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Aine Seitz McCarthy
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Institutional development silos

4/21/2012

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I spent this weekend at the Midwest International Economic Development Conference. This was one of those conferences that I left feeling extremely ambitious, connected, and motivated but also very frustrated and overwhelmed.  There were so many fantastic papers and brilliant people inspiring big new ideas in my head. However, I've got three posts coming on frustrations and only one on inspiring new idea. So I guess frustrations are winning. Here's number one.

Please tell me why I should care.

Development is conceptually different from other aspects of economics in that we are seriously invested in one particular outcome, that outcome being improved livelihoods and welfare of poor people.  This isn't just some interesting identification strategy or abstract modeling methodology, this is a real outcome with real people. And this was a development conference, so if you aren't able to motivate me about why your research is important or realistic in actually affecting people lives, I am not really interested.

But this priority on the actual motivation of research seems to have been an afterthought on far too many of the presentations. For this lack of emphasis on why research is important, I partly blame economists and their extreme focus on empirics and methodology, loosing sight of what questions to ask and why to ask them (more on this in frustration post 2).  But mostly, I blame institutionalized silo-ing. This conference was advertized to economic departments, was put on by my applied economics department and included speakers from economics departments. But development is, like I said, conceptually different from just economics.  In order to really address issues of poverty, applying economics to research topics in health, behavior, education, technology, agriculture, fertility, migration and politics necessitates feedback from people outside of economics. Actually addressing these topics requires interaction across disciplines and sectors.  This conference really really needed representation from the public sector, from NGOs, and from real development practitioners (looking at you, MDPs).

What was really needed was more people to stick their necks out and ask: why is this [insert endogeneous effect and measurable impact here] even important? How does this relate to development and improving human welfare?

Non-academics are much better at asking this question and thinking critically about actual implementation of development. And there simply weren't enough at this conference.

If you can't answer this question convincingly, you need to to seriously reconsider your research.

4 Comments

PhD Food

4/10/2012

2 Comments

 
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Having just finished our department's recruitment week, I can confirm this juxtaposition. Once again, PhD comics tells the story of my life.

Hat tip: TAS
2 Comments

Why math stinks and you should take it

3/12/2012

1 Comment

 
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Here's some unsolicited advice to undergrads (campers who have grown up) or new grad students: Take math. Take courses that apply math (physics, computer science, statistics, economics, chemistry, engineering, etc). Sometimes it will be awful, but do it anyway.

Here's the thing. When your exams have problems that require right answers for points, you can get it wrong. Very wrong. In less math-based coursework, you write a paper, give a presentation or do a group project. And as bad as that paper might be, it is not as easily deemed WRONG.  It might be a really really bad paper, but chances are good that you'll probably still get a C. That's 75% right. In math, there are so many wrong answers and there is a single right answer (side bar: technically you can do proofs in multiple ways and there is a bit more creativity involved, but I would say this is a subset of work in applied math). This means, by law of large number, there's a decent sized chance that you'll get the answer totally wrong. And with an X number of problems on an exam, you could even get all X of them wrong. That's not a C, that's a 0. Maybe a 15 if you showed some work.

This stinks. In my experience of both taking and teaching economics and math, instructors acknowledge the high likelihood for lower grades and curve heavily because of it.  However, the fact that you got 15% of the total possible points on the exam is disheartening at best. Justification to quit math (chemistry/physics/engineering) at its worst.  DON'T DO IT.

First of all there is an extreme shortage of students taking majoring in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) in U.S. colleges, which Marginal Revolution has pessimistically highlighted relative to tuition and which I have blogged about. Secondly, the process of learning mathematical skills through failure is irreplaceable.  While throwing markers at the white board over a tough proof, banging your head against the keyboard trying to find the error in your programming, using up pages and pages of graph paper to finish a problem set, you actually learn SO much.  It's not until you get your hands dirty and try to actually solve problems that you really understand what's going on.  And when that clicks, when you do solve for the right x (or at least the same one as your study group), it is worth celebrating with a huge nerdy fist pump. Because it is so insanely frustrating when you can't quite get it, celebrate profusely when you do.

Additionally, a university is an excellent place to learn technical skills. As fascinating as humanities and other non-mathematical subject areas are (and while I am of course partial to the math-minded, I did attend a liberal arts college and nearly major in Philosophy), much of this material can actually be learned outside of the university setting through work experience and good reading. In contrast, it is quite difficult to self-teach microeconomic theory. Other smarter people have given similar advice on the importance of technical skills in development here and in graduate school here.

So, take those cool art and language classes, and learn how to think critically and write a good paper, but take math too. And don't give up when it gets hard.

(Yes, the Barbie photo is sarcastic. And yes, I've used it before).

1 Comment

How to tell your parents that you're a freshwater economist

1/22/2012

0 Comments

 
On being a graduate student in Minnesota's Economics department (as opposed to Applied Economics).

Despite our differences, it appears that the life of a first year student in Economics or in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota is pretty much the same:

I cannot afford meat, so for for dinner I mix some house flies into my bowl of rice to get some protein.  I do not mind, though, I knew when I started the program that I would be spending my most sexually potent years sitting in a dark office doing algebra and writing MatLab code.

Freshwater whaaa? A summary of the differences between freshwater and saltwater economics. As a micro-minded development economics in a generally salt-leaning department at a notoriously freshwater university, I generally abstain from this debate.

Hat tips: DW and DH
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On being a graduate student

10/18/2011

5 Comments

 
Going to graduate school is a serious endeavor. The financial burden is heavy: even if you don't take on debt, the opportunity cost of foregone income for four-to-six (to-eight?) years looms and teases you in the form of friends who own houses and host dinner parties.  Passing preliminary exams deteriorates most of your social life and a little bit of your soul. It's really serious commitment and a lot of graduate students take themselves really seriously.  If I haven't made it clear already, I am not one of these graduate students.

You know you're a grad student when...

You have a bookshelf worth more than your monthly rent.

"I'm married to my dissertation" is a fairly acceptable response when someone inquires about your marital status.

You show up at meetings to discuss fluffy bureaucratic proceedings of some esoteric academic club just for a few free slices of mediocre pizza.

You talk about authors like you actually know them (after all, you have stalked their personal website).

"On the marriage market" means that you are single.

You still cheers to passing the preliminary exam. And will for the entire tenure of your academic career.

Your statistical software package of choice is part of your identity construct.

Occasionally, if you're feeling spunky, you sign your name in Greek letters.

Referring to some hand waving is a clever and respectful way of pretending to know what you're talking about.

Your study groups have snack schedules.

The location of the best white boards are common knowledge. And you carry dry erase markers in your backpack.

While walking in a slightly sketchy neighborhood (because you can't afford much better), your main theft concern is loosing the notes in your backpack than the wallet in your pocket.

Grades are irrelevant.

You consider quarterly department happy hour in a dingy classroom with professors still drinking bud light to be a pretty good time.

Interacting with undergrads feels like an ethnography.

Feel free to add, Nerdfriends.

Hat Tip: This list is inspired by Second Session.
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Someone who does this better than me

6/8/2011

0 Comments

 
I read Chris Blattman's blog quite regularly.  Not only is he an entertaining and clever writer, but he's an economist studying international development and violent conflict. He writes about succinctly about economic research and unifies real experiences with academics. A few favorite posts:

1. Dear grad students: don't lose hope (extremely relevant)
2. How to get a PhD and save the world (save is exceedingly optimistic)
3. On development experiments
4. Should junior faculty blog? (grad students too??)


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    Aine Seitz McCarthy

    International development, economics and some pretty ambitious ideas from a stubborn graduate student clinging to her sense of adventure.


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