endures the punishment he recommended for a player.

I look forward, in a similar spirit, to Paul Krugman voluntarily paying all the extra taxes he recommends.

As an aside, this video would make a fine text for analysis by a gender studies class.

Hat tip: Charlie Brown

Academic bloggers

The NYT profiles some of the leading academic bloggers.

Of those listed, I read Mankiw and Instapundit reasonably regularly, Becker/Posner, Althouse and Volokh on occasion and crooked timber on rarer occasions. Back in the day, I took two of Becker's classes in graduate school and was, prior to Heckman's return from Yale in 1991, working on a dissertation under his supervision.

I was surprised by the absence of Marginal Revolution, which is the academic blog I read most faithfully. I am probably in some sense trying to emulate a combination of MR and Mankiw plus movie reviews though at this point I now longer worry overmuch about what the blog is or should be and just post what strikes me.

Addendum: Chris Blattman on academic blogging and, in particular, Dan Drezner.

Where are the female economist bloggers?

My graduate school colleague Matt Kahn has created a bit of blogospheric excitement by wondering at the absence of female bloggers among the top 1000 economists as rated by RePec based on quantitative measures of scholarly impact. We use RePEc citation count measures as part of our annual review process at Michigan's economics department. Here is some reaction from Matt Yglesias and here is some from UM alum EconomistMom.

I was all set to write a humorous, teasing sort of post on the theme that "increased female economist blogging begins at home" when I discovered that Matt's life partner (and also wife!), my graduate school colleague Dora Costa, was not, as I had expected, a couple of hundred places above Matt (he is #681) in the Repec ratings but, instead, does not even make the top 1000 (she is #1045).

Let me first consider why my expectation about the relative places of Dora and Matt on the list turned out to be wrong. While the list does not adjust for years as a professional economist, that is not the issue here. As I recall, Matt started Chicago's doctoral program just a year or two after Dora (who started two years after I did). Nor is the difference due to quality of writing; I think even Matt would agree that Dora is the better writer, a not surprising fact given that she is in a subfield, namely economic history, that rewards good writing more than most. I think the difference has, instead, to do with the relative size of the subfields that they work in; subfield size is well known to influence citation counts. Matt works in environmental and urban economics, both hot and growing subfields, while Dora works in economic history, which is a fairly small subfield these days, and also a subfield that has trouble making its way into the top general journals. Because of this, even though Dora would widely be perceived as being in the very top group of economic historians, she ends up with a lower RePEc rating than Matt. That's my explanation anyway which, if nothing else, helps to illustrate the commonplace that quantitative performance metrics such as those provided by RePEc require careful interpretation.

The reactions to the post raise some issues in the economics of the household. EconomistMom makes some heavily gendered remarks about men being clueless and about the heavy burdens of caring for others borne by many women. I think one of the commenters on EconomistMom (someone called Will Sawin) sums up my own response to her post pretty well:

You’re right. Your chosen leisure activities are morally superior to my chosen leisure time activity. I’ll remember to stop thinking ultimately useless but enjoyable and fulfilling thoughts and start having more ultimately useless but enjoyable and fulfilling relationships with other people.

An economist, even an economist mom, should not be forgetting that children are a durable consumption good that people choose to consume, not some sort of exogenous cosmic cross that they are forced to drag through life.

Finally, one is left with the burning question: who among the top 1000 is EconomistMom's ex-husband who does not like blogs? Inquiring minds want to know!

MethodLogical

I've added the blog MethodLogical to the blog roll. It is a development economics blog that includes one of our gradual students as a co-conspirator.

Economic Way of Thinking

I've added the "Economic Way of Thinking" blog to the blogroll on the right.

Two of the three writers of the blog are co-authors (with the late Paul Heyne) of the Economic Way of Thinking textbook. I used that book in my high school economics class and it played a role in getting me interested in economics. When I got to college at the University of Washington, I ended up being mentored by Paul Heyne, who had a huge influence on my career switch from computer science, my interest in being an academic and my politics.

Further illustrating what a small world academic economics is, the Canadian edition of the Economic Way of Thinking text is co-authored by my former Western Ontario colleague (and all around very cool guy) John Palmer. Turns out, as I just learned, he has his own blog. I've added it to the blogroll as well.

Blog of the development data sets ...

I've added the new blog on development economics data sets to the blogroll.

Hat tip to Jason Kerwin.

New Ann Arbor blogs

I just added two new Ann Arbor blogs to the blogroll.

One is "Local Ann Arbor" which seems to be serious but useful while the other is called "Damn Arbor" which, as the name suggests, adopts a somewhat lighter tone.

I poked around a bit on Damn Arbor. I liked this post on shooting a gun for the first time, and this review of Frita Batidos.

This post on bars that don't suck is useful too. I 'll second the recommendation for Ashley's in terms of selection and grad student ambiance (though no roaches, unlike Jimmy's, the bar we hung out at every Wednesday when I was in graduate school at the U of Chicago) but they are wrong about ABC. Great beer, to be sure, but mediocre food. If you want beer and food, Grizzly Peak dominates.

New blog on the list

By request, I've added Casey Mulligan's blog to the list on the right.

Enjoy!

Jeff

Gentleman's C

One of our ace gradual students recommends the Gentleman's C blog.

My sample was entertaining indeed, and I have added it to the blog list on the right.

Nifty blog

I just discovered this Economist blog on US politics.

Statistician humor

The statistician joke is here; the whole blog is pretty entertaining.

Hat tip: marginal revolution (to a different post)

Oversharing, indeed.

I stumbled on this fascinating piece from the NYT magazine by a woman who shared a bit more than she should have (though not as much as Jessica Cutler). As an aside, I did not link to this, and no longer have the link, but according to the NY Post Jessica Cutler now apparently works for the same firm as the paid companion of not-at-all lamented Eliot Spitzer.

The personal stuff will be minimal here - though part of the point of the blog for me is to have a record of things I read and think about.