Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Oh Acemoglu

One solid instrumental variable*, and your career is set.  Article in Slate about The Hunger Games even makes a  reference to you.  The economics of the movie is all about colonialism, which I'm sure Acemoglu (and Johnson and Robinson) didn't come up with, but you get a few paragraphs talking about your research AND name dropping of your book.  Alas, I clearly just need to come up with an amazing IV and I'll never have to work again!

*For those not in economics, an instrumental variable is a proxy for a variable which is quite possibly correlated with your dependent variable.  AJR's paper notes that economic growth and institutions is a little chicken and eggy, so you need to find a proxy for institutions (in AJR's case, it's settler mortality).

PS.  Gone for a few days, can't update blog, and suddenly, my blog views are up like 30 views... I should publish less often.

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