... for a bogus paper with a fake experiment that was submitted to web based journals (in biology) that claim they use peer-review. These are journals that charge large sums to authors but nothing to readers.
Listen to the interview or read the transcript on NPR.
Showing posts with label podcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label podcast. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Saturday, November 9, 2013
To test or not to test
I recommend the NOVA ScienceNOW podcast on genetic testing, a subject I am working on with David Bardey.
Giving cash would not help (much) reducing future poverty
A Freakonomics podcast episode discusses a nice historical experiment about a
1832 land lottery in Georgia that randomly rewarded roughly 20 percent of its participants with a big, valuable tract of land. Pairing this data with U.S. Census data, Bleakley and Ferrie were able to see what happened to these newly wealthy families — if, for instance, their children became more educated, and were more successful down the road.
Results are quite bleak, although very interesting:
1832 land lottery in Georgia that randomly rewarded roughly 20 percent of its participants with a big, valuable tract of land. Pairing this data with U.S. Census data, Bleakley and Ferrie were able to see what happened to these newly wealthy families — if, for instance, their children became more educated, and were more successful down the road.
Results are quite bleak, although very interesting:
Would a Big Bucket of Cash Really Change Your Life? A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast
Why does poverty persist? Is economic mobility still a real part of the American dream? And if you gave every poor family a big bucket of cash, would it substantially change the trajectory of its future?
Those are some of the questions we ask in our latest podcast, “Would a Big Bucket of Cash Really Change Your Life?” (You can subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. You can also read the transcript; it includes credits for the music you’ll hear in the episode.)
It attempts to answer an e-mail we received from a reader named Thomas Appleton:
What would be the socioeconomic effects if the 50 wealthiest Americans each gave $50,000 to 50 different American families, repeating this practice annually with new beneficiaries? How about if these families were targeted in a limited area; say, across some of the poorest neighborhoods in Brooklyn?
As we explain in the podcast, even if we could get 50 wealthy people to give $50,000 to 50 families every year, we’d have to wait a long time to measure the long-term effects. So wouldn’t it be great if, somewhere in history, something like this already happened – that there’d been a huge cash giveaway that produced a magical dataset that some scholars could analyze in order to answer these questions?
Enter Hoyt Bleakley and Joseph Ferrie, economists at, respectively, the University of Chicago and Northwestern. They are the authors of a fascinating new paper called “Shocking Behavior: Random Wealth in Antebellum Georgia and Human Capital Across Generations.” In the podcast, you’ll hear Bleakley describe an 1832 land lottery in Georgia that randomly rewarded roughly 20 percent of its participants with a big, valuable tract of land. Pairing this data with U.S. Census data, Bleakley and Ferrie were able to see what happened to these newly wealthy families — if, for instance, their children became more educated, and were more successful down the road.
So what happened? I’d tell you the answer right here but I know how much you love to be surprised. Also: you guys are so sharp that I’m guessing you’ve already guessed the answer by now. If you need a hint: think about what happens to modern lottery winners.
While the Georgia land lottery happened a long time ago, the research findings could hardly be more timely. Income inequality is a huge concern these days, as is the question of whether cash transfers – conditional and/or unconditional — are a viable means of lifting poor families out of poverty. I cannot say this podcast will necessarily change your mind if you have a deep-set opinion about the wisdom of cash transfers, but it is certainly good to hear about the long-term evidence from such a large-scale intervention.
Feedback welcome, as always. And thanks, Thomas, for kicking off a good conversation.
Sécurité routière (suite)
Selon ce reportage de PBS, une autre politique (que la baisse de la vitesse moyenne) est très efficace pour lutter contre les accidents mortels de la route: la lutte contre l'alcool au volant. L'ampleur des effets obtenus par la nouvelle politique implémentée en Colombie Britannique (Canada) est vraiment impressionnante.
A écouter et voir ici.
SUMMARY
New drunk-driving laws in British Columbia have led to a dramatic decrease (roughly 50%) in alcohol-related fatalities over the past two years. Officials ramped up penalties on drivers who tested at a lower blood alcohol level (.05, as opposed to the current .08 legal standard) and authorized police to immediately impound cars.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Jane Austen, Game Theory and (unrelated) Genetic Tests
Let me flag two recent episodes of the podcast Freakonomics:
- One where we learn that Jane Austen was an (early) Game Theorist. This the subject of the book by Michael Chwe. On a personal note, I have much appreciated the reference by Chwe in the podcast to my good friend Marek Kaminski.
- Another where people are asked "Do you really want to know your future?" Genetic tests can now give you very precise information on your probability of developing a specific disease (for instance, Huntington's). This is an area to which I have recently contributed, together with David Bardey from Bogota, in a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Health Economics. As in the podcast, we look at the circumstances under which individuals do take a genetic tests. We plan to study the "preference for ambiguity" described in the podcast in future research.
- One where we learn that Jane Austen was an (early) Game Theorist. This the subject of the book by Michael Chwe. On a personal note, I have much appreciated the reference by Chwe in the podcast to my good friend Marek Kaminski.
- Another where people are asked "Do you really want to know your future?" Genetic tests can now give you very precise information on your probability of developing a specific disease (for instance, Huntington's). This is an area to which I have recently contributed, together with David Bardey from Bogota, in a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Health Economics. As in the podcast, we look at the circumstances under which individuals do take a genetic tests. We plan to study the "preference for ambiguity" described in the podcast in future research.
Point of Inquiry - Steven Pinker - The Decline of Violence
Another podcasts series I like to listen to is produced by Point of Inquiry.
My recent favorite is a discussion with Steven Pinker on his latest book, The Decline of Violence.
If you want to save time, you can concentrate on minutes 8 to 14 of the podcast (you can view the interview on youtube here) for a list of the 5 main reasons violence has declined in our societies, according to Pinker.
Point of Inquiry is the Center for Inquiry's flagship podcast, where the brightest minds of our time sound off on all the things you're not supposed to talk about at the dinner table: science, religion, and politics.
Guests have included Brian Greene, Susan Jacoby, Richard Dawkins, Ann Druyan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Eugenie Scott, Adam Savage, Bill Nye, and Francis Collins.
My recent favorite is a discussion with Steven Pinker on his latest book, The Decline of Violence.
If you want to save time, you can concentrate on minutes 8 to 14 of the podcast (you can view the interview on youtube here) for a list of the 5 main reasons violence has declined in our societies, according to Pinker.
Hint to economists: his explanations involve prisoner dilemma game theory...
Are Stradivarius violins up to their reputation?
A few posts about podcasts, starting with a Skeptoid episode on "Secrets of the Stradivirius".
The episode on Stradivirius is especially interesting when it reports a "double blinded" study comparing ancient (including Stradivarius) and modern instruments, played and listened to by professional musicians. The results strike a chord with me, since they once more show our culture's obsession with the supposedly very top of the distribution (of violins in this case) ... Read the transcript or listen to the podcast to see what I mean.
Skeptoid is a weekly science podcast dedicated to furthering knowledge by blasting away the widespread pseudosciences that infect popular culture, and replacing them with way cooler reality.
Each weekly episode focuses on a single phenomenon — an urban legend, a paranormal claim, alternative therapy, or something just plain stupid — that you've heard of, and that you probably believe in. Skeptoid attempts to expose the folly of belief in non-evidence based phenomena, and more importantly, explains the factual scientific reality.
Au fil de l'histoire - Nikola Tesla
J'aime l'Histoire en général et je suis un fan de l'émission "Au fil de l'histoire" sur France Inter. Chaque semaine, un nouvel épisode (accessible en podcasts) choisit un thème, un événement ou un personnage et le décrit sous forme de pièce radiophonique d'environ 30 minutes.
J'ai beaucoup apprécié la description de la vie de Nikola Tesla, un chercheur du début du XXème qui a fait beaucoup de découvertes dans le domaine de l'électricité et de l'automatisme, notamment. On y décrit très bien ses interactions avec Westinghouse et Thomas Edison, et notamment les aspects et conséquences économiques de ses inventions.
Toujours dans le domaine scientifique, je recommande également L'affaire Lyssenko ou l'intelligentsia parisienne en délire.
J'ai beaucoup apprécié la description de la vie de Nikola Tesla, un chercheur du début du XXème qui a fait beaucoup de découvertes dans le domaine de l'électricité et de l'automatisme, notamment. On y décrit très bien ses interactions avec Westinghouse et Thomas Edison, et notamment les aspects et conséquences économiques de ses inventions.
Toujours dans le domaine scientifique, je recommande également L'affaire Lyssenko ou l'intelligentsia parisienne en délire.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
A top publication in economics is worth at least 100 000 US$
In this freakonomics podcast "Who Owns the Words That Come Out of Your Mouth?", Steve Levitt states (at 25' 40) that a top publication in economics is worth at least 100 000 US$ for a young academic. How interesting ... (by the way, I'd like to see the calculation - thanks for pointing the paper out if it exists).
The rest of the podcast is of interest as well, since it shows how (over)reaching the copyright law is in the UK (even compared to the US). The example taken is Winston Churchill, and how his estate receives roughly 40 US cents for any word pronounced by him that is published in a book...
By the way, I have recently listened to an audio class on "Winston Churchill: Man of the Century" produced by The Modern Scholar. I have found it most interesting, long enough at 7 hours to get some real feedback on the guy, but not too long as to become boring. I recommend this as a very nice introduction to Winston Churchill's life and time.
The rest of the podcast is of interest as well, since it shows how (over)reaching the copyright law is in the UK (even compared to the US). The example taken is Winston Churchill, and how his estate receives roughly 40 US cents for any word pronounced by him that is published in a book...
By the way, I have recently listened to an audio class on "Winston Churchill: Man of the Century" produced by The Modern Scholar. I have found it most interesting, long enough at 7 hours to get some real feedback on the guy, but not too long as to become boring. I recommend this as a very nice introduction to Winston Churchill's life and time.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
EconTalk on public pensions and on Big Pharma
I like listening to podcasts when commuting or when mountain biking. Economists may be interested in the interviews conducted by Russ Roberts for EconTalk. It is a nice way to busy your mind for one hour when your body is otherwise occupied. The range of subjects is quite large, covering all fields of economics. This being said, I find Russ Roberts pretty much biased (I would say conservatist --i.e., pretty much right wing at least as seen from France) and, not sharing his political views, I have found him not always very cogent in his remarks and interventions...
This podcast illustrates both the interest of the series and its conservatist slant. It covers an interesting topic: public pensions in the US, namely the pensions paid to state public employees. I have learnt many things from this podcast (such as, for instance, that many state public employees are not covered by the federal social security program), but I have found some interpretations given totally outlandish. At some point (34 minutes into the discussion), both Roberts and the interviewee Josuah Rauh agree that the shortfall in the funding of such plans is a Threat to Civilization!
If you'd prefer a discussion with a more left-wing perspective, listen to Marcia Angell on Big Pharma. She is not an economist but rather a medical doctor who has served as editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. She talks about the impact of pharmaceutical companies on academic research, clinical trials and the political process. I have been most surprised by her contention that the large pharmaceutical companies produce little or no innovation but rather outsource this research to university labs. She also contends that they make an increasing amount of money doing this. If true, this means that academic researchers are very bad at extracting resources from the pharmaceutical companies to finance their research... I have no clue whether this is true and I am sure that applied economists must have looked at this. Please chip in if you have some reference to recommend!
You can check the list of EconTalk podcasts on http://www.econtalk.org/ . Each podcast is accompanied by a list of links to the materials cited in the discussion, and by highlights. You can of course subscribe to the podcasts via iTunes.
This podcast illustrates both the interest of the series and its conservatist slant. It covers an interesting topic: public pensions in the US, namely the pensions paid to state public employees. I have learnt many things from this podcast (such as, for instance, that many state public employees are not covered by the federal social security program), but I have found some interpretations given totally outlandish. At some point (34 minutes into the discussion), both Roberts and the interviewee Josuah Rauh agree that the shortfall in the funding of such plans is a Threat to Civilization!
If you'd prefer a discussion with a more left-wing perspective, listen to Marcia Angell on Big Pharma. She is not an economist but rather a medical doctor who has served as editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. She talks about the impact of pharmaceutical companies on academic research, clinical trials and the political process. I have been most surprised by her contention that the large pharmaceutical companies produce little or no innovation but rather outsource this research to university labs. She also contends that they make an increasing amount of money doing this. If true, this means that academic researchers are very bad at extracting resources from the pharmaceutical companies to finance their research... I have no clue whether this is true and I am sure that applied economists must have looked at this. Please chip in if you have some reference to recommend!
You can check the list of EconTalk podcasts on http://www.econtalk.org/ . Each podcast is accompanied by a list of links to the materials cited in the discussion, and by highlights. You can of course subscribe to the podcasts via iTunes.
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