Comments on: Filtering Riff-Raff and Safeties http://madisonian.net/2007/01/11/filtering-riff-raff-and-safeties/ a blog about law, tech, culture, and related things Thu, 10 May 2012 20:32:56 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Mark McKenna http://madisonian.net/2007/01/11/filtering-riff-raff-and-safeties/comment-page-1/#comment-141833 Mark McKenna Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:19:49 +0000 http://madisonian.net/archives/2007/01/11/filtering-riff-raff-and-safeties/#comment-141833 Interesting idea. But I wonder whether candidates really have an idea of where they would want to be before going through the process. Certainly some do - I'm always amazed at the number of candidates who will not leave NY, for example. And some probably have a good idea of their market value. But a good number of candiates have no good information about a school other than its US News rank, and if they don't know their market value, that might not be enough to go on. Indeed, a candiate's market value often changes during the process - since a lot of schools realize the arbitrariness of their selection criteria, the fact that school X, which may be in the same tier, made an offer to a candidate often makes that candidate more attractive. And so it goes up the chain. I wonder whether the lack of a US News style ranking for economics departments helps them implement this sort of thing. Interesting idea. But I wonder whether candidates really have an idea of where they would want to be before going through the process. Certainly some do – I’m always amazed at the number of candidates who will not leave NY, for example. And some probably have a good idea of their market value. But a good number of candiates have no good information about a school other than its US News rank, and if they don’t know their market value, that might not be enough to go on. Indeed, a candiate’s market value often changes during the process – since a lot of schools realize the arbitrariness of their selection criteria, the fact that school X, which may be in the same tier, made an offer to a candidate often makes that candidate more attractive. And so it goes up the chain. I wonder whether the lack of a US News style ranking for economics departments helps them implement this sort of thing.

]]> By: Mike Madison http://madisonian.net/2007/01/11/filtering-riff-raff-and-safeties/comment-page-1/#comment-141799 Mike Madison Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:30:41 +0000 http://madisonian.net/archives/2007/01/11/filtering-riff-raff-and-safeties/#comment-141799 Also from the department of "what the best economics is presently doing": <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/business/10leonhardt.html?ex=1326085200&en=8a19c77b7038b983&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss" rel="nofollow">This article from yesterday's NYT</a> that highlights the work of Emily Oster. A short aside: I took introductory macroeconomics from Ray Fair, at Yale, in the Spring of 1980. Toward the end of the semester, Ray Fair brought new baby Emily to class one day and from the podium proclaimed, grinning ear to ear, that he wanted to show us "the output." As Emily herself said in the Times, “It’s an idea only an economist would love.” Also from the department of “what the best economics is presently doing”: This article from yesterday’s NYT that highlights the work of Emily Oster.

A short aside: I took introductory macroeconomics from Ray Fair, at Yale, in the Spring of 1980. Toward the end of the semester, Ray Fair brought new baby Emily to class one day and from the podium proclaimed, grinning ear to ear, that he wanted to show us “the output.”

As Emily herself said in the Times, “It’s an idea only an economist would love.”

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