First Summer Econ Seminar
Posted by: ongoaler on: June 3, 2009
Today’s talk was about the Conditional Cast Transfer program implemented in the state of Wisconsin, which Prof. Dee called instead a “conditional cash penalty” because it lowers the welfare beneft for a family when eligible teens (mostly 13-year-olds) fail to meet the attendence requirement. He explained that the loss aversion would create a stronger incentive for the covered teens to increase their attendence rate through this form of penalty than the other programs like PROGRESA in Mexico where the families would receive the benefits if they meet the requirement. I found it interesting that a simple difference in formatting the financial incentive mechanism within the policy could generate a huge difference in the behavioral impact and ultimately the success of the program.
Dozens of economists from the three liberal arts colleges discussed bits and pieces of the regression data presented and a few points they raised about the result were so elaborate and meticulous that I was struck how keen we are supposed to be facing the dataset and interpreting the results. In particular, the two professors concurrently pointed out the numbers presented for the variables of the “attendence rate” and the “rate of unexcused absences” through which to explain the increasing attendence rate at a level comparable to that of the decrease in the rate of unexcused absences. This can imply that while there might be an increasing number of parents who make excuses for their children’s absences (e.g. “John is sick today.”) which would have reduced the attendence rate, the attendence of teens has actually increased by roughly 2 percentage points, a fact that reinforces the positive impact of the welfare policy.
This article is to be published in an economics journal soon and I would have to wait until then to publicly discuss the topic and this paper at the forefront due to some potential copyright problem. I look forward to the next week’s seminar on Global Economic Crisis to be presented by one of my favorite economists.
“If I were you, I would want to do what you’re doing.”
Posted by: ongoaler on: May 26, 2009
I replied, “Yes, I like this job- a lot.”
How much his one sentence could resonate in my mind that it even inspires a bundle of pride, joyfulness, and gratitude for my current job into me even after I have quietly but relentlessly complained about the trivial prospect of it! I always thank him and Him for keeping me in the position of humbleness and gratitude for what I have and what I can do.
My favorite supermarket in Ansan, Korea
Posted by: ongoaler on: May 26, 2009
is the Lotte Mart!
I am not promoting this supermarket brand or doing any kind of advertisement, but from where I live back in Korea near the Hanyang University in Ansan, it’s so convenient to get there – whether by bus or on foot – and get everything you’d need for a daily life and a small entertainment. They have fresh groceries of numerous kinds, a huge section of snack and sweets, a couple of popular cosmetic product shops that sell low-priced items, an entire floor packed with clothes shops of the famous and unknown brands, food court, a movie theater, etc (FYI but not of my interest are there hair salons, eyeglasses shop, photo print shop, drycleaning shop, and so on). Now let me stop tediously listing what is in there, but instead share my perspective on shopping in the Lotte Mart in Korea which will provide a more clear picture of why I love this place.
Going to a supermarket seems to be an idea of picnic or weekend outing for Korean families – they can go shopping for necessities like groceries or other practical items or eating a nice meal altogether at a reasonable price. That’s where my family usually enjoy ourselves hanging around and spending the peaceful weekend leisure.
The Lotte Mart, which has a reasonably fancy movie theater of the same mother company, is also a good choice for my short day trip for either a movie or an idling in the leisurely afternoon during the week when it is not heavily crowded. I might sound like a very weird person who loiters around the giant supermarket chain without any particular purpose, but I actually do like to have the feel of being a leisurely person who can afford the time and pocket money that is not bounded within the duty of productivity or affordability. In a way, it is a demonstration to myself, and possibly to other people, that I am a person who is capable of indulging in the consumption of time and goods without constraint and freely carrying out the conspicuous consumption that is allowed for the “leisure class” of the time as Veblen would comment. (Can’t believe I am looking up to an aspect of life that goes by Veblen’s “theory of leisure class!” (1899))
Now having only less than a month left before I go back home, going to the Lotte Mart would be all the more interesting journey for me to realize how much part of my life has been devoted to the conspicuous consumption of the leisure class. Well, simply, I miss the feel of leisureliness of my life at home.
“Do parents like you?”
Posted by: ongoaler on: May 7, 2009
I replied, “Maybe.”
And he replied, “They should. They are getting their money worthy for nothing this schools does but for their daughter.”
I have no excuse not to like him either.
Create inflation to revive spending
Posted by: ongoaler on: April 18, 2009
If all of this seems too outlandish, there is a more prosaic way of obtaining negative interest rates: through inflation. Suppose that, looking ahead, the Fed commits itself to producing significant inflation. In this case, while nominal interest rates could remain at zero, real interest rates — interest rates measured in purchasing power — could become negative. If people were confident that they could repay their zero-interest loans in devalued dollars, they would have significant incentive to borrow and spend.
Yes, it sounds bizarre to call for the Fed to “go negative” for the interest rate. Mankiw’s argument for the negative interest rate by creating higher inflation is counter-intuitive considering a conventional expansionary policy at the recession to galvanize the consumption and investment by lowering the interest.
However, at the same time, I admit it is a brilliant idea to fight against the current recession where the interest rate is already near zero and cannot be lowered any more and the troubled assets cannot be purchased into the Fed’s account without snowballing burdens to the U.S. taxpayers.
Mankiw, along with a German economist cited in the NY Times column, was not the only economist who broached this idea of creating inflation to lower the value of money as well as raise the cost of holding money. So did Krugman share this idea in his short story telling. This preeminent economist earned A with “gazillions of” pluses in my Macroeconomics course for his ability to explain the creation of recession and a possible monetary policy to tackle it using a succinct, fun fable about the baby-sitting co-op. The baby-sitting co-op could save the households from being drowned in the recession because they developed an expectation for a rise in the inflation which would increase the price level of the baby-sitting coupons they held but decrease the value of them (by lowering hours of baby-sitting people can buy with one coupon).
Negative numbers are popping up relentlessly as the current bad economy continues as we see from the negatives in the growth rate of GDP or aggregate demand, employment rate, consumption and investment, etc. Facing the negative numbers, the government and Bernanke will have to add one more negative – the interest rate -however reluctantly, and aim for turning them into positives step by step.
Photo-shooting star rocks in Seoul!
Posted by: ongoaler on: April 11, 2009
What’s your hobby? Is photography one of your hobbies? If so, let me ask you one more question, “What do you do with photography?”
취미가 무엇인가요? 혹시 사진 찍으시나요? 만약 그렇다면, 질문 한 가지 더 드리겠습니다. “사진으로 무얼 하시나요?”
Photography is a hobby but also a kind of art which is relatively achievable by anyone who has a camera, even if it is a disposable camera, and passion to press shutters at anything that piques an interest. Photography seems to be no longer a high culture affordable to only a few with money, time, and skills. The popularization of photography as an accessible form of artistic hobby is in line with a rise of the Cyworld, Korea’s largest online social networking service (like Facebook), and blogging.
사진은 취미이기도 하지만 하나의 예술이라고도 할 수 있습니다. 일회용 카메라라 할지라도 카메라만 있고 어느 것이든 나에게 흥미로운 것을 발견했을 때 셔터를 누를 수 있는 열정만 있다면 가능한 예술이지요. 사진은 더이상 돈, 시간, 재능이 있어야만 할 수 있는 하이 클래스 문화가 아닌 것 같습니다. 한국에서 사진 찍기가 누구나 다가갈 수 있는 예술적인 취미로 유행하게 된 건 싸이월드와 블로깅의 인기 덕분이기도 한 것 같습니다. 싸이월드는 페이스북처럼 한국의 가장 큰 온라인 네트워킹 사이트에요.
Everyone is qualified to be a photographer and set up a gallery of his or her own on their mini home pages or cyber blog pages. Many people with millenials at the lead started to exhibit gazillions of their photos featuring their distinctive lifestyles–as diverse and many as pictures of self-portraits (called sel-kah which are often extremely focused in), fancy cafes or food they enjoy in their luxury, friends and families, and everything. Those prolific photographers are mostly amateurs, the ones who merely want to show their tasteful or mundane lifestyle to the public.The photography boom is not an overnight vogue, and photography is an art that has smeared into a realm of ordinary people’s lives so naturally that it seems to become a common hobby that a lot of people appreciate today.
모두가 사진 작가가 될 수도 있고 미니 홈피나 블로그에 갤러리를 만들 수 있어요. 요새 20-30대를 주축으로 해서 많은 사람들이 수도 없이 많은 사진을 전시하고 있는데, 이 사진들 모두 개성있는 삶을 보여주는 전시회 같아요. 셀카부터 럭셔리한 카페나 맛있어 보이는 음식들, 친구, 가족 등등 모든 것들이 사진에 담겨져 있으니까요. 그렇게 많은 사진들을 선보이는 사람들은 모두 아마추어입니다. 공개적으로 그들의 맛깔 나는 또는 평범한 일상을 보여주고 싶은 사람들이지요.사진 붐은 절대 하루 아침에 일어난 유행은 아니에요. 사진은 평범한 사람들의 일상 속에 쏘옥 스며든 하나의 예술이고, 그래서 그만큼 많은 사람들이 오늘날 즐기는 흔한 취미가 된 것 이죠.
Celebrities have added to this fever and reinforced a general perception of photography as a palatable hobby of “cool” people. One leading photographer is Doona Bae, who has gained increasing popularity among netizens for the pictures on her blog. She took photos of a diverse range of scenes she came across in her personal life as well as during her travels abroad. Finally she challenged herself and went on to publish a series of three photo essay books about London, Tokyo, and Seoul, each one every year in a row since 2006. Her communication with online audience through the blog photos must have been a great starting point and motivation for her to take further steps to entertain her fans in the offline space.
연예인들 또한 사진 찍기 열풍에 동참하였습니다. 연예인들의 활발한 사진 활동이 더욱더 사진을 “쿨”한 사람들의 색깔있는 취미로 알리는 것 같아요. 그 중에서 배두나 씨가 돋보이는 데요, 그녀는 블로그에 일상 사진, 여행 사진들을 올리면서 인기를 올리기도 했습니다. 마침내 그녀는 한 발짝 성큼 더 나아가 런던, 도쿄, 서울에서 찍은 여행 사진들을 모아 포토 에세이집을 냈습니다. 아마 그녀의 블로그 사진전이 배두나 씨를 프로페셔널 사진 작가로 일컬을 수 있는 시작점이 되지 않았나 생각합니다. 블로그를 넘어서 그녀는 오프라인에서도 더 많은 대중을 만나고 사진으로 소통하기 위해 전진한 것이죠.
Here’s another guy, FMS, who has devoted his 20’s and 30’s to capturing in lens the very fascinating things he, as a U.S. expat, encountered in Korea – the local people and their quotidien fashion on the street. Pushing his interest further along, he recently published his very first photo book featuring his latest photo works in the Seoul Fashion Week of 2008. He geared in this book all his relentless passion for street photography,shrewd sense of the “decisive moment” to take pictures, and ability to capture the naturalness in a non-boring way. These photos were already featured and received a great following on a fashion magazine FeetManSeoul where he is a master blogger and a chief editor.
여기 또 다른 사진작가 FMS가 있습니다. FMS는 미국에서 한국으로 건너와서 20-30대를 보내면서 한국에서 그가 경험한 이색적이고 흥미로운 것들을 카메라에 담았습니다. 그의 사진에 대한 열정과 흥미를 바탕으로 FMS도 또한 한 걸음 나아가 2008년 서울 패션 위크에서 찍은 긔의 사진들을 모아서 첫 번째 사진집을 출간하였습니다. 그는 이 책에서 거리 사진에 대한 끊임없는 열정과 “결정적 순간”을 알아볼 줄 아는 예리한 감각, 지루하지 않은 각도에서 자연스러움을 연출할 수 있는 능력을 유감없이 발휘했는데요. 그의 사진들은 이미 그가 운영하는 패션 블로그 FeetManSeoul 에서도 선보여서 많은 호응을 얻고 있어요.
Oddly enough, this intelligent Ivy League graduate and a Ph D. candidate aspiring to work in academia seems to be a driven activist to use photography not only just to share his interest but also to open up a sophisticated area open to all interested in fashion, photography, Seoul, or anything. He is very open to tell what he experiences and what he observes in Seoul with anyone through his good-witted columns and professional photos.
신기한 것 더 한 가지는 FMS는 아이비리그 출신에 박사 학위 과정을 밟고 있는 학자로서 사진으로 진정한 그의 흥미를 추구하고 그의 패션, 사진, 서울 등등의 어느 것에나 흥미를 같이 나란히 하는 사람들과 함께 공유하고 이야기할 수 있는 문화 공간을 만들었다는 데에 있습니다. 그는 유머가 살아있는 컬럼과 프로페셔널한 사진을 통해 서울에서 그가 겪는 일들, 관찰하는 모든 것들을 많은 사람들에게 보여주고 싶어합니다.
For the celebration of his very first photo book, FMS had a launching brunch party for the publication of his photo book, and has shown up as a rising photo-shooting star. He will also hold another launching party on upcoming May 16 (Mark your calendar now!), but this time it’s a Korean version. He invites anyone, regardless of nationality, interested in meeting him and his photo works.
그의 첫번째 사진집을 축하하기 위해 FMS는 런칭 파티를 열었고 신예 스타 사진 작가로 발돋움하는 것 같습니다. 그는 오는 5월 16일에 또 한번 런칭 파티를 여는데요 (달력에 메모해 두세요!), 이번에는 한국어 버전입니다! 국적 불문하고 그와 그의 사진 작업에 대해 흥미를 느끼는 모든 분들을 초대하고 있습니다.
His photo book will play a catalyst to further suggest what people can accomplish with photography. Now, “What do you do with photography?”
그의 사진집이 많은 사람들에게 사진으로 무엇을 이룰 수 있는가에 대해 알려줄 수 있는 좋은 계기가 될 것 같습니다. 자, 이제 “당신은 사진으로 무엇을 하시나요?”
Fill out this survey and support international students!
Posted by: ongoaler on: February 15, 2009
Valentine’s Day is coming soon!
Posted by: ongoaler on: February 9, 2009
Perfectionists’ competition
Posted by: ongoaler on: February 8, 2009
If there were such a perfectionists’ competition, I might be around the lowest cohort of the candidates, or hopefully just lucky enough to secure an award of encouragement or participation. What would win me an award of encouragement? To say a trivia, I went shopping in the middle of the week after class to Targets to buy hair conditioners and looked into what I had bought the next morning only to find that I had accidentally bought two different conditioners because I forgot to put one of them back to the shelf after picking another one. I didn’t even realize it when I was putting things on the conveyor belt at the checkout desk at the end of shopping – hmm. Now I am a little bit more concerned about this bad habit of indifference/sloppiness since I just realized I had lost my USB flash drive containing important files. But what’s odd is that I feel pretty cool about those little episodes that pop up unexpectedly from time to time in my daily life. 
Sloppiness would not be that laughable badness when I live in the real simulation of that perfectionists’ competition in a greater context of society where I’d imagine the entire competition participants are just lined up in invisible ranks or in rungs. But I am grow-ing up, and now I reflect on what I had done with a higher sense of responsibility. So that shouldn’t be that bad, and I’d rather proudly award myself a prize of encouragement.
*Image from Peanuts (Schultz)
Being smart as a college sophomore
Posted by: ongoaler on: February 5, 2009
Hi, folks who are in their early 20s,
Let me assume what you might think and feel. You would constantly long for a greater extent and depth of intelligence and maturity, and sometimes find yourself so overwhelmed in a stupor or so remote from where you want yourself to be that you might compromise and decide to settle within the vicinity of where you currently are. But let me ask you before I swamp with you gazilions of this kind of elaboration on the behalf of a real college sophomore: do you feel this way too?Or am I dramatizing one phase of possible human emotions, which in nature are evanescent and unreliable and thus subject to be just overlooked or sneered at?
On the one hand, I must admit that I am slightly in the “emo” mode right now since I am caught up in the questions of what I should do with my life especially as a person in her early 20s, the ages of relentless spirit, naive enthusiasm and murky eager for anything that appears to be a fancy dream in the future. I am the one who is in a horrible thirst for more knowledge, intelligence, and maturity sensing that I might have been born and raised without much training geared towards developing those three capitals in me (Do I actually have the “cultural,” “social” and “economic” capital Bourdieu might ask for of a person who wants to cultivate a high “taste” of elitists?).
Sophomore must be a good time to awaken me from an idealistic reverie and come to a fore of the reality where I would have to think about how to become more marketable and competitive in a job market or graduate school applicant pool – particularly as an international student in the States. But as the word itself is derived from a combination of Greek words, sophos “wise” and moros “foolish, dull,” you’re owed a full bill of rights to be “wise” and “foolish” – because you’re sophomore, who seem to know some things but actually don’t know anything yet. (Etymonline.com, Online Etymology Dictionary).
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