Issue 37, Fall 2009

William A. McEachern, Editor

ODDS AND ENDS

• There is no shortage of material about recent economic turmoil, but I'd like to single out a film you might not otherwise read about. We All Fall Down: The American Mortgage Crisis is a 65 minute documentary from Icarus Films that methodically goes through the housing meltdown in an engaging but not breathless manner. The movie's star would have to be "Dr. Doom," Nouriel Roubini of NYU. But the film's strength lies in its particular stories, such as the sad case of a soldier and his family who bought a house, renovated it over the course of four years, but then couldn't afford the payments after the mortgage reset from 6.9% to 10.5%. Kevin Stocklin, the writer and producer, won a 2009 CINE Golden Eagle for the film. For more information, go to http://icarusfilms.com/new2009/fall.html.
• According to a random survey of 114,000 undergraduates, the National Center for Educational Statistics found that 66% received some type of student aid during the 2007-2008 academic year. This was up from 55% in 1999-2000. The average aid for students receiving it in 2007-2008 was $9,100. According to a random survey of 14,000 graduate students, 74% received aid in 2007-2008, averaging $17,600 among those with aid. For details, go to http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009166.
• Even though teachers in the Harry Potter movies can be obnoxious, class demonstrations drive interest among the characters and viewers alike. It's a traditional classroom setup, but the content includes spells, incantations, how to fly a broom, and other hands-on wizardry. No other movie makes the classroom come so alive. On the contrary, most movie teachers are deadly dull, such as Ben Stein's near-death role in the classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off... "Anyone? Anyone?" (Stein, son of economist Herb Stein, majored in economics at Columbia.) Take a lesson from the Hogwarts faculty—engage students in the classroom.
• The Journal of Industrial Organization Education (at http://www.bepress.com/jioe/) seemed to be a promising new entry from the Berkeley Electronic Press (BEP) when it first appeared online in January 2006. It was the first and, so far, only one of the two dozen BEP online journals in economics to focus on teaching. The Web site promised the new journal would offer peer-reviewed multimedia teaching materials. That first issue contained eight contributions including lectures, experiments, and teaching advice. But that first issue was the only one to appear in 2006. The January 2007 issue contained only three contributions, and, again, was the only issue that year. Only one piece appeared in 2008 and only one so far in 2009. An "Academic" subscription is $225 a year; a "Corporate" subscription is $675 (though it's not clear that anyone actually pays either rate). The journal is edited by James Dearden of Lehigh and Jeffrey Perloff of Berkeley. Perhaps the journal is too specialized to generate enough submissions of sufficient quality.
• "Credit, the disposition of one man to trust another, is singularly varying. In England, after a great calamity, everybody is suspicious of everybody; as soon as that calamity is forgotten, everybody again confides in everybody." —Walter Bagehot
• "[I]ncreased uncertainty provides an incentive to defer investments in order to wait for more information." —Ben Bernanke (from his MIT dissertation)

Acknowledgments: For helpful comments on a draft of this issue, I thank Bill Goffe, Sarah Greber, Dennis Heffley, Charles Martie, Stephen Miller, and Susan Smart.

Top