I realize today, that, as a "researcher", I've changed fundamentally in many ways. I also realize how much the faculty here has helped shape my thinking.

This is a good feeling.

And, I semi-demonstrated today that the results of a 20 year old seminal paper in econometrics do not hold up. Now, I cannot access the data that paper used - the Dept of Commerce changed the definition of the variable which is trying to be understood -

but one would imagine a change in definition should not affect the qualitative nature of an important macroeconomic indicator (implicit price deflators), right?

Wrong! It does, and it points to the fragility of at least one statistical result in the face of seemingly minor changes in the definition of a variable.

Although somewhat depressing, doing this sort of work makes you feel very intimately connected with economics.

It may not be sexy like Steven Levitt and Co's approach to "research" (take an interesting social phenomenon, subject it to a barrage of statistical tests, leaving aside issues of generalizability or usefulness) but it shows the very fragile nature of applied statistics when dealing with economic outcomes.

You'd imagine price deflators were among the more "solid" variables out there. Forget the sex, drugs and rock n roll economics, this is basic stuff one would take for granted.

The implications are troubling.

A Little Music Education

According to Pandora, Jethro Tull's Bouree

which is really Johann Sebastian Bach's composition

is described as having:

jazz influences
mild rhythmic syncopation
intricate melodic phrasing
extensive vamping
thru composed melodic style
mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation
minor key tonality
melodic songwriting
a prominent flute part
an instrumental arrangement

jazz influences!

Sunday Morning

So, do you like sundays? Personally, I think it's the most depressing day of the week.

Maybe it's school - we always had a test on Mondays - to blame for this. Saturdays are always full of hope, Friday's I feel like having a beer, the rest of the week sort of folds into itself, but Sunday, my lord, what's up with that? What do you do with a Sunday? Waste it, use it? Neither seems appropriate.

I made Spinach Saag and Chana Daal. The Dal was unbelievable; there weren't any onions so the spinach was not what it could have been. Good, never the less.

Velvet Underground summed up my feelings for sunday:

Sunday morning, praise the dawning
It's just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning, sunday morning
It's just the wasted years so close behind

Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all

Sunday morning and I'm falling
I've got a feeling I don't want to know
Early dawning, sunday morning
It's all the streets you crossed, not so long ago

music stuff

And the man in the back said "EVERYONE ATTACK!" and it turned into a ballroom blitz:



I want to taste you but your lips are venomous POISONNN...you're POISONN running through my VEINS!!!

Alice Cooper - Poison!

Not if you were the last Economist on earth

The following is an imagined conversation between William Buiter and Dan Ariely (look up Buiter's latest article on Financial Times for background)

To be sung to the tune of "Not if you were the last junkie on earth" by The Dandy Warhols

I never thought you’d be a traditionalist
Because rationality is so passe.
But today,
If you think that I don’t know
About loss aversion and
Reference dependence,
You’re insane, or your
A fool who hasn’t paid attention
To a word that I say.

In a way, I can’t
Help but feel responsible.
After all, this is what
My experiments say.

But I never thought you’d be a rationalist
Because preferences are so passe
Now a-day.
You never thought you’d randomize
Just be cooler in an obvious way.
I could say, shouldn’t you have run
A couple time-series and decided
That you would rather have it any day.

In a way
I can’t help but feel responsible,
I always knew that you were running around
With your Markov chain

But I never thought you’d be an economist
Because demand and supply is so passe hey.

It's funny how sometimes when you recall something from years ago, it's almost like that person was someone else, although it was you.

The first time I heard Nothing Else Matters, it was back in 11th standard. It's funny to think of the kind of life I had then, and what I have now; what had been gained and lost and all that.

Although, to be honest, life now is - almost - as perfect as it could be (not quite perfect but close) it's always easy to feel nostalgic about the past. Even if life's been strictly increasing in terms of "happiness" or whatever, since then.

Maybe we are all a collection of once dead people, and reading/writing/listening is a way of getting them back to life. It is at times like these I wish I was in Delhi, but that might make me sad, because the Delhi I recall is gone now. If only we could combine the best of everything in life in one great year, would you want that?

Look at what we've done to the innocent and young

Try this out:

(1) Wear a colourful shirt/top.

(2) Walk on a crowded street and look at the colours of the shirts/tops of other people.

(3) Tell a friend who is walking with you the colour of the shirt/top of the nearest person.

(4) Now, think of the colour of your shirt/top.

(5) Repeat step 3 immediately.

Let me know how it goes. If you're like me, you'll blurt out your shirts' colour.

There's a behavioural economics lesson in this.