Category General
Bureaucratic Entropy?
The Association of Ontario Municipalities is having its annual conference August 19-22 in Ottawa, the mother city of all governments in Canada. Among the items on the agenda are the keynote address on: “new secrets to leadership with five powerful tools to improve negotiation effectiveness”, a speech by Ontario’s premier (followed by the opposition leaders […]
Selection bias and disagreement in blogging
Paul Krugman wrote a post about the ECB yesterday. I agree with it about, I don't know, say 90%. Here's where I disagree: 1. Paul and I both want easier monetary policy for the ECB, but he thinks of that as a temporarily higher target inflation rate, and I think it would be better to […]
Why is JSTOR so difficult (for idiots like me) to use? (Updated X2 with good news)
[Update 1: see the response from Brian Larsen, User Services Manager, JSTOR, in the comment below. I commend them for reading, responding, and for trying to make JSTOR easier to use.] [Update 2: IT WORKS! Brian has done it (for Carleton anyway, and I think he's working on the rest). And I don't even have […]
Coming Soon to a University Near You…H-Index Rankings
Most of us are familiar with the metric known as the h-Index. Developed by Jorge Hirsch, the h-index is a measure that says that if you have an index of h, you have published h papers each of which has been cited at least h times.
Canada: No country for old men (or women)
The Canadian population is aging, and getting old sucks – for economies, as well as for people. There is nothing that can stop an individual from aging. Not face cream. Not hot yoga.
The Balance of the Federation
The Canadian Federation is an institutional arrangement whereby the constituent units are able to both cooperate and compete with jurisdictions that are both separate and coordinate. The debate over the respective roles of the federal and provincial governments has taken various forms over time with views that emphasize the centrality of the federal government along […]
What not to wear, economist edition
What should you wear for an academic job interview? Ariel Rubinstein suggests casual attire: I would argue that wearing jeans and a t-shirt is your dominant strategy: If you are a good student, then a department that will not give you a job because of your "sloppy" appearance does not deserve to have you. If you […]
Difficulty with comments
There's been a recent surge in the number of comments taken hostage by our spam filter. If you don't see your comment within a short period of time, please send an e-mail to either me or the post's author, or post a short comment to the effect that a previous comment doesn't seem to have […]
What is actuarially fair insurance?
Actuarially fair insurance has an expected net pay-off of zero. From a consumer's point of view, an insurance contract is actuarially fair if the premiums paid are equal to the expected value of the compensation received. This expected value is, in turn, defined as the probability of the insured-against event occurring multiplied by the compensation […]
Miles Corak has a blog. Subscribe now
Miles Corak, a labour economist formerly of Statistics Canada, currently at the University of Ottawa, has started a blog. He's off to a great start; go read what he's written, and then go back for more. I know I will.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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