Ron Oaxaca visited the economics department on friday and gave a talk on monopsonistic labor market discrimination. The Ronald Oaxaca*. At the beginning of the seminar he described some additional results in the presentation but not in the paper as bonus features similar to those included on a movie DVD.
Now, I'm sure that I'm well known for my insightful comments at seminars. I remember grilling Tim Haab about not including income in a conditional logit model of recreation demand (the answer is you really don't need to, and it is a pain, which I understand 15 years later).**
So, back to Oaxaca, I blurt out "a lot of times those are the bloopers!" I'm an idiot, sure, but to my partial credit it got some laughs. And, without missing a beat, Oaxaca described how I might be right and then gave a great talk.
*I wanted to have this Chris Farley conversation with him:
Me: remember that one paper you wrote?
Him: which paper?
Me: the one with the wage decomposition?
Him: yes
Me: where you can determine the difference in wages that is unexplained between men and women?
Him: yes
Me: whites and non-whites?
Him: yes
Me: that was great ... (slapping my forehead) idiot, why did I say that!
**Note: I'll never forget the two grad students at UK, listening to Hamersmesh give a talk with twins data, giggling uncontrollable because they wanted to know if any siamese twins were in the sample.
Funny, I don't remember that.
Posted by: Tim Haab | September 28, 2006 at 12:16 PM
was one of the two giggling grads named john?
Posted by: mark | September 28, 2006 at 10:06 PM
oh, and for those who do not remember "the chris farley show" you can read a transcript of his interview with alec baldwin.
Posted by: mark | September 28, 2006 at 10:11 PM
Nope, it wasn't me this time!
Posted by: John Whitehead | September 28, 2006 at 10:13 PM