December 31 marked the fifth anniversary of this blog, so on top of wishing Happy New Year to all, I am also wishing this site Happy Blog Anniversary!*
December 31 also marked the close of this blog’s most successful year ever: Between 2014 and 2015, the number of page views almost doubled, increasing by 94.6 percent for a total of 134,951 page views coming from 79,710 visitors in 2015. (This is in no small part thanks to Mark Thoma‘s generous linking to my posts from his own blog Economist’s View, which anyone with an interest in economics should read.)
My top 5 posts of 2015 were, in descending order of popularity:
- Why a Soda Tax Is Unlikely To Work: Yours Truly in the Washington Post
- ‘Metrics Monday: Data Cleaning
- ‘Metrics Monday: You Keep Using That Instrumental Variable; I Do Not Think It Does What You Think It Does
- The Books That Have Shaped My Thinking: Development
- The Books That Have Shaped My Thinking: Economic Theory
Got it: You guys like to read about econometrics and books, so I’ll make sure to keep talking about those things in 2016. I guess it somewhat of a relief that the top post in 2015 was about food, which contrary to what 2 to 5 above might lead you to believe, remains one of the three core topics I write about on this blog.
Happy New Year, everyone!
* I still cannot bring myself to use the awful “blogiversary” portmanteau.