Category Frances Woolley
The escalating cost of cheating
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How to find a topic for an economics research essay
Calculus. Years of macro theory. Micro theory. Econometrics. Study the lecture notes, practice old exams, give the prof what he or she wants. It works. Until the day the prof says "Come up with an original research topic." Panic. "But no one's ever taught me how to be original."
Bulgarian snapshots: An economist on holiday
It's been 20 years since the Soviet Union collapsed, taking the Bulgarian economy with it. Twenty years of transition and rebuilding. Bulgaria has (mostly) abandoned communism, (mostly) embraced capitalism and, in 2007, joined the European Union. All of which makes it a great place for an economist's holiday…
Taxation and other forms of sacrifice
The most minimal form of government is a night watchman state: a government that provides law and order, and lets markets take care of the rest. But are people willing to pay the taxes and make the sacrifices required to support even this most rudimentary level of public services?
For better or for worse – or for insurance coverage?
One of the puzzling things about the United States is its extraordinarily high marriage rate. Among OECD countries, only Turkey and Cyprus have a higher rate of marriage (Source, OECD).
An unintended consequence of minimum wages?
I have a theory. Employers offer a wage consisting of monetary compensation plus non-monetary benefits. Non-monetary benefits include, for example, free or discounted coffee, flexible work hours, breaks, a safe working environment, and so on. They choose the combination of monetary and non-monetary compensation that allows them to hire the required workforce at the minimum […]
A rant on inverse hyperbolic sine transformations
Right now I'm handling most of the wealth papers submitted to Review of Economics of the Household. Wealth data is, almost invariably, messy. The distribution of wealth has a long, thick, right hand tail – a good number people have wealth holdings in the million dollar range (most owners of mortgage-free single detached homes in […]
Wife jokes as an indicator of marital discord
Last night I was watching a Best of Dave Allen DVD. I like the funny wordplay, but some of the wife jokes are lame. A wife joke is a joke like this one: "First guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!" Second guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."
Thomas K Rymes, 1932 – 2011.
TK Rymes' publication list begins with a disclaimer "Those marked with an asterisk I consider to be worth reading." That line is typical TK – direct, honest, and self-deprecating. After all, how many academics would suggest, even by implication, that much of their work is not worth reading? One of the first asterisked publications on the […]
Republican profs give out less egalitarian grades. So what?
A number of bloggers (for example Mark Perry, Catherine Rampell, Greg Mankiw) have picked up Bar and Zussman's recent paper on Partisan Grading. (Downloadable here, forthcoming here) Bar and Zussman take data on student grades, student SAT scores, and professor political affiliation, and find that: …student grades are linked to the political orientation of professors: […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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