Happy Birthday To Me!

I didn't realize it until someone reminded me, but Financial Rounds just turned one year old on February 15. It's been an interesting year. I've made 533 posts (about 10 a week), had a bit over 28,000 visitors, and made quite a few new acquantances.

Thanks to all the folks who stopped by and to anyone who linked to this blog. It still amazes me that people actually come back on a regular basis. I feel like someone's definition of a blogger (don't recall who, but it's a good one): someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do.

Almost Done With The Paper

I've spent most of the last few days finishing the paper I'll present during my interview on Friday at Unknown University. It's pretty much done- there's just one more section of results to write up (about a page) plus the conclusions.

I think it should go well - I've got an interesting topic and pretty good results. Just as important, it's a paper that lends itself to "storytelling" during the presentation, so it should be a good one for showing off my capabilities as a researcher and presenter.

With that, it's now time for my beauty rest, so I'll leave you with a great list from Vegreville titled "Why I Like Being An Academic:

1. You can work on intellectually interesting problems.
2. Almost everyone you work with is smart: other academics and the students.
3. It's great to see a student suddenly understand something new.
4. It's great to understand something new myself. Learning is fun, and that is what I mainly do.
   

There are quite a few more - read them here.

Lists like this are a good thing. I see too many people in academia that have forgotten what a great job they have - I think it's because they either never had a real job or can't remember what one is like in the outside world.

I do remember (I've had a lot of bad ones), and I'm constantly thankful for this great job I have. I think I'll keep this list on my wall in my office to remind me.

Professor Fired For No-Show Marking

One of the most widely cited perspectives in economics is Spence's model based on the idea that education serves as a signal to reveal intelligence rather than as a tool for building .

Unfortunately, the administration at the University of Prince Edward Island didn't look kindly on professor David Weale's attempt to sort students without coming to class.

He was recently fired after offering students a mark of 70% if they dropped the class;

Weale said his offer was an effort to deal with chronic overcrowding in classrooms, weeding out students who weren't really interested in his course.

Read the whole thing here.

I've got to admit that I've thought of doing the same thing, particularly this semester - my classes are filed to overflowing. It might be an efficient solution - a student who'd take the deal and settle for a "C" probably wouldn't be one of the most motivated, high performing students in the class in any event. If they stayed in the class, they'd just end up damping down the enthusiasm of everyone else.

So, while it might be "selling out", you could look at it as paying a student off for the good of the rest of the class.

But, I'll wait until I'm tenured...

HT: Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

Blogging: Light Due To Upcoming Job Interview

Blogging will probably be a bit light for the next few days unless I'm in serious need of a break.

While I'm happy at my current school (at least for the near term - it's probably not a school where I would be happy for the rest of my career), I applied for a position this past fall at a university that I'll call the Unknown University.

It has pretty much everything I'm looking for - a small doctoral program, a great location, reasonable tenure standards, a great teaching load, and the opportunity to get involved in some programs that are ideally suited to my skills and likes (I really can't say more without giving the school away). And most important, it's just around the corner (about 70 miles on an interstate) from where the Unknown Wife and I grew up. The one downside is that their salary, while still not bad, is a bit (about 10-15%) below the market for schools like this. Still, it's about where I currently am, so at least it's not a decrease.

The upshot of all this is that they had brought out three candidates to campus (of which I wasn't one), and liked all three. Unfortunately for them, thanks to their below-market salary, all three either accepted offers elsewhere (one after stringing them along for a couple of weeks) or subsequently turned out to have some serious flaws.

In any event, I've just been given a fly-out. As part of the interview, I'll be presenting a paper to the faculty. I'm trying to finish the paper right now --it's in pretty good shape, but still can use about 20 more hours of work to shore up a few weak areas and put on the final gloss.

As a result, I probably won't be blogging too much for the next few days, at least until the work's done. I'll have to send it out to the department at Unknown U on Monday, at which point I'll probably have a good glass of wine (or three).

Stay tuned.

Student Tries to Hack Prof's Computer to Change Grade

A University of Utah student was just indicted for hacking into his professor's computer in an attempt to change his grade.

I wonder if he'll be able to count it as an independent study?

If they tried that at my school, it'd serve them right - the tech support group is so bad that anyone on my office computer would end up getting a virus of some kind (computer or otherwise).

Write Gooder Papers

Craig Newmark has two amusing collections of advice to students on how to write better papers here and here.

Online Accounting and Finance Definitions

Whether in an advanced course or in an introductory level one, students invariable ask questions about some finance or accounting term they came across. Here are three excellent references to give them.

For finance definitions, the gold standard is Cambpell Harvey's Hypertext Finance Glossary . He's been generous enough to put it online on his personal website at Duke. Hey - while I generally dog their basketball team whenever possible, I have nothing but admiration for their finance department.

Another finance reference that's relatively new but looks promising is the Reuters Financial Glossary, a wiki developed by the folks at Reuters.

For accounting terminology, the New York State Society of CPAs has put up this Guide To Accounting Terminology.

If you know of any others, let me know.

HT: Truck and Barter

Predictors of Success For Economics Ph.D. Students

What predicts success in graduate school (and beyond) for economists? According to this study,

• Higher GRE/math scores
• A more prestigious undergraduate institution
• A reference letter from a prominent researcher

I'd guess it's similar for Finance Ph.D. programs. - mathematical "chops" should be one of the biggest factors. However if one could come up with a proxy for "determination", I bet that it would also explain a lot (at least in terms of overall productivity over a career).

One of my colleagues once told me, "UP, if you're really smart and work hard, you'll publish a lot in top journals. If you're not quite as smart and you work hard, you'll still publish a lot, just in lower tier journals). Either way, if you work really hard (and intelligently), you'll publish a lot.

HT: Newmark's Door

This Week's Carnival Of The Capitalists

This week's COTC is up and running at The Stalwart. There are a lot of good pieces this week, but here are the ones I particularly liked:

I always like "unintended consequences" articles. Steven Silvers has one where he predicts chaos when new SEC rules on pay disclosure come into force.

Mover Mike is looking at the possibility of widespread derivatives use causing a shock to our financial system.

James Hamilton at EconBrowser discusses why recent oil spikes haven't produced more of a drag on the economy.

Stephen Bainbridge talks about the various functions of The many functions of corporate boards.

Small Biz trends also explores zillow.com and argues that it won't be a threat to realtors.

MyMoneyBlog has a great post that compares current internet scams to the originator of the "ponzi" scheme, Charles Ponzi

As always, these are just the ones I found particularly interesting. Your tastes are almost certainly different, so look around. Something that doesn't do it at all for me might be just what you need.

This Week's Carnival of Personal Finance

This week's Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Free Money Finance. My picks of the week are:

Young Professional's Financial Blog has an interesting article on buying foreclosures, titled A Good Investment for Young Professionals?

Dave Porter at Pacesetter Mortgage looks at zillow.com and asks: Are Realtors going to become extinct?

MightyBargainHunter looks at Re-baits (some of the ways companies try to avoid paying off on rebates.

Jason at Investorgeeks continues his look at 401k plans in Intro to 401k Part 2

Journey to Financial Freedom breaks down APR and APY in Interest Rate is everything in Banking

Car Financing - This post looks at how loan incentives and terms can be modeled using Excel to determine which offers the best value, or if cash should be used.

The always readable Searchlight Crusade discusses Mortgage Loan Rate Locks

Here's the usual disclaimer - my tastes are different than yours, and these are just the ones that caught my eye. Look around, because there's a lot of good article up there. You might find some that really trip your trigger that didn't really do it for me.