Singer and Easterly

Well worth 46 minutes on Boxing Day

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Excellent Hamilton post

On stock prices (also read the November 2008 and Spring 2009 posts)

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Happy Holidays/Buone Feste

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The Onion, Egyptian Style

Here

Thanks to EJ

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JB on DM

Here. methink: he too kind. But at least he says:

Moyo is less convincing, however, when she tries to argue that aid itself has been the crucial factor holding Africa back, and she verges on deliberate provocation when she proposes terminating all aid within five years -- a proposal that is both impractical (given existing long-term commitments) and unhelpful (since an abrupt withdrawal of aid would leave chaos in its wake).

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Ramadan and Child Health

The effects of maternal fasting during Ramadan on birth and adult outcomes

Douglas Almond, Bhashkar Mazumder

Abstract

We use the Islamic holy month of Ramadan as a natural experiment for evaluating the short and long-term effects of fasting during pregnancy. Using Michigan natality data we show that in utero exposure to Ramadan among Arab births results in lower birthweight and reduced gestation length. Preconception exposure to Ramadan is also associated with fewer male births. Using Census data in Uganda we also find that Muslims who were born nine months after Ramadan are 22 percent (p =0.02) more likely to be disabled as adults. Effects are found for vision, hearing, and especially for mental (or learning) disabilities. This may reflect the persistent effect of disruptions to early fetal development. We find no evidence that negative selection in conceptions during Ramadan accounts for our results. Nevertheless, caution in interpreting these results is warranted until our findings are corroborated in other settings. ; Not for Citation.. Prenatal care ; Ramadan ; Fasting (Islam)

Publication details

Download http://www.chicagofed.org/publications/workingpapers/wp2007_22.pd

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Intellectuals and the Crisis

Here's the list. Claudio Borio is missing

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Feynman on rubber bands

the great physicist talks like a character from "The Sopranos"

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Worse than losing your computer in a taxi

Lily Sussman's story
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Surely

Surely, no sentence beginning with the word ‘surely’ can validly contain a question mark at its end? However, one paradox is enough for one article …” This was Paul Samuelson
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Ultimate proof that I am not a materialistic guy

Assume I could pick whoever I want for a date. Who would I pick? My first choice would da wife, but that's too easy. Assume I could pick anybody but da wife, who would I pick? Would I pick a hot top model? Would I pick the sexiest minister in the whole world? Of course not! I would pick Lucy, who else can direct me to websites like this? Check out the spider story, the logo story, and the party story.

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Paul Samuelson passed away

Here's Krugman
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Strange and interesting places

Here

This place is not too far from Cafasse

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Back from Beirut...

The traffic is out of control, people claim that it is because the city has now several working traffic lights. Here is Dani Rodrik on traffic lights and institutions.
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On Marriage

This will be my reading on the flight to Beirut (need to print one for da wife)

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Website I shoudl check daily

The browser (thanks to manu manu)
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Capitalism, a love story

While I share Alberto Bisin's view on the movie, I did learn a few things from it. The most shoking were pilot pays and the most intersting was the plutonomy memo. The clip about Rogoff was unfair but very funny.

By the way, the Poutonomy memo says that Italy is the only plutonomy in continental Europe. So Anglo-Saxon countries are plutonomic and efficient, Continental Europe is more egualitarian but maybe less efficient and then there is Italy that magaes to get the worst of both worlds:

The U.S., UK, and Canada are world leaders in plutonomy.... Countries and regions that are not plutonomies: Scandinavia, France, Germany, other continental Europe (except Italy), and Japan.

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For the price of a one bedroom apartment in Geneva

Here's the story

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Nudge

Just finished reading the book and liked it a lot. Here's the website

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dr. wHo

Read the interview. Here is the blog. An here is a picture.

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Housing Bubble in Geneva

I've been claiming that there's in housing bubble in Geneva and that price will fall (here and here) and I've been trying to do an econometric study but I've not been able to get data, but look at this for the US, doesn't it look like a Geneva story?

Dastrup and Carson look at how the magnitudes of the price declines correlate with a number of other community characteristics such as overbuilding (as measured by growth in building permits relative to the local labor force), extent of subprime lending, owner-occupied units, and fundamentals such as median income. Dastrup and Carson find that all of these measures were statistically significantly related to the magnitude of the housing price decline. But by far the most important variable was the magnitude of the previous price run-up, which all by itself can account for more than half of the observed variance in the size of the price decline across different communities.

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Hei, da wife has a Ph.D!!!!

Swedish scientists have discovered that long life and good health have nothing to do with a man’s education and everything to do with his wife’s. Men married to smart women live longer — simple.

Found on MR

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The are shutting down..

..The Blade (check out the purple shirts). Too bad, it was a great DC institution even for the straight readers (I was once reading a copy on park bench in Dupont, somebody sat next to me, but when he was what I was reading he moved away quickly)

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How to dress for an audition...

...for a Libyan party

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Fashion blogs

Bryanboy; Sartorialist; Talvi (13-yrs old); Face hunter (swiss based); Garance Dore; The Cut; Threadbanger; A continuous lean; Fashion is spinach; Disney roller girl

The Full article is here

For SiL Nadine

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