tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51943122629634538202024-03-08T03:13:04.334-08:00DV409 Economic Development PolicySandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-33763512259485369322011-06-15T14:14:00.000-07:002011-06-15T14:20:29.746-07:00YOU write the next DV409 final exam!!Dear ex and soon-to-be-ex DV409 students,<div><br /></div><div>Now that the teaching year is over, revisions complete, and you have seen (and finished!) the exam, we'd like to hear from you what sort of exam questions you would have liked to see or could suggest for future DV409 exams? Give it a go - we will definitely use all usable ideas!!</div>Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-10137174259806608022011-05-23T14:27:00.000-07:002011-05-23T14:42:07.549-07:00Malthusian GrowthOne of the take-aways from recent growth theory reviewed in DV409 is that modern growth as we experience it (where better technology leads to higher standards of living) is a very recent phenomenon -only from the last several hundred years. <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1841274">Here is another working paper by Ashraf and Galor</a> that again confirms this surprising but profound observation. You can read the paper online and I reproduce the abstract here: <div><br /><div>Abstract:</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family:Trebuchet, Tahoma, 'Myriad Roman', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;">This paper examines the central hypothesis of the influential Malthusian theory, according to which improvements in the technological environment during the pre-industrial era had generated only temporary gains in income per capita, eventually leading to a larger, but not significantly richer, population. Exploiting exogenous sources of cross-country variations in land productivity and the level of technological advancement the analysis demonstrates that, in accordance with the theory, technological superiority and higher land productivity had significant positive effects on population density but insignificant effects on the standard of living, during the time period 1-1500 CE.<br /></span></div></div>Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-560421546465189932011-05-22T17:01:00.001-07:002011-05-22T17:13:36.685-07:00Alternative medicine and Statistics<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/18710090">A good article in this week's Economist Magazine</a> summarises the overall results from one Professor Edzard Ernst's career spent testing the efficacy of alternative medical treatments. Overall his team has found statistically significant efficacy for 5% of all treatments studied. This was reported by the Economist as evidence that 5% of alternative medical treatments were "truly" effective. <div><br /></div><div>But is this the correct interpretation of this outcome? Putting on our statistical hats, assume that NO alternative treatments were any better than placebos, and that Prof. Ernst and his team had examined their efficacy using a 95% cut-off for level of statistical significance. In what percentage of the studies would you expect them to (incorrectly) find that the treatment was statistically significant? (i.e. make a type-1 error) Ha ha!! Is that a coincidence??!</div>Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-79144041126356168072011-05-09T11:05:00.000-07:002011-05-09T11:05:12.830-07:00Supply and demand policies to improve educational outcomesThanks Anita and Linda for suggesting two interesting pieces on the challenges of improving educational outcomes in the developing world, and the relative merits of <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/19/three_cups_of_BS">supply </a>and <a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/04/08/freakonomics-radio-smarter-kids-at-10-bucks-a-pop/">demand </a>side initiatives.Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-1684151094492498052011-04-29T16:48:00.000-07:002011-04-29T16:59:31.037-07:00Albouy vs. AJRA major aim of DV409 is to show that our understanding of the world is in a constant state of flux and growth, equip students to continue to follow ongoing debates in economic development, and to enable them decide for themselves which arguments have more merit. To that end, <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1820078">here is the latest salvo in an ongoing debate between David Albouy and Acemoglu, Robinson and Johnson</a> (whose 2001 AER paper should be very familiar to all ID students!) ... Will this settle the matter once and for all??Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-65049240924504162332011-04-18T18:22:00.000-07:002011-04-18T18:25:08.482-07:00Study hints for exam timeAs everyone gets ready for exams, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/19mind.html">here is an excellent story in the New York Times</a> about the best methods to learn difficult material well.Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-55685046787858516442011-03-17T16:12:00.001-07:002011-03-17T16:16:37.070-07:00Are Trills the next big thing in development?The strategic use of 'Trills', or shares in GDP, is <a href="http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol7/iss3/art5/">an idea proposed by Mark Kamstra and Robert Shiller</a> that could help re-allign incentives and fight rent seeking in both rich countries and poor. It is getting some excited attention in the blogosphere these days - what do you think?Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-53306220637881572482011-03-10T18:27:00.000-08:002011-03-10T18:27:46.242-08:00The women effect redux and other unrelated linksThanks Anita for finding another <a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/03/whats_wrong_with_focusing_on_w.html">interesting article</a> discussing the pitfalls of female centered development projects.<br />
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And while we are on the gender topic...here is an <a href="http://ipl.econ.duke.edu/bread/abstract.php?paper=293">interesting new paper</a> on women, transactional sex and social insurance. Using diaries of sex workers in West Kenya, the authors find that regular clients are a main source of insurance against income shocks.<br />
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A <a href="http://www.pooreconomics.com/">forthcoming book</a> by Abhijiit Banerjee and Esther Duflo offers some critical insights on the main challenges faced by development policy today. Not sure about the release date but it should be soon...Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-70535118189062008542011-02-22T11:40:00.000-08:002011-02-22T11:44:49.628-08:00The definition of 'Irony'As some of you may be aware, the son of Muammar El-Qaddafi, Saif Al Qaddafi, recently completed a PhD here at the LSE in the Government department. <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B6TjDegBTuTeMGU1YWQ3MmQtZDA3YS00ZTU1LThmZGYtNTNhZDUyZDdlMDhh&hl=en">Here is a link to the full text of his PhD dissertation</a><div><br /></div>Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-67339261711562603442011-02-18T13:15:00.000-08:002011-02-18T13:15:08.375-08:00A review of two weeks of DV409Thanks Anita for spotting a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9369880.stm">review </a>of ALL the topics we addressed in DV409 in the last two weeks.<br />
It discusses the impact of microcredit, how supposedly productive loans are used to satisfy consumption needs, on how not everyone wants to become an entrepreneur and on how the poor need access savings instruments and insurance products....all courtesy of the BBC.Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-79554223652979429422011-02-17T08:25:00.000-08:002011-02-17T09:34:53.435-08:00Paying to go to the gym and other problems of self controlAs we briefly discussed in class today, consumers tend to be <i><b>farsighted </b></i>planners but <i><b>myopic </b></i>doers, a terminology introduced by one of the leading figures in behavioural economics, Richard Thaler.<br />
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Della Vigna and Malmendier <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/30034067">find </a> some evidence for this when they look at patterns of commitment and attendance of 3 large gyms in the US. Gym goers are often overly optimistic about the probability of going to the gym, subscribing to a monthly membership contract that is more costly in the end than any drop in or 10-class pass contract. You can find a summary of these findings <a href="http://zero-drop.com/?p=1441">here</a>.<br />
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H<a href="http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/01/24/gym_pact_bases_fees_on_members_ability_to_stick_to_their_workout_schedule/">ere </a> and <a href="http://nudges.org/2011/02/02/more-behavioral-economic-inspired-gym-memberships/">here </a> are even more extreme and sophisticated versions of commitment devices to address this problem.<br />
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Problems of self control go of course, well beyond gym memberships. A <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/var/ezp_site/storage/fckeditor/file/pdfs/centers-programs/centers/cid/publications/faculty/articles_papers/mullainathan/Self_Control_and_the_Development_of_Work_Arrangements.pdf">recent paper </a> describes a randomized experiment that investigates whether problems of self control apply to how people choose to be compensated for work. A shorter summary of the paper can be found <a href="http://nudges.org/tag/self-control/">here</a>.Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-426499661593425472011-02-17T04:19:00.000-08:002011-02-17T04:23:25.575-08:00The number of potential charter cities in perspective....<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="400" src="http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/180595_10150191579324968_516274967_8860581_3598725_n.jpg" width="600" /></div>Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-64944237498376335712011-02-16T10:13:00.000-08:002011-02-16T10:13:28.869-08:00Success or no Success?Here is a <a href="http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/african-successes">list </a>with potential to cheer us up...<br />
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A good exercise would be to carefully go through this list and identify whether we have reliable empirical evidence to believe any causal relationship between government policy and stated successful outcomes. This is particularly important in case these "success stories" translate into policy recommendations for a powerful and influential agency like the World Bank. For now, beyond the issues around causality and attribution, the most important contribution of this list is to shed light on the positive side of African development in recent years. This is important as general audiences grow ever more disillusioned with African stories of corruption, pervasive poverty and forseeable failures in reaching the Millennium Development goals by 2015... Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-52393609663575873592011-02-16T09:55:00.000-08:002011-02-16T09:55:00.078-08:00The Millenium Villages debate continues...<a href="http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/millennium-villages-project-continues-to-systematically-overstate-its-effects">Suggested </a>reading from Ingrid!Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-59826131336663764242011-02-14T05:47:00.001-08:002011-02-14T06:08:07.587-08:00The importance of low discount ratesAs DV409 students saw last term, 'high discount rate' behaviour in governance and policy making was a central focus of macro-development economics. However at the macro level, the underlying causes of high discount rate outcomes are still something of a black box (although there is no shortage of theories). <br /><br />High discount rate behaviour in individuals (or 'self- or impulse- control' problems) provides plenty of handy examples for illustrating the concept, but in the back of my head I have always more or less assumed that high discount rate behaviour of <em><strong>governments</strong></em> should be an instutitional, emergent outcome from the interactions of an array individuals whose issues with self control were no different from those of any other population.<br /><br />If you beleive that self control problems in individuals are purely genetic (and have little or no epi-genetic or environmental interactions) then that is probably a sensible conclusion. However if high (or low) discount rates in individuals are partially a cultural or learned behaviour, then it is not so clear. At least one recent cultural phenomenon, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/books/20book.html">the Tiger Mother's parenting manifesto</a>, certainly suggests that. <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133629477/for-kids-self-control-factors-into-future-success">Here is another story from NPR on a recent large scale study that illustrates the enormous importance of self control </a>for life success, and how this can be at least partially taught or influenced.<br /><br />The extent to which low/high discount rate behaviour is genetic, cultural, and/or institutional has important policy implications. We have seen empirical evidence for all three of these mechanisms - what do you think?Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-73837210507653535502011-02-10T13:42:00.000-08:002011-02-10T14:22:40.599-08:00Heaven help Economics!I still can't decide whether <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1754920">this new paper from world famous economist Robert Barro and his wife </a>(abstract copied below) is evidence that economic decision making permeates even the most unlikely reaches of human (and celestial!!) society, or whether it is just a sign of a coming apocalypse of macroeconomics into absurdity. (Related to Sandra's post below this, there may be a cautionary tale about marriage in there somewhere as well!!)<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div>"Saints Marching in, 1590-2009" by Robert Barro and Rachel Mccleary</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">Abstract: The Catholic Church has been making saints for centuries, typically in a two-stage process featuring beatification and canonization. We analyze determinants of rates of beatification and canonization (for non-martyrs) over time and across six world regions. The research uses a recently assembled data set on numbers and characteristics of beatifieds and saints chosen since 1590. We classify these blessed persons regionally in accordance with residence at death. These data are combined with time-series estimates of regional populations of Catholics, broadly-defined Protestants, Orthodox, and Evangelicals (mostly a sub-set of Protestants). Regression estimates indicate that the canonization rate depends strongly on the number of candidates, gauged by a region’s stock of beatifieds who have not yet been canonized. The beatification rate depends positively on the region’s stock of persons previously canonized. The last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI (the only non-Italians in our sample), are outliers, choosing blessed persons at a much higher rate than that of their predecessors. Since around 1900, the naming of blessed persons seems to reflect a response by the Catholic Church to competition from Protestantism or Evangelicalism. We find no evidence, at least since 1590, of competition between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.</span></div>Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-62908445446275643912011-02-08T13:50:00.000-08:002011-02-08T13:50:44.332-08:00Intra-household Dynamics ReduxFor those who are yet to find the usefulness of economics (despite DV409's best efforts), <a href="http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/how-can-economics-improve-a-marriage-ask-the-authors-of-spousonomics/">here </a>is yet another example of how it can change your life...by <a href="http://www.spousonomics.com/1544/2011/01/economists-in-love-dan-ariely/">helping </a>you manage your <a href="http://www.spousonomics.com/1821/2011/02/economists-in-love-colin-camerer/">relationship</a>s!Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-39709005360005885462011-02-08T07:44:00.000-08:002011-02-08T07:47:05.982-08:00Branko Milanovic on inequality tonight at the LSEI've seen some of this material before and it is all very thought provoking - highly recommended<br /><a href="http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2011/20110208t1830vOT.aspx">Link to the event information here</a>Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-72276410157484655702011-02-07T18:53:00.000-08:002011-02-07T18:53:18.018-08:00Ooops...self-inflicted perils in data collection<a href="http://intl.pnas.org/content/early/2011/01/14/1000776108.full.pdf+html?sid=2b770a2a-bb73-4ae5-a421-82ec84b9e0b0">Evidence </a>on how the very act of conducting a survey can affect our estimates of the impact of a policy. This adds to the list of effects we have to be mindful of when using primary or secondary data on agent behaviour: the <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hawthorne_Effect">Hawthorne Effect</a> (when participants in a study alter their behaviour in response to being part of the study) and the John Henry Effect (when members of the control group perceive to be in competition with members from the treatment group and change their behaviour accordingly)...Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-72569074283083061862011-02-06T18:10:00.001-08:002011-02-06T18:10:34.303-08:00Banking on the move<a href="http://www.mit.edu/~tavneet/M-PESA_Update.pdf">Here</a> is a new paper on the impact of mobile banking...surprisingly, mobile banking hasn't really taken off in the developed world but it offers great promise for a significant segment of the population in the developing world that still lacks access to adequate banking infrastructure.Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-20424636614907872212011-02-03T11:52:00.000-08:002011-02-03T11:56:45.411-08:00New trade theory, productivity growth and ...Ann Harrison!DV409 students will be familiar with the lead author of<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1749892"> this new firm-level study</a> on the productivity growth effects of trade liberalisation. What do you think? Should this become the new class paper for trade next year? I reproduce the abstract here:<br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet, Tahoma, 'Myriad Roman', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet, Tahoma, 'Myriad Roman', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; ">Learning Versus Stealing: How Important are Market-Share Reallocations to India's Productivity Growth?</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet, Tahoma, 'Myriad Roman', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet, Tahoma, 'Myriad Roman', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "></span>The new trade theory emphasizes the role of market-share reallocations across firms ("stealing") in driving productivity growth, while the older literature focused on average productivity improvements ("learning"). We use comprehensive, firm-level data from India's organized manufacturing sector to show that market-share reallocations did play an important role in aggregate productivity gains immediately following the start of India's trade reforms in 1991. However, aggregate productivity gains during the overall 20-year period from 1985 to 2004 were driven largely by improvements in average productivity. By exploiting the variation in reforms across industries, we document that the average productivity increases can be attributed to India's trade liberalization and FDI reforms. Finally, we construct a panel dataset that allows us to track firms during this time period; our results suggest that while within-firm productivity improvements were important, much of the increase in average productivity also occured because of firm entry and exit.</span></div>Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-55253953819016306562011-02-01T17:37:00.000-08:002011-02-01T17:37:07.791-08:00Of Oscars and Marriage MarketsHmmmm....<a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/the-oscar-curse-or-why-it-stinks-to-be-a-successful-woman/">another </a>unintendend consequence of female-centric programmes? How will the effect of female-centric programmes be determined by the size, segmentation and nature of marriage markets? Is this reason enough to stop focusing on females and prevent them from pricing themselves out of the marriage market? Or is there an alternative and more creative way to design policies that account for these dynamics?Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-73609191787321244132011-02-01T17:23:00.000-08:002011-02-01T17:23:02.939-08:00Unintended Consequences and Double Standards in the Girl Effect<a href="http://aidwatchers.com/2011/01/davos-man-meets-girl/">Here </a>and <a href="http://aidwatchers.com/2011/01/so-now-we-have-to-save-ourselves-and-the-world-too-a-critique-of-%E2%80%9Cthe-girl-effect%E2%80%9D/">here </a>are two interesting blog posts on how girl or female-centric development programmes can go awry. They follow from our discussions in seminar this week on how development policies should be take into consideration household dynamics and how they mediate policy effectiveness. And of course, the Davos comparison is priceless: an example of how conditionality may be needed to nudge people beyond just bringing a child to school.Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-12089099920108953072011-02-01T17:14:00.000-08:002011-02-01T17:15:31.684-08:00Natural Experiments with Foreign Aid<a href="http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1423538">Here </a>is an interesting paper on the rebuilding of Somaliland in the absence of any aid programme. One of the biggest problems we discussed about evaluating the impact of aid is that of omitted variables and reverse causality: is Aid going into poorer, more dysfunctional, or more promising countries/regions to begin with? Also, it is hard to think about a counterfactual: what would have happened to this country in the absence of Aid? We want this counterfactual to be determined exogenously though...if the reason why the country is not receiving Aid is because it has an illuminated, proactive leadership that is trying to show that the country can stand on its own two feet, then it is likely that these governance characteristics play a huge role in growth and development outcomes anyway, regardless of Aid.<br />
While the take-away point from the Somaliland's example should not necessarily be to stop all forms of aid - this may be politically and ethically untenable - it does call out our attention on how to think about mitigating the perverse incentives created by foreign aid, about how much of it is needed, about where can it have the biggest impact, about when it should replace a failed government and when it should just create an enabling environment for the government and its people to thrive.Sandra Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07225048631304120484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194312262963453820.post-57734110097342089122011-01-30T03:49:00.000-08:002011-01-30T03:59:58.973-08:00Crowd sourcing event news in real timeWhen television first appeared it revolutionised news - now people could see events, sometimes live, for themselves, albeit on the small screen. Then came CNN - 24 hours news that also changed the 'news cycle' and the way people consume information. More recently the ubiquitous cell phone video/camera and YouTube has further decentralised news provision. And now, perhaps the ultimate extension of this trend, a number of websites provide real-time crowd sourced information about events unfolding on the ground, with no intermediary (<a href="http://jan30sudan.crowdmap.com/?l=ar_EG">here is an example from ID PhD student Mareike Schomerus today - Jan 30 - on crowd sourced news on demonstrations in Khartoum Sudan</a>). From an econometricians' perspective the possibilities seem endless - what kinds of hypotheses would you test with time and location data on the individual actions that make up mass events?Diana Weinholdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694774800669845729noreply@blogger.com0