Pairach

Jul 11

ECON304 Midterm

This is example.

# R code for ECON 304
# 11 July 2013
# Aj Champ, me@pairach.com
# Code 2 - Heatmap with NBA data

nba <- read.csv("http://datasets.flowingdata.com/ppg2008.csv", sep=",")

nba

head(nba)
names(nba)

install.packages("psych")

row.names(nba) <- nba$Name

head(nba)



nba <- nba[,2:20]

head(nba)

nba_matrix <- data.matrix(nba)


heatmap(nba_matrix)

nba_heatmap <- heatmap(nba_matrix, Rowv=NA, Colv=NA, 
                       col = heat.colors(256), 
                       scale="column", margins=c(5,10),
                       main = "Heatmap of NBA players")

Apr 19

When economic professors making simple (MS Excel) coding mistakes …

Basic MS Excel mistake in a paper published by two Harvard Economic Professors in a top-tier Economic journal!?

This week, the hottest topic in economics or even in academia as a whole would be the paper publishes by Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin | (HAP) on 4/15/2013 critiquing a widely cited paper by Reinhart and Rogoff on the debt ration and GDP of many countries titled “Growth in a Time of Debt“.

What is exciting is that HAP argue that R&R has made an error when using MS Excel to analysis such macroeconomic data. That paper by HAP titled “Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff” would probably one of legendary critique papers in economics to date.

As we can expect, there are many feedbacks from both academics and non-academic world. The following is the list of articles discussing this incidences.

The Wall Street Journal
Reinhart-Rogoff Response to Critique
The Financial Times (Chris Cook)
Reinhart-Rogoff recrunch the numbers
The Economist
Revisiting Reinhart-Rogoff
Slate.com (Matthew Yglesias)
“Is The Reinhart-Rogoff Result Based on a Simple Spreadsheet Error?“
Marginal Revolution (Tyler Cowen)
“An update on the Reinhart and Rogoff critique and some observations“
Next New Deal (Mike Konczal)
“Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems.“
Christopher Gandrud
“Reinhart & Rogoff: Everyone makes coding mistakes, we need to make it easy to find them + Graphing uncertainty“
Simply Statistics (Roger Peng)
“I wish economists made better plots“
Paul Krugman
“Holy Coding Error, Batman“
Phillip Price
“Data problems, coding errors…what can be done?“
Next New Deal (Mike Konczal)
“Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems.“

Jan 13

How to do a Systematic Literature Review

Here are some useful guides and references

Denyer, D. and Tranfield, D. (2009), “Producing a systematic review”, Ch. 39, in Buchanan, D. and Bryman, A. (Eds), The Sage Handbook of Organizational Research Methods, Sage Publications Ltd, London, pp. 671-89. (Link) (Link2)

Rousseau, D.M., Manning, J. and Denyer, D. (2008), “Evidence in management and organizational science: assembling the field’s full weight of scientific knowledge through syntheses”, The Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 475-515. (Link)

Smithey, I. (2012), “The craft of writing theory articles: variety and similarity in AMR”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 37 No. 3, 327-31. (Link)

Jan 11

4 Comments

Tips for PhD Examination (Viva Voce)

PhD examination (a.k.a. Viva Voce) has been perceived as the decisive event for the successful of the candidate. However, I believe that there is not thing much to prepare if you have throughly know your thesis inside out. However, the candidate may need know to manage their nerve and excitement during the exam. When I was preparing for my viva (on yesterday), which I passed with a minor correction category, I have been consulted some suggestions online, which I found very useful. At least they give your some senses of what will be going on. After my viva I have 5 top tips for the candidates who are preparing for the time of their (PhD) life. Here they are.

Working out your attitude
Aiming to thrive not just to survive. Make an impression to the examiners that you deserve a doctorate degree!
Assuming you are an examiner

(re)Read your thesis as if your were an examiners or an reviewer. Put yourself on their shoes, then you will get an idea how they might assess you.
Having a mock viva

To excel in almost anything, we need to practice, practice and practice. It’s the same with exam and the viva voce. It’s great to have a mock viva with at least with your supervisors or PhD fellows. Pick those who are similar to your examiners in terms of research approaches.
Practicing mindfulness
I cope with such an intense and important discussions in the viva, we need to be mindfulness. This will help us understand the questions and answer it better. Meditation is a good way to practice mindfulness. You can do it by just sit on your chair in the office and close your eyes. Then watch your breath and thought. Knowing what you are doing.
Having a good Viva Voce eve night

The day before the viva is about body preparation. You have to go to the viva with the fresh understanding of your thesis and fresh mind and health. The dinner of the viva eve and the breakfast of the viva day as well as the lunch if your viva will start in the afternoon. Have a good and enough foods. Medicine rarely helps but a good sleep and good food will.

Special Tips

While you are reading your thesis or several suggestions and tips for PhD viva I provided at the end of this post, you may listen to this soundtrack of my favourite movie “A Beautiful Mind”