Stata lessons & other resources

A friend asked for a quick list, so here goes:

UCLA's excellent resources to help you learn and use Stata

Another great collection of Stata Resources by Park Hun Myoung, as well as a stata command cheat-card

London School of Economics Stata Resources

Syracuse University's Stata tutorial

Program in Statistics and Methodology by the pol sci's at Ohio State University

Duke Stata tutorials

Social capital formation in rats

[...] we show experimentally that cooperative behavior of female rats is influenced by prior receipt of help, irrespective of the identity of the partner. Rats that were trained in an instrumental cooperative task (pulling a stick in order to produce food for a partner) pulled more often for an unknown partner after they were helped than if they had not received help before.

The paper, published in PLoS Biology, is free to access. With the exception of direct reciprocity (the 'you've been nice to me, I'll be nice to you' type), no other mechanism for reciprocity had ever been demonstrated in nonhuman animals before.

'Altruistic behavior by previous social experience irrespective of partner identity' is fundamental to human society, and perhaps the single behaviour economic theory most struggles with.

Obama meets Bartlet

Here.

Bailout tidbits

In case you missed it, Friday saw a hell of a meeting:

The intense discussions reportedly saw US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson literally down on one knee, begging Ms Pelosi to help push through the bail-out package.

It looks like economists may have had something to do with the plan bein' stalled and all:

Republican Senator Richard Shelby moments ago on CNN explaining why the tentative deal reached earlier today is bunk:

"If 200 of our economists say the plan is flawed we should listen to them."

Here's the statement by the actually 192 economists.


And last but not least, Greg Mankiw's smart friend discovers a free lunch - go no further than point 1.

Friday Special 73

Photos That Changed The World (explicit picture warning)

Twelve canoes: We are the first people of our lands.

You couldn't ski to save yourself - perfect for a Friday lunch break

Why $700 billion?

I was wondering about that. Zubin Jelveh has the answer:

[...] There are roughly $14 trillion in outstanding residential and commercial mortgages and five percent is also roughly the loss rate on those categories, he added. Five percent of $14 trillion is = $700 billion.

Nice.

"It's not science," Bernanke said.

Wronging rights

Kate has a B.A. in Genocide from NYU's Gallatin School. Amanda has a Masters Degree in Violence, Conflict, and Development Studies from SOAS at the University of London.

These girls have some seriously wicked education, and they author the highly recommended wronging rights blog. Their special skills: crimes against humanity, modern warfare, and the social construction of atrocity. It's a delight to read.

Postscript: As a bonus, the top post right now comments on yet another horrid BBC news story - and as loyal readers of this blog know, I NEVER get tired of stories pointing out how abysmally bad the BBC is and imply I should be getting my license fee back.