16 outubro 2019
Rir é o melhor remédio
15 outubro 2019
Dois conselhos
A primeira foi "escreva uma página todos os dias". Foi assim que ele escreveu sua dissertação. Ele marcava os dias de folga de um calendário com uma cruz, de modo que escrever duas páginas em um determinado dia lhe daria uma trégua no dia seguinte. Mas o sistema significava que ele escreveria em média 365 páginas em um ano e, portanto, uma dissertação em duas. (As dissertações de filosofia francesa são longas!) É claro que o princípio precisa de algum ajuste quando aplicado à economia, uma vez que a escrita em si não é tão importante quanto o trabalho analítico que a precede. Mas o princípio subjacente é essencial: progresso lento e constante. Escrever uma página por dia deixa tempo de sobra para preparação, pesquisa primária ou reflexão sobre o plano geral do livro. Fornece uma estrutura para reforçar o progresso contínuo. Não se cria uma agenda de pesquisa esperando infinitamente até que a Grande Idéia chegue, mas começando a trabalhar em um tópico, aprendendo mais sobre o tópico (e os vizinhos no processo) e conectando progressivamente os pontos.
A segunda coisa que Colas disse foi: “Escreva o livro (ou o artigo) que você gostaria de ler, mas não conseguiu encontrar.” Isso pode parecer bastante óbvio, mas sempre me surpreendo com o fato de muitos jovens pesquisadores fazerem isso. parecem não saber por que estão pesquisando um tópico específico ou, quando sabem, parecem tê-lo escolhido pelo motivo errado. Eles simplesmente encontraram um conjunto de dados e, em seguida, procuraram por uma pergunta; eles queriam experimentar alguma técnica específica e isso parecia ser um cenário apropriado para isso; ou descartaram todas as perguntas que pensavam em responder porque pareciam muito "pequenas". Em geral, essa é uma receita para, na melhor das hipóteses, uma vida muito chata e, na pior, um desastre. Você logo descobrirá (se ainda não o fez) que trabalhar em sua pesquisa é a recompensa por todas as outras coisas que você deve fazer na vida (...) E o que é melhor do que ler um bom artigo ao mesmo tempo em que está trabalhando nele?
Esther Duflo, 2011
Nobel de Economia e a Índia
Três pesquisadores que estudam experimentos para ajudar a combater a pobreza foram contemplados com o Nobel de Economia. Um texto bastante interessante da Quartz mostra a reação da Índia à premiação.
Em primeiro lugar, confesso que não sabia que Banerjee, um dos premiados, era esposo de Duflo, a economista que também recebeu o prêmio, junto com Michael Kremer. (Confesso, na minha ignorância, que já tinha escutado falar de Duflo e sabia que era uma pesquisadora brilhante)
A imprensa indiana destacou que Banerjee, e sua esposa, tinham ganho o Nobel
O ponto fica mais complicado nestes tempos de radicalismo quando sabemos que Banerjee é oposição. No passado, ele criticou a política econômica do atual governo, inclusive a decisão de retirar de circulação as notas de elevado valor. Esta medida foi tomada pelo governo para "combater a corrupção". Mas Banerjee criticava a mudança, assim como uma mudança na metodologia de cálculo do PIB, vista como manipulação por ele e outros opositores.
Como o governo e apoiadores reagiram? Veja
Desmerecendo o prêmio, dizendo não ser um Nobel. Que país estranho. Ainda bem que o Brasil não é assim.
Em primeiro lugar, confesso que não sabia que Banerjee, um dos premiados, era esposo de Duflo, a economista que também recebeu o prêmio, junto com Michael Kremer. (Confesso, na minha ignorância, que já tinha escutado falar de Duflo e sabia que era uma pesquisadora brilhante)
A imprensa indiana destacou que Banerjee, e sua esposa, tinham ganho o Nobel
Como o governo e apoiadores reagiram? Veja
Pergunta da pesquisa: sim ou não
Já escutei isto muito: você não pode fazer um trabalho onde o problema de pesquisa é uma resposta do tipo "sim" ou "não". Um artigo do Journal of Financial Economics, o segundo melhor periódico de finanças, tem no título uma pergunta. O resumo começa com "Sim".
(Via aqui)
14 outubro 2019
KPMG e PCOB
Outros dois funcionários do PCAOB e da KPMG já foram condenados: Cynthia Holder (ex-PCAOB e depois KPMG), que recebeu oito meses de prisão, Middendorf (ex-KPMG), que recebeu um ano e um dia. Aguardam sentença David Britt (ex-KPMG), Thomas Whittle (idem) e Brian Sweet (idem).
Custo da Formatação de um artigo
Uma das piores partes de uma pesquisa é fazer a formatação do trabalho final. É preciso observar o espaço entre linhas, a letra solicitada, o tamanho da margem, sem falar na norma de citação e outras observações. Leva-se muito tempo nesta estimativa. Cada periódico tem sua regra, assim como cada congresso, programa de pós, etc. Além disto, algumas entidades insistem em mudar regularmente as normas ou criar novas normas para situações específicas.
Uma pesquisa realizada por cientistas canadenses encontrou o tempo que se gasta para fazer este trabalho. Usando mais de 300 respondentes, o pesquisadores descobriram o tempo por artigo submetido e a quantidade de artigos. Além disto, solicitaram o valor da renda anual. Considerando uma carga de trabalho anual de 1950 horas, a pesquisa obteve que o custo anual de formatação de artigos é de ...1.908 dólares. Por artigo, o custo seria perto de 500 dólares ou 477 dólares.
Eles também encontraram que este custo é maior para os mais idosos, para os homens e os não cientistas.
Assim, quando você estiver em uma posição de editoria de um periódico ou de um congresso, procure ser mais flexível neste aspecto.
Scientific sinkhole: The pernicious price of formatting. Allana G. LeBlanc, Joel D. Barnes, Travis J. Saunders, Mark S. Tremblay, Jean-Philippe Chaput. PLOS One September 26, 2019)
Uma pesquisa realizada por cientistas canadenses encontrou o tempo que se gasta para fazer este trabalho. Usando mais de 300 respondentes, o pesquisadores descobriram o tempo por artigo submetido e a quantidade de artigos. Além disto, solicitaram o valor da renda anual. Considerando uma carga de trabalho anual de 1950 horas, a pesquisa obteve que o custo anual de formatação de artigos é de ...1.908 dólares. Por artigo, o custo seria perto de 500 dólares ou 477 dólares.
Eles também encontraram que este custo é maior para os mais idosos, para os homens e os não cientistas.
Assim, quando você estiver em uma posição de editoria de um periódico ou de um congresso, procure ser mais flexível neste aspecto.
Scientific sinkhole: The pernicious price of formatting. Allana G. LeBlanc, Joel D. Barnes, Travis J. Saunders, Mark S. Tremblay, Jean-Philippe Chaput. PLOS One September 26, 2019)
13 outubro 2019
Nobel de Economia: quem merece ?
[...]
No. 1. The New Keynesians
Not since 2011 has a prize been awarded to economists who primarily study the ups and downs of the business cycle, so we might be overdue. The obvious choice would be to award the prize for the creation of New Keynesian theory. This theory holds that recessions happen because businesses have difficulty adjusting their prices in response to economic disturbances.
Although it’s the dominant paradigm within modern academic macroeconomics, and is used by most central banks to help set monetary policy, New Keynesianism hasn’t yet received a gold medal from Sweden. One reason might be that the theory isn’t the brainchild of a single genius, but of a large group of influential figures who each added key elements. These include Michael Woodford, Stanley Fischer, Greg Mankiw, Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Olivier Blanchard, Guillermo Calvo, Janet Yellen, David Romer and a number of others. Picking two or three to award the prize to will be hard, but it seems inevitable that the prize committee will eventually have to recognize this incredibly influential theory.
No. 2. Claudia Goldin
Before French economist Thomas Piketty ever hit the bestseller lists, Harvard University’s Claudia Goldin was writing about the rise in economic inequality. Combining the methods of labor economics and economic history, Goldin identifies increasing education as a key driver of the fall in U.S. inequality in the early 20th century, and blames a slowdown in educational attainment for the reversal of that happy trend.
Goldin has also extensively studied the changing role of women in the economy, weaving together trends like delayed childbearing, increasing education and forward-looking decision-making to create the authoritative story of how and why women entered the formal workforce. She has advocated for flexible work scheduling as a way to reduce the gender pay gap. And she has theorized that workplace gender discrimination results from men being afraid that the occupations they dominate will be devalued if women enter. In an age when society is struggling to eliminate gender inequality, Goldin’s work provides a crucial road map.
No. 3. David Card
Great changes have happened in the economics profession during the past three decades. The field has gone from a largely theoretical discipline to one firmly grounded in empirics and data. Although the transition is the work of many thousands of economists, perhaps no one has pointed the way forward as clearly as the University of California-Berkeley’s David Card. His landmark studies of low-skilled immigration and minimum wages changed the debate on those crucial issues, astonishing economists with the finding -- now corroborated by decades of follow-up research -- that neither is particularly damaging to local workers. Those results changed the world, but they represent only a small portion of Card’s extensive body of work. If anyone deserves to win a Nobel for the seismic shift that has changed the very meaning of economics research, it’s probably Card.
No. 4. Paul Milgrom
The economics Nobel tends to favor the work of pure theorists who work on the deepest problems. And few thinkers dig deeper than Stanford University’s Paul Milgrom. He was a major figure in the creation of auction theory -- probably the most empirically successful and practically useful economic theory of all time, which is now used to power everything from Google ads to federal spectrum auctions. He has also contributed deep insights to our understanding of financial markets, modeling the way that market makers interact with informed and uninformed traders, and helping to explain why trading happens in the first place. This is only the tip of the iceberg, though. Milgrom’s contributions in game theory, contract theory, labor economics, industrial organization, the economics of information and learning, and other fields are too numerous to mention or elaborate here. If he never wins the Nobel for this virtuosic career, it will be a big surprise.
No. 5. Daron Acemoglu
Daron Acemoglu is another virtuoso, but of a very different sort. Acemoglu tackles the big questions of why nations grow and develop or stagnate and decline -- the kinds of questions that rarely if ever get definitive answers. His most important thesis is that social institutions are crucial for development and don’t change much over time -- places that develop institutions based on exploiting labor and extracting resources tend to do badly over the centuries, while those that create more inclusive systems flourish. More recently, Acemoglu has tackled the question of whether automation will make humans obsolete. He has created new models of automation in which it’s possible for robots to reduce human wages, and theorized that different types of artificial intelligence could help human workers or compete with them. Beyond those topics, Acemoglu has a vast body of work, much of it dealing with difficult and expansive topics like politics, history, culture and technological change.
No. 1. The New Keynesians
Not since 2011 has a prize been awarded to economists who primarily study the ups and downs of the business cycle, so we might be overdue. The obvious choice would be to award the prize for the creation of New Keynesian theory. This theory holds that recessions happen because businesses have difficulty adjusting their prices in response to economic disturbances.
Although it’s the dominant paradigm within modern academic macroeconomics, and is used by most central banks to help set monetary policy, New Keynesianism hasn’t yet received a gold medal from Sweden. One reason might be that the theory isn’t the brainchild of a single genius, but of a large group of influential figures who each added key elements. These include Michael Woodford, Stanley Fischer, Greg Mankiw, Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Olivier Blanchard, Guillermo Calvo, Janet Yellen, David Romer and a number of others. Picking two or three to award the prize to will be hard, but it seems inevitable that the prize committee will eventually have to recognize this incredibly influential theory.
No. 2. Claudia Goldin
Before French economist Thomas Piketty ever hit the bestseller lists, Harvard University’s Claudia Goldin was writing about the rise in economic inequality. Combining the methods of labor economics and economic history, Goldin identifies increasing education as a key driver of the fall in U.S. inequality in the early 20th century, and blames a slowdown in educational attainment for the reversal of that happy trend.
Goldin has also extensively studied the changing role of women in the economy, weaving together trends like delayed childbearing, increasing education and forward-looking decision-making to create the authoritative story of how and why women entered the formal workforce. She has advocated for flexible work scheduling as a way to reduce the gender pay gap. And she has theorized that workplace gender discrimination results from men being afraid that the occupations they dominate will be devalued if women enter. In an age when society is struggling to eliminate gender inequality, Goldin’s work provides a crucial road map.
No. 3. David Card
Great changes have happened in the economics profession during the past three decades. The field has gone from a largely theoretical discipline to one firmly grounded in empirics and data. Although the transition is the work of many thousands of economists, perhaps no one has pointed the way forward as clearly as the University of California-Berkeley’s David Card. His landmark studies of low-skilled immigration and minimum wages changed the debate on those crucial issues, astonishing economists with the finding -- now corroborated by decades of follow-up research -- that neither is particularly damaging to local workers. Those results changed the world, but they represent only a small portion of Card’s extensive body of work. If anyone deserves to win a Nobel for the seismic shift that has changed the very meaning of economics research, it’s probably Card.
No. 4. Paul Milgrom
The economics Nobel tends to favor the work of pure theorists who work on the deepest problems. And few thinkers dig deeper than Stanford University’s Paul Milgrom. He was a major figure in the creation of auction theory -- probably the most empirically successful and practically useful economic theory of all time, which is now used to power everything from Google ads to federal spectrum auctions. He has also contributed deep insights to our understanding of financial markets, modeling the way that market makers interact with informed and uninformed traders, and helping to explain why trading happens in the first place. This is only the tip of the iceberg, though. Milgrom’s contributions in game theory, contract theory, labor economics, industrial organization, the economics of information and learning, and other fields are too numerous to mention or elaborate here. If he never wins the Nobel for this virtuosic career, it will be a big surprise.
No. 5. Daron Acemoglu
Daron Acemoglu is another virtuoso, but of a very different sort. Acemoglu tackles the big questions of why nations grow and develop or stagnate and decline -- the kinds of questions that rarely if ever get definitive answers. His most important thesis is that social institutions are crucial for development and don’t change much over time -- places that develop institutions based on exploiting labor and extracting resources tend to do badly over the centuries, while those that create more inclusive systems flourish. More recently, Acemoglu has tackled the question of whether automation will make humans obsolete. He has created new models of automation in which it’s possible for robots to reduce human wages, and theorized that different types of artificial intelligence could help human workers or compete with them. Beyond those topics, Acemoglu has a vast body of work, much of it dealing with difficult and expansive topics like politics, history, culture and technological change.
Fonte: aqui
[...]
12 outubro 2019
Papel do orientador
Sobre o Nobel de Economia, é interessante que vários laureados tiveram seus pupilos também premiados. Eis uma relação:
Jan Tinbergen was an adviser of Koopmans.
Paul Samuelson was an adviser for Klein and Merton.
Kenneth Arrow advised the research of Harsanyi, Spence, Maskin, and Myerson.
Wassily Leontief advised Samuelson, Schelling, Solow, and Smith.
Richard Stone supervised the research of both Mirrlees and Deaton.
Franco Modigliani was Shiller’s adviser.
James Tobin advised Phelps.
Merton Miller advised Eugene Fama’s dissertation, and Fama advised Scholes’s.
Robert Solow supervised the work of Diamond, Akerlof, Stiglitz, and Nordhaus.
Thomas Schelling was Spence’s adviser.
Edward Prescott advised Kydland, with whom he shared the 2004 Nobel Prize.
Eric Maskin advised Tirole.
Christopher Sims advised Hansen.
Simon Kuznets supervised both Friedman and Fogel.
Jan Tinbergen was an adviser of Koopmans.
Paul Samuelson was an adviser for Klein and Merton.
Kenneth Arrow advised the research of Harsanyi, Spence, Maskin, and Myerson.
Wassily Leontief advised Samuelson, Schelling, Solow, and Smith.
Richard Stone supervised the research of both Mirrlees and Deaton.
Franco Modigliani was Shiller’s adviser.
James Tobin advised Phelps.
Merton Miller advised Eugene Fama’s dissertation, and Fama advised Scholes’s.
Robert Solow supervised the work of Diamond, Akerlof, Stiglitz, and Nordhaus.
Thomas Schelling was Spence’s adviser.
Edward Prescott advised Kydland, with whom he shared the 2004 Nobel Prize.
Eric Maskin advised Tirole.
Christopher Sims advised Hansen.
Simon Kuznets supervised both Friedman and Fogel.
Quem não ganhou o Nobel de Economia (mas deveria)
Eis uma lista originária daqui
Frank Knight (1972). One of the founders of the “Chicago School of Economics,” he is best known for his 1921 book, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit.
Alvin Hansen (1975). Macroeconomist and public policy adviser, often referred to as “the American Keynes,” he is most noted for development (with Hicks) of the “investment-savings” and “liquidity preference-money supply” (IS-LM) macroeconomics model.
Oskar Morgenstern (1977). Princeton economist, coauthor of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944, with John von Neumann).
Joan Robinson (1983). Cambridge economist known for her work on monopolistic competition (The Economics of Imperfect Competition, 1933) and coining the term monopsony.
Piero Sraffa (1983). Italian economist and considered the neo-Ricardian school founder owing to his Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960).
Fischer Black (1995), part creator of the Black–Scholes equation on options pricing, surely would have shared the 1997 Nobel with Scholes and Merton for devising a model for the dynamics of a financial market containing derivative investment instruments.
Amos Tversky (1996). A cognitive psychologist, who undoubtedly would have shared the 2002 Nobel Prize with his friend and frequent collaborator Daniel Kahneman (and Vernon Smith).
Zvi Griliches (1999). A student of Schultz and Arnold Harberger at Chicago, he is best known for work on technological change (the diffusion of hybrid corn in particular) and econometrics.
Sherwin Rosen (2001). Labor economist with far-ranging contributions in microeconomics, he is perhaps best known for his 1981 American Economic Review article “The Economics of Superstars,” and his 1974 Journal of Political Economy article outlining how the market solves the problem of matching buyers and sellers of multidimensional goods.
John Muth (2005). Doctoral advisee of Herbert Simon, he is considered—mainly formulated on the microeconomics side—as the originator of “rational expectations” theory.
John Kenneth Galbraith (2006), long-time Harvard economist, was a prolific writer (The Affluent Society (1958), The New Industrial State (1967)), public intellectual, and liberal political activist.
Anna Schwartz (2012). A National Bureau of Economic Research monetary and banking scholar, she was a coauthor with Milton Friedman of A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 (1963).
Martin Shubik (2018). A doctoral advisee of Morgenstern and collaborator with Nash, at Princeton, he was a long-time Yale professor of mathematical economics and outstanding game theorist.
To this list, one could certainly add more of their contemporaries, for example (in alphabetical order), Anthony Atkinson (2017), William Baumol (2017), Harold Demsetz (2019), Evsey Domar (1997), Rudiger Dornbusch (2002), Henry Roy Forbes Harrod (1978), Harold Hotelling (1973), Nicholas Kaldor (1986), Jacob Mincer (2006), Hyman Minsky (1996), and Ludwig von Mises (1973), among many others.
Frank Knight (1972). One of the founders of the “Chicago School of Economics,” he is best known for his 1921 book, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit.
Alvin Hansen (1975). Macroeconomist and public policy adviser, often referred to as “the American Keynes,” he is most noted for development (with Hicks) of the “investment-savings” and “liquidity preference-money supply” (IS-LM) macroeconomics model.
Oskar Morgenstern (1977). Princeton economist, coauthor of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944, with John von Neumann).
Joan Robinson (1983). Cambridge economist known for her work on monopolistic competition (The Economics of Imperfect Competition, 1933) and coining the term monopsony.
Piero Sraffa (1983). Italian economist and considered the neo-Ricardian school founder owing to his Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960).
Fischer Black (1995), part creator of the Black–Scholes equation on options pricing, surely would have shared the 1997 Nobel with Scholes and Merton for devising a model for the dynamics of a financial market containing derivative investment instruments.
Amos Tversky (1996). A cognitive psychologist, who undoubtedly would have shared the 2002 Nobel Prize with his friend and frequent collaborator Daniel Kahneman (and Vernon Smith).
Zvi Griliches (1999). A student of Schultz and Arnold Harberger at Chicago, he is best known for work on technological change (the diffusion of hybrid corn in particular) and econometrics.
Sherwin Rosen (2001). Labor economist with far-ranging contributions in microeconomics, he is perhaps best known for his 1981 American Economic Review article “The Economics of Superstars,” and his 1974 Journal of Political Economy article outlining how the market solves the problem of matching buyers and sellers of multidimensional goods.
John Muth (2005). Doctoral advisee of Herbert Simon, he is considered—mainly formulated on the microeconomics side—as the originator of “rational expectations” theory.
John Kenneth Galbraith (2006), long-time Harvard economist, was a prolific writer (The Affluent Society (1958), The New Industrial State (1967)), public intellectual, and liberal political activist.
Anna Schwartz (2012). A National Bureau of Economic Research monetary and banking scholar, she was a coauthor with Milton Friedman of A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 (1963).
Martin Shubik (2018). A doctoral advisee of Morgenstern and collaborator with Nash, at Princeton, he was a long-time Yale professor of mathematical economics and outstanding game theorist.
To this list, one could certainly add more of their contemporaries, for example (in alphabetical order), Anthony Atkinson (2017), William Baumol (2017), Harold Demsetz (2019), Evsey Domar (1997), Rudiger Dornbusch (2002), Henry Roy Forbes Harrod (1978), Harold Hotelling (1973), Nicholas Kaldor (1986), Jacob Mincer (2006), Hyman Minsky (1996), and Ludwig von Mises (1973), among many others.
09 outubro 2019
Monstro
Weinstein foi denunciado por assédio há meses. A pergunta que o livro She Said, de Kantor e Twohey, faz é: qual a razão de ter durado tanto tempo as maldades dele?
Um texto do The Conversation fornece uma possível resposta: a moralidade dos advogados.
O único advogado poupado do julgamento é o advogado interno do The New York Times, David McCraw .
Ele responde a uma ofensiva carta de Weinstein com a certeza de que "qualquer artigo que fizermos cumprirá nossos padrões habituais de precisão e justiça". O artigo de Kantor e Twohey é publicado no dia seguinte.
O livro levanta questões importantes sobre até que ponto a profissão de advogado foi cúmplice em ocultar uma conduta como a de Weinstein ao longo dos anos. Enquanto os advogados do livro são caricaturas, seus colegas mais banais - advogados como eu, que costumavam inserir disposições de confidencialidade em acordos de acordos - não são menos cúmplices.
Diferentemente da ética jornalística, que é rica em tradição e revigorada quando aplicada, as regras éticas legais são codificadas na lei estadual . Como resultado, os advogados não precisam concordar ou mesmo examinar o componente moral do que fazem. (...)
No final, não foram os advogados, que deveriam preservar a justiça, que conseguiram deter Weinstein, mas sim os jornalistas.
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