CfEE Blogging: Giving students information on future wages improves school outcomes

As of this January and following last year's Annual Research Digest from the Centre for Education Economics, I'll be co-editing the Monthly Digest, along with Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren.

This is basically an excuse and commitment device to get me actually blogging again on at least a monthly basis. Each issue will include commentary on new papers, plus a selection of abstracts from recent publications (lightly edited for jargon).

Here's the link.

My first comment is on a new paper by Ciro Avitabile and Rafael de Hoyos: 

Did you know what career you wanted to do when you were in secondary school? I didn’t. Most pupils make critically important choices that will affect their lives throughout their educational career, often on the basis of poor information about what those choices will mean for their future. In most countries, there is little transparency on the costs and benefits of pursuing education and information on the various career paths available. 

In this paper, Ciro Avitabile and Rafael de Hoyos study whether or not providing pupils with better information about the earnings returns to education and the options available lead to greater effort and learning. Several studies have previously shown that providing information about the wage gains from schooling leads pupils to stay in school a bit longer, and affects their educational choices, but there is limited evidence that such information can affect learning per se, at least in a slightly longer-term perspective.

PubhD Kigali

For any readers in (or visiting) Kigali (presumably a niche audience), I've started a monthly research talk event, using the PubhD format that is going in around 20 European cities now.

3 speakers get 10 minutes each to present their research, followed by Q&A. It's a great way to learn a bit about some random subjects you might not have considered much before, for the speakers to practice their extended elevator pitch, and a pretty low-effort way of organising some kind of regular academic vaguely seminar-like discussion for me.

The next one is this Thursday at 7.30pm, see here for more details, and get in touch if you'd like to speak sometime.

What economics PhD graduates wish they knew when they started

Sussex assigned me to a mentoring circle, and our homework from the first meeting was to ask people we know who have recently completed PhDs for what they wish they knew when they started, to share with the group. Here is the really excellent advice I got from a couple of friends, both with recently(ish) finished economics PhDs and now with great jobs in applied policy research. Further tips gratefully received!

From G:

My views are far from standard, but here's two ideas;

First, be McKinsey about it, never forget about what the deliverable is. Project manage yourself. Get 2-3 finished PhDs from the library and work out exactly what you need to do over the next 3-4 years (choose book style or three papers), get a really good feel for the what the end product looks like. Even if your three ideas are only slowly becoming specific enough you could work out the headings and sub-headings of the output, perhaps get the ball park literature review down in final format so something is already delivered. 

Second, be clear on what you want from the PhD. I'd argue it's mostly a signal. But if you can produce useful published work go for it. If not compromise and aim for one stellar output from 3 papers and then a satisficing strategy can reduce what could be enormous opportunity cost. Remember the job route or post-doc route need quite different attributes. Balance delivering the minimum output with earning, teaching, network building (work or academic), and publishing (not necessary but wonderful. A PhD only needs to be potentially publishable with more work/ a post-Doc; it's intended as research training.

And from A:

1) Use BibTex or another bibliography program to keep track of all of your papers as you download them. I did do this, and it has been a life saver. I also started a spreadsheet of all of the papers which I read, but I started that too late. It is really useful to note down things like context of study, data used, main method, key finding etc. I absolutely hate doing literature reviews and answering the question "where does your research fit into the literature", especially after I've assured myself that what I'm doing is worthwhile.

2) Read the abstracts in the top 3 or 4 journals as they come out. And also JDE, EDCC, WBER and a few other field journals, just to get an idea of what people are doing.

3) Don't lose sight of the bigger picture. You may not have this problem at Sussex, but I found X was SOOOOO obsessed with empirical identification of effects and fetishizing causality that I stopped thinking about the bigger picture and started focussing on why my paper was bad and couldn't be identified. Obviously there has to be some balance between the interesting question and the rigorous empirical identification, and in some cases these things are complementary but don't let yourself get pulled too far down that rabbit hole. 

4) Keep perspective and stay confident in your research. Obviously this is easier said than done, but so much of academic work is smoke and mirrors. People bullshit a lot and inflate how important their work. This can lead people to put down other people's work, which I think is totally unconscionable. Anyways, I don't know exactly how I would have done things differently on this point, but I never really got over the confidence thing (you can ask A about how many times he had to pick me up). I think one thing you have to do is develop a thick skin; if people are critiquing your paper, it isn't because they don't think you are a good researcher. Also, never, ever read Econ Job Market rumors. Being accepted to a PhD means you are good enough to do good quality research that people will be interested in. It may not be published in the AER or QJE and you may not get a faculty position and Harvard, but you should remember (and I should have remembered) that this isn't actually the point. 

5) Present your work early and often. This relates to the previous point. I didn't present my work soon enough and you really do get a kick out it. One of the big challenges I found was that I always felt my work was worthless and stupid, but when you present to other people they almost always see the interesting and good parts of it. This helped me a lot to stay motivated and think of new ways to approach my papers. 

6) Do not, whatever you do, lose contact with your supervisor. I had long spells where I just disappeared. As with any bad thing, I was fully aware of what I was doing, but couldn't muster the willpower to break out of it. Most often your supervisor doesn't care that you haven't done what you were going to do, but they will help you get back on track. I fell into the trap of not having done enough, so thinking "If I just spend one more week on this, it will be good enough to take to my supervisor", and then postponing my meetings. Don't do this, because every time you postpone, you build up the pressure to create or do or present something to your supervisor that is even better than what you currently have. Owning up to not having done anything and getting yourself back on track is WAY WAY WAY better than letting things slide. 

7) Check out the sites that give advice for doing PhDs, presenting and writing academic work. I really liked John Cochrane's advice, but there are many others. I found them really helpful in preparing my slides and papers. Also, if you find articles that you like, copy their model for presenting your research. I did this on a few occasions. It works. 

8) If you are doing data work, spend time figuring out the best way to store files, proper etiquette (that isn't the right word) for writing do-files. It will save you lots of time. 

9) Get involved with research projects with other people, either as an RA or as a co-author. I didn't do this enough and I really thrive off of working with other people. Being a RA also helps to get you familiar with data-sets and opens up questions based on other people's work that you might find interesting. I think A benefited a huge amount from being able to work on the Y team; not only did he have a great social group, but he also really got to know the data and develop his own ideas about what to do. 

10) Find yourself a supervisor who you will work well with. Some supervisors are hands-off, some are harsh, some are supportive, some are really anal and organized. I think this is probably a key decision (not sure why it is at the bottom of the page) but it is really important. 

11) Write down, not up. Paul Klemperer gives this advice to people. I think it is really helpful. Basically write down your ideas and models and empirical findings so they are on paper and you've expressed them (or tried to express them). But don't write up into a paper until you have the argument and outline ready to go. 

12) Keep making sure you love to do research. It is amazing to be funded to do research, so make sure you enjoy it. I loved all the other stuff around doing a DPhil: teaching, traveling, running a survey. But in retrospect, I don't think I loved the solitude and focussed effort that goes into polishing and re-polishing and being exactly right about something. Part of me thinks I should have quit early on, but I don't think I had the balls to do it. I don't know that I would have been happier, but there you have it.

How my economics PhD is going so far

Chart of the day: Evidence-based aid in the UK

This chart from the LSE "Impact of Social Science" handbook shows a ranking of UK government departments by the number of references to academic research found on their websites. DFID comes third.

Psychology and Economics

There are good reasons for keeping prospect theory out of introductory texts. The basic concepts of economics are essential intellectual tools, which are not easy to grasp even with simplified and unrealistic assumptions about the nature of economic agents who interact in markets. Raising questions about these assumptions even as they are introduced would be confusing, and perhaps demoralizing. It is reasonable to put priority on helping students acquire the basic tools of the discipline. Furthermore the failure of rationality that is built into prospect theory is often irrelevant to the predictions of economic theory, which work out with great precision in some situations and provide good approximations in many others.

-- Daniel Kahneman "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

Oxford has more integrity than LSE?

In the spring of 2002 a senior civil servant at the Foreign Office asked Oxford university if Saif could take a master's degree course. "It was made clear … that the FCO would appreciate help in this case since Libya was opening up to the West again." The head of Oxford's department of international development told the FCO that the application would be "unlikely to prosper … because Saif had no social science training, and his prior degree did not meet the requisite quality standard". 

The FCO dropped its request, the inquiry was told.

The Guardian

How to Increase the Policy Impact of Academic Research

How about letting policy makers read it?

"academics, funded mostly by the public purse, pay for the production and dissemination of academic papers; but for historical reasons, these are published by private organisations who charge around $30 per academic paper, keeping out any reader who doesn’t have access through their institution."(Goldacre, on Monbiot)

It's hard to judge exactly how many people are likely to be affected, but I would bet that there are thousands of people out there who are able to read research, who work in some kind of operational decision-making role, and who might, on occasion, want to do a quick google search and skim the latest relevant academic paper on an issue.

Policy notes and summaries produced by think tanks are fine, but they are costly to produce, and rarely answer the precise specific question that a decision-maker is looking at. There is a parallel here to Owen Barder's arguments about aid transparency - information should be first be made free at source, and we can worry about analysis and presentation later (or rather the market, and enthusiastic amateurs, can).

Even in large institutions it can be difficult - the British Department for Work and Pensions is the largest employer of professional economists in the country - and it does pay for some kind of access, but I do remember it being not quite as easy as from within a university, and wasting time looking for things. Good luck being a US-educated returnee to the civil service in South Sudan.

Shame on Elsevier

The academic publishing industry is broken. Academics produce research, then give it to the publishers for free, who then make profits by restricting access to it.

Elsevier, publisher of the Lancet, have just revoked free online access to their journals for doctors from poor countries.

Shame on you Elsevier for this shameful move, and shame on your CEO Erik Engstrom and his £1.8 million salary.

All credit to the Editor of the Lancet for speaking up in opposition to this move.

But it is the whole industry that is broken. Private firms try to maximise their profits, that is what they do. We should not be surprised. And yet the fruit of research, information, is the ultimate public good. My "consumption" of a research paper in no way diminishes your ability to consume the very same paper. This absurd industry needs a wake-up call. Publishers should be offered a choice between making academic research available online everywhere for free or being outright nationalised.

To PhD or not to PhD?

The Economist and Chris Blattman discuss.

One of the problems facing potential applicants is the impossibility of impartial advice. Almost everyone who has / is doing a graduate degree tells you that it is worthwhile, and almost everyone who does not tells you that it is not (with the notable exception of the embittered Economist correspondent). People are quite understandably prone to rationalising their own big important life decisions.

Objective data on earnings doesn't really help as earnings aren't exactly the point. Is there any research on the happiness / life satisfaction returns to graduate study?

Probably the best Economist-Priest in Juba

The vision of Jesuit priest Michael Schultheis, the [Catholic University of Sudan] just started its third year. "We're about a month late starting classes," said Father Schultheis who has a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell. "That's because we had to find a new location."

From the HuffPo, Hat Tip: TH

Hyperlinked research

To betray my utter geekiness (as if I haven’t done that already), I just got very excited when I opened this CGD working paper by Michael Clemens and saw hyperlinks on all the references. Imagine that! To my disappointment the links in the text only lead to the full citation in the bibliography. But really, in this day and age, why on earth don’t all academic papers come with embedded links to online versions of their sources?

Shleifer and Vishny on the Financial Crisis

Nicola Gennaioli, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny have added a little “mathematical masturbation” to Hyman Minsky’s theory of financial innovation and financial fragility.

Minsky was from a strange breed, somewhere between Keynes and Marx, but he had a theory that fits the recent crisis rather well. The demands of capitalism for profit lead to increasing financial innovation, and as the good times continue, overconfidence, and a move towards more risky investments, increasing systemic financial fragility. Which is pretty much what has just happened, and what GSV describe in their paper.

Still though, when ideas get written in maths, they get taken seriously by modern economists. Krugman pretty much got the Nobel Prize for writing old ideas in maths. And not necessarily without reason - when ideas are written in maths they are written with clarity. With no scope for fuzzy thinking or rhetorical flourishes, the logic has to be sound.

Its just a shame Minsky doesn’t even get a reference. So here it is:

Hyman P. Minsky, Stabilizing an Unstable Economy (1986).

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(I learnt about Minsky through Jan Toporowski’s wonderful banking and finance lectures and his Theories of Financial Disturbance (2005). Jan’s lectures somehow managed to double as a history of the sex lives of the great economists).

LSE joins the blogosphere

A couple of potentially interesting new blogs from the LSE, Do No Harm written by students on the MSc Development Management and a course blog DV409: Economic Development Policy written by Instructor Diana Weinhold.
There is an even a post by an ex-Juba-ite on working in development:

A self-serving bureaucracy that never gets to the field, lives in meetings, writes endless reports and pays itself handsomely.  This isn’t why a lot of people join the cause.  They want to be working directly with people, seeing the impacts of their work in front of them, confronting poverty and injustice head on.  But how do you achieve large-scale impact from a local level, how do you fully engage with national politics, and how do you bring the large resources to bear?  Personally I’m in development to work on the big issues, which means in 3 years in Sudan I got out of the capital three times.  I could live with that.  Other people felt sorry for me, often quite angry.  You know that aid official who lives behind barbed wire in western comfort when there are poor people just the other side of the fence?  That was me.

In my 18 months I’ve left the capital twice.

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Links fixed - thanks Laura

Warming increases risk of civil war in Africa

Ouch!

Ed Miguel is red-hot. Climate change and civil war in ONE PAPER?! Can anything stop this man!!

Blogging and Academia

I've just been reading the latest draft of a paper by Miguel, Saiegh and Satyanath which measures the correlation between violence on the football (soccer) field in European leagues (yellow/red cards) and violence in a player's home country (civil war). Blattman blogged about an earlier draft a while ago.

Great paper, but what caught my eye were the acknowledgements:

"We are grateful to Dan Altman, Ray Fisman, Matias Iaryczower, Abdul Nouri, Dani Rodrik, seminar participants at Stanford, UCSD, UCLA, IPES, and at the 4th Annual HiCN Workshop at Yale, and a host of anonymous bloggers for useful comments, and Dan Hartley, Teferi Mergo, Melanie Wasserman and Tom Zeitzoff for excellent research assistance. All errors remain our own."

Proper academic acknowledgement of bloggers! Is this a first?