I continue to welcome comments from those who enjoy entries, or find them useful. I receive enough such comments to continue to believe that there is a “remnant” out there who benefit from the examples and evidence that I try to highlight and make accessible.
That is what matters. But for those who like stats, here are some stats:
As of 7/11/11, the Palgrave publishing house’s ranking of blogs ranked mine as 96th among 481 economics blogs. (I do not know what criteria they use for their ranking.)
Gongol’s most recent posted ranking was on March 15, 2011 (he emailed me on 7/11/11 that he intends to resume the postings). As of March 15, my blog was ranked 48th among the 168 economics blogs in terms of average daily pageviews and 47th among 173 economics blogs in terms of average daily visits.
Technorati ranks my blog 22,426th out of 1,273,077 blogs that they rank on all subjects as of 7/11/11. (I do not know what criteria they use for their ranking.)
Category: Blogs
Bloggers See Bad Conditions for Entrepreneurs
The chart above and the one below are from the recently-released results of the First Quarter 2011 influential blogger survey conducted by the Kauffman Foundation. (Tim Kane gave permission to put the charts on my blog.) artdiamondblog.com is one of the blogs included in the survey.
The results above show a perception that conditions are currently tough for entrepreneurs. The chart below displays one of the main reasons: the current economy is perceived as uncertain and fragile. There are many reasons for the uncertainty, but one of them is surely that the bloggers have doubts about the depth of support in government for the institutions and policies upon which entrepreneurship depends (like private property, restrained regulations, and low taxes).
For a full PDF report on the 2011 Q1 survey results, see:
http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedfiles/econ_blogger_outlook_q1_2011.pdf
artdiamondblog.com Turned 5 on July 15th
The article image above is a screen capture from the online PDF of the article cited below.
I usually celebrate the birthday of this blog with a few comments, and sometimes statistics, about blogging, and this blog in particular.
I had thought once or twice about the impending birthday, but as the day approached had forgotten about. On July 15th my former student, loyal reader, and friend, Aaron Brown sent me an email reminding me of the date (thanks Aaron!).
For the month of June 2010, Gongol.com’s ranking of economics blogs ranks my blog 43rd in terms of “average daily pageviews” and 39th in terms of “average daily visits.”
In the spring the blog was receiving roughly 2500 – 3000 visits a day. In June and July, as of this writing on 7/24/10, it has been receiving 1500 – 2000 visits per day. (This is consistent with my guess that students are a large part of my viewers.)
The blog occasionally receives recognition. I was invited by the Kauffman Foundation to participate in their quarterly survey of influential economics blogs, and have participated in three of their surveys so far.
A small article appeared on the blog in the Summer 2010 UNO Magazine. A reference to the article is:
Townley, Wendy. “UNO Economics Blogger Gains National Recognition.” UNO Magazine (Summer 2010): 15.
Tim Fitzgerald took this photo which can be found online at: http://unoalumni.org/unomags10-thecolleges
Smithsonian and NIH Are Contributing to Wikipedia, But Will Professors?
(p. B2) Professor Jemielniak in the passage quoted below, asks why professors would ever contribute to Wikipedia since they already can get published in academic journals, and also have a captive audience at their lectures.
Based on that reasoning, Professors likewise would have little motive to blog—yet many do. Why? Perhaps because there is something satisfying in reaching a wide audience of readers who are not required to read, but who choose to read.
(Readers of academic articles are often few, and students at academic lectures are often captives whose bodies are present, but whose minds are somewhere else.)
(p. B2) In the United States, the Wikimedia Foundation has sponsored an academy to teach experts at the National Institutes of Health how to contribute to the site and monitor what appears there. And Mr. Wyatt said that other institutions including the Smithsonian had inquired about getting their own Wikipedian in residence to facilitate their staff members’ contributions to the site.
One talk here by a Polish professor, Dariusz Jemielniak, took a jab at the idea of experts as contributors. He said he had noticed that students often remained contributors to Wikipedia but that professors left quickly. His explanation was that Wikipedia was really just a game for people to gain status. A teenager offering the definitive account of the Thirty Years’ War gets a huge audience and respect from his peers. But, Mr. Jemielniak asked, why would a professor stoop to edit Wikipedia?
“Professors already get published and can lecture and force people to listen to their ideas,” he said.
For the full story, see:
NOAM COHEN. “Link by Link; How Can Wikipedia Grow? Maybe in Bengali.” The New York Times (Mon., July 12, 2010): B2.
(Note: the online version of the article is dates July 11, 2010.)
Britannica Imitates Wikipedia
(p. 209) Britannica had already launched a project called WebShare in April 2008, which was described as “A special program for web publishers, including bloggers, webmasters, and anyone who writes for the Internet. You get complimentary access to the Encyclopaedia Britannica online and, if you like, an easy way to give your readers background on the topics you write about with links to complete Britannica articles.” This was a rather radical move, obviously trying to vie with Wikipedia’s emergence as one of the most linked-to resources on the Internet.
But the latest initiative was something quite astonishing, as Britannica was now inviting users to be part of the team of content creators:
To elicit their participation in our new online community of scholars, we will provide our contributors with a reward system and a rich online home that will enable them to promote themselves, their work, and their services. . . . Encyclopaedia Britannica will allow those visitors to suggest changes and additions to that content.
Source:
Lih, Andrew. The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia. New York: Hyperion, 2009.
(Note: ellipsis in original.)
Art Diamond Identified as One of “the Country’s Most Prolific and Influential Economics Bloggers”
Source of graph: http://image.exct.net/lib/fef61175736207/m/1/Q9-Report-Card2.gif
The Kauffman Foundation recently invited me to participate in a quarterly survey on economic policy that they are compiling from among bloggers who they have identified as among “the country’s most prolific and influential economics bloggers.” I agreed to participate.
Apparently tomorrow (2/2/10) they will release the results of the first survey.
Below I have quoted most of a press release that they emailed out today.
(The Kauffman Foundation is one of the leading non-profit organizations supporting research on entrepreneurship.)
Top Economics Bloggers Grade U.S. Institutions that Influence Economy in New Kauffman SurveyWatch for complete results tomorrow of the first
‘Kauffman Economic Outlook:
A Quarterly Survey of Leading Economics Bloggers’The country’s most prolific and influential economics bloggers grade the institutions and organizations that impact the economy in a new Kauffman Foundation survey. On an A to F grading scale, the nation’s top economics bloggers give the highest marks to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and General Accountability Office (GAO), as well as to the “U.S. business community.” Central banks such as the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank got passing grades by most, with few A’s and many F’s. Similarly, the World Bank had mixed marks. The worst marks went to Wall Street firms (31 percent F’s) and the U.S. Congress (51 percent F’s).
Learn more about what these insightful analysts think about U.S. economic performance, policy, institutions, and the deficit in the first “Kauffman Economic Outlook: A Quarterly Survey of Economics Bloggers,” which will debut tomorrow, Feb. 2, 2010, at www.kauffman.org.
The survey was conducted in mid-January 2010 by soliciting input from bloggers ranked among the top 200 economics bloggers according to Palgrave’s Econolog.net. Ten core questions and seven topical questions were designed in coordination with a distinguished board of advisors.
Web version of press release:
http://view.exacttarget.com/?j=fe5916727d650c747316&m=fef61175736207&ls=fded1c77726707797712717c&l=fe5815757461007a7c13&s=fe27157476630575771d75&jb=ffcf14&ju=fe2f16767565027b701575
Castro Agents Beat Up Cuban Blogger
“Blogger Yoani Sánchez speaks at home in Havana on Monday, days after she says she was beaten by Cuban agents.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.
(p. A14) Yoani Sánchez, Cuba’s most prominent dissident blogger, was walking along a Havana street last Friday along with two other bloggers and a friend when two men she says were Cuban agents in civilian clothes forced her inside an unmarked black car and beat her, telling her to stop criticizing the government.
The assault, believed to be the first against the growing blogger movement on the island, has cast a spotlight on the country’s record of repression, highlighting how little change there has been in political freedoms during the nearly three years since Raúl Castro took over as president from retired dictator Fidel Castro.
A decline in tourism revenues from the global recession and damage from several hurricanes last year have prompted the island’s government to clamp down even harder on dissent and freedom of speech, according to a recent report by the Inter American Press Association, a watchdog group.
The group said Cuba currently has 26 journalists in jail, and it cited 102 incidents against Cuban journalists in the past year, including beatings, arbitrary arrests and death threats.
For the full story, see:
DAVID LUHNOW. “Beating Rattles Cuban Bloggers.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., NOVEMBER 11, 2009): A14.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated NOVEMBER 12, 2009.)
Richard Langlois on Why Capitalism Needs the Entrepreneur
Source of book image: http://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Industrial-Cpitalism-Schumpeter-Lectures/dp/0415771676/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1204828232&sr=11-1
Schumpeter is sometimes viewed as having predicted the obsolescence of the entrepreneur, although Langlois documents that Schumpeter was always of two minds on this issue.
Langlois discusses Schumpeter’s ambivalence and the broader issue of the roles of the entrepreneur and the corporation in his erudite and useful book on The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. He concludes that changing economic conditions will always require new industrial structures, and the entrepreneur will always be needed to get these new structures built.
(I have written a brief positive review of the book that has recently appeared online.)
Reference to Langlois’ book:
Langlois, Richard N. The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler and the New Economy. London: Routledge, 2006.
Reference to my review of Langlois’ book:
Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. “Review of Richard N. Langlois, The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler and the New Economy.” EH.Net Economic History Services, Aug 6 2009. URL: http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/1442
Apparently Langlois likes my review:
http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2009/08/07/another-nanosecond-of-fame/
“Richard N. Langlois.” Source of photo and caption: http://www.clas.uconn.edu/facultysnapshots/images/langlois.jpg
Today’s Middle Class Citizens of the U.S. Are Better Off Than Emperor Tiberius, Emperor Napoleon, and Saint Thomas Aquinas
In conversation at the HES meeting in Denver, Pete Boettke mentioned that the opportunity cost of blogging can be very high.
The passage below is from a draft of a key chapter of a long-awaited book authored by Berkeley economist and world-renowned blogger Brad DeLong. (At least in this case, Boettke is right.)
(p. 3) Could the Emperor Tiberius have eaten fresh grapes in January? Could the Emperor Napoleon have crossed the Atlantic in a night, or gotten from Paris to London in two hours? Could Thomas Aquinas have written a 2000-word letter in two hours–and then dispatched it off to 1,000 recipients with the touch of a key, and begun to receive replies within the hour? Computers, automobiles, airplanes, VCR’ s, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, telephones, and other technologies–combined with mass production–give middle-class citizens of the United States today degrees of material wealth–control over commodities, and the ability to consume services–that previous generations could barely imagine.
Source:
DeLong, J. Bradford. “Cornucopia: The Pace of Economic Growth in the Twentieth Century.” NBER Working Paper, w7602, 2000.
Today artdiamondblog.com is Three Years Old
I have previously discussed my rationales for blogging, in the brief initial entry to my blog, and in the blog entry celebrating the second anniversary of the blog.
Many human activities have multiple motives, and blogging is no exception. Today I want to focus on a secondary, but important motive for maintaining artdiamondblog.com.
A few decades ago, when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I was wise (or fortunate) enough to participate in a voluntary, non-credit, informal seminar offered by Deirdre McCloskey on research and (mainly) writing in economics. The advice expressed in the seminar was eventually expanded and refined in McCloskey’s wonderful essay "On Economical Writing."
One of the bits of advice in McCloskey’s essay is that in the research phase, it is useful to carry around some 4 by 6 cards on which to write quotes, and thoughts, related to the research. Good ideas would not be lost to failed memory, and in the latter stages, the card format lent itself to organization and re-organization.
I embraced this advice with over-the-top enthusiasm, not only purchasing a bunch of 4 by 6 cards, but even purchasing them in several different colors. (I may have already been primed for this advice by my days of carrying boxes of index card evidence around, when I was on the Riley High School debate team.)
Of course all this was before the days of the personal computer. I still carry around little note pads for the times when inspiration hits without closeness to keyboard. But most of the time, a keyboard is handy. There are software programs, such as Microsoft’s useful "OneNote" in which one can add notes, and organize them, in a private fashion. And I often use OneNote. But often it occurs to me that a quote or thought that seems useful to me in my research, might also be useful to someone else in their’s.
The cost of putting such a quote or thought on my blog is only very slightly higher than the cost of putting it down on OneNote, so I often bear the slight cost, with the hope, in the spirit of Albert Jay Nock, that some unknown member of "the remnant" will put the quote or thought to creative good use.
"You do not know and will never know who the Remnant are, or where they are, or how many of them there are, or what they are doing or will do. Two things you know, and no more: first, that they exist; second, that they will find you."
Source:
Nock, Albert Jay. "Isaiah’s Job." Atlantic Monthly, March 1936.
Recent Years Were Not as Hot as Thought
Source of graph: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.
(p. 19) Never underestimate the power of the blogosphere and a quarter of a degree to inflame the fight over global warming.
A quarter-degree Fahrenheit is roughly the downward adjustment NASA scientists made earlier this month in their annual estimates of the average temperature in the contiguous 48 states since 2000. They corrected the numbers after an error in meshing two sets of temperature data was discovered by Stephen McIntyre, a blogger and retired business executive in Toronto. Smaller adjustments were made to some readings for some preceding years.
All of this would most likely have passed unremarkably if Mr. McIntyre had not blogged that the adjustments changed the rankings of warmest years for the contiguous states since 1895, when record-keeping began.
Suddenly, 1934 appeared to vault ahead of 1998 as the warmest year on record (by a statistically meaningless 0.036 degrees Fahrenheit). In NASA’s most recent data set, 1934 had followed 1998 by a statistically meaningless 0.018 degrees. Conservative bloggers, columnists and radio hosts pounced. “We have proof of man-made global warming,” Rush Limbaughtold his radio audience. “The man-made global warming is inside NASA.”
Mr. McIntyre, who has spent years seeking flaws in studies pointing to human-driven climate change, traded broadsides on the Web with James E. Hansen, the NASA team’s leader. Dr. Hansen said he would not “joust with court jesters” and Mr. McIntyre posited that Dr. Hansen might have a “Jor-El complex” — a reference to Superman’s father, who foresaw the destruction of his planet and sent his son packing.
For the full story, see: