Just submitted my econometric project today. My life in the past 10 days was filled with literature review, data collection and organization, and repeating the process all over again when I messed up any of the steps. A classmate noted that the data he analyzed tortured him until he confessed. For me, it seems like I fell in a relationship with my data (the love-hate type): getting to know them intimately and dream about them, managing and making sure everything’s right, and ‘torturing’ them tenderly to suit my purpose (actually my relationship went pretty well, and I get most of what I expected without much sinful mining). I always think macroeconomic findings are tenuous with so many noises around and factors not being able to account for. Most importantly, there’s just one timeline, so we can’t compare different possibility that might have occur, everything’s just about fitting the world with the glasses we wear. Though I’ve little faith in the results, I find the research process quite enjoyable, and being able to use real world data to test some underlying theory is fascinating.
Despite busy working on my project, I came across an old Japanese film by Ozu called Tokyo Story, which I found to be very nice. It’s a slow pace movie and address some simple truths in life. Here’s a review of the firm.
A lot of people have made a summer reading list, and here’s what I plan to read after my exams.
Non-fiction
The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao Tzu to Milton Friedman—David Boaz
On Liberty and Other Essays—J.S. Mill
Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery–David Warsh
Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance–Perry Mehrling
The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth–John Roberts
What’s It All About? Philosophy and the Meaning of Life—Julian Baggini
Stumbling on Happiness—Daniel Gibert
Fiction
Nausea–Jean-Paul Sartre
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress–Robert Heinlein
Atlas Shrugged–Ayn Rand
The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: And Ninety Nine Other Thought Experiments–Julian Baggini
There are also tons of films I plan to watch, but for now, economics textbooks seem to be all that I need.
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