The right attitude

I just started Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms, which I was already excited about, largely because Tyler Cowen reviewed and liked it and wrote a series of "Book Forum" posts, which I intend to follow in parallel.

I'm further encouraged by this nicely-worded sentiment from the preface.

Doubtless some of the arguments developed here will prove over-simplified, or merely false. They are certainly controversial, even among my colleagues in economic history. But far better such error than the usual dreary academic sins, which now seem to define so much writing in the humanities, of willful obfuscation and jargon-laden vacuity. As Darwin himself noted, "false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness, and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened." Thus my hope is that, even if the book is wrong in parts, it will be clearly and productively wrong, leading us toward the light.

This is a great attitude - for a scholar, for a book, and definitely for a blog.

A mining success story

To add to the recent slew of thoughts on the resource curse, here is a micro-level success story which has been verified with academic rigor:

This paper studies the impact of Yanacocha, a large gold mine in Peru, on the local population. Using annual household data from 1997 to 2006, we find robust evidence of a positive effect of the mine's demand of local inputs on real income. The effect, an average income increase of 1.7% per 10% additional mine's purchases, is only present in the mine's supply market and surrounding areas. We also find evidence of improvements on measures of welfare and reduction of poverty. We examine and rule out that our results are driven by increased public expenditure associated to the mining revenue windfall. Using a spatial general equilibrium model, we interpret these results as evidence of net welfare gains generated by the mine's backward linkages and its multiplier effect.

It is good to inform the macro-level resource curse debate with positive anecdotes like this one, to balance the many negative ones.

Via Roving Bandit, who also celebrates his one-year blogiversary. With so many good bloggers only one year (or two years) old, I find the robustness and vibrancy of the blogosphere simply astounding. Can you imagine what it will be like after another year, or five, or ten?

David Roodman on blogging

On his blogiversary, David Roodman shares some blogging advice that I like:

I can only advise on my kind of blogging. I have the luxury of taking intellectual journeys for a living. I am funded in return for sharing what I learn, under the expectation that it have practical value. And I am committed to the discipline of saying things plainly in order to reach to more people. My tone may be personal but I put my prose through a fair amount of editing (if often not enough). If you see yourself in that description, if you are in a position to think aloud and you care how you say it, then I would say, yes, blog your intellectual journey. Keep your posts organized. Cut words, but not necessarily ideas. Tell stories. My longest post is also by far the most read. Figure out why. Read other blogs and analyze what works for you and what doesn’t.

Roodman, incidentally, has an unusual background for an emerging heavyweight at the Center for Global Development - he studied theoretical math, never went to grad school and “has never taken a course in economics or statistics.”

Good ideas, but truncated RSS

That's my initial take on the FT's Energy Source blog, which I subscribed to hoping it would fill the big shoes left vacant by the untimely demise of Environmental Capital.

For example, this is a pleasantly non-lazy line of thought:

One of our favourite counter-intuitive ideas on this blog is that China’s massive and growing appetite for fossil fuels might end up being a good thing for the environment, as it could drive big efforts on renewables, electric vehicles, and even energy efficiency.

The rationale is that China takes forward planning much more seriously than many large economies; so unlike other countries that are simply ambling towards some kind of climate/security/supply (choose your favourite) crisis, China will put significant effort into energy alternatives. Of course, the buying up of long-term fossil fuel supply deals with various countries around the world doesn’t necessarily support that.

And if the local press is anything to go on, anxiety over energy security is indeed pretty high in China at the moment.

On the negative side, Energy Source's RSS feeds are truncated. This is not only incredibly annoying for a reader, but as Felix Salmon has described many times, doesn't even make financial sense for the publication!

Update: Unsubscribed. Don't love the style and not worth it with the truncated feeds.

RIP, Environmental Capital

Sorry for my absence of late - the combination of copious work and poor internet connectivity haven't been great for my blog reading, let alone writing.

And sorry to restart things on a sad note, but like every single commenter, I am very disappointed to hear of the demise of the WSJ's outstanding Environmental Capital blog. In my mind there was no one who covered the broad energy and environment space better, and I can't fathom the decision.

As per one commenter's suggestion, I've subscribed to the FT's Energy Source blog as a replacement - I'll let you know how it goes.

Update: Energy source didn't make the cut.

Good blogs

Great list of the 100 Best Blogs for Socially Minded MBAs, with ample natural resources and environmental representation, via #20 (and one of my favorites), Greed, Green and Grains.

In Africa, blogging output will suffer

I will be spending most of the next four months in Africa. Ethiopia, to be more specific. The frequency and quality of my internet access will fall dramatically, and my blogging output along with it, unfortunately. On the bright side, I will be doing some very interesting work and undoubtedly learning a ton.

More to life than blogging

Greg Mankiw gives some very legitimate reasons why he won’t be blogging any more than he already does.

Sorry to disappoint, but more frequent blogging is not in my future. I have a full life: classes to teach, students to advise, articles to write, textbooks to revise, kids to raise, and a wife who still enjoys spending time with me (within limits).

I will continue use this site to pass along links for articles of interest, weigh in when I have something to get off my chest, and flog my favorite textbook. But I am too busy with other things to produce the voluminous output of some of my more energetic colleagues in the blogosphere.

Disappointing for those of us who very much enjoy access to his thoughts, but completely understandable.

Update: Chris Blattman gives some good reasons why he will continue his excellent blog - great news for the rest of us!!

Moving to feedburner

In the latest step of my slow and unsteady journey toward professionalizing this blog, I've moved my feeds to Feedburner. To those readers who subscribed to the old Blogger feeds, I'd be much obliged if you could take two seconds to subscribe to the new Feedburner feeds by clicking here for posts (and here for comments if you wish). This will allow me to collect aggregated stats on my readership (never individual - your privacy is protected) and direct People and Resources accordingly. Thanks!!

The blogosphere as learning mechanism

I’m just reprinting this Tyler Cowen post in full - even the title is good enough to repeat:

Refuting this post helps confirm it

Chess players who train with computers are much stronger for it. They test their intuitions and receive rapid feedback as to what works, simply by running their program. People who learn economics through the blogosphere also receive feedback, especially if they sample dialogue across a number of blogs of differing perspectives. The feedback comes from which arguments other people found convincing. Do the points you wanted to hold firm on, or cede, correspond to the evolution of the dialogue? This feedback is not as accurate as Rybka but it's an ongoing test of your fluid intelligence and your ability to revise your opinion.

Not many outsiders understand what a powerful learning mechanism the blogosphere has set in place.

I could not agree more, which is why I love the blogosphere and blogging. I also think it will be particularly interesting to see how academia's relationship with the blogosphere evolves - to what extent this powerful learning mechanism is recognized in the mainstream, and incorporated into teaching beyond pioneers like MR and Chris Blattman (two of the first blogs I ever read).

The ultimate productivity blog

Check it out.

3-month anniversary

So a week or two ago, People and Resources quietly passed the three-month mark, which in retrospect is an exciting milestone; I meant to blog about it, but then got swept away in a tide of work for a time. So in belated commemoration of this occasion, here are a few of the most exciting stats and milestones so far.

• Over 350 posts (over 100 a month!). No way will I be able to keep up that pace long-term, but it means that I've passed Penelope Trunk's first hurdle: "If you can blog regularly for a month, you can be a blogger."


• A handful of comments, mostly from friends, but also including a surprise cameo by my favorite finance blogger Felix Salmon and approval from an exploration geologist I don't know on a post I made on oilfield technology. Thanks guys!!


• A spam comment, meaning I'm on the search engine map.


• Another spam comment, long enough after the first that I had forgotten about it, and commemorated again.


• I'm top 20 in Google for searches like "People and Resources"+China or +Brazil, and top of the list for more obscure searched like "People and Resources"+PetroSal.

It's a very modest beginning, but one that I'm excited about and grateful for. I'm still having a great time, and looking forward to taking this wherever it goes over the next months and hopefully even years.

Update: I forgot another nice milestone - I made the blogroll of Greed, Green, and Grains, a blog about agriculture and economics that I enjoy quite a bit.

Blog milestone: first spam comment

Here; clearly People and Resources is exploding in popularity.

I think I already have word verification turned on - are there other ways to avoid spam comments like this?

Update: I lied - there was one spam comment before this one. I even blogged it as a major milestone at the time. Forgetting about one's older posts is a dubious sign of the longevity of one's blog, but I'll take it.

Felix Salmon, model blogger

All self-effacement aside, my favorite finance blogger Felix Salmon richly deserves this lengthy profile in Big Money. Here was my favorite part:

But every writer scribbles with an ideal reader in mind. Salmon is no exception. He may not covet the biggest audience but he does yearn for the best and most influential reader: "It’s a known fact," he says, "that Larry Summers reads a lot of blogs."

If that sort of audience is what he’s after, I ask, why not become a regular on CNBC? "Because Larry Summers doesn’t watch CNBC and say, 'Oh my God, that’s interesting, I should actually think about that when conducting economic policy.’ CNBC is people shouting at each other. If we were to get into a screaming match about health care reform, it doesn’t matter how smart we are, we’re not going to be shedding any light. Whereas the blogosphere is really good at drilling down very quickly to the nub of the question. People talk about it like it’s the best graduate seminar ever invented."

The "seminar-like" quality of the blogosphere is certainly what drew me to it, first as an avid reader and now as an extremely peripheral contributor (I optimistically estimate my current regular readership at approximately four people). And by articulating the qualities that make Felix a good blogger, this article helped me realize that in a way he is my blogging role model (perhaps along with Tyler Cowen) for the elegance and punchiness with which he uses the format. I think I have probably learned more about how to blog from reading him than anyone else, and while I still have a long way to go, it certainly helps to have someone great to model oneself after.

Put on your blogging shoes

Loved this cartoon, via Chris Blattman:

I'm big time!!

First spam - a major milestone for People and Resources.

The zero bound on blog prices

Via MR, Cheap Talk explains why the optimal price for most blogs is negative, and how the distortion of the zero lower bound on prices is compensated for:

Now, typically when incentives are blunted by a binding constraint, they find expression via other means, distortionary means. And a binding price of zero is no different. Since a blogger cannot lower his price to attract more readers, he looks for another instrument, in this case the quality of the writing.

Absent any constraint, the optimum would be normal-quality writing, negative price. (”Normal quality” of course is blogger-specific.) When the constraint prevents price from going negative, the response is to rely more heavily on the quality variable to attract more readers. Thus quality is increased above its unconstrained optimal point.

So, the next time you are about to complain that the blogs you read are too interesting (at the margin), remember this, grin and bear it.

I enjoy the conceit that my blogging is inefficiently high-quality, but the data shows that I haven't defeated the distortion yet.

Exemplary intellectual discourse

I've gotta hand it to Greg Mankiw - while he is wrong on cap-and-trade, there is so much to be commended in his modus operandi. He links to pieces disagreeing with his premise; he links to pieces disagreeing with his conclusions; he posts wonky follow-ups to explain his thoughts in more precise technical terms; and his air throughout is inquisitive, unegoistic (is that a word?), respectful, and without a whiff of personal attack. There is much to learn from him (not to mention Jon Stewart)...

Blogging how-tos

Felix Salmon on monetization and Tyler Cowen on how to give compliments.

P.S. I am embarrassed to say that my first guess of who Tyler was referring to was wrong (Robin Hanson); the correct answer is here.

How much time does blogging take?

Joe Romm, the prolific heart and soul of Climate Progress, sheds some light on his time commitment to blogging:

I’m also trying a small change in my blogging style, to accommodate this trip and the time I need to spend working on my book through mid-September.

Normally, about 2/3 of my posts take me some 60 to 90 minutes to write and about 1/3 take 90 to 180 minutes. I’ve been trying to do more 30-minute posts in the last few days, in case you hadn’t noticed, and I expect to continue that for another month. If it proves successful, I’ll keep doing it.

For someone who posts 5-10 times a day, that is a lot of time!! It does make me feel better about not being able to crank out such lengthy, well-researched and well-cited posts all the time (OK, probably ever, and rarely even close).

When I first started People and Resources I was so excited that I dedicated quite a bit of time to it; now the initial excitement is wearing off and I am lucky to find 4-5 hours per week given my other professional and personal commitments. Today I've managed 6 posts in an hour, which feels reasonably efficient (but they were all pretty short and none had particularly deep analysis).

I guess we will see how it goes and where this adventure takes us!! And I wish Joe luck with his goal of writing more 30-minute posts.