rational irrationality

moon

2009-08-15T12:37:00.001+02:00

moon,
originally uploaded by rxjia.

back to work

2009-06-25T00:04:00.002+02:00

I have been idling these weeks and now it's time to work. Summer is short. In fact 'life is too short to be bored', as JW says.

2009-06-15T20:59:00.011+02:00

Attended a Brownbag lunch seminar by my Chinese colleague, Bei. She is a bit upset about it. But I think she did well. David gave nice and constructive suggestions as always. I really admire him for this style: raising helpful questions without showing off.

Talked with Torsten. He is very encouraging. Thanks a lot!
Talked with Emilia. She is also very encouraging. Thanks a lot!

I am not confident that I can have much time for research if I have to take four courses as well as the exams at Harvard...Torsten also suggests me looking at the courses this summer! So it is a busy summer as expected...

2009-06-13T22:25:00.005+02:00

Called D. in the morning. She told me that I am a person proud in nature but lack of confidence. Perhaps she is right, as always. She counted me in her plan to visit Vietnam. I am happy about the trip plan, but somewhat worried about many things.

Tried to read two papers, could not concentrate though:(

1. Competition and incentives with motivated agents

2. Paying politicians: theory and evidence

2009-06-12T16:37:00.005+02:00

Talked with David and Masa briefly about my idea. Now I am thinking of returning to what I worked on last summer. Doing pure empirical exercise is not my comparative advantage actually. I am more interested in empirical evidence based on some theory. Masa mentioned Besley and Ghatak's paper on motivated agents.

btw, Nancy Qian gave a seminar today. She did not remember me at all, I guess. I dared not talk with her...For one thing, I do not have constructive suggestions to her paper as I know little about media. For another, I am curious why the data we collected for her did not turn to be any paper...But it is funny to think that I met her in Beijing and now in Stockholm. And later I will visit the school in the States where she is working.

2009-06-10T21:20:00.002+02:00

re-read a paper: economic returns to communist party membership.

I was a master student at ccer the first time I read this paper. Many things did change after two years...

2009-06-10T17:56:00.001+02:00

Strange or not, I became more interested in the real world after the game theory course. I noticed a sociologist's work today, which seems very interesting.

2009-06-09T22:23:00.006+02:00

http://www.sr.se/laddahem/podradio/SR_p4_klartext_090609064026.mp3

2009-06-09T22:16:00.002+02:00

I presented the term paper jointly with Mark. The feedback is not bad. But I feel I need to know more to approach the question...A good reference book is available online.

Regi Bergman 006

2009-06-02T22:13:00.001+02:00

Regi Bergman 006,
originally uploaded by Bergmanfestival.

2009-05-30T22:02:00.004+02:00

Hi again. I am back.

Today I reviewed the materials on evolutionary game theory. This was my motivation to take Jörgen's course. Unfortunately I only know very basic things in the end...

I will make my final decision between visiting Harvard and Princeton after the exam. This is a pleasant choice to make anyhow. I will make no mistake going to either place.

2009-04-19T23:08:00.001+02:00

a concise note on how to understand nash equilibrium by professor Adam Brandenburger

2009-04-14T22:11:00.007+02:00

1. Had a game theory class from 1 pm to 5 pm. I even could not formulate my question when Jörgen said, 'you look puzzled, ruixue'...
Too much to learn!

2. Read a methodology paper for tomorrow's Econ&Philosophy seminar on the subway back.
Too much to learn!

3. Had a Swedish class from 6 pm to 9 pm.
Too much to learn!

4. Got an email from a classmate's girlfriend who asked me to write a research proposal on public finance for her because she is applying somewhere.
I am too ignorant to help her!

2009-04-14T11:44:00.003+02:00

1. Wrote a short story in Chinese yesterday and could not sleep after that. I decided to give it up. Literature is bad for my health...

2. Came across a book. A good textbook should be rigorous, concise and never short of intuition. This book is not good in the sense that it is not concise enough. But numerous examples and detailed explanations make it a good book to read before bed. Yes, I will read it instead of writing nonsense stories.

2009-04-13T14:14:00.001+02:00

curb

2009-04-11T21:22:00.003+02:00

Easter Holidays 2

1. Watched Song of the exile (1990).

2. Took a walk at skogskyrkogården and took a few pics.

2009-04-10T21:18:00.002+02:00

Easter Holiday 1

1. Watched Muddy River (1981).

2. Took a walk at skogskyrkogården.

3. Had a haircut. I dislike myself from head to toe...Sigh.

2009-04-09T00:38:00.004+02:00

1. Attended the first lecture of Behavior Economics II in the morning. There were only three students and one of us does not intend to take it. Reading experimental studies is an entertainment. So I will take this course.

2. Had lunch with Mark after the class. There is a type of person who will always be the center of a group wherever he is. That's him. What's funny is that our topics are always around his girlfriends whom I do not really know personally...

3. Read Van Damme's Chapter 2. I read very slowly and took some notes.

4. Watched La Ceremonie again. Obviously I am not the only one who is fascinated by the Papin sisters. Given the description of the murder, the best candidate would definitely be Chabrol if we want to find a director to make a movie based on the story. But I like Sister My Sister better.

2009-04-07T22:19:00.015+02:00

1. I have a vague idea while reading Levine's paper...Let me name it Expectation Squared at this moment...I need to think more about it.

2. Googlebooks do not provide more chapters in Van Damme's book, so I searched and asked a Chinese student online who said that he has a copy. He kindly sent me several chapters. Surprisingly (or perhaps not considering the small world property), he told me that he knows me more than I know him. And later he told me he had a friend who is studying at Penn and was my classmate. Besides, the paper I discussed at UCL was written by his office mate...I am very happy to know him. Sometimes I feel I might fail to be an economist but I would like to be a friend of economists:)

3. Similarly, I would like to be a friend of writers although I am not one of them. I read the book/magazine yueran sent me more carefully today. It's an interesting experience as the young writers' worlds are so different from mine...

4. I always want to set up a blog about the moments when I think of Ingmar Bergman...

2009-04-06T21:18:00.008+02:00

Notes on Testing Game Theory

This paper is a bit philosophical, I would say. It provides some criticism of experimental studies, which seem to be a fad these days. I enjoyed reading it for two reasons. First, it talked about some questions I had when I took Behavioral Economics I. The key message to me is that game theory is not a consequentialist theory. As Jörgen stressed in class, we need to be more careful about setting up plays and assuming preferences. Many experiments seem to say: look at my experiment, people do not play Nash equilibrium!!! But this argument may not be valid since we cannot say what the equilibrium is without carefully identifying the preferences. Jörgen suggested testing joint hypothesis even epistemic modes of games cannot be falsified. He also mentioned (in class) that we should be more careful when talking about fairness...(I really like this point.)

Game theory was first developed by mathematicians. I guess they do not care about these subtleties. Economics is a science of human beings anyhow and preferences become very very important in characterizing a problem.

Secondly, it represents basic terminologies of game theory clearly, in words instead of math.

I. Basic terminologies

Game: (N, A, fai, P, I, C, p, r, v)

Game Form: (N, A, fai, P, I, C, p)

Game Protocol: (N, A, fai, P, I, C, p, r)

N: the set of personal players.

Such a game is a mathematical object that contains as its basic structure a directed tree, consisting of a finite number of nodes (or vertices) and branches (or edges). A play, tao, of the game is a route through the tree, starting at its initial node and ending at one of the end nodes, w. A node k’ is a successor of a node k if there is play that leads first to k and then to k’. Moreover, each end node is reached by exactly one play of the game, and each play reaches exactly one end node.

…

The set of non-end nodes is partitioned into player subsets, and each player subset in turn is partitioned into information sets for the player role. In each information set, the number of outgoing branches from each node is the same, and the set of outgoing branches from an information set is divided into equivalence classes, the moves available to the player at that information, so that every equivalence class contains exactly one outgoing branch from each node in the information set. A choice in an information set is a probability distribution over the moves available at the information set. In the game with exogenous random moves, one of players is ‘nature’, and all information sets for this non-personal player are singleton sets with fixed probabilities attached to each outgoing branch.

Pure Strategy/outcome

A pure strategy for a personal player role is a function that assigns one move to each of the role’s information sets. The outcome of a strategy profiles is the probability distribution induced on the set of end-nodes, or on the set of plays.

Subform

In a given game form Ksai, let K_0 be the subset of nodes k such that (i) k is either a move by nature or {k} is an information set of a personal player; and (ii) no information set in Ksai contains both a successor node and a non-successor node to k. Each node k in K_0 is the initial node of a subform.

(Here Jörgen talked about the subtlety of defining a subgame, i.e. whether it is context-related or isolated at k. It seems to me that this argument shares the same spirit of non- consequentialism. See Binmore et al (2002).)

II Levine's theory and discussion

Is the linear function a super clever idea or an arbitrary assumption? Is it robust?

Can I think of a better option?:)

2009-04-06T18:14:00.003+02:00

I am very happy...because I just had a lecture of game theory with Jörgen...I should focus and write up something. Hopefully I can be a qualified teacher in the future so that I can have the courage to let him know how his courses have changed me. I was so tired of economics after spending 3 years at ccer and his beautiful math lectures reignited my enthusiasm. Now I am having a second course with him. I am really happy:)

Yinan told me he went to UCL to give a seminar and the response is very good. I am glad for him!

2009-04-05T22:14:00.006+02:00

Hi, I am back. I was struggling with love these days but it is over now. I think I still love but I am not loved any more. I can only keep my love in my heart then. It's mine. I know being in and out of love is common among young people but I doubt whether I can love any one else. Nine years is not too long, but not too short either. God bless the beloved:)

I read Chapter 1 of van Damme's book. The book is very well written, and very difficult.

2009-04-02T21:41:00.001+02:00

stata to LaTex

It's very easy and it will make your regression results good-looking!!!

Try outtex first:)

2009-04-01T11:56:00.000+02:00

a mit mini course on stata, matlab etc.

2009-03-25T23:09:00.002+01:00

math as a language

'To Cinlar, the language of mathematics was English. Mathematics does have it’s own nomenclature, the use of symbols and using specific meanings for some words is part of using mathematics in communication. But, even Greek symbols used in mathematics is part of the English language. There is nothing about mathematics or the use of mathematics in communication that makes it a separate language. The rules of grammar used in mathematical communication are the rules of English grammar.'

Thanks to Jörgen for mentioning professor Cindar. Hopefully I can take his course next fall.

2009-03-23T17:57:00.002+01:00

Mini course day 1

Richard Rogerson gives a mini course on macro labor at SSE. The materials covered are different from my expectation but I really like his presentation. Today is an overview about the stylized facts of unemployment and working hours in OECD countries. Basically he lets data talk. As he stressed, thinking quatatitively is a key feature of modern macroeconometrists. A theory should not only account for why unemployment rate increases or decreases, but also for why it increases 3 points not .3 points. Another point I took from his talk is how to think a bit deeper: taking into account time-series. This reminds me of 'comparative advantage' argument of Lin Yifu. If comparative advantage accounts for the economic miracle of China after 1980s, we should also see this advantage before 1980s...

I guess professor Rogerson is not a fan of thinking differences in labor participation in terms of gender differences. It seems labor participation is gender-neutral from time-series data.

2009-03-20T22:02:00.002+01:00

Went to a seminar on ethnic identity given by Alberto Bisin from nyu. The idea is very simple but the test is nice.

Not sure whether I should return to my idea about ethnic identification...

Bought a an alarm clock radio.

2009-03-16T20:47:00.006+01:00

1. Ordered 'Contract Theory' online. Hopefully the price (500 SEK) can provide me incentives to read it line by line.

2. Had the last class of recursive macro:( Lars said he would look at my 'environment' first before giving me any suggestion. I am happy yet feel a bit worried about my story. btw, environment=preferences+endowment+technology.

3. I heard someone calling my name when I was leaving SSE. I can hardly recognize my name when it is pronounced by foreigners...I was lucky this time.

2009-03-15T00:19:00.004+01:00

1. Try to record what I hear randomly in daily life.

2. Did homework on Stata. The software is so advanced nowadays that it incorporates most things people want to do. I drank three cups of tea when it was bootstrapping.

3. Read Acemoglu's notes on search and unemployment.

2009-03-12T23:03:00.000+01:00

I am having a difficult time.

2009-03-10T22:06:00.008+01:00

I sat next to a Polish girl in the Swedish class. She is studying German. Unfortunately she is not familiar with Kieslowski, Wajda, Milosz or Szymborska. Kind of funny to think that I was once so interested in Polish culture.

I have been reflecting upon why I have educated myself with so much 'useless knowledge'. This reminds me of Kong yiji, who is proud of knowing four different ways of writing a Chinese word, HUI.

Anyhow, here is my homework 2.

En sevärdhet: Gotland

Jag har varit på Gotland en gång, som var en oförglömlig resa. Jag tänker åka dit igen om jag har tid i sommar.

Gotland är en ö, som ligger i Östersjön. Man kan resa från Nynäshamn med en restiden på tre timmar. Gotland har många vackra plaster, t.ex. Visby, Fårö, osv.

Visby är en idyllisk småstad och samtidigt Gotlands största tätort. Det kallas för ’ruinernas och rosornas stad’. Många kyrkor har funnits under medeltiden men idag är endast en av dessa i bruk, och 11 andra finns som ruiner. Rosorna växer kraftigt runt ruinerna, som är vackert men sorgligt. I botaniska trädgården visste jag att visby är en typ av rosor.

Fårö är känd för Ingmar Bergman och hans filmer. På kyrkogården ligger Bergman begraven. På Fårö har han gjort fyra spelfilmer på Fårö, som är Såsom i en spegel, Persona, Skammen och En passion. Landskapet är mycket tyst och ensam. På juni börjar årets Bergmanvecka. Dessutom Ingmar Bergmans filmer, Tarkovskijs Offret var också inspelad på Fårö.

Det finns naturligtvis andra intressanta platser att besöka, t.ex. Holmhällar på södra Gotland. Jag tycker att du ska ha en fantastisk tid vart du än går på ön.

2009-03-09T23:07:00.000+01:00

Greed and Genes

2009-03-09T21:09:00.008+01:00

1. Had the second last lecture of recursive macro. I am thinking of talking to Lars about my idea before the course is finished. I have to write down my story before coming to him. I will do it. Gooood.

2. Got an email from Madeline. Do not know how to reply her as I did not read any book or watch any new movie. Actually it is still possible to read some books if I read a few pages before I go to bed, like reading the Swedish novel.

3. Bought a new wine. Not bad.

4. Roland Benabou has a new paper along his idea about ideology formation.

2009-03-08T21:17:00.010+01:00

1. Did macro homework with Matlab. I should be more familiar with the program...

2. Read a few pages of The Selfish Gene. He mentioned an interesting example of selfishness on page 5:

More well known is the macabre cannibalism of female praying mantises. Mantises are large carnivorous insects. They normally eat smaller insects such as flies, but they will attack almost anything that moves. When they mate, the male cautiously creeps up on the female, mounts her, and copulates. If the female gets the chance, she will eat him, beginning by biting his head off, either as the male is approaching, or immediately after he mounts, or after they separate. It might seem most sensible for her to wait until copulation is over before she starts to eat him. But the loss of the head does not seem to throw the rest of the male's body off its sexual stride. Indeed, since the insect head is the seat of some inhibitory nerve centres, it is possible that the female improves the male's sexual performance by eating his head. If so, this is an added benefit. The primary one is that she obtains a good meal.

3. I find biology very interesting these days. Look forward to Jörgen's course on evolutionary game theory.

4. Talked with a Chinese girl in our corridor who is a master student of biology. Her program is related to breast cancer and her daily work is to record the processing of RNA in a certain cell before the translation to DNA. It sounds quite labor intensive. She told me that they do not need to think while working. Then I think it is more interesting to study social sciences. As Lars once joked, 'you will get old more slowly, if you do one or two 'thinking' exercises like this every week.'

2009-03-07T17:44:00.010+01:00

Wasted a lot of time following gossips about Eileen Chang's new novel, Xiaotuanyuan (small reunion) . It seems totally her style despite some unexpected erotic interludes.

2009-03-06T15:35:00.006+01:00

Quote of the day

....both the New Classical and New Keynesian complete markets macroeconomic theories not only did not allow the key questions about insolvency and illiquidity to be answered. They did not allow such questions to be asked....

from http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3210

2009-03-05T12:19:00.001+01:00

1. Got the official admission email from Princeton. I don't have particular preference about universities. So I guess I will accept it.

2. Still struggling with a new topic to work on. A bit ashamed of myself.

3. Does respecting the individual promote propensity?

2009-03-03T21:42:00.001+01:00

1. Finished the first 25 pages of Ondskan. Not an interesting experience as I have to look up so many words...

2. Had a Swedish class.

Swedish takes me much more time than what I imagined. I hesitated a moment today when I stepped into the classroom. Should I spend so much time on Swedish? Perhaps I should not if I only want to be a researcher. On the other hand, I enjoy learning languages.

3. Talked a little bit with David. He is my second supervisor. A bit ashamed of myself these days as I do not have a research topic to talk with him.

2009-03-02T23:39:00.002+01:00

1. Had recursive macro lecture in the afternoon. Lars told us a slogan:

Think recursively, Become Bellmanized.

2. Watched 'Brideshead revisited' (1981) and stopped when Sebastian's story ended.

2009-03-02T13:19:00.003+01:00

interesting puzzles about status affiliation

a complementary example: (Chinese) econ phd students always choose to major in the strong fields in a university, which may be not their genuine interest.

2009-03-02T10:34:00.000+01:00

Quote of the day

I can't keep this day. I can only live it now. I can't save it up for another time. Another time will be another time. This is today. My gift. One life. One day.
I got up quietly, dressed and went downstairs and drank coffee standing up in a little bar. I was sleepy and happy, not because I wanted anything but because I didn't. It will be enough to go now, to wrap the day round me like a warm coat.

From Roman short story

2009-03-01T21:00:00.006+01:00

1. Notes on dynamic games

Yesterday I talked with Weicheng. He is interested in macro and finance these days. 'But there is only one economics', he said. Dynamic games with recursive methods may be a good example to say that there is no clear cut between micro and macro. Of course we need to pin down our interest to some extent.

2. Application in political economy: Dixit, Grossman and Gul (2000)

2009-02-28T21:01:00.003+01:00

a Chinese song:

http://www.haoting.com/htmusic/28846ht.htm

I did not pay much attention to this song actually. But now it is very proper for today's occasion.

2009-02-27T22:54:00.007+01:00

1. Skim Giles and Yoo (2006), which used RCRE village and household survey data. I don't know how to get access to the data...

2. Wei invited a few Chinese students including me to have dinner in his corridor. He got drunk and talked a lot. He even recited a line by CuiHao,

晴川历历汉阳树，芳草萋萋鹦鹉洲

which can be literally translated to 'Across the sunlit river, clearly seen are Hanyang’s trees/ And Parrot Island’s teeming, fragrant grasses.' You see, it is far from the original...

I felt a bit sad seeing Wei drinking and throwing up. I am lucky in this sense as I do not feel so lonely here. What I miss most about China are a few lines like the one he mentioned.

2009-02-26T23:10:00.006+01:00

1. Had applied micro lecture in the morning. Now I am thinking of writing a 'pure' empirical paper as I have taken a series of econometrics courses. Perhaps I should look at CHNS data again. I am interested in the effects of migration workers on the risk/insurance of their families.

2. Went to the gym after calling Yiping. Good. Hopefully I can manage to go to the gym or read a bit Swedish, if I fail to do anything else in a day.

3. Yinan told me that he will go to Berkeley to present his paper on the survival of autocracies. Happy for him. btw, I just realized that Markov equilibrium is not so interesting as I thought.

2009-02-25T20:10:00.020+01:00

Read Chapter 19 in Lars' textbook. It is simple conceptually but complex technically. I am not sure whether I can use the tools directly in the topic I am interested in-coalition formation in non-democracies.

Emailed Princeton to see whether they have got my reference letters. They have not but they said, 'Our admissions director has reviewed the rest of your file and has given the approval for admission'. Quite strange. I need to ask Torsten whether I should apply for other schools. (I always feel ashamed of myself when turning to him for this kind of issues. I should talk with him only about research, I suppose). Besides, my GRE and TOEFL scores are too old. Not sure whether it is a problem. Anyhow, I shared this news with the reference writers, Wang laoshi and Po laoshi. Thanks to them. Then I regretted as it might be better if I tell them after I have settled down in the States. Sigh.

2009-02-24T23:01:00.003+01:00

The most important Swedish news today is that their princess Victoria (who will become their first female King) is engaged to Daniel, a man with a gym but without any royal background.

Here is the video. They talk pretty slowly but I can understand little:(

2009-02-23T21:42:00.008+01:00

A bit tired today. I looked forward to the recursive contracts lecture. But don't know why, I was just listless. I have to contact someone in Beijing to get my undergraduate transcripts. Really dislike dealing with these issues.

2009-02-22T16:36:00.003+01:00

Quote of the day.

At the end of spring quarter, I had looked in the back of Kenneth Boulding’s textbook and read Boulding’s description of Paul Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis as “the most important book in economics since the war.” I had a summer to prepare for the beginning of graduate work in earnest, and there was no point in wasting the time on the second most important book. I got a copy from the library and all that summer, during lunch and coffee breaks from my research assistant job, I worked through Samuelson’s first four chapters. When I got home each night, I wrote out what I had learned that day, line by line.

Bob Lucas, Professional Memoir

I have read this memoir many times. Lucas' presentation is interesting, honest and encouraging. Every researcher starts his career from the 'line by by line' stage, even he is Robert Lucas. The story of the search paper with Prescott tells me many things, one of which is that math has never been overrated.

2009-02-21T23:02:00.000+01:00

Watched Ondskan (2003). I could not enjoy it, which is also expected. I find it hard for me to love films after 1970s, perhaps because I have been indulged in those 'pretentious art films' for such a long time.

2009-02-20T22:55:00.003+01:00

Did Swedish homework.

Skim Hausman and Rodrik, 2003

2009-02-19T20:41:00.005+01:00

1. Finished a 24-hour take home exam within 1 hour.

2. Went to a development economics seminar and will talk with the presenter next Tuesday.

3. Attended the Swedish class. There were two other girls speaking Chinese during the first class and they dropped after that. The remained are mainly from Germany, Holland or France. Of course they also spend a lot of time talking with the Swedes. Learning a language is one of the easiest things in the world, I would say, given you spend enough time. My problem is that I talk too little.

So please talk.

2009-02-19T10:44:00.001+01:00

Quote of the day:

Why should I pretend to be mature when practically every star in the night sky is older than I am?

from Against Maturity

2009-02-18T23:19:00.005+01:00

Had behavioral economics lectures in the morning and in the afternoon. Today's topics are about neuroeconomics, biology and economics. The papers were published in Science, Nature etc. The topics are fascinating. The methodology is not.

Had lunch at the place I have been accustomed to. The restaurant is operated by Chinese but only provides Japanese and Korean food.

Cooked a fish (röding). Very good.

Worked on recursive macro homework. Almost finished.

2009-02-17T21:25:00.002+01:00

Worked on recursive macro homework.

The new Swedish course began today. It is much more difficult than the previous two and I can learn a bit more. I am happy. We are assigned to read Ondskan by Jan Guillou. The adapted movie was posted by someone on Youtube. It seems not my cup of tea. My adolescence was so quiet. I never got angry toward anyone or anything. I even thought I lost the ability of becoming angry.

2009-02-15T15:28:00.015+01:00

Read Chapter 2 in Pissarides (2000).

Summary of Chapter 1:

1. The model demonstrates how both unemployment and vacancies can exist concurrently in labor market equilibrium. The reason is that searching frictions.

2. The frictions are formed by matching function.

3. In steady state, job creation rate is equal to job destruction rate.

4. Out of steady state, changes in the productivity (or other parameters) have an immediate effect on the wage because wages can be renegotiated any time. Firms are able to adjust their vacancies immediately, hence v and tightness variable jump. The unemployment rate u is pre-determined as it is tied to the matching function. Hence vacancies have the tendency to overshoot.

Related papers:
New developments in models of search in the labor market.
Job reallocation, employment fluctuations and unemployment

2009-02-14T23:11:00.012+01:00

Nowadays I spend different holidays the same way: eating a bit more, sleeping a bit more and watching a boring and depressing movie. Here is my not-funny-at-all Valentine's day:

Got up at noon. Prepared three dishes (which are a lot for me). Went to bed again after lunch. Got up again and watched an old film, 'L'Eclisse' (1962).

Ingmar Bergman did not like Antonioni and he once said,

'He's done two masterpieces, you don't have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up, which I've seen many times, and the other is La Notte, also a wonderful film, although that's mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau. In my collection I have a copy of Il Grido, and damn what a boring movie it is. So devilishly sad, I mean. You know, Antonioni never really learned the trade. He concentrated on single images, never realising that film is a rhythmic flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his films. But I don't feel anything for L'Avventura, for example. Only indifference. I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica Vitti was a terrible actress.'

I guess I might be a good lover if I have a chance. At least I know a few poems and films for this occasion:) Perhaps they are only helpful conditional on having a lover. Who knows.

To My Valentine by Ogden Nash

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That's how you're love by me.

2009-02-13T22:51:00.001+01:00

A first lesson in econometrics . For fun.

Finished the mock referee report.

Read Chapter 1 in Pissarides (2000).The basic points are:

(1) Equilibrium is a triple (unemployment, tightness, real wage) that satisfies the flow equilibrium condition, the job creation condition and the wage equation.

(2) Equilibrium for tightness and wage: higher wage makes job creation less profitable and so leads to a lower ratio of jobs to workers; at higher market tightness the relative bargaining power shifts in favor of workers.

(3) Vacancy-unemployment space: the Beveridge curve is convex to the origin and the other curve is a line through the origin.

2009-02-12T22:20:00.002+01:00

Attended a six-hour lecture on micro econometrics, basically a review on experiment and matching estimator.

Worked on the mock referee report for Hornstein, Krusell and Violante (2007).

2009-02-11T21:03:00.001+01:00

Read Hornstein, Krusell and Violante (2007). Got stuck in the technical part. Be patient and just take it as an exercise for fun.

2009-02-10T19:45:00.012+01:00

My short winter vacation begins with a visit to London for a conference at UCL and ends with re-reading parts of 'the powerbook', in the beginning of which VERDE was mentioned.

Here is a picture taken in front of VERDE's, located at 40 Brushfield St, Spitalfields Market. I am not sure whether the orange tree is Jeanette's idea. But fans of her works feel familiar with the oranges, although oranges are not the only fruit in the shop.

Everything is good. And I need to continue my work now. Begin.

2009-02-09T20:01:00.013+01:00

Some impressions of London. I am such a deeply superficial tourist.

2009-02-04T17:30:00.002+01:00

One lesson from a stressful day: never take the chance to play if it is a chance to study.

2009-02-04T08:47:00.001+01:00

http://www.sciam.com/

2009-02-03T20:55:00.005+01:00

Just noticed a well-written book: Pissarides, Equilibrium Unemployment Theory

Tomas' paper on strategic ambiguity was published on JPE. I like his style. Hope I can talk to him again when I am clearer about my idea of cheap talk.

2009-02-02T23:33:00.001+01:00

Got a few thoughts from a non-technical paper, second-best institutions.

2009-02-02T22:32:00.014+01:00

1. Behavioral economics in the morning, about hypothetical versus real decisions. Still doubtful about the methodology.

2. Recursive macro in the afternoon. Today is about matching model, with heterogeneous jobs and with layoff tax. Lars said good evening to me after the class. I am happy.

3. In the process of reading Diamond and Spinnewijn (2009). Peter Diamond will give a seminar here on Wednesday. Look forward to it.

4. Got some pictures of YuanYe's girlfriend. Very happy for him. When I saw him in Denmark last summer, I could not believe this considerate and handsome guy was once the little boy who dared not walk in a dark night.

5. Got another set of pictures of Dan's wedding. (Is February a month for love?) She studies at UC Davis and majors in trade theory. Perhaps I was the only one among our classmates knowing her marriage registration as she borrowed my red sweater for the registration picture. The wedding is expected, but still happy for her.

Good. This is a happy Monday.

2009-02-01T20:27:00.004+01:00

Got up very late. Called my grandmother. Then got to bed again until the loud talk woke me up. Don't know why they were talking (in French) just outside my door. I barely talk to anyone in my corridor. Just realized that different people have come and gone in the one and a half years. The corridor was Russian dominated when I just came and now it is French dominated. I am the only only that remains. Too lazy to move.

2009-01-31T22:30:00.006+01:00

1. Had my hair cut. I have never felt comfortable with my own hairs in my life...

2. Had lunch with Jan. He talked fast as usual with a slight German accent. I often failed to understand him when he was our TA. Later I found I could perfectly follow him. But I failed again today. This made me feel a bit nervous and hence talk even worse. Jörgen has kindly suggested me three times investing in speaking. I should seriously consider his suggestions now. I listened to a bit from the audiobook of the Brothers Karamazov. Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov...

3. Read a bit JW as I plan to visit her shop if possible when I am in London. It is always a pleasure reading her words. ‘Life has to be about love and life has to be about finding happiness where we can and not letting the shadows in our lives block out the happiness. I am having quite a tough time in some ways right now, but this has been a week of simple, contented life.’, JW, my week.

Sometimes I wish I could be very old. Then I might be not so anxious about my own life. But sense and sensibility may not be proportional to ages. I need to learn to be confident.

4. Read Chap 26 in Lars’ textbook.

2009-01-31T00:56:00.007+01:00

Watched Persona again. Cannot remember how many times I have watched it. It’s a recurrent dream or a poem in my heart, which would occur to me in many moments.

2009-01-30T14:17:00.015+01:00

Somewhat gossipy today...Don't blame me. Blame wiki instead:)

I was reading something about Ingrid Thulin during the lunch break. She married the founder of Swedish Film Institute, Harry Schein. He was a close friend of Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden until he was murdered when walking home from a cinema on Sveavägen. One of his sons is actually our course instructor this quarter, a very gentle, low-key professor. Torsten once told me they were talking in this professor's summer house at Fårö when they heard the announcement of Ingmar Bergman's death from the radio. Now I see why this is quite possible.

But this is unthinkable in China, where children of high ranking government officials have been eroding a high share of GDP throughout the CCP's sovereignty. According to this article, “As of the end of March 2008, 27,310 people in mainland China have personal properties worth over 50 million yuan ($7.31 million) (not including overseas assets); 3,220 people own over 100 million yuan ($14.6 million). Of these 3,220 people, 2,932 of them are children of CCP high-ranking officials. The total assets they own is over 2,045 billion yuan ($299 billion). It was verified that the source of these assets was illegal benefit via power and influence of their families. ''

I like an interesting paper on corruption, Fisman, Estimating the value of political connections. It would be interesting to apply to China too. However, where can I find the data? Sigh.

2009-01-29T19:54:00.026+01:00

Those in literature, biology and other areas are often surprised that we econ students spend two years on courses and exams like elementary school students. To some students like me, the first two years are actually easier. People even created a terminology to describe our anxiety after the two years, that is, ‘the third-year syndrome’. After the courses and exams, everyone stops and looks around to find some topics to work on. The start is usually difficult. Sometimes I admire those who work in labs as they always have some tasks to do. It might be physically tiring, but may not be so annoying as busy doing nothing.

My third-year syndrome comes a bit earlier as I have cleared the course requirement now. I am a bit confused whether I should sit down and focus on a specific question.

Talked to Torsten about my confusion today. He insightfully (as always) pointed out that taking courses is a therapy to avoid the hard part: research. I have started two term papers and basically have been stuck in the middle. So I should seriously think of a topic while taking a few courses as therapy. He also comforts me that every good researcher wrote bad papers when they just started their career.

Got the Development Economics II exam result and it is not bad. But besides the third-year syndrome, I might also suffer from 'Chinese-student curse' (defined by Ruixue, i.e. me...), which refers to the fact that Chinese students often perform better in exams than in research. I often know what will come in the exams unconsciously. I knew the answers of the questions without listening to the dialogues when I did TOEFL despite my bad oral English.

As one of a large population who benefited and suffered from the Chinese educational system, I am grateful yet worried. On one hand, exams provide incentives to study some materials. What's more important, they provide opportunities to people like me without any strong background to get college education. On the other hand, we are trained from the beginning to replicate others and tend to get lost once we are free to create anything. This might not be a threat in traditional China when talents were equal to talents in literature. Memorizing classical works will be helpful for writing poems. I have no intention to depreciate the creativity of poetry-writing. Even Mr Alfred Nobel hoped to be a poet rather than a scientist. (You can buy his poetry book in the Nobel Museum. Sorry for the quality of the poems). The online poem machine may help to illustrate my point.

However, in terms of social science (perhaps apart from law. Chinese are the best candidates to study law, according to Yi Shu) and science (economics is thought to be quasi-science, at least by overconfident economists), no one should earn respects because he or she can repeat what is known. I blushed myself thinking that I was once praised for my recitation of Pi.

You know, Pi=3.14159265358979323846…

2009-01-28T18:27:00.014+01:00

Another day of courses, behavioral economics (Laibson on psychology and economics.) in the morning and empirical micro in the afternoon. Courses’ qualities vary. So I have to read by myself for the empirical micro course. Anyhow, it is a good chance to carefully study Wooldridge’s textbook. I do not have any compliant about teaching qualities considering my own teaching experience. It is really not easy to be a good teacher.

I talked with Jörgen today. He is nice as ever. When I came to Stockholm, I was more interested in Ingmar Bergman than in my studies. His math classes changed me. I was often told that math is beautiful, sensitive, graceful, tender, harmonious etc. But I did not feel the beauty until his lectures. I was so eager to share my feelings with others that I decided to be a TA for him. The results turned out to be a disaster. I felt discouraged, guilty and ashamed of myself.

His words encourage me a lot. He also suggested me making sure with Torsten about my research. I am very grateful to him and really envy his students. On the other hand, I am envied for my own mentor, who is knowledgeable, elegant and insightful. Grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.

All in all, I became very lucky after coming to Stockholm. Today I even came across 20kr on my way to the office. But luck per se cannot save me. I have to work hard with a grateful heart. Hopefully I can get close to their personality and achievement some day. I often dare not talk to Torsten only because I am too ignorant.

Gym record today: 15 min on the treadmill+5 min on the ring+5 min on the bicycle.

2009-01-26T20:14:00.018+01:00

Got a reply from zichuan when I returned from a whole day of coursework. She said that we WILL be friends. I did not know whether you can ask a person to become your friend by asking him or her directly. I tried and it turned out great. I am very happy.

I did go to the gym, but I forgot to update my member card for the new quarter. Leave it to Wednesday. I am supposed to be busy this week as there are quite a few practical issues to deal with.

Lars' class is great as always. It needs both talents and efforts to be a good instructor. He has both. Will read Lucas and Prescott (1974) carefully.

Thanks to the people who make today a great start to 2009.

To prove my love of life, I decided to casually take a picture from time to time. Here is today's. It was 6:20 pm and I was waiting for Bus 40.

Budapest is celebrating 20 years since communism's fall.

kind of hurt

2009-01-25T23:50:00.012+01:00

I searched online to get what I wrote about The Lacemaker a few years ago, then I got here:

http://chrisnova.blogbus.com/

I don't know who she or he is. It is funny to see that fragments of my life are copied by others. Sometimes people may use others' essays without notice. That's not good but I do not mind so much. What's absurd this time is that I can see my life in the copies. I am quite flattered as she or he used what I wrote with different IDs in different places. Yet I am kind of hurt.

Please stop doing this with me. Please. Thanks. My life is really not worth your efforts. Forgive my rudeness. I guess you can never become Carson McCullers by copying others. You also make me feel bad about myself, which is so pale that can be covered by a few entries you copied: ridiculous application to central european university, eternal love of small towns, never changed self-pity when writing about any movie or any book.

To be honest, I did think that people in the art profession may be more reliable than us economists. Unfortunately, it turned not true when I got along with two directors. Now I even cannot depend on the 'art youth'. Sigh.

2009-01-25T13:28:00.010+01:00

Did not attend the get-together celebrating Chinese new year. Did not call home. I wish I could call someone but I know there would be no reply. The last thing I would like to do is to disturb others. Watched a drama again as it is available on Youtube now. Addicted to Youtube these days. Will quit it from now on.

A few resolutions on this occasion:
1. Go to bed before 12. Get up before 7. (I did badly recently as I spent too much time on Youtube...)
2. Go to gym regularly. (Monday, Wednesday and Friday.)
3. Stop eating meat. (I did well in the past days.)
4. Study hard. (Not very motivated recently. Let's start over. Besides, it is a good alternative to avoid loneliness etc.)
5. Talk more. (Talk with any one about anything.)
6. Walk around and take some pictures. (Landscape is what stockholmers can brag about. No one will laugh at my photography anyhow.)

Thanks to those who are reading this blog. Happy new year!

2009-01-24T21:16:00.000+01:00

a theory of misgovernance

2009-01-24T13:19:00.012+01:00

1. Watched The Samourai (1967) by Melville. It's cool, well-paced and everything seems under control. I guess Hongkong movies about killers are influenced by this style but they also try to touch the audience by showing that the hero is actually very gentle: he must be a devoted lover or an obedient son.

I love Alain Delon in Rocco and His Brothers (1960). There he was pliant and loyal. See, you can be both pliant and cool.

2. A Pascal quote from overcoming bias.

"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then... The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me."

3. 'Read' the photos by zichuan. Life is beautiful, after all.

2009-01-23T20:57:00.010+01:00

1. Listened to a job market talk by a MIT candidate. Really not easy to give a good presentation. He made the audience laugh once, at least.

2. Had a coffee break with Martin. He is a nice friend and always encourages me as I am often not self-confident. He has a very lovely daughter, Greta, following Greta Garbo. btw, he is very good-looking. The Swedes are generally tall, healthy and good-looking. They are also aware of their heritage.

3. Listened to YN's research idea. It's hard for me to give feedback without reading the model. So I asked him to send me the model and hopefully can give him some suggestions next week.

4. Talked a little with WY online. He is one of my few online friends. We have never met in real life. Actually he lives very close to my campus in Beijing. I know little about his life except his essays and poems. He also encouraged me a lot, especially when I was at CCER. I wrote a few short stories because of his encouragements, but now I feel awkward in retrospection. Of course I am still grateful to him.

5. Read Rogerson (1988).

6. Found an old picture when I cleaned my bookshelf. It was taken when I just got the bachelor degree. My roommates and I decided to go to Zizhuyuan Park to take some pictures. None of us had digital cameras at that time, so we rented one camera from a store. The camera and the film were of the lowest quality. The color of the picture is even faded now. We had different thoughts at that moment and I did not know that one day I would miss that time so much.

2009-01-22T22:53:00.006+01:00

1. Went to a seminar on Development Economics. One student talked about her idea on aid and educational spending. The other talked about propaganda and civil conflict. Curious about his data set.

2. Attended a class of Empirical Microeconomics. Read chapter 15 in Wooldridge's textbook.

3. Thought about Recursive Macro homework. No idea yet.

4. Got two opposite suggestions about my course work. David said that I should not take so many courses and Holly suggested that I should. I can see somewhat Chinese bias...

5. Talked a bit with Heng on MSN and he told me FZ heard some good comments about me. I never met FZ here. Should work hard for this good news anyhow.

6. Read a Chinese interview of Prof Zhouqiren. I have to admit that I am very interested in the so-called 'blackboard economics'.

2009-01-22T20:22:00.007+01:00

If you meet this problem when installing ado file in stata 9: (could not rename c:\ado\plus\stata.trk to c:\ado\plus\backup.trk), type this line in the command window before installing:

sysdir set PLUS youradopath

prvalue is one useful command I installed today, which reports the predicted probabilities when an independent varible is set to specific values.

huppert andersson

2009-01-20T22:35:00.011+01:00

I was watching some clips of Harriet Andersson randomly. I could not believe my eyes when I saw this video. These are THE two cinema moments in my life and someone connected them! I really cannot believe it. I began to love Huppert because of the Lacemaker and it is still my favorite after these years. I keep it in my heart like a secret love. Many thanks to the video maker, who reminds me again that I am neither that lonely nor that special as an individual of measure 0 among such a large population.

monika on the wall 2-3

2009-01-20T21:31:00.006+01:00

Suddenly thought of this picture tonight.

This pic was taken when I was at Fårö. I did not buy this shirt because I can never wear a shirt with this line: come with me and dance tonight...

presentation day

2009-01-20T21:08:00.007+01:00

Not a good mood to do presentation today. It was not a disaster. I talked very slowly, trying to expose my weakness. The questions raised were expected. The problem is that I don’t know how to solve them. I am not sure whether I should pursue this idea anymore. A bit disappointed.

After the presentation, Karl invited us for dinner. It is quite common in China but very rare here that a professor invites students for dinner. I talked little but drank a lot. Karl told some jokes, one of which was about Slavoj Zizek. The last book I read when I was in China is ‘everything you always wanted to know about Lacan: (but were afraid to ask Hitchcock)’. But I don’t remember anything. A related joke from Karl is about a comment by some philosopher who claimed that economists only write incomprehensible papers with complex mathematics whereas they philosophers can write incomprehensible papers only with words.

What I learned today is that I should try to be constructive as a discussant. It's easy to point out problems. What's difficult is to be helpful in solving them.

monday and a snowing day

2009-01-19T19:58:00.006+01:00

I had two classes in Behavioral Economics from 10.15 to 12 and from 13.15 to 15, then Recursive Macro from 15.15 to 18. I would have been very tired if the macro lecturer were not Lars Ljungqvist. Currently I am not so interested in macro labor. I take this course only because he is such a good teacher and I would like to do some recursive exercises. Today’s exercise is a research question: try to think of a divisible labor model with heterogeneous agents in complete markets which might be isomorphic to the indivisible labor model.

Behavioral Economics is interesting, I would say. However, I find it hard to be convinced by those experiments. Take the most simple ultimatum game for example: I think the scale matters a lot. For 100 SEK, I would reject any less than 20 as a receiver. But for 1000000 SEK, I would accept 1000 SEK. btw, I got 30 SEK from the experiment because the other student offered a 70'30 split. As a person who has never won any lottery, I am quite lucky today.

I should email Jorgen tonight no matter he replies or not, which will not affect my admiration of him.

writing a letter

2009-01-18T17:33:00.013+01:00

'Dear you, I am writing to you because I am low.'
This is a bad beginning. Why do I think of turning to you when I am depressed? Perhaps I should write:
'I am writing to you to let you know I miss you.'
This sounds too sentimental. Perhaps I can start with weather:
'This winter is much colder than last one. It snows a lot.'
This is silly.
Or
'I dreamed of you again last night. Not a bad dream.'
This sounds like a lie. I dreamed of you, but I cannot remember what happened.

So in the end, I wrote nothing.

monika on the wall

2009-01-17T23:02:00.011+01:00

This pic was taken in Lisbon by Goncalo Lopes.

The Harriet Andersson I met in real life has changed so much that I even could not connect her with Monika and Agnes, the two angels.

Today I reflected a bit about my life in Stockholm. I made an irrational choice rationally. I am grateful to the city which gave me a chance to start over. I had never thought that I would be so interested in economics as now I am. But I did not make any progress in watching movies. (Not bad actually.) Swedish cinema to me, is still composed of two types: Bergman films and non-Bergman films. Swedish actresses are also of two types: those with a flavor of Harriet Andersson and those without a flavor of Harriet Andersson.

a survey

2009-01-17T21:24:00.005+01:00

Information acquisition and decision making in committees: A survey

Gerling et al, 2005, EJPE

test

2009-01-17T17:38:00.008+01:00

The paper I will discuss in the conference is a simple model about strategic voting in the context of collective decision making. For instance, when there is a policy to vote for or against, some agents prefer to wait for more information while some agents will vote directly. The prior beliefs, the quality and signals as well as agents' preference might influence the decision. I enjoyed reading it. He dealt with calculating voting share in a simple and good way, although he might have made a few mistakes.

The author is a student of Antoni Calvó-Armengol, a rising star that unfortunately and unexpectedly disappeared at the age of 37. Two of his papers were published on RES after his death. So what? Sigh. Don't work too much, my friends. Besides studying hard, I should walk around Stockholm a bit this year, say, visiting some gardens. The motto of the owner is 'Det är gott att leva....trots allt!' = 'It is good to live...after all'.