Assault of Thoughts - 4/26/2010

"Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking" -JMK

- The private space industry took a step forward this month when Dulles-based Orbital Sciences bought General Dynamics' spacecraft development and manufacturing division. I think this is good for two reasons. First, we've known since Smith's Wealth of Nations that "the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market". The emergence of dedicated spacecraft manufacturing companies is a sign that the extent of the spacecraft manufacturing market is expected to broaden. It's also a good sign that space will not necessarily be utilized, explored, and eventually settled by defense contractors like General Dynamics.

- How many NABE firm surveys is it going to take to realize that hiring has been primarily limited by aggregate demand expectations, and not by taxes or regulatory uncertainty or the alleged generosity of the safety net? I really don't see what's so hard about this.

- The financial reform bill is moving through Congress, and I'm wondering how many people actually know what's in it. I haven't had the opportunity to follow this debate as closely as the health reform debate - and I felt like a lot of Americans had misconceptions about what was in the health reform bill (which was relatively easier to understand). How many know what is in this one? And yet how many people think we should just do nothing with this bill? This is a pretty good argument for representative government - but it simultaneously highlights the problems of any government solution.

- Paul Krugman talks about epistemic closure in macroeconomics. I don't know how to take this, really. It certainly sounds plausible - I'm not sure whether it's true or not. It reminds me of some awkward conversations I've had with my supervisor at work. We were talking about my plans for PhD programs, and she suggested I shoot high and that one of the places I apply should be Chicago (she went to Chicago for her masters' in public policy). Not only is that a ridiculously long shot, I had trouble explaining to her that while I'm sure I'd get a great education there I'm just not sure how balanced it would be. I think my brother Evan (a current PhD student in Chicago's Divinity School) is savvy enough to get the point without being offended, but I'm not sure this is on other people's radar. At a place like Harvard, you know you'll get a balanced position. You've got Greg Mankiw on the one hand and Robert Barro on the other. You're going to hear both sides of the issue. Maybe you would at Chicago too, I just couldn't say with as much certainty.

- I've had a decent opportunity to study this weekend because Kate has been watching Sex and the City, which doesn't always hold my attention. However, it did remind me of something I stumbled across this week that would have fit in perfectly with the show: a detailed review of John Maynard Keynes's sex diaries. I knew that Keynes had a promiscuous streak of homosexual encounters in his early years at Cambridge, but I had always thought these were more anecdotal. It turns out, he actually kept meticulous records on it. The earlier diary names names, including many men from the Bloomsbury Group. The later diary is a coded time series of encounters.

- My paper on the 1920-21 depression on SSRN. As soon as my PDE class is over next week I'm going to revisit this with gusto and then submit. Any thoughts are appreciated.

- Barro and Lee have an updated version of their global education dataset available now at NBER. It's a fairly interesting endeavor - I first came into contact with it in econometrics a couple years ago.

- Inside Higher Ed reviews the AEA's new sub-journal proceedure. I'm curious what other people think of this. My impression has been that the four sub-journals aren't as prestiguous as other journals in the field. In other words - they're not really a runner up to the AER. But then again, I haven't published in any journals yet, so I'm not necessarily the best person to ask.