June 30, 2014 at 12:50 pm
I just finished reading the book Flash Boys by Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball and the Big Short). I highly recommend it to economists as a quick read (270 pages) in accessible prose. Or anyone. http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Wall-Street-Revolt/dp/0393244660/ Every economist should be aware of the grossly unfair trading practices that the SEC and NASDAQ have allowed to […]
Please celebrate the 463 Boston University students who earned degrees in Economics at Commencement over the weekend. This year the program contained: 17 Ph.D. recipients 207 Master’s degree recipients (MA, MAPE, MAEP, MAGDE MA/MBA, BA/MA) 256 BA recipients (including BA/MA) This represents a total of 463 degrees! These numbers undercount the total for the year […]
April 11, 2014 at 2:37 pm
There has been a great deal of surprise expressed in the media over the RAND’s latest report suggesting that more people have become insured through employer sponsored insurance (ESI) than through either Medicaid or the Exchanges under the ACA. One example is Adrianna McIntyre on The Incidental Economist who posted on Wednesday: “I can’t overstate […]
January 8, 2014 at 9:48 am
Reposting from The Incidental Economist Blog What happened to US life expectancy? Posted: 07 Jan 2014 03:00 AM PST Here’s another chart from the JAMA study “The Anatomy of Health Care in the United States”: Why did the US fall behind the OECD median in the mid-1980s for men and the early 1990s for women? Note, […]
December 9, 2013 at 11:21 am
I know rankings of departments are always imprecise, but I think BU Economics should be proud that REPEC, (REsearch Papers in EConomics), which measures research output on 31 dimensions and takes an average, currently puts us at #10 in the US, just behind Yale, and ahead of Penn, Brown, Michigan and Northwestern. Keep up the […]
December 5, 2013 at 9:06 am
A few quotes from a story in today’s Boston Globe. “Harvard, other schools still fighting grade inflation” The Boston Globe By Marcella Bombardieri. December 05, 2013 “At Yale College, where 62 percent of grades are in the A range, proposals to curb grade inflation are in doubt following student protests and faculty concern.” “After a […]
December 3, 2013 at 10:56 am
Randall P. Ellis, Professor, Boston University Department of Economics and past president of the American Society of Health Economists. Today, Tuesday Dec 3, I went on line to check out the new HealthCare.gov web site for selecting individual health insurance. I checked out options for enrolling in the Oxford County Maine. The web page now […]
November 26, 2013 at 9:01 am
(Reposted from The Incidental Economist) This November 2013 UK study confirms what other studies have shown, which is that playing video games does not predict psychosocial adjustment problems in young children. Even watching 3 hours of TV per day in the UK has no meaningful association. I also reposted my favorite graph about videos and […]
November 14, 2013 at 10:22 am
This repost from The Incidental Economist (TIE) is one of the best summaries of US Health Care I have seen. I also appended the Uwe posting at the bottom. (The JAMA Authors are Hamilton Moses III, MD; David H. M. Matheson, MBA, JD; E. Ray Dorsey, MD, MBA; Benjamin P. George, MPH; David Sadoff, BA; Satoshi Yoshimura, PhD The JAMA Article, which has an abundance of tables, references […]
November 12, 2013 at 2:11 pm
AHRF=Area Health Resource File (Formerly ARF) 2012-2013 ARHF can now be downloaded at no cost. The 2012-2013 ARF data files and documentation can now be downloaded. Click the link below to learn how to download ARF documentation and data. http://arf.hrsa.gov/ “The Area Health Resources Files (AHRF)—a family of health data resource products—draw from an extensive […]
October 18, 2013 at 2:16 pm
This 2:44 extract from a TED talk by Frans de Waal, a professor of primate behavior at Emory University shows beyond a doubt the role that fairness plays in our society. It is both hilarious and incredibly insightful. http://www.upworthy.com/2-monkeys-were-paid-unequally-see-what-happens-next?g=5%3C
October 8, 2013 at 7:31 am
Partly just to keep track of them for my BU annual report, This post links to my press interviews and quotes. “STUDY: Grad student loan debt on the rise” The Daily Free Press. Boston University March 26, 2014. “South Shore Hospital, Partners HealthCare defend merger plan” The Patriot Ledger. by Christian Schiavone. 1/17/2014 “The Healing Begins […]
September 30, 2013 at 3:40 pm
For some reason I have been unable to embed these two figures, but these links should work. minimum_premiums_chart_2014 FL_minimum_premiums_chart_20140930
September 2, 2013 at 11:23 am
Congratulations! Boston University is again well represented at the ASSA (AEA) meetings to be held in Philadelphia, January 3-5 2014. Counting coauthors, people presiding and discussants equally, current BU affiliates are on the program 46 times (31 distinct names). In addition, recent BU Economics alumni are also on the program at least 24 times, bringing […]
September 1, 2013 at 3:05 pm
My colleague Michael Manove forwarded this article which is worth reading and pondering. It is available directly at the New York Times at the link below. Two pages. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/how-dr-king-shaped-my-work-in-economics/?_r=0 The Great Divide August 27, 2013, 8:58 pm 167 Comments How Dr. King Shaped My Work in Economics By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ “I had the good […]
August 1, 2013 at 9:12 am
I thank Saikat Kundu for bringing to my attention the following NYT article. I pasted two short excerpts below. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/a-new-health-care-approach-dont-hide-the-price/?_r=0 July 31, 2013, 10:20 am Revealing a Health Care Secret: The Price By TINA ROSENBERG “The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is an ambulatory surgical center in Oklahoma City owned by its roughly 40 surgeons and […]
This repost is from the Daily Kos. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/01/1198534/-Another-day-in-the-Gun-Crazy-U-S-A While Sandy Hook murders and the Marathon Bombing get a lot national attention, it is the daily tragedy of gun shootings and killings that should be of greatest concern. The Daily Kos simply compiled lists of all of the daily reports of murders for a week ending […]
July 18, 2013 at 10:54 am
This news is sufficiently important that I am posting sections of several articles and summaries. From July 16, 2013 New York Times: Health Plan Cost for New Yorkers Set to Fall 50% By RONI CARYN RABIN and REED ABELSON Published: July 16, 2013 Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble […]
Although Boston has many beaches, all swimmable, many people just go to the Cape and don’t think to try the beaches nearby. This link from BU TODAY, To the Sea by the T has a really cool Map showing the beaches and how to get there via the T for the cost of a subway […]
I often do bootstrap and simulations in my research, and for some background research, I found the following excellent short article on how to use SAS to do efficient replications/bootstrapping/jackknifing. Paper 183-2007 Don’t Be Loopy: Re-Sampling and Simulation the SAS® Way David L. Cassell, Design Pathways, Corvallis, OR http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/forum2007/183-2007.pdf Here is an elegant example that […]
