Also, with so many people doing fieldwork (or maybe just my friends... warning: selection bias), you'd think it was logistically easier to leave the university on some sort of 'fieldwork status.' Turns out there are a lot of forms to fill out and strange wavers to sign when you attempt to maintain active-student status without being at the university. With or without completed forms, I'm on my way to Tanzania in February for five months!
Christine Sierra O'Connell and Brooke Laura Krause are keeping us up to date as they both start fieldwork adventures in Brazil and Guatemala, respectively. It's surprisingly difficult to describe our nerdy research in succinct and accessible ways, so kudos for getting started, you two.
Also, with so many people doing fieldwork (or maybe just my friends... warning: selection bias), you'd think it was logistically easier to leave the university on some sort of 'fieldwork status.' Turns out there are a lot of forms to fill out and strange wavers to sign when you attempt to maintain active-student status without being at the university. With or without completed forms, I'm on my way to Tanzania in February for five months!
2 Comments
Well, we are approaching hiring season in academia, and my department is no exception this year. The influx of candidate job talks, free lunches, CV attachments, solicited and unsolicited opinions gets me thinking about gender, of course. And while my peers are probably sick of my persistent gender-based inquiry, I tend to question both our intuitive and professional perceptions of candidates.
There's a long pipeline towards tenure, which includes publication, hiring and dissertating along the way. The evidence of the gender gap in publications, by subject, is glaring according to JSTOR and the Chronicle of Higher Education. These graphics and facts beg the question as to what combination of factors might cause this problem. And I'm quite sure that the gender bias in academic hiring is one of these factors. This research tested what I only hypothesized. Using a double-blind study to measure the effect of male or female names on judged competence, hireability and mentoring, the authors find that both male and female academic scientists rated women consistently lower. Keep in mind, this was based on the exact same application materials, the only difference was the gender of the applicant's name. What is the source of this bias? I have a few untested hypotheses. I think women tend to be judged more harshly on their personalities, more than just strictly their professional work (although, this of course doesn't explain all the paper discrimination). And I think as much as we'd not like to admit it, implicit biases still linger in our social perceptions. Forbes has a few ideas about limiting negative stereotypes of successful women, as well. Overall, the fact that the gap is huge and that the bias empirically exists are reasons enough to critically question our opinions of candidates for academic positions. Or at least to start a discussion about pants suits. Hat tip: COC, NAJ, Two friends from University of Michigan Economics made the cut for Development Impact's blog-your-job-market-paper series:
Emily Beam on job fairs and the labor market. Kate Ambler on asymetric information and remittances. And the reason blogging your job market paper is a fantastic idea. I hope they both also submitted to "Dance your PhD." Professor: [Writes complicated Ramsey problem on the board halfway through a sleepy lecture] This seems like a good problem. You have five minutes to do this.
Me: [chuckle] Other students: [silence] Professor: Wow, you all really have no sense of humor. Later in lecture... Professor: [Draws chaotic dynamic version of endogenous fluctuations in capital] See, in this case, k never quite approaches k*. Me: [squint at the board] Other students: [Laughter] Me: What's so funny? @CBlatts on the UN's development agenda:
What’s astonishing to me is that the UN can spend two decades setting the world’s development agenda and never utter the words “industrialize”, “firms”, or “exports”. This op-ed was no exception. I have not done the math, but here’s a conjecture: unless you are sitting on a billion barrels of crude, it’s practically impossible to become a middle-income country without an industrial sector. The whole post is good, so I recommend a full read. Also, on a personal note, I had coffee with Chris Blattman last Friday when he came to speak at my department. It was awesome. I got more advice than I can fully absorb and admitted to being a part of the development generation who basically decided to go to graduate school based on this post. Apparently, I'm in good company. I'm not going to get too into politics, but did you guys see the debates last night? The whole idea of 'creating jobs' is just crazy talk.
-TJK 1. Mansplaining, explained. And an example from this blog. (Sorry guys, while I appreciate your enthusiasm for macro, the post was about grad students having no fun and it was a direct quote. An explanation of the real meaning of the transversality condition wasn't exactly necessary.)
2. Being a nerd is not an excuse for not talking to people about work. 3. Development lexicon. I'm not entirely convinced that changing the lexicon is a big priority (calling people "economically disadvantaged" doesn't make them any less poor), but the debate is interesting nonetheless. 4. A response to the frequent question about my research: "But won't you [female, white, American, outsider] influence their answers?" Hat tips: COC^2, JK This condition basically says, don't save too much. It's not a rule, just a condition for optimality. It's because if a consumer saves too much, she's just not enjoying herself.
Most of you were told: Johnny, study a lot, work hard. Then when you're old, you will be able to enjoy yourself. But you're graduate students. It's too late for you guys. At this point, you're completely incapable of enjoying yourself. But we can at least study normal people who enjoy themselves. I just started macroeconomic theory at my notably freshwater (Hayekian) institution. The first few days have been interesting, to say the least. I anticipate more quotable insights from this renowned and stately professor.
1. How easy are the logistics of doing research in Tanzania? Almost as easy as immigrating to the U.S. Tit for tat, I suppose.
2. Considering graduate school? Know all of your options, because sometime its like this. And Forbes thinks you shouldn't. Number two is the most painfully true, even if you get funding (hello opportunity costs). And number four is the weirdest. 3. A blog on HarvestChoice, a research project (with a fantastic website) based out of the University of Minnesota that focuses on investments and opportunities for more productive farming in developing countries. |