New School Economic Review

Let there be stoning… for bad presenters

by Benjamin on July 4, 2009

Isn’t it nice when you’ve been asking for better presentations in conferences and lectures and then suddenly you realise that you are wholly unoriginal and people have been thinking the same thing for 20+ years?

Yes we have PresentationZen and Edward Tufte today, not to mention Hans Rosling and TED, but having just attended two international conferences these last two weeks, there is still a long way to go before we can catch up with Jay H. Lehr’s article “Let there be stoning!” – what an excellent 4 page read.

Lehr, Jay H. 1985. “Let there be Stoning!” Ground Water 23(2): 163-5

The Conference ‘Handbook’

by Benjamin on January 19, 2009

After attending a couple of conferences I started to notice that there are some criticisms which are repeated over and over again, for vastly different papers. It seems that George Stigler had the same problem quite a couple of years ago, and he very helpfully made a list for economics conference goers to spare us repeating the same thing over and over again. After thirty years, the list still rings true on a number of counts, for example:

Introductory remarks by commentator [list A-H]:
E. I can be very sympathetic to the author; until 2 years ago I was thinking the same thing

The comments themselves [list 1-32]
1. Adam Smith said that
2. Unfortunately, there is an identification problem which is not dealt with adequately in the paper.
11. I proved the main results in a paper many years ago
22. What happens when you extend the analysis to the later (or earlier) period?
32. The trouble with the present situation is that the property rights have not been fully assigned.

Stigler’s ‘handbook’ is in the Journal of Political Economy, but what might we add to the list, some thirty years after it was published?

Stigler, George. 1977. “The Conference Handbook.” Journal of Political Economy 85 (2): 441-3