Eric Crampton • Jul 24, 2015 •
I've used this week's New Zealand Initiative column at The NBR, in part, to pay a little tribute to Seamus, whose funeral is today. I start out in The NBR piece by critiquing the ever-trendy push to abandon the standard economic curriculum in favour of critical theory. Unfortunately, at least some higher-ups in NZ academia think it a grand idea. One might … Read More
Victoria Metcalf • May 14, 2015 •
Over the ditch there’s a little madness going on. The need for humans to converse with each other, to engage in conversation, is in a fashion under threat. That’s because the latest government budget announced includes a halt to the funding for the Australian media website initiative The … Read More
Eric Crampton • Mar 29, 2015 •
A friend with a young daughter emails the following transcript:(The daughter - almost age 4): “Mummy, quickly, I’m giving birth!” …. 5 dolls immediately arrive. “Ok, here they are. Now I’m going to a conference – can you look after them please?” … Read More
Eric Crampton • Mar 04, 2015 •
Here's a fun one for those of you still based at a university. All of you put together a Human Ethics Review proposal for a field experiment on Human Ethics Review proposals. Here is the proposal within my proposal. Each of you would propose putting together a panel of researchers at different universities. You would propose that each of your … Read More
Eric Crampton • Mar 04, 2015 •
Human ethics review panels are the worst. Designed to prevent atrocities like Tuskegee, they then metastasised: any time your research could possibly involve a human subject, there are a billion forms to fill in. So it's usually easiest just to avoid doing field research.U Queensland's Paul Frijters didn't avoid doing field research. He sent actors out onto Brisbane buses with … Read More
Eric Crampton • Feb 24, 2015 •
Philip Matthews at the Christchurch Press asked me for comment on the role of public intellectuals in New Zealand.He used a well-chosen excerpt from the email below. Here are the parts for which there wasn't room in last weekend's paper.“Public intellectuals have to be good academic all-rounders. The best ones combine deep specialist knowledge of their own research area … Read More
Victoria Metcalf • Jan 30, 2015 •
Rotation curation Twitter sites are rewarding both for curators and readers. Image source: http://www.epa.gov/win/winnews/images05/0510keyboard.gif via Wikimedia Commons. Happy New Year to everyone. Mine was actually spent not in the happiest way, listening to the revelry whilst desperately seeking sleep within the confines of a completely not soundproof tent in Kaikoura. Struck down with a nasty gastro bug for two … Read More
Victoria Metcalf • Oct 17, 2014 •
Image source: Wikimedia Commons uploaded by The Pink Group https://www.iconfinder.com/iconsets/social-media-icons-the-circle-set Recently the Minister of Education , Hon Hekia Parata, suggested introducing new assessments for Years 9 and 10 at school. The tone of the conversations on education in general I have been having in recent months with teachers leads me to … Read More
Eric Crampton • Oct 03, 2014 •
I poked Canterbury's Arin Basu on Google Plus, asking what's going on with the Health Sciences' group's attempts to block anybody else from doing funded research where the funding comes from sources they don't like. He there replies:Hi Eric ( +Eric Crampton) , thanks for bringing attention to this news item. I am not sure Health Sciences has anything to … Read More
Eric Crampton • Oct 03, 2014 •
Economics majors have the highest lifetime earnings, says Slate. Why?Part of it is that the finance and consulting industries like recruiting them, not necessarily for their specific skills, but because they consider the major a basic intelligence test. Granted, we're probably not seeing the effect of Goldman Sachs or Private Equity salaries in these charts, since they only stop … Read More