Assorted Links

China's Economy and Top 25 economic blogs

2009-07-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

I am trying to be not so biased about China in every way. So, recently I've paid attention on China's stimulus package and its impact on the world economy. Just as Marx said that economy is the base infrastructure of the society; today it's probably even the common shared language for international relations and foreign policies.

It seems to work pretty well this far. There are a lot of positive reports coming out these two days, though I am still suspicious for China's government reports, it's still a sign. What's the short-term and long-term effect on the cross-trait relation? How should we, Taiwanese, deal with the surging pressure of unification?

Financial Times: China on track to meet GDP targets. (link1)

Economist: China's recovery. (link2)

The New Republic: Chinese save the world? (link3)

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Here's WSJ's latest ranking of economic blogs. (link4)

How to read those blogs? (link5)

Debates on Causal Inference

2009-07-14T17:33:00.001-07:00

Assorted links on causal inference

I've been reading articles and books on this topic and it makes me rethink why I decide to devout myself into the stats world. The debates are still going on and we can see several big names making great comments. Thanks to Prof. Gelman and technology, we don't have to travel across the country to listen to the inspirational lectures.

All starts from Andrew Gelman's blog entries and still continues.

1. Revolving disputes between J. Pearl and D. Rubin on causal inference (link1)
2. More on Pearl's and Rubin's framework for causal inference (link2) (link3)

3. Causal inference and Bayesian (link4)

4. Prof. J. Pearl's response (link5)

Recently I've started learning some Bayesian methods, and it's always fun to learn something new. But I have doubts on several issues especially about causal inference. One of the common critiques on Bayesian methods is the concern of making up data, but it's not a real issue for me. The main concern lies in making up causality from probability.

I am still new to Bayesian methods and will keep on reading more related articles to figure it out.

How about Neurosociology?

2009-07-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

It turns out that I am not the only one who have the idea about putting neuroscience and sociology together. Here's the brilliant must-read blog entry: Neurosociology.

Economists have collaborated with cognitive science for a while, for example, behavioral economics, how about Sociologists? I guess when it comes to the conjunction of biology and sociology that sociologists will be highly suspicious of social Darwinism. But doesn’t brain function matter in social life?

There's an article on Economists that said Martha Farah at U of Penn worked with neurologists on the effects of poverty during childhood on the development of depression in later period. It implied that poverty at early age will have negative affect on the brain function especially on emotional expressions. (Link to the article) In a nutshell, poverty might be one of the causes of depression. It is good to see clash between sociology and neuroscience, and I expect more related research to come. What other possible research question may arise?
From micro-perspective, the social interactionism, Dramaturgy, decision making, learned helplessness, violence and so on.

Macro-perspective: how inequality and stratification sustain? How does the brain/individual/community cope with less advantageous situation?

Here comes a concern, be careful of the argument about if there are differences between male and female brain functions. Because most of the time social scientists, especially economists, borrow ideas directly from neuroscience fields without realizing the ideology of racism and sexism buried in scientific languages.

Assorted Links and Notes

2009-07-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

This blog will mainly play as my everyday notes on readings and to keep track some interesting ongoing topics, especially on methodology stuff.