Tyler Cowen's Blog, page 259

Health care loses jobs (not)

Man bites dog, but this time it is good news, sort of:

For just over 10 years—121 straight months—there was one constant in the monthly jobs report: Health care jobs would go up.

Not anymore.

Health care lost 2,500 jobs in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics concluded in estimates released last month. And if that number stands, it would be the first net loss for the sector since July 2003.

That is from Dan Diamond.

Addendum: Revising the revision, the BLS now tells us that health care did not lose jobs after all.  Dog bites man, once again, though this time with duller teeth.

Assorted links

1. Ted Gioia’s 100 best albums of 2013.  Ted understands the acoustical nature of music, and the creation of alternative sound worlds, better than any other music critic I read.  Someone constructed a playlist from Ted’s picks here.  And The Economist picks best books of the year.  It is the best “best books” list so far this year.

2. Does GPS interfere with our internal mental maps?

3. Can you build a political party around the moral superiority of eunuchs?

4. Phasing in minimum wage hikes.

5. The winning essays on the “Cowen vs. Mokyr” theme, I think they are very good.

6. Matt Zwolinski defends the guaranteed annual income idea.

The happiness of economists

There is a new paper by Lars P. Feld, Sarah Necker, and Bruno S. Frey, and here is the abstract:

This study investigates the determinants of economists’ life satisfaction. The analysis is based on a survey of professional, mostly academic economists from European countries and beyond. We find that certain features of economists’ professional situation influence their well-being. Happiness is increased by having more research time while the lack of a tenured position decreases satisfaction in particular if the contract expires in the near future or cannot be extended. Surprisingly, publication success has no effect on satisfaction. While the perceived level of external pressure also has no impact, the perceived change of pressure in recent years has. Economists may have accepted a high level of pressure when entering academia but do not seem to be willing to cope with the increase observed in recent years.

You will note that “Economists tend to report a high level of life satisfaction.”  Furthermore this does not vary by gender.  Here are the nationality effects:

Compared to German economists, Italian, French and researchers from Eastern European countries have a statistically significantly lower probability to report being “highly satisfied” (significant at least at the 5%-level).  A similar effect is observed for economists from Spain, Portugal, and Austria; the effects are, however, at most significant at the 10%-level. Researchers from Switzerland, North America and Scandinavian countries tend to be more happy.

For the pointer I thank Viktor Brech.

Academic boycotts of Israel

One of them is gathering steam (and more detail here):

The National Council of the American Studies Association announced Wednesday that it has unanimously endorsed a boycott of Israeli universities and other Israeli institutions — and urged its members to vote to make the boycott official policy of the association.

The move by the council, even if awaiting approval by the membership, is seen as a major victory for the movement for an academic boycott of Israel.

And yet I have a better idea.  If one is going to boycott institutions of Israel, should one not also boycott strong, powerful nations which have supported much of what Israel has done, especially strong, powerful nations which stole a lot of land from the original inhabitants, refuse to give it back, and have recently practiced torture, aggressive military intervention, and the murder of innocent civilians, and which spy upon much of the world, mostly without apology?

That’s right, they might consider boycotting the United States, starting with their very own name, which now would read “Council of the Studies Association.”  Cynical advocates of “self-deportation” (I am not one of them) might suggest a more general boycott of the nation as it relates to their choices of residence and employment, but I will settle for the group boycotting academic conferences in America.

I am in in Tel Aviv — albeit briefly — and happy to be here.  I am reminded of David Brooks’s recent column on the creeping politicization of life.  That is one trend we all ought to oppose.

The rising star system for scientific achievement and collaboration

This is taken from an NBER paper by Ajay Agrawal, John McHale, and Alexander Oettl.  Here is the Inside Higher Ed summary:

A study (abstract available here) being released today suggests that it may be coming from a broader range of academic departments, but from a smaller number of elite scientists…

The analysis is based on a look at the top-ranked departments and the top scientists (as judged by output of citation-weighted papers) in evolutionary biology from 1980 through 2000. The research found two apparently contradictory trends:

The share of citation-weighted publications produced by the top 20 percent of departments fell from approximately 75 percent to 60 percent.
The share of papers produced by the top 20 percent of individual scientists increased from 70 percent to 80 percent.

In other words, the role of the individual star became more important at a time that the role of the star department (while still significant) fell.

There is not only more collaboration, but collaborations are taking place across a wider range of “quality” of institutions:

And the average distance in rank of institutional departments increased as well. In 1980, it was about 30 (meaning someone at an institution ranked 20th, say, was collaborating with someone at an institution ranked 50th). By 2005, the average rank gap was 55.

I see a common trend at mid-tier universities to care less about the research quality of the average faculty member, and care more about the quality and reputation of the stars, while “marketing” those stars more intensely than before.  And there are many more good researchers at lower-tier institutions, but they may not command much of a premium in terms of pay or working conditions.  Their specialized knowledge can make them very valuable as co-authors on the right project and so they end up in some high quality collaborations.

Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013

Invictus

By WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

 

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

 

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

 

*Running Randomized Evaluations: A Practical Guide*

That is the new Princeton University Press book by Rachel Gelnnerster and Kudzai Takavarasha.  I am not the one who should be evaluating this work, and I won’t have the chance to look at it before final exams and papers descend upon me, but it appears to be a highly useful and readable guide to what the title suggests.

You can buy it here, the book’s home page is here.

China fact of the day

…the pace of actual trade settlement in renminbi has failed to keep up [with its role in finance]. It still accounts for just 0.8 per cent of the global total, a lower share than the Thai baht or the Swedish krona.

That is from the FT, via Amni Rusli.  The recently reported fact that the renminbi is now the #2 trade financing currency seems to be simply measuring the carry trade, not the true ascendancy of the Chinese currency as a global reserve currency.

Assorted links

1. What did they serve Cameron in China?

2. German elite Euroskepticism.

3. New trend: sock of the month club.

4. How to coordinate lonely second graders.

5. Paul Rubin on the true meaning of competition and cooperation.

6. Slate pilots a management advice column by Ray Fisman.

The 25 most dangerous street corners in the United States

They are mostly in the Midwest, some South Carolina too.

For the pointer I thank Craig Richardson.