Hypothetical Bias

How not to treat a journal referee

I was sent a paper to referee awhile back and given a mid-October deadline. I found some time last weekend to read the paper and wrote the review earlier this week after the kids had gone to bed. Next, I went to the journal's website to submit the review, logged in with the user name and password that they had sent me and looked for the paper number. Hmmm. Not there.

So, I emailed the managing editor the review and my recommendation. Next morning, I get a return email thanking me for the review, it will be helpful to the authors as they go about revising the paper, etc. And, well, the reason you couldn't find the paper on the website was because the editor rejected the paper yesterday.

Argggghhhhh!

Next time, at least with this journal, I'm waiting until after the deadline to even read the paper.

God economics, er, sociology

One god, four views:

We may be "one nation, under God," but Americans actually worship at least four versions of the Lord, according to the Baylor Religion Survey released Monday. "American Piety in the 21st Century: New Insights into the Depth and Complexity of Religion in the United States," conducted by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, leveled more than two dozen questions about God's character and behavior at 1,721 Americans nationwide. They perceived of God in one of four ways:

Authoritarian God: Individuals who follow this model feel God is highly involved in their personal lives and world affairs, they give the Deity credit for their decision-making, and they feel God is angry and meting out punishment to the wicked.

Benevolent God: These believers also think God is very active in their daily life, just not as wrathful. They believe Benevolent God is mostly a force for positive influence in the world, and reluctant to condemn individuals.

Critical God: The faithful of this subset believe God is not meddling in world affairs but is nonetheless looking on in disapproval. These people tend to believe that God's displeasure will be felt in another life, and that divine justice is not of this world.

Distant God: Individuals in this group think that Distant God is not active in human affairs, and is not especially angry, either. Believers consider the Deity more of a cosmic force who sets the laws of nature into motion.

Which of the God models you follow is an accurate predictor of a number of factors, including race, political stances, even where you live, said Paul Froese, a Baylor sociologist who worked on the BISR project headed by Rodney Stark and Byron Johnson.

Shouldn't that read: "Which of the God models you follow is predicted acurately by a number of factors, ..."?

For example, there is a strong gender differential in belief in God. Women, he said, tend toward the more engaged versions (types A and B), while men tend toward the less engaged and are more likely to be atheist. More than half the blacks in the study said they believe in the Authoritarian God. None surveyed said they were atheist.

Lower-income and less-educated folk were more likely to worship God types A or B, while those with college degrees or earning more than $100,000 were more likely to believe in the Distant God or be atheists.

Froese noted that the geography also seemed to correlate: Easterners disproportionately seem to believe in a Critical God; Southerners tend toward the Authoritarian God; Midwesterners worship the Benevolent God; and West Coast residents contemplate the Distant God.

Here is the study report: American Piety in the 21st Century [*.pdf].

I didn't drink beer alone in my room all week

Four nights in Lake Placid and the Saranac growler when unopened. In a burst of inspiration, I gave it to some grad students. My good deed. I find out that only AFS governing board members got the growlers. As if confirmed, I am a very important person, IMHO (president of the socioeconomics section, ~130 members, of AFS, ~10,000 members).

Some more travel notes at the AFS meetings in Lake Placid:

1. Coffeenerdness (with apologies to Peter King): I like a small coffee with two espressos shots (i.e., double red eye, black eye) when I'm conferencing. I hit the local, non-Starbucks coffee shop, and ask for same and get a weird look from the barista. This is a bad sign, the barista should know all the sick combinations. The guy at the register tells me $4.04, I look in my wallet and say, "oops, I forgot my discount card." A joke, right? He stares me down until I hand over the $4 and in a minor rebellion, I dig the $.04 out of the penny jar on the counter. The coffee is great ... The next day I hit the same spot. In line in front of me is a guy getting a blueberry muffin. He asks the same guy if he has a microwave or something to heat the muffin up. The guy says: "no" without looking up from the register. The following day I go to Starbucks. The double redeye is $3.50.
2. Why do some conferences charge $395 for registration in exchange for free mediocre food (and long lines) at nightly socials. The beer has been totally free this year, and good beer at that (see below), but still. The last night I bagged the social and hit Jimmy's 21, an Italian Restaurant. I went to Paul's Steakhouse first, sat at the bar for 5 minutes with no service and left. Great food and service at Jimmy's. A bartender from the sports bar next door came in and said hi to the bartender. On his way out he said "Hey, don't work to hard." Jimmy's bartender said "Hey, stay out of trouble." Classic male exchange.
3. Growing up in Boone, NC I've always appreciated the winter sports: skiing, ski jumping, bobsled, etc.* Sunday morning I took a tour of the Olympic venues. The amazing thing is the 12 year olds from all over the world doing flips on skis and landing in the pool and flying down the 90m ski jump and landing out astroturf-type stuff with running water so they'll slide. You can also take a bobsled ride on wheels (50+ mph).
4. At the first night social, two local breweries had the free beer. The Lake Placid Brewery had the long lines, hence, better beer? After the line died down I chose the 46'er IPA -- too citrusy for me. The short lines belonged to Olde Saratoga Brewery [be sure to click on the non-website, whazzupwiddat?], owned by Mendocino, where I visited early. I thought the IPA was awesome. Great to sip while standing in long lines waiting for free, mediocre food. I drank 17** of these 12 oz beers during the 3 hour social. Maybe that's why the Lake Placid IPA wasn't so great. Diminishing returns and all that.
5. One more thing: while standing in a long food line, a british-sounding lady had a plate of italian food (e.g., pizza). She offered me a slice (was I staring?). Embarrassed I say "no, thanks." Next thing I know she tells her friends that it is not that good and she walks towards the garbage can. Hmmm, what should I do? I let her toss it and then when she gets back in line I say: "You know, I would've eaten it if I knew you were going to throw it away." She says: "Why didn't you say anything!" I say (smiling): "I decided it would be more fun to tell you that I would've eaten it if you hadn't thrown it away." She gets the joke. Later, I see her at a crafty booth and we're looking at a bag of something that looks like those bags of shredded money from the Fed. I ask her how come they're allowed to sell pot out in the open like that. I then tell her that I'll leave her alone the rest of the night. The following night she offers me a mini-quiche from off her plate. I decline, gratiously.
6. I catch the 5:30 am flight out of Saranac Lake airport. I'm glad I gave away the growler.

Notes:

*I moved to Boone at the age of 41. In Boone, there is no bob in sled but we do have skiiing. But no ski jumping.

**Actually, I had 2.

If Wikipedia, Why Not Google?

As Mark Holmes noted in his first hypothetical-bias entry, the Hypo-Bias blogger, John Whitehead, likes The Simpsons hence the name, A Cromulent Economics Blog.  Mark also notes that Whitehead has an affinity for Wikipedia.  Although, The Onion, America's Finest News Source, has taken shots at the accuracy of Wikipedia (see Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence), Wikipedia can be fairly accurate.  According to an article in the journal, Nature, in terms of science, Wikipedia is about as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica.

What about Google?  I'm sure that Whitehead uses Google, Google Scholar and probably Google Earth (no hyperlinks here since I was hyperlink crazy in the first paragraph).  However, my attempts to push a gmail account and the associated benefits on Whitehead have failed.  What's the new appeal of Google's e-mail service/Google accounts?  Google Spreadsheets.  Stated benefits:

Get started quickly.
Import your existing spreadsheets or create new ones from scratch.

Edit your spreadsheets from anywhere.
All you need is a Web browser - your spreadsheets are stored securely online.

Share changes in real-time.
Invite people to your spreadsheets and make changes together, at the same time.

Anybody using 'em?

atvotfs

in ap american history, it seems like every other essay question began with "assess the validity of the following statement". i am abbreviation-prone, so this got shortened to the title of this post.

so the following assignment applies to the environmentally-inclined. (as my former college roommate might say, i am environmentally-declined.) in a recent letter to the editor in the [raleigh, nc] news and observer, an anti-global warming author claims that the news and observer presented a left-leaning slant on the news (shocked, SHOCKED, i say). 

so atvotfs:

First, ...future warming will be moderate and not catastrophic; second, that there is nothing that can be done in terms of carbon mitigation policy that would have a notable climate impact for well over a century, a point undisputed among climate scientists; and, third, that the economic costs of carbon mitigation, especially to poor people, will far outweigh the benefits. This last point reflects a strong consensus among economists.

perhaps our fearless leader should arrange for this to be posted on a much better blog than this one.