Making fun of college rankings

An entertaining website that parodies college rankings, created by a former Duke professor.

I am in complete agreement that US News churns it rankings to generate press coverage, and that many parents and maybe even more university administrators take the ratings too seriously, but they do contain real information. The key points that most parents miss are that the "within" institution variation is also quite large, as you can have a great experience at a middle ranked school or get lost at a top ranked one, and that how much a student gets out of the university experience depends to a large extent on his or her choices about how hard to study, what courses to take, what extracurricular activities to be involved with and so on.

Another new restaurant in Ann Arbor

Mercy's replaces the Earle Uptown in the Bell Tower hotel.

Endowment league table

New endowment rankings for US and Canadian (!) universities.

Michigan is #6 and #2 among the public universities.

When I was deciding where to work five years ago among Maryland, Wisconsin and Michigan, a good friend emailed me the endowment rankings. That proved very helpful in making the decision. Money does matter for professorial utility, and for other things as well.

In Canada, Toronto and McGill have made some headway up the rankings, but Western Ontario is not, sadly, to be found.

Here is Michigan's official statement on the matter. I've always wondered, and debated with a couple of colleagues, whether Michigan's high return on its endowment investments is due to inside information or taking more risks.

Hat tip: Lones Smith

Where the jobs are ....

A list of the 50 largest employers in Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor.

I was surprised at how many of them were public sector employers and how many were health related, though I suppose the latter is partly the result of economies of scale in hospitals.

I was surprised by how far down the big three automakers are on the list as well.

These facts are not unrelated, of course, to Washtenaw County having the lowest unemployment rate in the state.

For non-local readers, both (teetering) Borders and Dominos have their headquarters here.

Denmark in the No Spin Zone

Bill O'Reilly and his two very blonde colleagues deconstruct Oprah's love of Denmark.

Best bits: O'Reilly on the Danish Vikings and his Irish ancestors and Margaret Hoover dissing O'Reilly on Aristotle

Worst bit: Margaret Hoover's outfit makes her look like a clown about to put on her makeup.

Oh, and just to be clear, the 90 percent replacement rate in the Danish unemployment insurance system does have a cap, so neither O'Reilly nor Oprah would get 90 percent of their salaries were they Danes who lost their jobs.

My take: the Danish equilibrium requires a lot of social cohesion, for which being a small, homogeneous country is probably a necessary but not sufficient condition.

Hat tip: no need to say

Keynes vs. Hayek: the video

Many will already have seen this at MR or Mankiw but just in case you have not, it is very well done.

More of Eve to love in Ann Arbor

Good news for A2 restaurant lovers!

Eve Aronoff, proprietor of the aptly named "Eve", is opening a second restaurant in town, this one more casual and with a Cuban theme.

Eve is, along with Zingerman's Roadhouse and Cafe Zola, one of my three favorite restaurants in town.

Yum.