Friday Links 2/25

In 2000 John List spent a year at the University of Arizona with Vernon Smith, Mark Isaac, Jimmy Walker, Jim Cox, and a slew of other excellent experimental economists. Following that year List, who was already a frequent publisher in the area of environmental economics began using experimental methods and started his meteoric rise to his current professorship at the University of Chicago. Often he is cited for his breakthroughs in "field experiments" (although there were clearly many predecessors such as Peter Bohm and Vernon Smith); however, I would characterize his research as starting a renaissance with field experimentation. Nevertheless, the article is well-written and talks about a variety of interesting economics questions.   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-23/chicago-economist-s-crazy-idea-for-education-wins-ken-griffin-s-backing.html

The Knowledge Problem blog provides a good post on why fair trade coffee may not be good for poor farmers.

Tyler Cowen discusses how to learn econometrics. Also, an addendum adds that Mark Thoma has a whole series of lectures on Econometrics on YouTube. I will definitely be brushing up prior to the PhD program!

Always love how William Easterly elucidates how development plans actually work, although sometimes you must get past the bitter sarcasm.