Mercatus

Notes On The Road

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 07:55:45 PDT

So here I am, back in India after a couple of years, doing research for a project in the relatively rich rural district of West Godavari in Andhra Pradesh. Some biased observations based on the few...

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The Unknown Education Revolution in India

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:25:05 PST

This is an op-ed piece of mine that appeared in today's issue of Mint. In response to the photo-post Photo-state of schools in an urban slum in Delhi, there were a few comments and emails deploring...

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Photo-state of schools in an urban slum in Delhi

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:29:46 PST

Circa May 2005, Aditi Bhargava, an ex-intern of mine did a short exploratory study of schools in Sangam Vihar in Delhi. The study was part of an internship program at the Centre for Civil Society....

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Should you penalise a messenger for bad news?

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:14:17 PST

Public policy writing in India is too steeped in macroeconomics and plain vanilla political analyses. Pratap Bhanu Mehta's writing is a good exception like the article The truth is not in the...

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Where Poetry and Cost-benefit analysis meet

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:32:14 PST

A Ballad Of Ecological Awareness The cost of building dams is always underestimated Theres erosion of the delta that the river has created, Theres fertile soil below the dam thats likely to be...

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Beauty and the Bias

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:28:27 PST

Infatuated guy: I think you are the most beautiful person in the world! Research gal: I think you have a biased sample.

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Himalaya view from Kausani

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 02:50:44 PST

This is a picture from a recent trip to Kausani in Uttaranchal. This pic was taken from the balcony where we were staying. Look closely at the upper portion of the pic (click it) and you can see the...

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Car ride with a sexologist - 2

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:53:27 PST

Two distinct events confuse me. The first is the flashing of breasts that happen at an event like the Mardi Gras. Apparently men dole out beads for flashing here. And greater the number of beads a...

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Car ride with a sexologist - 1

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:59:38 PST

After being down in overtly analytical ideas for quite some time I finally hit a fresh way of looking at some things. This is courtesy an intense discussion with a sexologist on course a car trip...

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The 300 dollar man

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:32:42 PST

Here is a neat little nugget of historical incidence that illuminates the funda of insurance. I learnt about this while watching the movie Gangs of New York. You should watch it if nothing else than...

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Importance of "Utility"

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:20:31 PST

A government department G with 10 sub-departments complains to a consultancy C about the overwhelming documentation. C does a survey of five documents that the department usually deals in. Based on...

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SWOT analysis

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 09:25:25 PST

Prof: What is SWOT? Student: ? Prof: Strength is your wife; Weakness if neighbor's wife; Opportunity is when your neighbor is away; Threat is when you are away!

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25 differences I wish I knew earlier!

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:59:44 PST

Causality versus CorrelationStrategic versus Tactical/ OperationalPossible versus ProbableAbsolute versus RelativeOutput and OutcomeRisk and UncertaintyExperiment and ObservationalPoint estimates...

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Hypotheses

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:32:18 PST

Hypotheses are as important in academic research as in business consulting.

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What diseases can tell us about making girlfriends

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:33:30 PST

Lunchtime. Somebody into mathematical modelling of epidemiology floated a neat idea. The most fatal infectious disease is not the most dangerous one. Dangerous in terms of number of people dying....

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A class without a board!

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 21:50:02 PST

If ever I become a professor, this is what I would use to teach in my class ... sketch in mid-air!

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Randomness, Sex and the Survey

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:05:03 PST

A little understood issue is randomness in determining either public opinion or treatment effects. The India Today, November 13 issue "Secret Desires" uses an invalid method to generalize the survey...

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Why workers compensation is worth understanding?

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 20:42:20 PST

Adequate compensation for injured workers can present quite a puzzle. Especially if one is interested in the ability of markets and is against government intervention. A little background on the...

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Yaad rakhna...

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 20:35:46 PST

1. Involve Clients in research process and review 2. Involve Stakeholders in findings 3. Distribute findings to opinion leaders before media gets to them so that atleast they dont belittle your...

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How opportunity cost is the mirror side of causation?

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:33:05 PST

Aha moment! Turns out that op-cost and causation are related to one another through the counterfactual.

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Must-reforms for civil aviation in India

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:21:53 PST

Not unexpectedly, airlines are in cut-throat competition and bleeding each other with the government stepping in to set the house in order. Ajay Shah has written a good insightful piece on the need...

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Why did Japan lose the World War II?

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:37:56 PST

I dont know how I got interested in military strategy. But I picked up a book on it Wizards of Armageddon and out came a couple of gems of strategy-related thought. In the Sixties the pattern of...

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Economists versus Operations Researchers

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 17:02:30 PDT

A real case study here threw up an interesting thinking style intrinsic to economists/ statisticians and operations researchers (OR). Both had their strengths and weaknesses. Case study: The...

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Indian Cinema

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 04:22:51 PDT

Whenever there is a lull in the news cycle, the U.S. or Indian news media come out with a story about how Bollywood is on the verge of going global. Yet the simple truth is that while French and...

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Collage of Thoughts

naveenmblogs@gmail.com (naveen) — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 19:42:16 PDT

I havent spent much time with my father and mother as if they were a man and a lady separate from the fact that they happen to be my parents. Hmmm... How do I know what I dont know that I dont know?...

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