Hi everyone,
I will be taking a break from blogging for at least a month. I'm really grateful to those of you who visit this space regularly: I've learned a great deal from your comments.
I hope to resume blogging by the end of the year. If for some reason you miss my writing, you can check out my working academic papers here.
Thanks for reading, and see you soon.
Atheen
Friday, November 14, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Random Tuesdays
Some things of note:
1) Blogger and frequent commenter in this space James Hudspeth sent me this interesting article about how google searches can be used to track disease outbreaks, with information relays that are potentially faster than existing surveillance systems.
2) Elizabeth Pisani, author of The Wisdom of Whores (on my reading list for next month), has a fun and informative blog of the same name. Here is an interesting post from this blog looking at incentives and HIV/AIDS, with a special reference to disability grants in South Africa. Here is our paper on this subject.
3) Spotlight (with a thoughtful piece) on Obama.
4) People are addictive.
5) Be sure to check out the Yale University Insitute for Social and Policy Studies 40th Year Celebration and Conference. I think space is tight, but you can still get a sense of the bill through the papers and slides available via the link provided above. The conference focuses on using experiments to answer important questions in political science and economics, and the papers span a wide range of topics. All of them are super interesting.
1) Blogger and frequent commenter in this space James Hudspeth sent me this interesting article about how google searches can be used to track disease outbreaks, with information relays that are potentially faster than existing surveillance systems.
2) Elizabeth Pisani, author of The Wisdom of Whores (on my reading list for next month), has a fun and informative blog of the same name. Here is an interesting post from this blog looking at incentives and HIV/AIDS, with a special reference to disability grants in South Africa. Here is our paper on this subject.
3) Spotlight (with a thoughtful piece) on Obama.
4) People are addictive.
5) Be sure to check out the Yale University Insitute for Social and Policy Studies 40th Year Celebration and Conference. I think space is tight, but you can still get a sense of the bill through the papers and slides available via the link provided above. The conference focuses on using experiments to answer important questions in political science and economics, and the papers span a wide range of topics. All of them are super interesting.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Obama
Addressing my graduating class, the Dean of the Duke University Chapel gave a stirring speech about how we needed to resist being labeled the 9/11 generation. Though the horrific terrorist attacks happened during our senior year, the Dean urged us to think beyond 9/11 and become the generation that made its mark by decisively and proactively moving society away from that event and towards a better future. Rather than becoming pessimistic and jaded about our world, he wanted us to use our energies, skills and talents to refocus the collective gaze of society on the good and the promising.
Nearly seven years later, I witnessed a slew of my friends taking up the Dean's challenge, inspired the first black man gaining a major party nomination for President, who embodied progress, optimism and youth, speaking of hope and change. Several friends participated directly in the Obama campaign, working long hours in battleground states, making calls and coordinating rallies. Others chose to engage in vociferous discussion with their families and friends about their beliefs and about what they felt was the most important decision our country has had to make in a long time. Still others spent election day calling complete strangers encouraging them to get out to vote. Tuesday night, and for the rest of the week thereafter, these friends and many others across the country walked around with gleaming smiles, radiating a sense of optimism that seems to be a perfectly natural extension of the events of the last few months, but also completely remarkable given the aftermath of 9/11 and the recent financial crisis. As one of my professors gushed on the day after the election: "It is now morning in America."
I think the implicit Reagan comparison is entirely appropriate. If Reagan was the transformational figure of our parents' generation, Obama is most definitely ours. Before Tuesday, though, my views on President-Elect Obama had been more muted. To me, "Hope" and "Change" were empty campaign promises that I'd heard before, made by another inspirational candidate who turned out to be an underwhelming President. If anything, I chose to vote for Obama mainly because I liked his technocratic and pragmatic outlook (and also because the erstwhile Maverick Senator McCain had become much less of one).
Tuesday taught me that these concepts are not, and had never been, just vague and hazy campaign rhetoric. Indeed, the tangible effects of being inspired by a man who has become both a symbol and a (potential) instrument for optimism and progress are substantive and significant and should not be underestimated: millions of people appear ready to make sacrifices and continue to work at a grassroots level for change. Some of the optimism appears a bit unhealthy - after all, Obama does not hold a magic wand - but I think much it can be harnessed and put to use in a way never before seen, certainly not in my lifetime.
Prior to Nov 4, 2008, 9/11 was indeed the defining historical moment of our generation. It clearly changed our views about the world and about our own country. Much of this decade has been colored by this event, from the tangible policies and actions we have taken as well as to our national mood more generally. We now have another defining moment for our generation: the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency, with all its optimism and its possibilities. Now let's put this all our good-will, excitement and sense of purpose to good use and get down in the trenches with our new President.
It's time to get to work.
Nearly seven years later, I witnessed a slew of my friends taking up the Dean's challenge, inspired the first black man gaining a major party nomination for President, who embodied progress, optimism and youth, speaking of hope and change. Several friends participated directly in the Obama campaign, working long hours in battleground states, making calls and coordinating rallies. Others chose to engage in vociferous discussion with their families and friends about their beliefs and about what they felt was the most important decision our country has had to make in a long time. Still others spent election day calling complete strangers encouraging them to get out to vote. Tuesday night, and for the rest of the week thereafter, these friends and many others across the country walked around with gleaming smiles, radiating a sense of optimism that seems to be a perfectly natural extension of the events of the last few months, but also completely remarkable given the aftermath of 9/11 and the recent financial crisis. As one of my professors gushed on the day after the election: "It is now morning in America."
I think the implicit Reagan comparison is entirely appropriate. If Reagan was the transformational figure of our parents' generation, Obama is most definitely ours. Before Tuesday, though, my views on President-Elect Obama had been more muted. To me, "Hope" and "Change" were empty campaign promises that I'd heard before, made by another inspirational candidate who turned out to be an underwhelming President. If anything, I chose to vote for Obama mainly because I liked his technocratic and pragmatic outlook (and also because the erstwhile Maverick Senator McCain had become much less of one).
Tuesday taught me that these concepts are not, and had never been, just vague and hazy campaign rhetoric. Indeed, the tangible effects of being inspired by a man who has become both a symbol and a (potential) instrument for optimism and progress are substantive and significant and should not be underestimated: millions of people appear ready to make sacrifices and continue to work at a grassroots level for change. Some of the optimism appears a bit unhealthy - after all, Obama does not hold a magic wand - but I think much it can be harnessed and put to use in a way never before seen, certainly not in my lifetime.
Prior to Nov 4, 2008, 9/11 was indeed the defining historical moment of our generation. It clearly changed our views about the world and about our own country. Much of this decade has been colored by this event, from the tangible policies and actions we have taken as well as to our national mood more generally. We now have another defining moment for our generation: the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency, with all its optimism and its possibilities. Now let's put this all our good-will, excitement and sense of purpose to good use and get down in the trenches with our new President.
It's time to get to work.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Early Life and Obesity in Mexico: Talk Weds
This Wednesday I'll be giving a talk on my research on the early life influences on obesity and hypertension among adults in Mexico. I will also speak on the links between early life conditions and health and cognitive development among adolescents in Mexico, again with a special emphasis on obesity. My presentation will follow a talk by my colleague Ulrike Muench, who will be presenting her very interesting research on gender gaps in wages paid to nurses (I believe male nurses get paid more) and the extent to which various theories may explain these differentials.
As of now, I think my talk will be pretty low-key. I plan on going through the basics of the biology linking birth and early childhood events to later health and discuss and then talk why this knowledge could be useful in enriching our understanding when and how economic factors (technological change leading to decreases in activity levels and food price declines leading to increases in income) work to lead to increases in body weight and any associated disorders. I will also present some preliminary econometric models attempting to (1) recover causal impacts of early life factors on these outcomes and (2) illustrate how the manner in which body weight (as well as blood pressure and glucose tolerance) respond to the aforementioned economic factors depends highly on environmental conditions faced at the beginning of life. Most importantly, I will unveil my research agenda for the next several months on these and related topics.
The seminar will be this Weds, Nov 5th from 1:30 - 3 PM in Rm 105 at 60 College Street (LEPH). Ulrike will open and I'll follow on as the second act. Feel free to join us if you are interested!
As of now, I think my talk will be pretty low-key. I plan on going through the basics of the biology linking birth and early childhood events to later health and discuss and then talk why this knowledge could be useful in enriching our understanding when and how economic factors (technological change leading to decreases in activity levels and food price declines leading to increases in income) work to lead to increases in body weight and any associated disorders. I will also present some preliminary econometric models attempting to (1) recover causal impacts of early life factors on these outcomes and (2) illustrate how the manner in which body weight (as well as blood pressure and glucose tolerance) respond to the aforementioned economic factors depends highly on environmental conditions faced at the beginning of life. Most importantly, I will unveil my research agenda for the next several months on these and related topics.
The seminar will be this Weds, Nov 5th from 1:30 - 3 PM in Rm 105 at 60 College Street (LEPH). Ulrike will open and I'll follow on as the second act. Feel free to join us if you are interested!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Daylight Savings Time and Energy Consumption
I'm not a big fan of Daylight Saving Time (DST) for several reasons. Mainly, I hate the fact that the sun goes down an hour earlier during an already short-winter day. I always figure that this undermined the justification of DST as an energy saving device. After all, I need to turn on my lights in the evening an hour earlier, and this is not counterbalanced by energy savings in the morning (I don't think I wake up early enough!).
A new working paper by Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant attempts to generate some estimates surrounding DST and energy savings. Here is the abstract of their paper:
The history of Daylight Saving Time (DST) has been long and controversial. Throughout its implementation during World Wars I and II, the oil embargo of the 1970s, consistent practice today, and recent extensions, the primary rationale for DST has always been to promote energy conservation. Nevertheless, there is surprisingly little evidence that DST actually saves energy. This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment in the state of Indiana to provide the first empirical estimates of DST effects on electricity consumption in the United States since the mid-1970s. Focusing on residential electricity demand, we conduct the first-ever study that uses micro-data on households to estimate an overall DST effect. The dataset consists of more than 7 million observations on monthly billing data for the vast majority of households in southern Indiana for three years. Our main finding is that -- contrary to the policy's intent -- DST increases residential electricity demand. Estimates of the overall increase are approximately 1 percent, but we find that the effect is not constant throughout the DST period. DST causes the greatest increase in electricity consumption in the fall, when estimates range between 2 and 4 percent. These findings are consistent with simulation results that point to a tradeoff between reducing demand for lighting and increasing demand for heating and cooling. We estimate a cost of increased electricity bills to Indiana households of $9 million per year. We also estimate social costs of increased pollution emissions that range from $1.7 to $5.5 million per year. Finally, we argue that the effect is likely to be even stronger in other regions of the United States.
Interesting stuff. Another justification I heard was that DST helps ensure the safety of schoolchildren catching the bus in the morning. It would be interesting to get some estimates on welfare gains on this margin, as well.
A new working paper by Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant attempts to generate some estimates surrounding DST and energy savings. Here is the abstract of their paper:
The history of Daylight Saving Time (DST) has been long and controversial. Throughout its implementation during World Wars I and II, the oil embargo of the 1970s, consistent practice today, and recent extensions, the primary rationale for DST has always been to promote energy conservation. Nevertheless, there is surprisingly little evidence that DST actually saves energy. This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment in the state of Indiana to provide the first empirical estimates of DST effects on electricity consumption in the United States since the mid-1970s. Focusing on residential electricity demand, we conduct the first-ever study that uses micro-data on households to estimate an overall DST effect. The dataset consists of more than 7 million observations on monthly billing data for the vast majority of households in southern Indiana for three years. Our main finding is that -- contrary to the policy's intent -- DST increases residential electricity demand. Estimates of the overall increase are approximately 1 percent, but we find that the effect is not constant throughout the DST period. DST causes the greatest increase in electricity consumption in the fall, when estimates range between 2 and 4 percent. These findings are consistent with simulation results that point to a tradeoff between reducing demand for lighting and increasing demand for heating and cooling. We estimate a cost of increased electricity bills to Indiana households of $9 million per year. We also estimate social costs of increased pollution emissions that range from $1.7 to $5.5 million per year. Finally, we argue that the effect is likely to be even stronger in other regions of the United States.
Interesting stuff. Another justification I heard was that DST helps ensure the safety of schoolchildren catching the bus in the morning. It would be interesting to get some estimates on welfare gains on this margin, as well.
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