Three pointers

I was explaining to my daughter the other day how much basketball has changed since I was her age. This article from 538 proved helpful.

Emi Nakamura

Congratualtions to Emi Nakamura on winning the John Bates Clark medal!

As most readers will surely know, the Clark medal is awarded annually (these days) by the American Economic Association to the best economist under the age of 40.

Some remarks:

1) The award strikes me as very well deserved.

2) I raised Emi's name last year as someone to possibly hire here at Wisconsin. Maybe my colleagues will pay more attention to my hiring suggestions in the future.

3) Emi has more economist relatives than anyone I know. They include her husband, her mother, her father, her aunt, and her maternal grandfather. That is a lot of economists!

4) I once went on a blind date with Emi back in my Western Ontario days. Now, before you get excited I must clarify that Emi and her mom were chaperones on the blind date, which was with someone her mom thought would be a good match. As it turned out, the date went off the rails during a lunchtime discussion of the substantive importance of Princess Diana to world affairs, about which my blind date (whose identity I will not reveal) and I disagreed rather drastically.

5) Emi is nice even by the high standards of her native land.

APPAM / Westat one-day conference on "mixed methods" evaluations of social programs in DC on June 5

I will be reacting to Steve Bell of Westat (and formerly, for a long time, of Abt).

Conference details here.

The honest politician

Hat tip: Dr. Brown

The Lieske saga continues

The Wisconsin State Journal reports on the Dan Lieske sentencing, which includes claims that the thoroughly non-credible prison informant I noted in my earlier post got rewarded for his testimony by the victim's family and that other prisoners are ready and willing to claim that he perjured himself.

Addendum: WKOW [sic] adds some video and addition details.

The Okilly Dokilly's

This sort of thing restores one's faith a bit.

But why is there an apostrophe in the band's name?

Alan Krueger, RIP

I did not know Alan well, but we did cross paths several times. The time I remember best is when I was invited to Princeton to give the labor seminar fairly early in my career - early enough that I presented Smith and Todd (2005).

It turned out to be a bit of an odd day with many of the labor faculty not around. Rather than leaving me alone in the visitor office, Alan took more than an hour out of his day to talk with me and show me around one of the museums on the Princeton campus. That gesture meant a great deal to me, and has stayed with me over the years.

There were a number of thoughtful responses to Alan's passing online. The two that struck me the most, though for different reasons, were Sue Dynarski's and David Warsh's.

Sad news indeed.