moon

moon,
originally uploaded by rxjia.

back to work

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.

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...

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

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.

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...

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.