On The Move…

Ok, so Summers is long gone as President of Harvard University, but his memory lingers on… Many people know about a certain infamous internal memo he signed about the economics of dumping toxic waste in developing countries while he was Chief Economist at the World Bank (the memo incident itself provides a fascinating look at the effects of often-inaccurate news media).  So it really shouldn’t be a surprise to come across this choice excerpt from a paper (Angeles, Guilkey, and Mroz 2005) I just found on family planning and female education:

“The empirical evidence in developing countries indicates that female education is associated with lower levels of fertility. This evidence has important policy implications. A 1992 World Bank development brief discussing the important gains from educating girls, for example, compared the efficiency of family planning and education programs for lowering fertility: ‘Educated women also choose to have fewer children. An extra year of female schooling reduced female fertility by about 5% to 10%. So, a $30,000 investment in educating 1,000 women would avert 500 births. How much does the typical family planning program spend to avert one birth? About $65. Averting 500 births would cost about $33,000, the same as educating an additional 1,000 girls, enough to justify education on family planning grounds alone’ (World Bank 1992, 2). Such conclusions do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank and its member countries, but the background paper for this brief was written by the World Bank’s chief economist and vice president for development economics at that time (Summers 1992), so it surely carried considerable weight.” (Angeles, Guilkey, and Mroz 2005, 166-167)

So in case you didn’t catch the unfortunate phrasing, Summers seems to have said that education for girls and young women in developing countries can be justified simply as a means of “averting births”.  Which of course might sound a little indelicate to the non-economist.  What I particularly liked in the above excerpt was the citing authors’ careful note that Summers’ background paper did not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank or its member countries.

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24 hours to go, and 18 hours of work left.

It’s coming down to the wire for me, although overall I think I’ve adequately adjusted to living under seige.  Food, friends, fun…  I’m finding these are all things you can do without, if necessary.

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This scholarly article I just came across has got to be the most opinionated sounding one I’ve read in a while…  here’s the abstact:

“Rational addiction theories illustrate how absurd choice theories in economics get taken seriously as possibly true explanations and tools for welfare analysis despite being poorly interpreted, empirically unfalsifiable, and based on wildly inaccurate assumptions selectively justified by ad-hoc stories. The lack of transparency introduced by poorly anchored mathematical models, the psychological persuasiveness of stories, and the way the profession neglects relevant issues are suggested as explanations for how what we perhaps should see as displays of technical skill and ingenuity are allowed to blur the lines between science and games.”

Breathtaking, no?  To read all three essays on Rational Choice Theory and Welfare Analysis which comprise Ole J. Røgeberg’s 2004 doctoral dissertation in Economics at the University of Oslo, click here (pdf file will open in new window).

The most arresting article I’ve read anywhere recently is this feature on Imelda Marcos from this month’s W magazine. 

Imelda was of course the first lady of the Philippines for quite a while (1965-1986) while her husband, Ferdinand, was President.  Outside of the Philippines she’s famous mainly for her staggering shoe collection, the cost of which is probably some small fraction of the huge sums of money the Marcos’ are accused of embezzling from the national coffers (allegedly around five billion dollars).  But the article is fascinating mainly for the richness of Imelda’s story, the people she knew (Saddam, Doris Duke and the Pope all make cameos) and the vividness of her personality. 

Much more interesting than anything that could be written about Anna Nicole.  Go read and see for yourself.

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I dreamt last night of my time in the Army, for the first time within memory.  It was a little unexpected, and nice in a way to see those familiar faces again.  I wonder what everyone is up to?  Maybe this dream was triggered by my fast-approaching return to my lieu de naissance 🙂

Sometimes research returns unexpected results; an example would be these choice passages from a 2003 journal article titled “Drug Abuse: Iran’s Thorniest Problem”:

“Iran has executed over 10,000 narcotics traffickers in the last decade, usually by hanging, and some 800 people are on death row for narcotics offenses.  Sometimes the penalties are carried out in public to serve as a deterrent. By 1999 it was obvious that harsh penalties were not having the desired effect.  Capital punishment for smugglers continues, but drug abusers are treated less harshly now.” (290)

And also:

“The law-and-order approach, of course, has its advocates. The police chief called last year for ‘more effective law enforcement.’ The head of the Judiciary said, ‘Drug traffickers and sellers must no longer benefit from any amnesty—on the contrary they must be severely repressed.’ And a Deputy Interior Minister complained in June 2001 about the number of executions: ‘Some 15,869 drug traffickers deserved death, but only 1,735 were meted capital punishment. The death sentence against 400 convicts was upheld, but finally only 233 were sent to the gallows.'” (292)

Sammi, William A., “Drug Abuse: Iran’s Thorniest Problem”, The Brown Journal of World Affairs 9, no. 2 (Winter/Spring 2003): 283-99

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And today I learnt another new thing: the differences in form and usage between the em-dash, the en-dash, the hyphen and the minus sign.  Who knew?

Dash.

I don’t recall the details exactly (I’m sure I could cite Booth 1996 if I really needed), but the symptoms of opium poisoning and/or the withdrawal symptoms for habituated opium users can include nausea, vomitting, gastrointenstinal pain, joint aches, dizziness and periods of unrestful unconsciousness.

Oh, so that’s what it would feel like. 

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It was oh-so-lovely to see Allicia again, who’s in town on break until tomorrow.  And I do remember Lena quite well from somewhere unplaceable, probably Allicia’s room.  I hope she sends me some of those pictures.  Cafe Algiers = *heart*.  Great food, wonderful beverages, excellent prices, convivial atmosphere (we sat on the terrace, bare arms and exposed necks celebrating the respite from winter).  What’s not to love?

It was great to feel like I was in a different time, place and community for a couple of hours, especially today.  Getting to chat briefly with Rich on Allicia’s phone was also a treat.  Shades of a time and place distantly remembered and still being written.  I hope I manage to visit before April!

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The meeting was a new feat in plumbing, beyond what I had thought possible.  I’m pretty sure I never even imagined anything like this before, say, last week.  Now I could almost have precisely predicted the details.  I think I’m almost done talking the whole experience dry.  Maybe I’ll write about it someplace else.  But for what purpose?  Second-guessing is such a boundless excercise.

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Nap.

Ok, so maybe I didn’t only work on my thesis during the last three days.  I may possibly perhaps potentially have seen a clip or two on YouTube.

Anyway, I know I’m very late to the tech game, but I really enjoyed the “wow” factor and high irony of watching this music video for Beyoncé’s Irreplaceable made with The Sims2.  Compare with the original music video for yourself and see if Beyoncé is herself replaceable by a computer animation 🙂

And the reason I saw the Sims2-created music video is because Beyoncé has recorded a Spanish version of Irreplaceable, further confirming her intention to broaden her fan base (ie make more money) and maybe win a Latin Grammy.  Remember of course the recently released remix track and video for Beyoncé’s collaboration with Shakira.

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Why am I awake at 8.30am??  Bedtime.

Thank You, God.

I can barely believe it – I’ve actually completed a passable full draft, with just 10 days left to the submission deadline.  For those of you who don’t understand how late this is for a first full thesis draft: enjoy your blessings.  In the last 72 hours I have done almost nothing except work on this.  On Saturday I woke up, started work at my desk and then simply went to bed 11 hours later, having never left my suite once, not even for the dining hall.  And still there’re endless numbers of loose ends and abandoned sections that have been glossed over in the draft I sent out for various kind souls to review.  There’s no bibliography, or glossary of acronyms used, or any explanation of how I derived a certain key variable.  Nevertheless it’s passably done, and it only took over three hours of formatting and deleting notes-to-self and fixing all the cross-referenced numbers and footnotes to get it ready to send out. 

And I have a table of contents!  Ah, the joy of small accomplishments 🙂

Again, thank You, God.

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Oh, and I even have a title for my thesis now! 

(At this point, every person who’s ever written a thesis should feel shocked since people are usually expected to declare their thesis titles months in advance.)

Despite everything, it’s hard to work when it feels like the sky is falling, and your world might be falling along with it.

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Andrew’s parents were here for a weekend junket, and over a lovely dinner at Legal I had the occassion to fomulate this thought:

What will I immediately miss most about leaving Harvard behind?  I’m starting to think it’s going to be things like the seemingly unlimited academic resources (the supercharged Google-scholar-and-HOLLIS system, the free Naxos access, the turbo wireless and broadband web access, the expectation that professors and administrators are there for you), the ability to give admission tours (still sincerely selling the Harvard dream, after all these years), and the crazy perks (the espresso at HUCE, the OFA and UC grants, the free travel).  I don’t know how I’m going to deal with having to move this blog (do I have to?), change my email address and no longer depending on HUDS.

At least what I might have expected to be the hardest parts of the process have been essentially preemptively done for me.

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Back to the crunch.

God bless the people of Sumatra.  What awful news.

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It’s also sobering to hear that even my mother felt the tremors at home.