Author Archives: mkevane

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About mkevane

Economist at Santa Clara University and Director of Friends of African Village Libraries.

Who I Am & Why I Am Where I Am by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Not sure why I like this composition so much. pretty simple. Maybe because on my playlist it comes before Up With People by Lampchop. And hard not to like that, so the prelude feels very right.

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Kathryn Schulz in The New Yorker, on WIlliam Kelley, a fantastic short essay

I didn’t know who William Kelley was when I found that book but, like millions of Americans, I knew a term he is credited with first committing to print. “If You’re Woke, You Dig It” read the headline of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Burkina Faso | Comments Off on Kathryn Schulz in The New Yorker, on WIlliam Kelley, a fantastic short essay

Damien Hirst documentary on Netflix “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable”

Sukie and I just stumbled on this, and greatly enjoyed the documentary. Excellent viewing with a kid from 12-16! ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’. It is the first major solo exhibition dedicated to Damien Hirst in Italy since … Continue reading →

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Sometimes you wish you were an historian (but then again…)

From Robin Einhorn’s review of Gordon Wood’s various books: If Jefferson had known nearly as much about his society as Wood does, Empire of Liberty is the book he would have written. It is no coincidence that the title is … Continue reading →

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University of Chicago event on macroeconomy and tax reforms… Roundtable Discussion with Austan Goolsbee and Edward Lazear

Notes on Goolsbee and Lazear Interviewer:  What problems need solving through tax reform Lazear growth rate is way too low growth rate out of recession is low (both recoveries, historical standards) growth related to productivity and related to wages so … Continue reading →

Posted in Teaching macroeconomics | Comments Off on University of Chicago event on macroeconomy and tax reforms… Roundtable Discussion with Austan Goolsbee and Edward Lazear

Summary of key changes in tax code

Preliminary Details and Analysis of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from The Tax Foundation Analysis of Final Tax Reform Legislation, Corporate Perspective Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance Good summary of provisions from Cooley LLP

Posted in Teaching macroeconomics | Comments Off on Summary of key changes in tax code

A visit to Bougounam library in #Burkina Faso

FAVL program officer Alidou Boué spent a day at Bougounam library earlier this week.  Here are some photos: Zebret Moumouni, the librarian (who also decorated the building) in his hat at his desk (looking at a great Atlas in the … Continue reading →

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I have evolved to a proud Type 3.7 Stata user, but know that still has problems

This is awesome! But will I not procrastinate and actually use it? I am already a Type 3.7 but I know exactly what the issue is here. So glad to see my own workflow habits “replicated”… (see here for the … Continue reading →

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Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie is a fantastic sprawling sci-fi story, set in the far future, with an AI as the central character. The character development is superb, and I especially appreciated the spot-on nuance about how AI might operate. … Continue reading →

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What an unfortunate example to use to explain reverse correlation technique in social psychology

From Brinkman, L., Dotsch, R., & Todorov, A. (In press). Visualising mental representations: A primer on noise-based reverse correlation in social psychology. European Review of Social Psychology. Apparently the researcher don’t know what a Moroccan person looks like, but they … Continue reading →

Posted in Development thinking | Comments Off on What an unfortunate example to use to explain reverse correlation technique in social psychology

Great article by Emily Oster and Geoffrey Kocks on vaccination in California

Great article by Emily Oster and Geoffrey Kocks on vaccination in California: Under-vaccination is a significant policy problem. As earlier generations knew, people die of measles, and of whooping cough, and of other diseases that vaccines can prevent. Figuring out … Continue reading →

Posted in United States | Comments Off on Great article by Emily Oster and Geoffrey Kocks on vaccination in California

U.S. military… random thoughts

A former student is thinking of going to law school to then become a JAG. He shared with me some thoughts on a book Saving Sandoval, by Craig Drummond. According to the blurb: Saving Sandoval is the true account of … Continue reading →

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Neuroeconomics of limitations of cognitive processing probably where all the action is… “attention” is the byword

From Neuroeconomic theory: Using neuroscience to understand the bounds of rationality by Juan Carrillo and Isabelle Brocas “… research in neurobiology demonstrates that the brain cannot encode all the information contained in a signal. A decision is triggered when “enough” … Continue reading →

Posted in Development thinking | Comments Off on Neuroeconomics of limitations of cognitive processing probably where all the action is… “attention” is the byword

Importing an Excel file that is too big for Stata

The hivemind and Google leads to the answer immediately. There is an undocumented setting set excelxlsxlargefile on which will allow -import excel- to bypass the size checking. But Ricardo should be warned, the library we use to import Excel files … Continue reading →

Posted in Burkina Faso | Comments Off on Importing an Excel file that is too big for Stata

Effect of distance to polling place on turnout by Enrico Cantoni

From a 2016 working paper by Enrico Cantoni.  Below are the abstracts to the August and November versions of the paper; I like how the writing was tightened up and extraneous phrases dropped. Fewer words conveying the same information more … Continue reading →

Posted in Voting | Comments Off on Effect of distance to polling place on turnout by Enrico Cantoni

Reading Enrico Cantoni while listening to Steve Reich’s Four Organs.

Reich, Steve: Four Organs (1970) 19′  for four electric organs and maracas Composer’s Notes: Four Organs is composed exclusively of the gradual augmentation (lengthening) of individual tones within a single (dominant 11th) chord. The tones within the chord gradually extend … Continue reading →

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Reading Guy de Maupassant stories in Contes du jour et de la nuit

I picked up a copy of Contes du jour et de la nuit at our local San Jose second-hand bookstore, Recycle Books, and have been enjoying reading one of the early masters of the short story form. In some ways … Continue reading →

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Gone fishing! Goodby 2017

Actually gone skiing, in the miserable snow of Bear Valley… what’s that you said about global climate change Donald Trump? C’est faux! And anyway, gone fishing? I’m a vegetarian. So not likely.  But it is just an expression. And I … Continue reading →

Posted in Book and film reviews | Comments Off on Gone fishing! Goodby 2017

Thanks Ezra Klein for a blow by blow account of Trump’s interview with New York Times.

I am not a medical professional, and I will not pretend to know what is truly happening here. It’s become a common conversation topic in Washington to muse on whether the president is suffering from some form of cognitive decline … Continue reading →

Posted in Burkina Faso | Comments Off on Thanks Ezra Klein for a blow by blow account of Trump’s interview with New York Times.

Great reporting on how some of the Chibok girls captured by Boko Haram were released after almost 3 years

Naomi Adamu had once been an ordinary student at the Chibok Government Secondary School. She was older than most of her classmates. She played soccer. She studied mathematics in her dormitory bunk bed. Now, as she shuffled through the wilderness … Continue reading →

Posted in Burkina Faso | Comments Off on Great reporting on how some of the Chibok girls captured by Boko Haram were released after almost 3 years