Work Progress

I spent all Saturday stumped. There my data just were not merging right. So I spent all day debugging my programs (and finding a few really stupid mistakes, one after the other). Finally, after hours of staring at errors, at the end of the day, the institution names matched. Woo-hoo. Onto journal names and to JSTOR info.

4/5

Farmer's Market

Mannheim has a farmer's market in the plaza in front of the Rathaus (city hall) every Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday morning. I went this morning to get fruit and to take in all the colors and smells. Great fruits and vegetables, but also flowers, breads, cheeses, meats, and wines.



I wonder if Arlington could pull this off?

Innovation Conference

On Friday, the "real" economists came to present their research. Many of these papers are well done or interesting (and a few are both). However, I must say, I think I liked the "students' sessions" better. There may have been a slight quality difference, but they appear to be much more willing to engage in discussion about the topic and not convince themselves that their findings are the definitive "truth." Perhaps the academic economists' papers are substantially better, but my expectations were higher still. Or, perhaps, after five days of hearing papers on the economics of innovation, I am burned out on the topic. Some of these seem to be asking many of the same questions or using the same data from different countries. Or, perhaps, one bad apple spoiled the bunch (see below).

There are a few "big wigs" at all conferences. Most papers are presented in parallel sessions but the big timers will usually get the whole conference attendance as an audience. Most of the time, this is efficient because the big timers usually got that way because they are smart, hardworking and have access to data, resources and good RAs. For example, at the Milan conference, the talks by Dixit, Sutton and Anderson were all excellent and substantially increased the value added of the conference. Most of us look forward to hearing what the smart, industrious, and resourceful people in our field have to say.

However, without mentioning names, I had to walk out on one big timer at this conference. First, the presentation was technically poor (too many duplicative slides, poorly prepared slides, main points made verbally and not mentioned in slides, bad speaking voice & too many digressions). I can tolerate some of this as many of us are offenders. Second, and worse, the talk was on a policy issue and the speaker was obviously sympathetic of one-side and dismissive of the other side. OK, so I know your priors, what is your evidence? Oh, you only measure costs and not benefits. It appears as though the big timer is saying, because of my stature, you can trust my claims even when they are not supported by evidence. Sorry, I got better things to do than to be patronized.

The upside is that I got some work done (see, opportunity cost was positive). I think I found a work-around for my large file size problem.

Work Progress 3/5

Football

The Summer School ended today and the conference begins tomorrow. Because Germany played in the Euro 2008 tournament, the ZEW projected the game onto the big screen in the conference room and provided beer. Lots of fun, but too bad Germany lost to Croatia.

Work progress 0/5

Back to School

I have been busy attending Summer School. The ZEW is holding a Summer Workshop on "The Economics and Econometrics of Innovation." My research is getting back to these issues and so it is useful to get up to speed with the current issues, data and methods. So, I am in "class" with all "the other" graduate students and new Ph.Ds. Morning sessions are by established researchers summarizing a line of research and afternoons are "student" presentations. I got a few good ideas on how to solve some problems with projects I am working on. I am also able to provide some comments to the other "students" on their projects. Some of them are helpful.

[Note to my kids who like their Summers free from school. Dad is weird. He likes school. Since dad has his doctorate (and, more importantly, tenure) he does not have to get any more education. But he is still choosing to go to summer school. Here is hoping that my kids will be similarly weird.]

After the Summer School, the ZEW is hosting a conference on "The Impact of Regulation on Investment and Innovation Incentives." That will be fun to attend too.

Anyway, I am only able to work on my own stuff in the evenings and am not getting much done.
Work progress:
Monday 1/5
Tuesday 0/5
Wednesday 1/5

Zürich in 24 hours

I am a little late in posting but I have been busy. The train ride through the Alps was amazing. I doubt still pictures could do them justice. (Also, the window was somewhat stained.) I just could not imagine how rugged the terrain would be. My hat is off to Hannibal. The other aspect that this California boy kept marveling at all that water. Every crease in every cliff had a waterfall.

I got to Zürich at about 1pm and did the walk about. In the afternoon, I got caught up in the football match. I did go to the usual sites and got some of the usual photos. The city (at least the old city) is on either side of the Limmat River flowing out of Lake Zürich and there are a number of canals running through the city. Water is a major theme. And clocks. And hills. I also tried to get away from the commotion and was rewarded with quieter locations that were very pleasant.




Zürich is beautiful and expensive (Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills has nothing on Bannhofstrasse).

European Football Championships

I did not realize that when I booked this stop in Zurich, that it would be the opening day of the soccer championship hosted in Zurich featuring the Swiss national team. Needless to say, it has been kind of crazy here. Lots of fun. Lots of streets blocked off for pedestrian carnival antics. When you arrive at the train station, you see this huge statue inside the entrance.
Every kiosk selling beer, and there are dozens, has a TV and a crowd watching the game.

And here I am at the fanzone.