1. For those interested in maximum likelihood estimation techniques, Vincent Granville discusses the method of steepest ascent in relation to Google's search algorithm.
2. The Economist: "Only a few fast-developing countries, such as Brazil and China, now seem short of PhDs."
3. U.S. Council of Graduate Schools: The Ph.D. Completion Project
4. Yesterday it was announced that Irish property prices fell back to 2002 levels in 2010, according to reports from MyHome.ie and Sherry Fitzgerald; so it is interesting to read this SSISI paper (2007) by P.J. Drudy which "argues that Ireland’s housing problems stem in part from a particular philosophical orientation which supports the 'commodification' of housing".
5. The (U.K.) Royal Statistical Society "Get Stats" Campaign: 'giving everyone the skills and confidence to use numbers well'.
6. Researchers at Harvard have found a way of using the iPhone to measure people’s moods and have found a correlation between daydreaming and unhappiness.
7. The new Happiness Index to gauge Britain's national mood.
8. The regional impacts of Northern Irish HEIs.
9. Tom McKenzie and Dirk Sliwka: Universities as Stakeholders in their Students' Careers: On the Benefits of Graduate Taxes to Finance Higher Education.
10. CNN Money: Should companies offer sabbaticals?
11. Damien Mulley: "Failure" and Enterprise Culture in Ireland.
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Google Refine: A power tool for working with messy data
A story on Mashable tells us that "if you live for data, slave over spreadsheets and constantly find yourself sifting through endless rows and columns of facts and figures, Google’s got a lovely new product just for you — and it’s free and open-source, too." The product in question is Google Refine: a tool for cleaning up data, and more. I watched the introductory video on this new piece of kit; it seems to be developed to a very high standard.
However, I would not recommend Refine to graduate students conducting empirical research. As we have mentioned before on the blog, in academic research it is crucial to keep a record of any changes made to a data-set using the syntax-editors available in most software packages. Nonetheless, Google Refine could be extremely useful for undergraduate projects or for data-analysts who only use Excel. One appealing feature for security-conscious users is that the program must be downloaded, which means that the data is never on the web.
For more sophisticated data-handling, the first thing that comes to mind is Scott Long's recent book on "The Workflow of Data Analysis". This is an excellent starting-point for anyone looking to go about best practice in their research. Also, Daniel Hamermesh has a paper on replication in economics, that is arguably a must-read for graduate students beginning a program in empirical economics. An IZA WP version of the Hamermesh article is available here: Replication in Economics. The most recent discussion of data-issues on this blog (including workflow, publication bias, replication, retractions and empirical controversies) is available here.
However, I would not recommend Refine to graduate students conducting empirical research. As we have mentioned before on the blog, in academic research it is crucial to keep a record of any changes made to a data-set using the syntax-editors available in most software packages. Nonetheless, Google Refine could be extremely useful for undergraduate projects or for data-analysts who only use Excel. One appealing feature for security-conscious users is that the program must be downloaded, which means that the data is never on the web.
For more sophisticated data-handling, the first thing that comes to mind is Scott Long's recent book on "The Workflow of Data Analysis". This is an excellent starting-point for anyone looking to go about best practice in their research. Also, Daniel Hamermesh has a paper on replication in economics, that is arguably a must-read for graduate students beginning a program in empirical economics. An IZA WP version of the Hamermesh article is available here: Replication in Economics. The most recent discussion of data-issues on this blog (including workflow, publication bias, replication, retractions and empirical controversies) is available here.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Economics at Yahoo!
I've blogged before about Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google, and how his role in the organisation has been central to Google's business model. I have also mentioned pioneering work at Yahoo! Research on the effectiveness of online advertising, the battle between Google, Yahoo! and Bing in the economics of internet search, and the statement by Yahoo! Research that they routinely compete for talent with the top ten economics departments in the world.
However, it has only now come to my attention that Varian has a counterpart at Yahoo! The economist in question is Preston McAfee, on leave from the position of J. Stanley Johnson Professor of Business, Economics, and Management at the California Institute of Technology. At Yahoo!, Professor McAfee is Vice President and Research Fellow at Yahoo! Research in Burbank, CA, where he leads a group focused on microeconomics research. Here is a list of recent publications from the Microeconomics and Social Systems cluster at Yahoo!
Professor McAfee wrote Introduction to Economic Analysis, a free, open-source text that spans both principles and intermediate microeconomics. In 1994, the FCC in the USA auctioned access to a number of radio frequencies for new communications services, using an auction designed by Paul Milgrom, Robert B. Wilson, and Professor McAfee, and raised over $17 billion. This auction design was copied around the world. McAfee, Milgrom, Wilson and John McMillan (1951-2007) formed a company, Market Design, Inc., that advises governments on how to maximize the return from sales of radio frequencies, mineral rights, airports, and other assets.
Returning to Yahoo!, The Register magazine describe the company's Right Media exchange — a display advertising marketplace that matches advertisers with publishers and ad networks — as (by one measure) the largest exchange in the world, running over nine billion auctions each day. Finally, the Yahoo! Advertising Blog is also an interesting read; the current post - Mad Men No More - features a discussion by "advertising’s new guard" on how they are re-defining the industry.
However, it has only now come to my attention that Varian has a counterpart at Yahoo! The economist in question is Preston McAfee, on leave from the position of J. Stanley Johnson Professor of Business, Economics, and Management at the California Institute of Technology. At Yahoo!, Professor McAfee is Vice President and Research Fellow at Yahoo! Research in Burbank, CA, where he leads a group focused on microeconomics research. Here is a list of recent publications from the Microeconomics and Social Systems cluster at Yahoo!
Professor McAfee wrote Introduction to Economic Analysis, a free, open-source text that spans both principles and intermediate microeconomics. In 1994, the FCC in the USA auctioned access to a number of radio frequencies for new communications services, using an auction designed by Paul Milgrom, Robert B. Wilson, and Professor McAfee, and raised over $17 billion. This auction design was copied around the world. McAfee, Milgrom, Wilson and John McMillan (1951-2007) formed a company, Market Design, Inc., that advises governments on how to maximize the return from sales of radio frequencies, mineral rights, airports, and other assets.
Returning to Yahoo!, The Register magazine describe the company's Right Media exchange — a display advertising marketplace that matches advertisers with publishers and ad networks — as (by one measure) the largest exchange in the world, running over nine billion auctions each day. Finally, the Yahoo! Advertising Blog is also an interesting read; the current post - Mad Men No More - features a discussion by "advertising’s new guard" on how they are re-defining the industry.
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