Wow I missed blogging this last month! There were many of work and family commitments that had to take the bulk of my time. I was reading many graduate student papers during this time, which were really good, but it takes a great deal of mental energy to correct them.
There are many different things I will be writing about coming up but I thought I would write about the upcoming semester and what I am teaching. I will teach Business & Economic History and then Economic Forecasting. Okay, insert your joke here. My favorite joke right now is that I will not be able to talk about the present at all because I will be too occupied with the past and future.
The blogging topics will continue to focus on North Dakota and demographic measures. Demographic forces are enormously important for North Dakota and its economic success. However, I think it is important to branch out a bit and start including other things like marriage rates. Do not expect me to moralize or adopt any particular opinion about these topics, but such measures are an integral part of the social fabric of the state.
My research is picking up steam looking at topics in banking entry and retail sales along with reliable interests like natural disasters. I added some new ones looking at border effects and government spending. The twist is that my coauthor and I look at arts spending. Why? I interpret this as a completely discretionary form of spending so it is potentially free of some of the competitive responses states may feel compelled to undertake. I will have a paper soon that looks at race and coaching tenure in the NFL as well, but with a twist. I am also working with a coauthor looking at the effects of employment type on fertility rates.
There is also the state demography conference coming up. I am helping plan that again so I will be getting some presentations done for that too. Lots going on, but it should also give me much to write about here.
