Economics at work! Compare this article from the BBC (echoing what I believe to be the ‘general’- rather gloomy!- perspective on China’s gender imbalance) and the viewpoints of economists Gary Becker and Richard Posner, who start from discussing whether there is any valid case for forbidding the ‘sex selection’ practice, but end up discussing a series of wider implications.
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Inflation is illegal! (in Zimbabwe)
I don’t know whether it is in any way comforting to know that there are even worse politicians and decision makers than our very own, in Romania. Of course it is not at all comforting for the poor people from Zimbabwe, where the following example comes from.
→ Read more Triple blind review (and other idealistic thoughts on improving scientific publishing)
I really don’t think this should be THE priority in this area- and I also don’t think it would in fact change a lot in the scientific publishing process (not to mention that I doubt it would ever work: eg, I bet with everyone that I can find the author of a paper from its title and content, in most cases- hence, ‘double blind’ is already useless).
→ Read more Should I study Latin or Chinese?
Great answer by Tim Harford to the question whether one should study Latin or Chinese, though he misses the fact that Latin (much more so than Italian…) could be a ‘stepping stone’ to learning a hell bunch of ‘modern’ languages, which I would not see as weakly dominated by learning Chinese.
→ Read more Enter Fed Govs
Functions, backgrounds, hobbies. The USA Federal Reserve Governors. Via Greg Mankiw’s blog.
PS. It is apparently not so bad to be appointed a Fed Gov and certainly even better to get to be the Fed’s Chairman- if you expected this and somebody else got it, you might really resent it (I also mentioned this funny CBS clip here)…
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