Monthly Archives: April 2008

Does Affirmative Action Work?

Posted on April 25, 2008 by

Marianne Bertrand, Rema Hanna, Sendhil Mullainathan present new evidence on the impact of affirmative action in university admissions – this time not from racial AA in the US, but caste AA in India. They find a neat equity-efficiency tradeoff, illustrating the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education | 7 Comments

Don't Just Start Early – Start With the Poor

Posted on April 23, 2008 by

Writing today in Eureka Street, Daniel Donahoo makes a key point about the difference between universal and targeted early childhood intervention. Key quote: At the centre of the discussion is the name Dr James Heckman. Heckman was the Nobel Laureate for … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education | 3 Comments

Women in Economics

Posted on April 22, 2008 by

My economics group (the Economics Program in the Research School of Social Sciences at the ANU) has a story up on the website this week, on the share of professors who are women. The good news is that the answer is … Continue reading →

Posted in Universities | 7 Comments

Summit Roundup

Posted on April 22, 2008 by

My AFR oped today is on the 2020 summit. Full text below (and remember – contributors don’t write their own headlines).

Posted in Australian Politics | 8 Comments

False Positives

Posted on April 22, 2008 by

I just recovered a dozen non-spam comments from Akismet. Apologies to those whose comments were caught, and thanks to Matt C for alerting me to the problem. If it recurs, please drop me an email.

Posted in Blogging

First Author Conditions

Posted on April 22, 2008 by

The latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) carries some extraordinary stories of drug companies writing research papers, and then offering to add academics as coauthors – without requiring the academics to do any work on … Continue reading →

Posted in Health economics, Universities | 1 Comment

Save the Stats

Posted on April 21, 2008 by

Just to echo what other economists have already said, the mooted cuts to the Australian Bureau of Statistics budget seem to me a false economy. As economist Barry Hughes told SMH journalist Jessica Irvine: This is a very bizarre time to … Continue reading →

Posted in Australian Politics | 16 Comments