Day of an Assistant Professor (19)

1. Work on the labor management project plan.

2. Discuss the autocracy project with my RA.

3. Submit the referee report after the final check.

Day of an Assistant Professor (18)

1. Continue writing a referee report. Almost done.

2. Get some feedback to the labor management project plan from a colleague in the kitchen.

3. Skim Ohno (2007) and Acemoglu and Zilibotti (1999) for inspirations for the labor management project plan.

Day of an Assistant Professor (17)

1. Interview today's job candidate for 30 minutes at 9 am.

2. Start writing a referee report.

3. Give some feedbacks to a PhD student who talks to me about his research while I am having lunch in the kitchen.

4. Attend a 90-minute job talk.

5. Dinner with the job candidate and my colleagues.

Day of an Assistant Professor (16)

1. Interview today's job market candidate for 30 minutes from 9 am.

2. Read a paper for which I'm asked to referee.

3. Attend a job talk.

4. Learn about tomorrow's job market candidate.

5. Dinner with today's job candidate and my colleagues.

Day of an Assistant Professor (15)

1. Interview today's job market candidate visiting us.

2. Grade mock referee reports handed in by PhD students in our development economics course.

3. Lunch with a PhD student, getting some feedbacks to my research idea.

4. Skim Ballester, Calvo-Armengol, and Zenou (2006).

5. Attend a job talk.

6. Learn a bit about tomorrow's job candidate.

7. Read Ohno 2007 for the labor management project plan.

8. Dinner with today's job market candidate and my colleagues.

The End

A great nightclub in London was closed for good today. The End nightclub, located in a few minute walk to the south of the British Museum, has been praised by many DJs and clubbers as one of the best nightclubs in London. Indeed, the quality of its sound system and the acoustic is one of the best among many clubs that I've been to in my life. During my five-year life in London, I've been there many times, especially for its Wednesday night party called Swerve, hosted by my favorite drum & bass DJ Fabio. That was the party I always went to when I was exhausted from my life as a PhD student. That was the place where I was always sure that I would feel happy and healed by great sound, especially deep and loud bass.

I wanted to fly to London for the final Swerve party last Wednesday, where Fabio would be on the deck for more than four hours, but my job obligations as an assistant professor forced me to give it up. After coming home last night from a drum & bass party held in a club in Stockholm which didn't have good acoustic or the sound system capable of pumping out proper bass sound, the most crucial element for drum & bass music, I terribly miss The End.

Another place in which I can feel happy for sure, which is an absolute rarity for me, is gone.

Day of an Assistant Professor (14)

1. Interview a job market candidate visiting us today for 30 minutes, and learn about the literature on randomized experiments to improve the access to clean water in developing countries.

2. Email my fellow Japanese development economists to give them feedbacks on their plan for evaluating clean water programs.

3. Work with my colleagues on our climate change project.

4. Attend a 90-minute job talk.

5. Go to dinner with the candidate and my colleagues.

Day of an Assistant Professor (13)

1. Learn the consequences of malaria infection during pregnancy and early childhood by visiting the WHO website, and think about empirical specifications for our climate change project. Discuss my colleague on this.

2. Attend the Development Study Group in which PhD students in the field of development economics in Stockholm discuss their research ideas and preliminary results. Give some comments to the presenters.

3. Discuss my RA on the autocracy project.

4. Learn a bit about the job market candidate visiting us tomorrow.

5. Think about how to revise the African democracy paper.

Day of an Assistant Professor (12)

1. Finish marking the exams.

2. Work with my colleagues on our climate change project in the whole afternoon.

3. Make some progress in revising the African democracy paper.

Day of an Assistant Professor (11)

1. Meet a PhD student who talks about his research to me for an hour in the morning. Give him some feedbacks.

2. Write and run a computer program for the African democracy project.

3. Analyze data with my colleagues for our climate change project in the whole afternoon.

4. Mark exams after going home.

Day of an Assistant Professor (10)

1. Work with my colleagues on our climate change project all day.

2. Read Chapter 2 of Ohno 2007 for the labor management project after going home.

Day of an Assistant Professor (9)

1. Finish compiling the data for our climate change project.
2. Start revising the African democracy paper.
3. Prepare what to tell my RA for the autocracy project.
4. Read Ohno (2007) for the labor management project.

(Yesterday was a complete day off.)

Iconoclasm by Buck-Tick

When I first started blogging back in 2001 (at that time it was in Japanese), I made up a word Econoclasm as the blog title. One reason is, as "econo-" implies, I was studying economics (and I am now, too). Another reason is I felt like I was an iconoclast (and I do now, too). The last reason is I liked (and still do like) this tune called Iconoclasm, composed and performed by Buck-Tick. So this is the theme song of Econoclasm.

Day of an Assistant Professor (8)

1. Read Anderson and Ray (2008)'s paper on missing women.
2. Learn a bit about the DHS maternal mortality module and update the Devecondata accordingly.

Day of an Assistant Professor (7)

1. Submit the referee report after the final check.
2. Compiling the dataset for our climate change project. The most tedious part is over.
3. Read the introduction of a couple of papers of my interest in the latest issue of Review of Economic Studies.

Day of an Assistant Professor (6)

1. Finish writing the referee report.
2. Compiling the data for our climate change project.

Day of an Assistant Professor (5)

1. Writing a referee report
2. Compiling the data for our climate change project
3. Have a chat with a PhD student in my research institute about my new project

Day of an Assistant Professor (4)

1. Writing a referee report
2. Compiling the data for our climate change project

Japanese chandelier

Designed by Yumi Terauchi.

(These photos are taken from Excite Ism Concierge, January 12, 2009.)

Day of an Assistant Professor (3)

1. Preparing a referee report
2. Compiling data for the climate change project

Day of an Assistant Professor (2)

Finish reading the paper for which I have to write a referee report.

Day of an Assistant Professor (1)

Let me try to record what I do each day as an assistant professor from today on. Here's what I did on the first day of my job this year.

1. A meeting with my colleagues on our climate change research project.

2. Write exam questions.

3. Submit a referee report.

4. Prepare the claim for reimbursement of expenses to attend the conference in China last month.

5. Start reading a paper for another referee report.