Income and wel-being

It seems that positive relationship between income and well-being is established more and more. Look at this and its references.

James Heckman

It is nice to see a great site about James Heckman’s equation.

On Stimulus, from Mankiw

I like this piece a lot.

Book on Empirical Works

Identification for Prediction and Decision

Charles Manski,

Harvard University Press, 368 pages, (January 31, 2008)

This book is a full-scale exposition of Charles Manski’s new methodology for analyzing empirical questions in the social sciences. He recommends that researchers first ask what can be learned from data alone, and then ask what can be learned when data are combined with credible weak assumptions. Inferences predicated on weak assumptions, he argues, can achieve wide consensus, while ones that require strong assumptions almost inevitably are subject to sharp disagreements.

Building on the foundation laid in the author’s Identification Problems in the Social Sciences (Harvard, 1995), the book’s fifteen chapters are organized in three parts. Part I studies prediction with missing or otherwise incomplete data. Part II concerns the analysis of treatment response, which aims to predict outcomes when alternative treatment rules are applied to a population. Part III studies prediction of choice behavior.

Each chapter juxtaposes developments of methodology with empirical or numerical illustrations. The book employs a simple notation and mathematical apparatus, using only basic elements of probability theory.

President Obama

This is an example of an excellent political speech.

The first post

The first post to test the blog.