Adventures of a Postdoc
....next update: Jan 2013
January 2, 2012
Wow. It's been a busy year, and here's a brief description of my past activities and future plans. Today is the shortest day of the year in the northern
hemisphere, and that means less than eight hours of daylight here in Amsterdam.
That's not a problem until you ride your bike outside -- in the snow
and ice! It's not as dangerous as it sounds, even when your brakes are
frozen solid. You just need good boots, so that you can jump off and slide to a
stop :) It's been quite a year since the last update.
After I finished teaching at Berkeley, I left to travel with Anne in Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and
Fiji. During those three months, I had planned to
write the first draft of my book (The
End of Abundance: a guide to the new economics of water scarcity), but
travel takes a lot of time! No worries (as they say Down Under), since we made
the best of the trip -- meeting lots of great people, seeing lots of beautiful
places and very much enjoying ourselves. We came back to Berkeley in April, where I sat
down to put words onto paper. After so much time thinking about the book
(writing several thousand blog posts, talking to people everywhere and teaching
the class), I was able to get a first draft of about 85,000 words written in two
months. After that, I sent the draft manuscript to about 35 people who
volunteered to read all or part of it. Then Anne and I went to Honduras,
Nicaragua, Costa
Rica and Panama.
After that amazing trip (we got sick now and then, but didn't get robbed; the
people were lovely), we landed in California and drove to Bozeman, MT to revise
the draft at PERC. That was a lovely
trip to and from, although I think I am done with the rolling plains for
awhile; we also stopped by to see my cousin Mick for the first time in about 30
years. (American families can get a little loose.) Just a little footnote: Anne and I intended to go to
Montana first and then go to Central America, intending to renew her visa in
Montana with a short trip to Canada, but it turns out that Canada is not
"foreign enough" for such a renewal. We had to go over Mexico (still
not foreign) to Central America to officially "exit" the US. Weird. That return trip was also the end of my postdoc in
Berkeley, so we came back to Holland (with a brief stop at Burning
Man). Anne got into the freelance writing
business (success=enough to pay the bills) and I continued to work on my
book, blogging (3,000 posts!) and giving talks and
doing other water-related geekery. In other words, I was totally unpaid but
fully employed. I went on the job market to look for an assistant
professor position (having decided that I could do quite a bit as a postdoc),
but recently got offered, and took, a postdoc position at Wageningen University.
I am a senior water economist working on an EU-wide project (Evaluating
Economic Policy Instruments for Sustainable Water Management in Europe) for
the next 30 months. In other words, I got the perfect job! My book ran into trouble in the "I don't have a publisher"
category. They were having a hard time with my "casual academic" style
of presentation. So now the manuscript is out for evaluation at two good
presses. If they don't come through, I will self-publish the book (how's
Aguanomics Press sound?). Anyway, I hope to get the revised manuscript published
by one of these firms; I am happy to get a professional finish on the material. So I am finishing the book and getting ready for my office
job; I am getting legally registered as a resident (being a UK citizen helps) to
live in the Netherlands for a few years. That means, of course, that I need to
get a better bike and a good English-Dutch dictionary, but that price seems
acceptable as the cost of moving to a lovely country with great people (who
happen to be very tall). I can't really muster up a lot of philosophical insight on
these moves, but they all fit into a wonderful situation that I am enjoying
immensely, if a bit anxiously. This is the second time that I am living overseas
(after traveling for five years I lived in Croatia), and it's always strange to
lose touch with your "homies." The good news is that I have a lot of
friends around here (and quite a few willing to sacrifice themselves to visit
Amsterdam), and can talk to (if not visit!) people in the US. So call me
at 510-455-4656. Cheers! Wow. What a year it's been. Today, I am packing for a
three-month trip to Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. I will be traveling
with Anne, a Dutch girl that I met this summer when I was at a conference
in Amsterdam. She was already planning to quit her job, rent her flat and travel
for a year when I met her. Then we had the romantic, but inconvenient, fortune
of falling for each other. From a little affair, this romance has grown into a
full-blown relationship that brings tremendous meaning to my life (for some
photos of our travels, go here). If the last
half of 2009 was about Anne, then all of 2010 will be about her. Bet let's step back a little further... I am now living on the north side of Berkeley in a lovely little
(24 m2/260 ft) cottage. I moved here in the middle of my second health challenge this
year -- an inguinal
hernia, which is very common in men (1 in 4 get it!) I got it
cleaning the yard at my old place (long story short: I am glad to be in the
cottage). The surgery went well (I was out cold) and I recovered pretty
quickly. And my first challenge? I think I had swine flu.
Whatever it was, I got it in the middle of a crazy rush (three conferences in a
week), and then it turned to pneumonia. Luckily, I was in Amsterdam with that,
and Anne hooked me up with her doctor. It's sad that we (Americans) have to
worry about two things at the hospital -- dying and going bankrupt! So, here's a photo of Anne and the cottage: Gezellig is the first work I learned in Dutch. It means
something like cozy and charming and that's the cottage :) I'll be coming back in April
2010 with Anne, to live here a few months. After that? See below. If you didn't know, I went very heavy into the water
economics business after I graduated. My work revolves around my blog -- aguanomics
-- and I use it to teach, debate, and learn. I got a few consulting jobs from
it, and many invitations to speak or write (often for free, but sometimes for
good money). Check out this page to see the numerous
radio interviews, public talks, discussions with student groups, conferences,
etc. that I've done in the past year. Traditional academics will want to know about publications, and
I actually got a few papers published (finally!). Here's my
CV [pdf] with all the details, but I'll direct you to my best publication to
date: An
auction market for journal articles (with Jens Prufer) in Public Choice
(forthcoming) In addition to academic and public writing and public speaking,
I was very happy to do some academic speaking, i.e., teach Environmental Economics and Policy 100 to about 90 UCB
undergraduates this semester. We had a great time, and I was happy to tape all
of my lectures for uploading to YouTube (yes, you can watch me talk for 35
hours! or listen to the MP3s :-) This page has
all that material (and exams, if you're looking for a challenge :-). One of the best things I did in class was auction
$1 for $3.75. That auction, which recreates the incentives of political
lobbying, got over 10,000 views on YouTube (probably because it's 3 minutes :-). Neat! My students were also very worried about
their grades, so I gave them extra credit assignments. One asked them to solve a
collective action problem in their household (5+ people, not family), and I read
a lot of clever solutions to "who takes out the trash?" Another
assignment had them write to Congressmen, asking why the corn-ethanol program
(of no economic or environmental value) was still continuing. Only one person
got a reply, and that was close to a form letter. So much for "for the
people!" Their other assignment was to interview three panhandlers
(beggars), to find out how much they made and what they were going to do next.
Many students did this assignment (they went in teams, for safety), and many
were affected by the stories they heard. Besides the amazing variety of stories
(medical problems, bad wives, losing jobs, just like it, traveling, drugs/booze,
etc.), there was the data -- many of these folks make $10-20/day of begging, and
many of them like it like that (no future) because it's "easier to ask
people for money than work." I'll be posting some "best of"
write-ups on my blog. I could go on about blogging, teaching, etc.,
but I'll stop there. Anne helped me decide (finally!) to not go
after an academic job (i.e., the economics job market that I did two years ago;
see VI (1): Job Market Update -- 20 Dec 07 for more on that). Instead -- according to the Master
Plan -- I am going to travel with her, learning about water issues in other
countries and enjoying the freedom that I have worked so hard to keep (that's
one of the reasons for no kids, no house, etc.) During our three months of travel, I will
write a draft of my book -- The End of Abundance, a Primer on Water Economics
-- that I have under contract with UC Press (Here's
the proposal [doc] they accepted.) After we get back, we'll find out what to do
next. I really enjoy speaking to the public and teaching people about water and
environmental issues, so I am going to try to continue that. As everyone knows,
there is "no business model" for public intellectuals (as I want to
be), because they speak for the public rather than a self-interested client;
read this
for more. I am hoping that I can get by with consulting (you can buy my time but
not my opinion :-), writing for clients, public
speaking, fellowships, whatever. If you know an organization that supports the
public interest, tell me. (Why not an academic, btw? Because we are
hired and employed to write academic papers, i.e., "papers that nobody
reads in journals nobody has heard of," and that seems a terrible waste of
time and energy to me. I want to have an impact.) After getting back, we may leave again (South
America? Africa?) for more travel and learning about water -- I am going to
maintain the blog throughout this process -- until... maybe we live in Amsterdam
:-) I am also strongly considering running for
Congress in 2012. It will be a learning experience for me (fun!), and I may even
affect the election, debate on policy issues, etc. Stay tuned. Have a wonderful holiday/solstice and
fabulous 2010! Cheers! After I finished my PhD (see Making
of a PhD for that story), I went off to Washington DC to do a short postdoc
("Visiting Fellow, Regulatory Studies") at the Mercatus
Center. Since I knew that I was going to come back to California
after two months, to start a two-year postdoc at UC Berkeley, I thought of my
time in DC as a transition, a vacation, and an exploration of what's there and
what's next. My DC-experience started out badly: Doug Kohler, the guy
who agreed to rent me a room (via craigslist), decided to cancel the deal and
keep my $500 deposit. (I ended up suing Doug -- and winning -- but I couldn't
collect my money. I launched a
blog documenting Doug's misdeeds, and four other people found me who had
been defrauded for thousands of $$. (Maybe that's nothing compared to the
$billions being tossed around these days, but it was real money for us!) In the
end, the blog not only helped two people avoid losing more money (they cancelled
their checks after reading my blog), but it also helped get Doug arrested (he's
negotiating a charge of fraud with all the lying he can muster), and formed the
backbone of the prosecuting attorney's case file. [Unfortunately, I've made the blog private on that
attorney's request. Email me if you want "subscriber" access.] After a week on a friend's couch (thanks Kathryn!), I
ended up moving into a group house in Columbia Heights. I lived there with 6
other 20-somethings, and found myself in the middle of a fun -- if sometimes
confusing -- bunch of folks. My work was interesting. At the Mercatus Center, neither
of my planned projects (how to make regulators do their job without the
prerequisite that they be angels; community water management as an alternative
to the private/public debate) went anywhere. On the other hand, my blogging at aguanomics
took off when MC's media person put me in touch with Forbes. My forbes.com
piece got me a lot of attention -- a
spot on Fox Business News (with a tie!), guestposts
at the Freakonomics blog, invitations to speak at various places, etc. Something was working right! So, I put as much energy into the blog and public outreach
as I could find, and now I've got a reasonably solid audience (200 visitors/day
plus 500 RSS subscribers) for a blog devoted to water economics. [more on this
below...] My personal life was rather chaotic. I got involved in the
"Burner" social community (going to events at Artomatic, attending the
regional burn at TransformUS,
hanging out with various firedancers),
messed around with dating (the DC social scene is pretty active, with the high
turnover of interns and various young things on the prowl), and managed to ride
a bike to work through traffic scrums and massive heat and humidity. (If we are
ever going to encourage a green commute, we will need showers at work!) I got to know a number of people in DC who I still talk
to, so that was cool. My overall impression of DC is that it's a place obsessed
with power (at work, in the bars) and that it's a pity that air conditioning
exists: If there was no A/C, we would have fewer people in DC living off of our
money, designing new programs to bring them more power and screw up our lives. [I think that the founding fathers were rather clever to
put the Capitol in a swamp. Too bad A/C came along...] So, after those two months, I returned to California. (I
had already flown back TWICE for conferences; talk about bad planning!) I rented half of a GREAT house in "the flats" of
Berkeley. It's got hardwood floors, a great kitchen, a fireplace and just a
super layout. I particularly appreciate having a separate bedroom and office on
the 1.5th floor :) Better yet, I have a cool roommate, Nick, an industrial
designer who manages to bring some style into my life! So, after unpacking, I headed to Burning
Man for the second time, taking Steve along for his virgin burn. I was
better prepared, and thus able to arrive early, help with selling ice (you can
only buy ice and coffee @ BM; everything else is a gift or what you brought),
and get into the groove... I camped with the couchsurfers
@ BM, and I have also deepened my connections with that community (800,000
people worldwide who like to sleep on/offer up couches in places far from home).
It's a nice coincidence that the "world headquarters" for CS is based
in Berkeley for this year. Once I got back, it was off to work. As a Wantrup
Fellow, I have no obligations (teaching, research, publication, office
hours, etc.), so you can imagine that I reveled in the freedom. In fact, I continued to do what I had been doing in DC,
which is what I had been doing in Davis before I left -- blogging. Now this brings us to an interesting question that I have
been debating and discussing over the past 6-8 months, i.e., what should I do
with my PhD? The traditional route -- "Academic Intellectual"
-- would have me take an assistant professor job with an obligation to publish
academic articles in academic journals. Teaching would be of lessor (or zero)
importance, and communication with the public (blogs, talks) would have no
professional reward whatsoever. Obviously, I have been doing the opposite -- acting as a
"Public Intellectual" -- for a few reasons: blah blah blah... So, what am I doing about all this? First, I am expanding my public speaking role through a
series of "water chats" (provisional name -- got any better?). These
will be "author talks without the book" that I will schedule myself as
I meander around California (and perhaps neighboring states). I plan to
advertise my presence, meet with local water people (to learn), talk to those
interested (to teach), and keep up with blogging (to publicize what I learn and
where I am going next). I plan to take my first water chat tour soon after the
new year. Second, I am writing up a proposal for Aguanomics, the
book. I have been contacted by several good publishers interested in a book on
water, and it seems that a trade (NOT text) book on water economics would have a
good audience: A Cadillac Desert that teaches non-economists how to look
at water management (in its many dimensions) through the eyes of an economist.
The book is meant to span the gap between the textbooks (boring, hard and
perhaps over-complicated) and the water rants (biased books on "water
crisis," "evil corporations," etc.) Third, I am continuing to blog. The trouble is that I work on public policy, I don't want
to work for the government, and I am unwilling to trade my independence for an
adversarial (corporate or non-profit) position that does not allow me to think
in terms of what's best for "us" -- not just me, Americans, democrats,
etc. In one year, I will be back on the academic job market
(unless I have another job lined up), and I will have to judge whether I can get
a non-academic job (public policy researcher?), whether I can get an academic
job (liberal arts professor), or whether I should just "retire" to
travel and enjoy myself. (It's always good to have a Plan B! I am not rich, but my
money/earning power is sufficient to live, and my respect for
"status" is insufficient to keep me as a wage slave. I also take the
motto of this site (my site) seriously. Kill Your Status Quo can
be uncomfortable, but no risk, no reward!) Libertarians never die -- they just walk off alone... I am very pleased that Obama won. I was sad that Hillary
went nuts during the campaign. (I predicted in Oct 2007 that it would be Hillary
vs. Romney.) I was MORE sad that McCain lost all his maverick in an effort to
pander to the worst elements in the Republican party. I think that Obama CAN get
stuff done by changing the tone (a la Kennedy), and have been pleased overall
with his transition team. For Christmas, I'd like the following presents from St.
Obama: The economic meltdown is a fiasco that can be blamed on
politicians (who like to manage too much), regulators (leaning too hard on
rating agencies, etc.) and corporate managers. I do not blame the capitalists
since their job is to be as greedy as possible. It seems that some people forgot
that (the Madoff scam makes me laugh and cry). The environmental situation is NOT looking good. Many
people in power do not understand sustainable nearly as well as they understand
GDP growth and campaign contributions. Those without power will suffer --
especially as sea levels rise by one meter over the next 100 years, many species
go extinct as their habitat disappears, and we all suffer from greater variation
in the weather. Seriously -- our lifestyle is going to change, voluntarily or
not. That's why I am not having kids, and I am considering retirement (to enjoy
what's left) to be such a good option... All of this makes me feel (and sense in others) a strong
need to rest, reevaluate and reconsider what's going on around and within me.
We've had quite an eventful six months, and volatility, change and uncertainty
are stressful... Enjoy the winter solstice, hug your loved ones, and enjoy
the light to come!
I am still living in Amsterdam and enjoying it very much. The Dutch are different from Americans in several ways: quiet in public,
but forthcoming in private; "precisely relaxed" as they take the necessary time to complete activities on their agendas. They are quite open
to speaking English when a non-Dutch speaker is around (although I've become adept at nodding and smiling in an appropriate way when someone yells in my ear at a party).
Most Dutch are quite diligent at work without taking it home with them. Most offices are abandoned after working hours and on weekends. Amsterdam is a lovely place to cycle around, and the relative lack of car traffic means that everything is calmer
than in most US cities (or London, for that matter). Here are a bunch of photos from events in Amsterdam and the Netherlands.
Anne and I split up in September after two lovely years together. Several factors were involved, one of them being my desire to "chart my own path" here
and in the future. She and I still chat over dinner or drinks every so often, so it's nice to keep that friendship. Around that time, I moved into a temporary
apartment (basically a tiny studio) in the 4th floor garret in a block of flats that's 5 minutes away from "my" train station (Amsterdam Zuid). I am only here
for a few months, as I am subletting from a co-worker of Anne who's off in India until end-Feb. I am going to look for a new place VERY soon, as the
housing market is quite tight in Amsterdam. I've also started to meet some people via the "expat network" -- mostly events organized on meetup.com but also via couchsurfing --
and that's been an interesting experience. It's been helpful to be an American and traveler in these groups, as it makes it easier for me to walk into a room of
strangers and find someone to talk to. I've also met Dutch people here and there, but it's tough to find a balance between imposing ("hey, how about a drink?") and
facing resistance from a people who tend to keep to smaller groups of close friends that expand to include others very slowly.
I've gone on many international trips in the last year -- about 16 for work and 4 for pleasure. I've also been traveling around the Netherlands for work and an occasional fun visit. Sometimes, I ride my motorcycle (a BMW 750RT),
but the cost of fuel and additional effort/safety concerns means that I often take the train. It appears that I will be taking just as many trips in 2012 -- I've already got seven on my agenda!
Here are photos from trips to Venice, Bruges, Israel, Copenhagen, Rome, and Burning Man.
Egypt
I just got back from my second trip to Egypt (my first was in 1997). Since the country is in the news, I'll give you a few impressions.
The post-Mubarak era is slowly developing. The military is still trying to control events (the generals basically kicked out Mubarak and took power), and that's what many protests are about. The opposition to the nationalist-military junta comes from two sources: islamic conservatives and secular liberals.
The 70% vote share of the islamicists in (ongoing) elections indicates that they have a much stronger support [good article] than liberals who took about 20%
of the vote but have a disproportionate presence in the media. In the coming months, I am betting that the islamicists will form a government that gives some extra powers to the military and keeps some liberals on the inside. The former because the generals will
just take over if they are excluded; the latter because a shift to the conservative (salafist) right would upset many people who like Egypt's secular dimensions. It's perhaps helpful to draw parallels to the development of democracy in Chile, Turkey and the failure of religious rule in Iran. (When I
suggested this to an Egyptian, he said that "Shia Iran" has NOTHING in common with Sunni Egypt -- since Shia are blasphemers. Whoops. I ran into several "strong muslims" on this trip -- far more than I remember from last time.)
Also note the money at stake. Mubarak's cronies controlled a big chunk of the economy, but the military controls 30-40 percent of it. Those businesses need to be privatized (as has been happening in China with the PLA). I saw soldiers tending to greenhouse tomatoes!
I had my biggest scare in Ismalia, when the guy sitting next to the taxi driver saw me take a photo of a canal and -- since there was some military wall in the vicinity -- accused me of being an Israeli spy. (I don't speak arabic, but I got the jist of his shouting.) Funny enough, he was ok with me taking photos if I paid 5LE more (about $0.80), but I got out of the car ASAP. The man who changed my money to pay the fare was sympathetic to my plight and gave me a free ride to my hotel. The shouter was not alone -- the (military) government has said on TV that journalists are working for foreign governments intent on interfering with Egyptian affairs. They raided the offices of several pro-democracy NGOs in Cairo the day after I left the country.
Later that day, I spent 10 minutes negotiating with soldiers to take a photo of an election poster outside a voting station. They couldn't understand why I would care about elections there ("not important to you; go to your own country"), but then allowed that my job -- water economist interested in politics -- may give me an excuse to take the photo.
Speaking of elections and protests, I went to Tahrir Square in Cairo one afternoon. It was mostly quiet, but there were tents and soldiers standing ready. Several protests resulted in shooting deaths during my trip. This article discusses the soldiers' disgusting "virginity tests" on women protestors ("We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said.)
I was very happy to snorkel- and scuba-dive [links to videos] in the Red Sea (near Dahab and Ras Mohammed National Park), but sad to see fewer fishes than I remembered from last time. One diver observed that fish was a popular dish at Dahab restaurants. That's not good news.
The garbage problem was quite annoying, so I spent a few hours cleaning up a beach with an Aussi guy Tristan. Here's a video about that effort -- and my ideas on why local people need to take care of their own trash instead of waiting for the "post-revolutionary" government to fix things. The garbage problem can also be blamed on a lack of deposits on plastic bottles and (I think) a government-awarded monopoly on garbage collection in cities. (There are certainly enough un- and under-employed people around to clean the place up!). Besides being an eyesore, rubbish everywhere contributed to overflowing sewer and storm drains that made streets treacherous after any rain.
Here are a bunch of photos from that trip.
Work
I started my job as a senior water economist at Wageningen University one year ago. I'm working on an EU-funded project ("Evaluating Economic Policy Instruments for Sustainable Water Management in Europe"). The project involves 20-30 researchers at 11 locations in 9 countries. I've enjoyed meeting and working with these new colleagues, and we've done some interesting case studies (mine were about groundwater taxes in the Netherlands and the implementation of water metering in England and Wales). I work at home most of the time and take the train to work once or twice a week. The 100km trip takes about 80 minutes door-to-door, but it's relaxing to sit on the
train and read or look out the window.
Besides that project, I've spent a lot of time giving talks on water policy (those 16 trips), keeping my aguanomics blog going (nearly four years!), and writing, publishing and marketing my book.
I self-published The End of Abundance: economic solutions to water scarcity in June 2011. Since then, I have distributed about 900 copies (20% free and 80% sold). Self-publishing has turned out to be a fantastic move, as I have been able to sell the book at a lower price but a higher profit, with much more control over production and marketing. I also had a LOT of help from volunteer readers. You can read more about this process in the microeconomics and macroeconomics of publishing.
Looking ahead, I've been thinking about my career as a public intellectual, wondering if I could succeed (on my own terms) by continuing to pursue a combination of outreach, teaching and research that puts much more emphasis on public than academic discourse. (I reckon that a typical professor shares his time 5/15/80 into outreach, teaching and research, respectively; I allocate my time about 50/15/25.)
As I've said several times before, the academic business model is based on research a lot, teach a bit, get tenure and then consider public outreach while you enjoy tenure (lifetime job security). (Many professors who spend 5 years in graduate school and 6 years writing academic papers are not later inclined nor accustomed to outreach.)
That's not my business model for several reasons:
I was thinking that I might quit my current job to become a vagabond economist, but I reconsidered for two reasons: (1) I enjoy the academic environment and my colleagues and (2) I think that I may be able to move ahead in my career (in terms of jobs and impact) on an academic path.
This means that I need to get more academic work into publication at the same time as I look for an opportunity that allows me to continue a career that places more weight on outreach. That probably means an academic job (maybe a think tank), but my disinterest in tenure makes it easier to imagine a series of visiting lecturer positions around the world.
And let's remember the big picture here: The importance of sound water policy is growing, and my interest in it remains strong. That said, I am spending less time thinking about headlines that seem drawn from the same file year after year and more time thinking about how to implement good policies. That task requires reputation, connections and luck -- in addition to good ideas.
The world
I am also happy to live in the Netherlands right now, away from the American political circus and mismanaged economy. Europe is also facing a financial crisis (misnamed the "euro crisis"), but that one is easier to solve (Greece and other indebted countries go bankrupt -- writing down their bonds' value -- but stay in the EU and keep the euro). That's not happening, I think, because bankers and investors with political power are running the show. The same can be said for the problems in the US, and I wonder when people are going to finally get around to accepting the reality that their homes, investment portfolios and salaries have been inflated to unrealistic levels. The Americans are also suffering from a political discourse that's both shallow and extreme. I blame a (government-controlled) educational system that fails to produce citizens with critical thinking skills and a media that sells fun over content.
I don't know when that will change (I still have plans to run for political office), but I'm hoping that the continued failure at the center helps people realize that they need less government and more responsibility. It's perhaps ironic that the "big government" Dutch are closer to this model.
Until then, I expect we'll muddle along, wasting time, money and human lives. I hope not for too long.
Have a great 2012!
December 22, 2010
December 20, 2009
Work!
Abstract: We recommend that an auction market replace the
current system for submitting academic papers and show a strict
Pareto-improvement in equilibrium. Besides the benefit of speed, this mechanism
increases the average quality of articles and journals and rewards editors and
referees for their effort. The “academic dollar” proceeds from papers sold
at auction go to authors, editors and referees of cited articles. This nonpecuniary
income indicates the academic impact of an article—facilitating decisions on
tenure and promotion. This auction market does not require more work of editors.The Future
December 21, 2008
Washington DC
Work
Personal
Berkeley
UCB Postdoc
Career
A Few Asides