Recently in About This Blog Category

The upgrade to MT4 is (basically) complete. I'll be tweaking it a little bit, but overall I like it. The design is one of the many styles in the MT4 style library.

I still need to figure out where I would like to put the blogroll. When I do, I will put it back up with some new links that I've been meaning to post for a while. In the coming days, I will probably find some additional widgets to add to the blog as I try to bring it (and keep it) up to date.

I have set up all of my course websites on a similar style, and they look so much better than the old sites I had. I built my first course website back in about 1996 or 1997 (I think I still have the html files buried somewhere), and have only made wholesale revisions to them in 1999, 2005, and now 2008. I guess that would make these my "Coursepages 4.0". They've come a long way, but still serve the same function. I do think that the blog format will support my course podcasts a bit better than the traditional web page, however.

If you don't see the change in style, just hit refresh. Your browser might have the old stylesheet in the cache.

UPDATE: It appears that the comments are not working at the moment. I'm working on it.

UPDATE 2: Comments are working.

It has been a month shy of 4 years on the blog, so it's time for a little upgrade. The impetus for this change comes partially from my desire to put all my course websites into a blog format (as opposed to the traditional web page). In the process of doing that, I figured I might as well upgrade to Movable Type Open Source for the main blog as well as my course blogs.

So stand by... there will be a change coming soon.

I've got a couple of presentations to make on Thursday and Friday and a full slate of meetings and classes. Light blogging continues until things settle down a bit.

Of the whole academic year, late March and early April always seem to me to be the biggest crunch time.

Just a little DNS hiccup. Most of you probably didn't notice it, but the site may have been unavailable briefly.

Nothing to worry about.

I'm working on some changes for the blog in 2008. Stay tuned.

Ta-da! We have our 1000th comment! And yes, that does include my comments. I try to have a conversation with people in the comments when feasible. It makes the experience more fun for everyone. By my count, I'm responsible for about 266 of those comments, leaving about 734 from my excellent readers who really help make this site what it is and give me a reason to keep doing it. Make that 737 from the readers as we are actually at 1003 as I write this.

So who was #1000? It was Spencer, who has been commenting on the blog since the early days (his first comment was in April 2005) and has contributed to the discussion 80 times, or roughly 8% of all the comments here. (PGL of Angry Bear narrowly beats him out with a total of 86 comments, including the 8th comment the blog ever received back in January 2005.) Thanks, guys, for keeping me honest.

In honor of the 1000th comment, I thought I'd dig through the archives and recall some of my favorite comments. In some cases I'll just post the first sentence to two (which is usually the best part). Go read the whole thing if you care to. We've had a lot of long passionate debates over the last couple years, but some of my favorites were from posts where I didn't expect much, or at least I didn't expect what I got.

So here they are, in reverse chronological order:

Well there's a difference between liquidity which is water and that which is sewage. Perhaps what we need is an effort to clean up this liquidity, rather than keeping it circulating. Dumping more water into the sewage isn't really helping much. --Donna on this post about the recent liquidity issues

Wow. There must be some sort of market-friendly radiation coming out of Minnesota U. --Gabriel upon hearing that ticket scalping is now legal in Minnesota

Polley

I'm the guy from the other blog who said he wouldn't read this if you paid me.

But you sounded like such a nice guy i felt a owed you a look. --Coberly on a post that turned into a discussion on the rewards to education

I knew who it was right away. Love the commercial, love his voice!!!! --Heather, who is apparently a George Clooney fan

Polley is making some very good points and I find myself attracted to his analysis.

On the other hand... --Spencer on this post about free markets

Welcome to the Helicopter Patrol. --Stephen Karlson welcoming me to the ranks of judges for the high school Fed Challenge

Someone once pointed out to me that the existence of boring numbers can be disproven by contradiction. If there were a set of boring numbers, that set would include a "least boring number", which would therefore have an interesting property and thus not belong in the set. --knzn waxing philosophical in response to this post about the number 23

After interviewing recruits at the ASSA meetings, I really have to ask "What IS macroeconomics these days?" --John Palmer (aka EclectEcon) responding to this post and expressing a thought that a number of people have communicated to me as well

Off-topic. What's with all the silence? It's December. Time for a new post! ;-) --Gabriel, annoyed that I took a few days off...funny because of this post of his

Paper cuts. Absolutely deadly.... --Ironman upon hearing that J.K. Rowling was stopped by airport security for carrying on her Harry Potter manuscript

Since it agrees with my analysis I have to say good analysis. --Spencer proves that we agree once in a while

Yep - I was a Happy Bear this morning. AB may have to pull the plug on my posting! --pgl, giddy with excitement over February 2006 job growth

Yes, but he no longer has a boss that does not want good answers. --Spencer on Ben Bernanke's move from the CEA to the Fed

BTW, the real expense of popcorn is probably cleaning up after it. --Lord on the reason popcorn is so expensive at the movies

I had noticed the same pattern on my blog, but wondered why. Your story makes sense. --The Unknown Professor on all of the hits we get from ".edu" addresses when term papers are due. (John Palmer noticed it too.)

Oh, goody. Screw up a universally understood and accepted human interface. Just jolly. --Donna, who was unimpressed with smart elevators

Brilliant! --Calculated Risk with this blog's only one word comment so far. Here's the post. You be the judge.

And hey! Who is that guy in the suit and tie? That is a long way from the photo at the "economic geyser" in Yellowstone! --Calculated Risk again, noticing from my picture on the Econoblog that I do clean up well (I may be in a jacket and tie, but it was just a head shot...I was wearing jeans.) The Yellowstone photo is here, if you haven't seen it.

the ten year is under inflation?! aye carumba! --c. I guess that sort of speaks for itself.

Ice Cream. Mmmmmmmm.... --pgl again. Read the post and the comment, and smile.

Krauthammer nailed it. Your sophistry doesn't change that. --Brian on this post from the early days...you are not compelled to agree with the host

Well, that's the highlight reel. I hope you've enjoyed some of these blasts from the past. I hope that they brought a smile to your face because I'm just sitting here grinning from ear to ear thinking about what a fun ride this has been so far.

My readers share in the success of the blog. Comments are always welcome. We've already started on the next thousand.

And soon we'll be coming up on 1000 posts. I'll have another highlight reel then as well. Have a good weekend.

Traffic is double an average day with first time visitors making the difference. That's due to search engine traffic from merely mentioning the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. I'm sorry you found the blog under such circumstances. Minnesota is 2nd on the list of states accounting for the most hits on the blog today. If you are from Minnesota, be assured that I am thinking of my home state tonight. I have quite a number of old friends, acquaintances, college classmates, etc. in the Twin Cities, some I haven't seen in years. The chances are slim, but still...

In the coming days there will be all kinds of ideas about what should be done to fix the nation's ailing infrastructure. Andrew Samwick has a very reasoned commentary today as well as a pointer to this James Joyner piece. I'll have more to say on this later.

In the meantime, I welcome anyone who is stumbling on this blog for the first time today, especially those from Minnesota. Be sure to come back under happier circumstances.

James Hamilton (Econbrowser) did it for his blog. So here goes. (TouchGraph Google Browser)

Click the image to make it larger.

Seems pretty accurate to me.

Happy 4th of July!

I'm still here. There were just a lot of other pressing demands on my time for the last couple weeks. Among them were three trips out of town that required some preparation time before each one and not much down-time between them. The most recent was last Friday when I, along with a couple of other faculty members, took a group of our economics students to Chicago to do some career networking as well as touring the Board of Trade and Federal Reserve. We have a number of Western Illinois alumni in Chicago working in a variety of capacities and utilizing their degrees in economics. It is rewarding to connect with them and let them interact with our current students. Plus, everyone should see the closing bell at the Chicago Board of Trade at least once in their life.

The last few weeks also took me to Minneapolis for the Midwest Economic Association annual meeting where I finally met Phil Miller in person after knowing him through the blogosphere for two years. Shortly after that, it was over to Peoria for a presentation to some old friends at Bradley University's Economic Workshop for Clergy.

Of course, all this time I was also trying to stay one step ahead of my graduate students who have, with 6 class sessions remaining, surpassed where I ended the semester last year. I keep raising the bar and they rise to the challenge. That is the kind of work that I don't mind doing.

I have not been oblivious to the news of the last couple weeks. The release of the Fed minutes last week almost brought me out of hibernation, but ultimately realized that most of what I would have said would have been a rehash of what I've said before. Recall that in my last missive to you before my hiatus, I made it clear that I wasn't buying the market's interpretation that we could see a rate cut by summer. Last week we read in the minutes...

The Committee agreed that further policy firming might prove necessary to foster lower inflation, but in light of the increased uncertainty about the outlook for both growth and inflation, the Committee also agreed that the statement should no longer cite only the possibility of further firming. Instead, the statement should indicate that future policy adjustments will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth, as implied by incoming information.

That is pretty consistent with my interpretation. The market balked but appears to have recovered. As you know I have not been impressed with the market's ability to interpret the Fed's words. One of my favorite sentences I have written on this subject in the last few months is...

...would you want to bet any amount of your paycheck that a more balanced assessment of risks would be interpreted correctly by the market? (December 6, 2006)

So in other words, I didn't really feel like anything had changed last week.

But this plateau in interest rates cannot last forever, and I would regard it as fairly likely that rates will move one direction of the other before the year is up. So there will probably be some excitement this summer. We will all be closely watching the GDP figures as they come in, beginning with the first quarter in a couple weeks. And with my schedule freed up a bit relative to the last couple of weeks, I look forward to blogging as much of it as I can. Putting some time into other pressing activities was necessary, but it has refreshed me for blogging. One might even say that I'm hungry to get back into the groove.

Excuse the lack of posting. Last week, I took a group of students to compete in the "Fed Challenge" in Chicago. The Fed Challenge is a competition in which student teams present a summary of economic conditions, a short-term forecast, and a monetary policy recommendation to a panel of judges. Most teams structure their presentation as a mock FOMC meeting. I would tell you how we did, but I have not received the official results yet--all anyone knows is who made the final round and who won. I can tell you that we did not win--Northwestern University took that honor and will represent the 7th Federal Reserve District in Washington, D.C. at the national competition. However, our students learned a lot from the competition. This was also the first time that WIU has entered a team, and I picked up some valuable ideas for next year.

Last minute preparations and missing a day last week left me in "catch-up" mode, and due to some other obligations this weekend, I still have a day or so before I'm caught up. I have to grade some exams and write some exams--not the fun part of the job, but one of the obligations nonetheless. Normal blogging will resume shortly.

In the meantime, there's an election tomorrow. Here is a Slate piece by Steven Landsburg from 2004 and Tyler Cowen's response. I'm with Cowen on this one. People do not (often for good reasons) treat every decision as a rational optimizer. Sure, there's no payoff from voting, nor is there payoff from many of the things we do that seem to contradict utility maximizing theory. For example, I tip generously even when I know that I'll never be back at that restaurant. I call the highway patrol to report road hazards even when a rational person would figure that someone has already called it in. The latter is probably a pretty close analogy to voting. I'm doing something at a (very small) cost to me when I have every expectation that it doesn't matter for the outcome. I feel good about it, but that's not a satisfactory explanation. Putting warm fuzzy feelings in the utility function allows you to explain anything. I think it is more accurate to think of voting and other similar actions as a commitment to a social contract. Some people are more committed to the contract (willing to pay a higher cost to uphold it) than others. Those less committed free ride on those who are more committed. Years of observation suggests to me that the same is true on the public roadways.

So tomorrow, vote or don't. But if you don't, please do not pester me with this business of how it is irrational to vote. As for me, I plan to incur an extremely small cost to display my allegiance to the social contract.

I have not vanished from the blogosphere! I have, however, taken some much needed time to work on some research. I'm also working on a major change to my department's web pages. Hopefully those will be unveiled in a few weeks (the process is not quite done).

I'm working on a longer post about monetary policy and the Bernanke testimony. But I just thought I'd chime in with a quick word about what I've read. Tim Duy gets it about right when he says today that he finds tracking the Fed to be maddening. There is no doubt that Fedwatching was a little easier a year or two ago, but those days of easy predictions may have spoiled us a bit. This is the real deal. The answers are not clear. Well-intentioned people can disagree over the appropriate policy. This sort of situation (not the no-brainer decisions of late 2004) is why I've always been fascinated by the Fed. I think I find it a little less maddening because all signs have been pointing to this for the better part of 2006. Even though the Greenspan era will be long remembered for increased transparency, we saw at the end of Greenspan's term that too much transparency can talk you into a rhetorical corner. Bernanke has, I am glad to see, tried to avoid that. That's not a knock on Greenspan. Bernanke is standing on the shoulders of a giant, and I believe he can learn from some of the things that his predecessor may have learned too late.

So I'm not surprised that Bernanke was not specific about the possibility of future rate increases, nor am I surprised at the way that the market is interpreting his comments. Indeed, if he had been more specific, I would be complaining that it could make his job harder in the future.

At any rate, I've been leaning towards expecting another increase and then probably a pause--after that it's back to being data dependent for the rest of the year. I wouldn't rule anything out past October. And I'm not sure I would trust any prediction that does rule out any specific possibilities that far out. I am not ready to call it "one and done." I still think it's "one, pause, re-evaluate..."

So, even though Bernanke's testimony did move markets, it didn't change much in my assessment. Whether the markets overreacted or simply caught up to where they should be is for another day. I expect a lot of additional discussion as the August meeting approaches.

More to come. I need to attend to some other things this evening, but I will be resuming a more normal blogging schedule. Your patience is appreciated.

After some testing to make sure the transition would be seamless, I'm now running Movable Type 3.2. So far, so good. The most compelling reason for the upgrade is the ability to run multiple blogs from the same interface. Blogs for my courses will be coming soon.

I don't know how long it was down, but it's back up now. Yes, I'm in Macomb, Illinois, but my blog is on a server in California (LA, apparently). Read about the power outage here.

Performed some technical work on the blog last night and this morning. As it happened, my host was upgrading the server right before I started to do what I was trying to do. The end result was that my host's server upgrade took the blog offline for a while (at least half an hour that I know about--perhaps a little longer that I wasn't aware of). Then I did some work of my own and things might have acted funny for a while. All should be normal now.

In fact, I hope things like trackbacks and comments will work a little faster. We shall see.

This week has been filled with moving as well as finishing a paper that I had to revise and resubmit. Blogging can now resume.

How about this from the Wall St. Journal?

What's your major? Around the world, college undergraduates' time-honored question is increasingly drawing the same answer: economics.

U.S. colleges and universities awarded 16,141 degrees to economics majors in the 2003-2004 academic year, up nearly 40% from five years earlier, according to John J. Siegfried, an economics professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., who tracks 272 colleges and universities around the country for the Journal of Economic Education.

And the best part...

And as its focus broadens, there are even some signs that economics is becoming cool.

There you have it. Economics is becoming cool. Well, I thought it has been all along. The rest of the world is just catching up. But in all seriousness, there are some interesting things in the article about job prospects for all these economics majors (hint: they are good).

(hat tip: Marginal Revolution)

Time to catch up on some other things. Blogging will be somewhat light for a few days, but I am here and if interesting stuff comes along, I'll toss in my 2 cents.

DNS propagation continues, and more of you should be pointing at the new server. I would think that the transition should be complete sometime tomorrow. Oddly, my ISP still directs me to the old server. However, I have pinged the site from another account and it comes up to the new server. Go figure.

If you are reading this on a feed reader, the link back to the site will not work unless the DNS at your ISP is pointing to the new site. You might get a "not found" or a different entry than the one you wanted. Just wanted to let you know this in case it happens. This effect will go away once your name server updates.

If you're reading this directly off the site, there is nothing that you need to do. The fact that you're here is proof that it worked. The really important thing is that the permalinks, comments, and trackbacks are all preserved. So any links back to me using the permalink will function seamlessly. The site's URL is the same.

One more post before leaving for a few days...

Things look pretty good on the new server. There are some things that are improvements for me that you won't notice. For you, it should mostly be the same (unless you can tell that I upgraded to version 3.17 of Movable Type).

You might have found a "site unavailable message" for a while today while the DNS servers were updating. Also, there was one other issue that is now resolved (or should be soon).

In order for me to see and work on the site before the DNS change was complete, I had to mirror the site. Some RSS feeds got out with the mirror as the address. That's been taken care of. The mirror will go away after a while, so if you saw it, just ignore it. The URL of this site has not changed!

Permalinks and links to comments and trackbacks on the posts since the move to the new server may fail if you get here from the mirror site before the DNS change propagates all the way through the internet. That should resolve itself in a matter of hours and all systems will be "Go."

The process of moving the rest of my material possessions to our new home begins tomorrow. I'll probably be checking that the blog is working ok on the new server and maybe make one more post tomorrow. After that, I'll be taking a break from blogging for a few days. I expect the hiatus to be less than a week.

The only thing bad about that is that I'll probably be busy when the Fed meets this week. However, I think we all know what the result of that meeting will be. If anything interesting is in the press release or in the commentary about it, I'll chime in with my 2 cents towards the weekend.

I have moved the blog to a new server, but the URL remains the same. Updated Movable Type at the same time. The change should be pretty much transparent for you, the reader.

A personal note: As of this fall, I will be on the faculty of Western Illinois University. Various responsibilities associated with moving have been responsible for my irregular blogging in the past couple weeks. Actual moving day is still over a week away.

While I accepted the position back in February, I don't blog much about specific job related things. And although my colleagues knew about it right away, I didn't feel the need to broadcast it to the world until I was about ready to go.

Well, we're about ready to go. And we (that includes the wife and kids) are very excited.

WIU is in Macomb, Illinois--population about 20,000 located roughly equidistant from the Quad Cities (where WIU has a growing satellite campus), Peoria, and Quincy. Living expenses are low--we are buying more house for less money. (Are you listening, Calculated Risk?) I'm eagerly looking forward to walking to the office rather than driving. I'm also looking forward to teaching in the master's degree program. I really like the fact that the building that houses the econ department is next door to the library which was ranked in the top 10 among libraries at non-doctoral universities.

More regular blogging will resume soon. The next Fed meeting will probably be the focus of any blogging I do in the next few days. Oil prices are getting everyone's attention, of course. The "conundrum" continues. Home sales figures and durable goods statistics are due out this week too. The Social Security debate has quieted down a little. Support for privatization is waning. While I consider that a shame, it's also, upon further reflection, quite understandable. Before too much more time elapses, I'll give you my version of why (which may or may not agree with other versions out there).

The nice thing about the blog is that its address is still the same, no matter where I go. Lots to do, but also lots to blog about. I'll try not to get so far behind again (except during the actual moving days).

I'm not sure why, but it looks like comments have been slow to post. It's also taking more time for me to delete comment spam. Might just be a problem with the server. I'll watch it for a while and see if it gets better or worse and see if I have to do something about it.

When posting a comment, please just submit it once. Even if you refresh the page and it doesn't appear, wait a couple minutes. Refreshing the page usually brings it right up, but perhaps it wasn't today. I would like to know if there are systemic problems. Please feel free to e-mail me at this address, cleverly disguised to confuse spammers (wpolley at bradley dot edu).

Since we're on the subject and have some new readers, now would also be a good time to share my ideas on comments.

1. The purpose of the comments section is to create a dialogue within a community of individuals interested in serious discussion of economics and whatever else I choose to post. The handling of comments will always derive from this guiding principle.

2. Duplicate comments will be deleted. They do not add to the discussion. Same goes for trackbacks.

3. Comment spam will be deleted. This should go without saying. Same goes for trackbacks.

4. Critical, even negative, comments are welcome, as long as they are in good taste and contribute to the discussion. To date, I have not censored any comment, and I really don't want to either.

5. Comments are not edited for spelling or grammar. If I choose to quote your comment in a future post, I may do light editing of spelling and punctuation to make sure we are both understood.

6. My blogging philosophy is part scholarly debate, part commentary, part random trivia you might not see anywhere else, and part fun. If that's what you're looking for, you're in the right place. Join the discussion!

7. If you comment, I might respond to you by e-mail, in another comment, or both. If I don't, please don't be offended. I might be busy, or I might simply think your comment stands well on its own and doesn't need a response. I'm sort of hoping that in time I'll get enough people commenting that there will be no way for me to respond to them all. Then you can talk among yourselves.

8. When it's all said and done, I really like comments and trackbacks. If you have something useful to say, say it!

9. When in doubt, refer to point #1.

It's that easy. This blog has picked up a lot of new readers in the last few weeks, and it's important to say "Welcome!" to the newcomers every once in a while. Look around, stay a while, and keep coming back. I am getting to know some of you through comments, e-mails, and your own blogs, and I like the network that is developing. With your support, it will keep getting bigger and better. Thank you!