Chris Blattman

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Links I liked

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  1. Angus Deaton and Nancy Cartwright release their essay, “Understanding and Misunderstanding Randomized Controlled Trials,” containing many important messages, not least of which include “don’t underestimate imbalance”, “don’t overestimate generalizability”, and “don’t forget that all that matters is changing our theory of how the world works”
  2. GiveWell is hiring a senior fellow
  3. This is what Dan Drezner thinks Nate Silver’s models miss (and why he is sanguine about Hillary)
  4. One thing the sites are not intended to do is to help women seek out multiple husbands — a practice known as polyandry. This is not because Mr. Chaiwala opposes the idea, he said, but because it is ‘not a viable business proposition.’
  5. Most pro-Hillary videos make supporters feel good about themselves without convincing anyone else, but here is an attempt to sway millennials by having a silly number of famous people act ironic (where Don Cheadle gets the best line), and here is a short, sometimes funny video of Zach Galifianakis interviewing Clinton, where he saves the best for last
  6. Like many colleagues, I’ve gotten my FINAL opportunity to sign a short and unimpressive list of economists “concerned” by Clinton’s economic agenda, but while my first response was to snicker and sneer, my second was to wonder how many are afraid to say they dislike Clinton because they fear the consequences from their academic colleagues

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5 Responses

  1. What shall we call a causal relation with none but local applicability (e.g. zero external validity)? Why, ‘anecdotal causality’.
    Another excellent contribution from the Deaton-Cartwright paper. Thanks for sharing Chris.

  2. It is good that you wonder about fear in academia.
    Those who are conservatives DO Fear the lying “liberals” who punish any and all who are not Politically Correct.
    Your support for Hillary and de facto intoleranceis at odds with most of what you preach.

    To support Clinton is to support PC censorship & intolerance of honest discussion, and support demonization of pro-life Republicans & Christians.

  3. #5 A bunch of unimpressive actors. But why do actors think they have some special insight into what is best? Sad that anyone would listen to them.
    #6 I assure you that if your name were somehow added to the list, its impressiveness would not rise. You and your blog are better when not arrogant. The latter part of your comment does reveal a hint of self-awareness. Why indeed would someone who hates Hillary’s policies and her lying, but hates Trump and his racism and lying even more, add his or her name the list, knowing they would then be mocked by you, or those more impressive than you?