While I'd normally apologise for the lack of posting...

I've been somewhat preoccupied with more pressing matters...

Ed Byrne on wedding planning

As the man says, you wouldn't understand unless you've been there.

(Start from 2:45)

Top posts on Stickman's Corral for 2013

As if you care!

I'll limit it to three because: a) Parsimony, b) Blogger is being recalcitrant b*tch at the moment and is not letting me see any more than that.

1) Econ blogosphere comment form. Way out in front -- with nearly 7,000 views thanks to links from FT Alpha, Barry Ritholtz and a bunch of people on Twitter -- was this spoof of the various personalities, trolls and anti-trolls that populate today's economic blogs. Some of the additional suggestions provided by commentators were golden.

2) Thinking of doing a PhD? My post advocating for postgraduate studies in Norway accumulated around a 1,000 views over the course of the year. It would appear that the idea of drawing a healthy salary whilst having access to great data and clean air could prove a viable alternative to crushing student debt (or miserly graduate stipends) and 80-hour work weeks. As an aside: A fairly large number of hits on this one where referrals from a single comment that I left under one of Noah Smith's blog posts. Thus is the way of the blogosphere layer cake.

3) Review - Extreme Environment (Ivo Vegter). It may not have reached the top spot, but my review of Ivo Vegter's anti-environmentalism screed was certainly the longest post of the year. Five thousand words for around 750 1,000 views may sound like a poor return to some, but it does occupy second place in the Google search rankings for Vegter's book behind only Amazon. Speaking of which: Rather irritatingly, my abridged review on Amazon has garnered more "unhelpful" votes than the other way around. I emphasise the "helpful" bit. This isn't about whether you agree with an author -- or reviewer for that matter -- but rather a question of whether a review enables you to obtain a better understanding of a book and it's relative merits. I guess in-depth, considered criticism is less helpful than gushing, one-line endorsements. (Or lazy dismissals for that matter.) Haters gonna hate. Derpers gonna derp.

If memory serves me correctly, I have a couple posts with 500-odd views here at Stickman's... while my most widely read articles of the year were almost certainly the series I did for the Energy Collective on natural gas. So, it's been a respectable year blogging-wise for yours truly. I might get around to listing my personal favourite posts of the year later during the week.

Obligatory comment on the 2013 Nobelists

Seeing as it is very de jour to comment on this sort of thing in the econ blogosphere, here is a quick personal take:

I know that this year's laureates have raised eyebrows -- not least of all because people think that Fama and Shiller are at complete odds with one another. This doesn't strike me as especially correct. (Hansen is really the odd one out in this triumvirate, but we'll get to him in a second). For starters, and as pointed out many times over the last two days, Fama was one of the first people to publish results that ran counter to EMH predictions. Mark Thoma is exactly right in pointing out the EMH remains a really useful benchmark/framework for thinking about markets in an empirical sense. I've used it a fair bit when looking at energy and commodity markets for my own research and also when asked to to advise/comment on market trends. 

Shiller has played less of a formal role for me personally, though his housing index and his "dividend returns" data have been extremely handy tools in the blogosphere. The former is better known, but the latter is especially useful when, say, debating your average goldbug. (E.g. When dividends are taken into account, U.S. stocks have enjoyed inflation-adjusted returns of +/-1,000% since 1974. Gold, on the other hand, has yielded a rather more modest 130% over the same time period...)

The 2013 Nobelist who has had the most relevance for me, however, is Lars Peter Hansen. I suspect that this is true for many people working in economic research today, simply because the tools that he bequeathed us are so widely used in modern empirical work. Alex Tabarrok has one of the best "layman" explanations of GMM that I've seen here. Guan Yang has a more wonkish (but still accessible to anyone who is familiar with basic econometrics) exposition here.

Links and happenings

Busy times for yours truly over the last two weeks. Here is a list of things that I've been doing, plus one or two items that I spotted on ye olde internet.

1) I moved apartments! More or less the same size as our old place, but more comfortable and modern. Here is a little photo taken from the (car-free) route that I cycle to school everyday. Not too shabby, eh?

2) I had the pleasure of acting as moderator for the inaugural TEDxBergen conference. (My school has actually been hosting TEDx events for a while, but they've now expanded to include the other educational institutions in the city.) The speakers were all very interesting, with two or three in particular being excellent. I believe the video(s) for the event will be made available shortly, so I'll link to them then.

3) I gave a lecture on shale gas (and fracking) to the master's class in Petroleum Economics this week. My slides are here!

4) On a more prestigious note, two Nobel laureates recently gave lectures at my school. (i) As I pointed out on Twitter, Chris Sims is sounding an awful lot like an MMTer /Post-Keynesian lately. (ii) Finn Kydland makes a provocative claim that we are more resilient to energy price hikes today than we were in the past. His argument is that the adverse economic effects of the 1970s' oil shocks largely manifested themselves as inefficient tax rises due to the monetary and fiscal systems of the time. This in turn caused investment and employment to fall. I'm entirely not sure about this story -- the declining energy intensity of our economies would seem to play a bigger role -- but it's an interesting idea.

5) As predicted, some people are using the terrible events at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi to disparage "interventionist" foreign policy. I'm not saying that they don't have a point -- although, the ongoing anarchy in Somalia is certainly destabilising to the area and has negatively affected Kenya's economy. I'm saying that if blowback is the measure by which policy is to judged, then consistency dictates that one should make equally narrow arguments against (say) liberal immigration policy, subsidy revocation or economic austerity. What's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander after all.

6) To my American friends that have to suffer through the asinine politicking of the Republican party and the twilight-zone-thought-vacuum of Fox News, you have my sympathies.

Happenings

Given the inadvertent success of my previous post, I've decided to take the philosophical route for this next one: My fifteen minutes of quasi-blogosphere fame are almost certainly up and so it's time to resume normal services!

With that in mind, here are some mundane reflections on the last two weeks or so:

1) I wrote what should be my final ever (ever ever) sit down exam at the end of May. The subject was philosophy of science and, despite some frustrations, I enjoyed spending time on something that is outside of my normal field of expertise. I have now effectively completed my coursework requirements for the PhD -- both compulsory and elective credits -- and should be able to concentrate on the research side of things. Basically, I've got two years to finish the remaining two chapters in my dissertation and thus, thankfully, in a pretty good position at the moment.

2) My final article on natural gas and the environment was published at The Energy Collective. Having taken on short- and long-term carbon emissions, followed by demands placed on freshwater resources, this one looked at whether fracking can cause earthquakes? (Short answer: Yes, but you'll hardly notice them.) The issues surrounding natural gas and fracking are obviously very contentious. Important research is ongoing and I certainly don't expect everyone to be fully swayed by my articles and arguments. However, having spent a lot of time researching these matters -- giving primacy to the peer-reviewed scientific literature in the process -- the following paragraph provides an accurate summary of my overall impressions: "The takeaway is consistent with the overarching theme of my series. Yes, there are environmental trade-offs to securing the benefits of fracking and natural gas at large. Placed into the right context, however, these are relatively benign and often much better than the immediate alternative. Economics teaches us that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but fracking looks like a pretty good deal to me."

3) Not everyone was happy with the above article and I was involved in some amusing (not to mention ironic) Twitter spats. I'll summarise one of these for you:

@grant_mcdermott: "Does fracking case earthquakes? (link) Yes, but they're so small that you won't notice them."
@LoveCanal2020: "Whatevs! Shell sponsored that post. You're just a shill!"
@grant_mcdermott: "Ad hominem much? Actually, Shell have nothing to do with the content of my article. By all means though, don't address any facts."
@LoveCanal2020: "Meta-analysis Mumbo-jumbo! LOUD NOISES!"
@grant_mcdermott: "Yes. Science. As opposed to anecdotes, wild accusations and LIBERAL use of CAPITAL LETTERS."
@LoveCanal2020: "Criticize my creative use of capital letters, eh? Typical ad hominem!"
@grant_mcdermott: "Ad hominem?? I criticised your emotional outburst in lieu of actual facts."
@LoveCanal2020: "Still counts as ad hominem. #philosophy101"
@grant_mcdermott: "#philosophy101fail" 

etc

4) I'm spanning the genres for my latest song contributions to www.noondaytune.com: The Meters - "It Ain't No Use" and M83 (feat. Susanne Sundfør) - "Oblivion".

Milestones

Just clocked up our 30,000th pageview here at The Corral.

I feel that this a pretty respectable return for a (very) part-time hobby. It's certainly not something that I expected whilst penning that first post. 

Thanks to everyone who's visited, commented on, or linked to one of my posts. Apologies for the frequent lulls in blogging activity and severe lack of coherent subject matter!

New writing gig - The Energy Collective

Some exciting news for yours truly is that I'll be writing a series of articles for the excellent energy and climate website, The Energy Collective, as part of their Future Energy Fellows initiative.

I will be focusing on particular sub-topic that has aroused a lot of interest recently; namely, the economic and environmental impacts of natural gas.

My first post concerns the role that the North American shale boom has played in bringing U.S. carbon emissions to a twenty-year low, and the question of whether these climate gains are undermined by increased coal exports to Europe. (Short answer: not really.) The article expands on some earlier musings that I have presented here at the Corral and at the Recon Hub. Here's the opening gambit, which I use to set up the problem:

U.S. Shale Gas Meets European Climate Policy

Economists are suckers for a good paradox. Few things are more intellectually appealing to the practicing economist than a result which runs counter to his or her immediate intuition. Indeed, some of the most enduring ideas in history of economic thought have surprising implications at the heart of their allure; from the paradox of thrift to Ricardo's law of comparative advantage. For their part, the specialized fields of energy and environmental economics are not immune to the charms of counter-intuitive theories either. This includes textbook favourites like the green paradox and the rebound effect.

Beyond the intellectual appeal, it is clearly sensible to be mindful of such factors when designing policy. However, our inherent affinity for paradoxes is also problematic in that it can cause people to overstate their role in real world situations. To illustrate using the aforementioned rebound effect, Nature recently published a comprehensive literature survey on the subject by Gillingham et al. (2013). The authors show that the rebound effect’s significance is much overplayed, being typically only in the region of 10% (with an upper bound of about 30%). Hardly a compelling objection to improved efficiency standards then.[...]

Click through to read more!

Back in business

Having said goodbye to family and friends after a wonderful holiday in South Africa, and then endured a 20-plus hour trip (two transit stops) back to Norway with minimal sleep, yesterday turned out to be a surprisingly good one for yours truly. First, I discovered that I had successfully passed the last of my mandatory PhD courses and, then, that my paper on electricity prices and water scarcity had been accepted for publication in Land Economics. And it turns out that I got a salary raise. Yeah, baby...

The paper (a slightly older version of which is available here) is my first proper publication and LE is a good level 2 scientific journal on the Norwegian ranking system, so I'm pretty chuffed. The revise and resubmit process itself has been both an enlightening and frustrating experience. Our two anonymous referees had a tendency to mix very insightful comments with some more pedantic and confusing ones. However, I imagine that is something every author feels and is most likely compounded by the time it takes to make even seemingly simple changes. There is no doubt that the paper has been much improved by the reviewers' input and I'm grateful for that.

I'll try to write up a short summary of it on the Recon Hub blog within the next few days ... And hopefully get some other stuff up here at The Corral as well, once I catch up with what's been happening in the blogosphere over the last few weeks.

International Energy Workshop in June

Sweet news.

I'll be presenting my paper on electricity prices and water scarcity at this year's International Energy Workshop, which will be held in...

Cape Town!

Come to Papa...

Great to know that I'll be heading home for a visit and even better to have my trip sponsored. GF will be coming too... provided the (slightly ridiculous) NOK3000 nightly accommodation allowance doesn't cause her to spontaneously combust with excitement.

The best thing about Norwegian prices?
They travel so well.

We'll go no more a roving

In the rapidly fading twilight that is my 20s, please indulge me.

~ 

So, we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright. 

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest. 

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon.

~ 

Byron was 29 when he composed the above [heavy-handed hint, heavy-handed nudge - Ed.], but died a mere seven years later. Impossibly romantic to the end, I imagine.

Lord Byron. G-G to his mates.

PS - In truth, I'm not actually feeling very dramatic about reaching the 30s. And if this post was a bit too serious for your liking, then there's always last year.

First journal submission

In other news...

I finally submitted my (co-authored) paper to a journal yesterday.

Title: 

Electricity Prices, River Temperatures and Cooling Water Scarcity

Abstract: 

Thermal-based power stations rely on water for cooling purposes. These water sources may be subject to incidents of scarcity, environmental regulations and competing economic concerns. This paper analyses the impacts of water scarcity and increased river temperatures on German electricity prices from 2002 to 2009. Having controlled for demand effects, the results indicate that the electricity price is significantly impacted by both a change in river temperatures and the relative abundance of river water. An implication is that future climate change will affect electricity prices not only through changes in demand, but also via increased water temperatures and scarcity.

All told, I'm pretty happy with it. We'll see what the reviewers think, though... As I understand it, these things take their time and I'm only expecting hear back at the start of next year. Still, a big relief to get it out the door.

Happy birthday to Stickman's Corral!

Well, a day late... but that can probably only be described as fitting.

Of course, recent postings have taken a severe backseat, as you might have observed. To be completely honest, I'm not sure whether I'll ever be able to get back into (semi) regular blogging activity if my workload continues to be this heavy. Hopefully that isn't the case, though... I've been told by almost everyone that the first semester of PhD is the worst.

But, enough blagging. You didn't stop by to hear excuses for current blogging inactivity. You came to see a review of the year passed! (If you didn't; unlucky just go with it.) So, without further ado...

The top five posts over the last twelve months, in terms of unique page views, have been:
1) Why we need maths in economics (317 page views)
2) Movember* (266)
3) Meat and Veg(etarianism) (129)
4) Facts vs Beliefs (114)
5) Should pregnant women be banned from smoking? (110)
* Somewhat depressingly, (2) has virtually all been traffic directed from "movember" image web searches... And, almost certainly for the logo itself rather than my steamy latino pose.

The five most commented on posts are fairly similar:
1) Facts vs Beliefs (24 comments)
2) Should pregnant women be banned from smoking? (21 comments)
3) Meat and Veg(etarianism) (11 comments)
4) Mises's action "axiom" or false dichotomy? (8 comments)

5) And then a bunch with six comments...

If these staggering </sarcasm> numbers weren't enough for you, in terms of readership by country we have:
1) United States (1,871 page views)
2) South Africa (728)
3*) Norway (519... although we should really exclude this as they're mostly mine)
3) United Kingdom (470)
4) Canada (173)
5) Australia (145)

Thanks to everyone that has ever stopped by The Corral for a visit! 

My own favourite posts are bit harder to nail down, especially in the little time I have available here. Still, alongside some of those already mentioned, here are a couple that I probably did enjoy writing more than others:

• Basically, all those that I have listed in "The Zen of Stickman's Corral" box in the upper right-hand corner.
• Putting a Price on Nature and the Defining Sustainability posts
• South Africa and water pricing
• Leonard Cohen covers (more the sentiments expressed in the body of the test than the cover versions themselves)
• Free will in a world of Mad Men
• Hippie Baptists and Libertarian Bootleggers
• More on Norway, Liberty and Labels

The lessons that I have learned from blogging very closely parallel my general experiences in the blogosphere. And, on the whole, they are certainly positive. 

• It really is a great resource for testing and expanding upon ideas; both in the sense of how others respond, and making sure that you understand an idea well enough to write it down in plain language for all to see. (Not that I always managed this...)
• Blogging takes up a lot of time. For me anyway. That may simply be due to the fact that I am something of a stickler for facts and have an uncanny knack for stretching a story out. Being on the long side of winded is not my favourite personal trait, but at the same time I don't wish to let go of it completely! I'm hoping that keeping this blog has actually moved me towards some kind of middle ground.
• It's hard to attract a big, regular audience unless you focus on specific, narrow themes. Jumping between completely unrelated topics kills your readership. My feeling is that people mostly visit blogs because they expect certain themes to be consistently addressed (even though the applications can vary widely); not to hear someone's everyday ramblings on whatever interests them. Unfortunately, I tend towards the latter... but so be it! (Although, I certainly have written posts simply because I thought that it would interest one particular person who might have been reading.)

Something I also want to mention specifically is music. I was hoping to put together a downloadable playlist of all the songs that I've linked to over the course of the year... but who has the time? I hope that you'll settle for YouTube links:

• Arcade Fire - "Suburban War"
• Smokey Robinson - "The Tracks Of My Tears" (live 1965)
• Pavement - "Gold Soundz"
• Neil Young - "Cortez The Killer", followed by the Dave Matthews Band version live in Central Park (with Warren Hayes)
• Sam Cooke - "Bring It On Home To Me" and "You Send Me"
• Goldfish - "Get Busy Living"
• Kings of Leon - "Fans" (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge)
• Madrugada - "Majesty" (Live at the Tralfamadore)
• Elliott Smith - "Junk Bond Trader"
• Muse - "Map of the Problematique" (live at Glastonbury)
• The National - "Terrible Love" (live on Pitchfork TV)
• The Gossip - "Careless Whisper" (Wham! cover)
• Gnarls Barkley - "Reckoner" (live Radiohead cover)
• Eddie Vedder - "My City of Ruins" (live Bruce Springsteen cover)
• Tegan and Sara - "Dancing in the Dark" (live studio Bruce Springsteen cover)
• Gaslight Anthem - "9 Crimes" (live Damien Rice cover)
• Gaslight Anthem - "I Do Not Hook Up" (Kelly Clarkson cover on BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge)
• The Subways - "Staring at the Sun" (TV on the Radio cover)
• TV on the Radio - "Mr Grieves" (a cappella Pixies cover)
• Frightened Rabbit - various tracks including "Keep Yourself Warm", "Poke", "Heads Roll Off", "Swim Until You Can't See Land", "Fast Blood", "The Wrestle, The Loneliness & The Scream", etc...
• The Lemonheads (feat. Liv Tyler) - "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" (Leonard Cohen cover)
• Judy Collins - "Suzanne" (Leonard Cohen cover... some controversy surrounding this one, as apparently it should have been Nina Simone's version)
• GAYNGS - "By Your Side" (Sade cover)
• Bon Iver - "I Can't Make You Love Me" (live on The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon)
• Angus Stone - "River" (Joni Mitchell cover)
• Eddie Vedder - "Trouble" (live Cat Stevens cover)
• We are Scientists - "Hoppipolla" (Sigur Rós cover)
• Birdy - "Shelter" (The xx cover)
• Red House Painters - "Have You Forgotten"
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Diamond Sea" (Sonic Youth cover)
• Crash Test Dummies - "Androgynous" (The Replacements cover)
• Steve Earle - "My Back Pages" (Bob Dylan cover)

Not a bad collection, if I say so myself! (With a little help from the odd Poncey guest post and suggestions by others.)

And with that, I have some GMM estimation techniques that need looking at.

See you soon,

o-[-<

Four-Year Plans...

So, my PhD programme began today. We're starting with a preparatory maths and statistics course, before getting into the core modules -- micro, macro, 'metrics and (scientific) methods -- during the year. Well, those plus a couple of electives that I'm interested in taking, but won't mention here because they don't begin with the letter "m". Alliteration uber alles!

All told, it's a four-year programme (yikes!), but with a one-year exchange and 25% work obligation thrown in. So that should hopefully mix things up a bit. (In case you're wondering: Yes, I do feel like this.)

Anyway, after umming and ahhing for a while about the whole PhD palaver, I'm pretty happy with my decision to go this route. At this (very) early stage, I'm not particularly set on a career in academia afterwards -- though I certainly like having the option -- but rather feel the additional qualifications will stand me in good stead for my general career ambitions. Plus, I've been lucky enough with my research scholarship that my earnings won't really suffer in the interim :)

On that note, I only just checked my final Master's results yesterday, including that of my thesis. (I'd previously just assumed that everything was more-or-less okay unless my supervisor contacted me with a "we need to talk" email.) As such, I'm happy to report that everything went smoothly. I've also just about finalised a shortened, adapted version of my thesis that I'm hoping to publish as a co-written journal article. I'll keep you informed...

As a general comment, I believe that time away from studies and working in the professional sector certainly helped sharpen my focus coming into postgraduate studies -- as did my travelling stint. I know that some people happily go all the way through from a Bachelor's to a Doctorate, but I'm very pleased to have had those experiences outside of academics in retrospect. FWIW, I'd recommend a similar approach if anyone is seeking advice towards that end. Your perspectives are broader at the same time as your true interests are clearer. And, although the charge is often made unfairly, you're also far less likely to suffer from ivory-tower syndrome, which is the Achilles Heel of many university residents.

Thesis = Submitted

Feels like a fat bloody gorilla climbing down off my back.

I'm exhausted after working very late over the last couple weeks to get everything done in time... And also slightly terrified to look over it again, just again in case I spot the obvious mistake that all my proof-reading missed.

[Side note.There must be a law along the lines of: The probability of spotting an error increases exponentially after the point of submission. If not, I'm claiming it.]

But, that's just being dramatic, really. Overall, pretty chuffed with how things went and hopefully round off my MSc with a good mark on the big one.

Walked out of the post-office (I had to mail three hard copies from here in addition to an electronic version) half an hour ago. Felt that June Lisbon sunshine on my face and realised that I've got eight weeks of holiday ahead of me. Let the good times roll.
:)

More of this please...

Steven Landsburg writes:

When something is wrong on the Internet, bloggers love to pounce. But since no blogger is infallible, most of us can find ample fodder in our own past writing, if we go back and reread it with a sufficiently critical eye. Over the next few weeks, I plan to revisit some things I got wrong the first time around. [...]I hope others will be inspired to do the same.

Hear, hear. I've not been blogging long enough (or even regularly enough) for my most egregious mistakes to become self-apparent... yet. I really like where Landsburg is going with this, though. I'm dismayed at times by the tendency towards completely irrelevant ad hominens in the economic blogosphere. Instead of debating person A on matter X, simply dismiss what they have to say on the basis of them being wrong on matter Y several years ago. The Internet may not forget, but it will create a poor environment for intellectual development if we keep getting hung up on hundred percent track records. In a very related note, I wrote this a little while back on blogging under a pseudonym:

I'm also put off by the idea of people being able to trace almost all my thoughts on past matters back to my future self. [...]On the academic and professional front, while I'm reasonably confident of the views that I hold on -- what I perceive to be -- important topics, I like the idea of being able to sound out ideas without being beholden to them.

Happy birthday to me

I feel you, brother.

Still under 30.
Just.

I'd better start reading...