Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Just been busy in research

Just been busy and trying to finsih my PhD research. I have however updated my other blog (about Pakistan) http://www.emullah.com.

As soon as my PhD research work load reduces I will start updating my weblogs regularly.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

The Tiger and Bull Story (Can microsoft's bull beat Apple's tiger?)

Apple is bringging out its bombproof operationg system Mac OS X 10.4 code name Tiger by mid 2005. Microsft's much awaited Long Horn is far from reality. It was supposed to be released in 2003 and now defered to 2006. The tiger runs faster than bull and Apple's Steve Jobs is all set to prove it. I am fascinated by the preview of the tiger and already thinking about switching my Dell machine. The price is the key and Steve is bent to prove it that he will make it affordable so that people who have been waiting for an alternative operating system don't stand and wait until they are completely frustrated with Windows. The OS X Panther is already selling at an afordable price of $129 for single user and $199 family pack (a price for which you will get single user XP pro upgrade only, $299 for full version) and mini mac is selling for just $499 only 2" in height. What else you need? Tiger: smart, sleek, and light weight on budget will sprint faster; Long Horn Bull, bulky is heavy on budget and nerves due to security breakdowns. let's see how fast it runs against Tiger. Would it become bearish in long run in front of Tiger's leap and pace? Bull is just snoring in the stable and is not out yet.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Wage differentials and sex discrimination

I blogged about Harvard University's Presidents controversial remarks about women's appointment in teaching, research and scientific achievements. Here is an interesting article that highlights same issue with a different angle.

The endogenous growth theory also looks specifically at the contribution of gender and fertility towards economic growth. A list of readings can be found at Jonathan Temple's Economic Growth web site

Who Says A Woman Can't Be Einstein?

At least I wont say that. My wife is an aspiring economist and she will be finishing her PhD in May 2005. May be a semester earlier than me. By the way she started a year later than I started my PhD. I will tell you inside story some other time.

At this moment just enjoy the Time magazines' story.
Posted Sunday, February 27, 2005

There was something self-destructive about Harvard University President Larry Summers' speech on gender disparities in January. In his first sentence, he said his goal was "provocation" (rarely a wise strategy at a diversity conference). He called for "rigorous and careful" thinking to explain the gender gap among top-tier tenured science professors. But he described his pet theory with something less than prudence. The most likely explanations, he said, are that 1) women are just not so interested as men in making the sacrifices required by high-powered jobs, 2) men may have more "intrinsic aptitude" for high-level science and 3) women may be victims of old-fashioned discrimination. "In my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described," he announced.

It's always perilous to use science to resolve festering public debates. Everyone sees something different—like 100 people finding shapes in clouds. By the time they make up their minds, the clouds have drifted beyond the horizon..... "The brain is a sex organ," says Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist who became famous in the 1990s for her study of Albert Einstein's brain. "In the last dozen years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of studies that have found differences in the brain. It's very exciting."

But that's just the beginning of the conversation. Read the rest at

Lawrence Summers comments though controversial but sucessful in initiating more research

Summers is a notable economist. Development economists talk about him often especially when they use famous Summer-Heston cross country data set for their research. In my personal unbaised opinion! He did a good job in generating a controversy as he was expected to do so by the NBER conference organizers. We will owe him all the research initiatives on gender and productivity issues which will follow his remarks in coming years.
Probably the gender gap has been one of the most neglected area among economist doing research on growth and productivity. Not any more! The time magazine has responded to the hottest debate in its most recent issue. It is interesting to see how times magzine looks inside the brain of a man and woman and gender disparities in science.