Research Has Benefits Even if No One Reads It

Each year academics write thousands of papers, but half of these papers will never be cited and many only read by a handful of people as a recent Chronicle of Higher education article points out. The article goes on to say that the vast amount of "bad" research is taking away valuable time of top researchers who instead of spending all of their time researcher are spending more time reviewing and rejecting bad articles. Chris Blattman points out that it takes him a few hours a month to reject horrendous articles he reviews.

I think my research could still be a net positive even if no one reads it or cites it. I was thinking about something Justin Wolfers said at a session I attended on Economics of Sports Blogging. If you blog and no one reads it, your blog is not a good use of your time if your goal is to have a widely read blog. However, if your goal is to work on your communication skills and critical thinking then it can be a success.

Many academics are more teaching than research focused. By trying to publish and even publishing things that no one reads but the authors, I think they will be better teachers and improve their ability to explain things and keep up to date on their field.

I do hope people actually read my blog and my research.

The Economic Impact of Vampires: True Blood Edition

Suppose that 10% of the world's population turns into vampires in the manner of the HBO series True Blood. I'm less interested in the "blood sucking" and horror part. So ignoring that I wonder what the impact of two changes to a portion of the population would be

1. They cannot go out in light
2. Their "natural" life expectancy is hundreds of years


How would these changes impact the economy? In terms of number 1, you would think this would increase the number of all night businesses. Also property values in areas with less sunlight would increase (winter cabin in Anchorage anyone?).

In terms of number 2. I wonder, would vampires have higher or lower savings rates? On the one hand if vampires saved enough they could quit working after a hundred years of compound interest. On the other hand vampires do not age and could continue working. This aspect may be worth thinking about if science discovers a way to substantially increase our life expectancy.

How to get a Taxi at 2am in DC going to Maryland

It's 2am you are standing on Dupont Circle (DC) trying to hail a cab back to Silver Spring (MD) to go home after a night of utility maximizing. A cab approaches, the cabbie asks where to? You say Silver Spring. The cabbie says no and drives off.

It happen to me last year and it happen recently to the blogger at Sprung on the Spring (a local Silver Spring blogger). As the their post describes even though it is illegal to refuse service, several DC cabs refused to go to Maryland. They don't want to go to Maryland, because DC cabbies legally can't pick up new passengers in Maryland. I think this shows that a law change is unlikely to solve the problem of getting a cab from DC to MD after the bars close.

So I propose two solutions. Granted this will be theoretical, since with a 7 month old I can't do the empirical research necessary to test these theories. If you find yourself in a similar situation please let me know if either of these work.

Solution #1: Instead of saying I'm going to Silver Spring. Start by saying $50 for a trip to Silver Spring (sure it's double the price), but given these two data points $25 is a small price to pay for not trying to hail cabs between 2-3am. I think the cabbie would go for it, since it should compensate them from missing one fair. I also find the negotiations are quick between the cabbie and the person trying to hail the cab. You basically get 1 shot.

Solution #2: Take me to Alaska and Georgia Ave! This is the border of Silver Spring and DC. Once there try to negotiate for the last mile or two if you live in downtown Silver Spring. If the cabbie doesn't go for it, get out hail another cab. A new cab picking you up there is unlikely to refuse service. I'm not sure how many cabs are going by there but I assume it's a decent amount.

Job Advice $2

Students often ask me for advice about getting a job in international development. I sometimes have an idea or two, but I have never had a full time job besides RA or professor so perhaps I'm not the best resource.

Now I have a new place to point my students! Blood and Milk, an excellent development blog, run by a person with lots of non-academic experience working in development is starting a job advice newsletter.

Even better she is charging for it! It's only $2 to subscribe, but my guess is that she'll provide more valuable content at $2 per subscriber than she would for free. She sounds like she is getting tired of answering the same questions for free, so she might not answer any more job seekers questions without pay.

For the time being I'm still willing to answer blog readers questions for free, but you get what you pay for.

I like to watch TV, while I watch TV???

“I think the hope is that a $10 subscription [for Hulu] is a complement to a $50-plus subscription from a cable or satellite company" (NY TIMES)

Hulu a website that let's you watch TV online has just announced they will be offering a new service with access to more shows for 9.99. So how can TV shows complement other TV shows. Usually in economics goods that are complement you enjoy together (eg coffee and cream, cold beer and sandwiches, neck ties and dress shirts). But I would think hulu and cable are substitutes. That is goods you can enjoy instead of the other one (eg coffee or tea, beer or wine, shirts or sweaters)

I think the idea is that Hulu might get you interested in a show so after you watch one season on hulu, you'll want to watch the next on cable.

I'm not really beleiving it. I've used Hulu's free service and Netflix as a substitute for cable. I think the owners of Hulu (NBC/Fox) which also have a major interest in cable and satelitte think Hulu is not too close of a substitute so it lowers their cable earnings less than their Hulu profits.

Finally, let me know by clicking on this link if my blog is a substitute or a complement to vuvuzelas.

NAASE Medal Count

Yesterday I went to a session where two papers tried to predict Olympic medal count and World Cup results.

Two thoughts. First Nate Silver over at 538.com has done a great job of predicting the presidential election, Olympic medals, and is trying to do so on the World Cup.
But Nate's audience is for the masses of sports fans. Which is an important audience, but what do Sports Economists want.

First thought. Both paper discussants urged the authors to think about why these type of predictions might be interesting to Economists. I think it shows an inherent danger in Sports Economics. We can't forget the Economics part if we want to make a contribution.

Second thought. How much should Sports Economists pay attention to the large internet community of people doing similar work. This was apparent in the baseball session I went to that the presenters hadn't paid much attention to the work of baseballprospectus or fan graphs. As Sports Economists we should also make sure we are relevant to the Sports fans.

Now off to discuss a paper on NASCAR!

NAASE Session on Sports Blogging

So I just got back from a a session on Sports Economics blogging with Brad Humphreys, Justin Wolfers, David Berri, Kevin Arnovitz (ESPN)

A couple of quick thoughts, I was going to ask why more blogs don't focus on published works. Then Brad Humphreys said he blogs at the International Journal of Sports Finance about the articles that are published there. Even more exciting is that many Sports Economics classes course websites get students to visit the blog.

Justin Wolfers made a lot of good points about how blogging can help distribute your research. He said for every paper he writes he tries to write an OP-ED, a one page summary, a radio commentary, or a longer blog post. In part Justin does this to help hone his message, but also he does it so he can point media to a more accessible version of his work.

David Berri blog Wages of Wins looks at basketball. He talked about how he promoted some of his better commenters to contributors to the blog. I think this might be a good innovation, economists working with interested non-economists to promote economic ideas in Sport.

Finally Kevin Arnovitz talked about how he tried to take Sports Economics ideas to the masses. I think this type of work could be key if economists want to go from being thought of as people with their head in the spread sheet to someone who has something worth wile to say to the average fan.