Last updated on January 1, 2018
Today marks the seventh anniversary of this blog, so on top of wishing Happy New Year to all, I am also wishing this site Happy Blog Anniversary!
Today also marks the close of this blog’s most successful year ever: Between 2016 and 2017, the number of page views increased by 22 percent, for a total of over 150,000 pageviews in 2017.
The most popular posts of 2017 were, starting with the most popular:
- 2SLS: Chronicle of a Death Foretold?
- How Should Econometrics Be Taught?
- How to Publish in Academic Journals?
- You Can’t Compare OLS with 2SLS
- Achieving Statistical Significance with Covariates
Looks like there is a common theme there… which means I will most keep writing about applied econometrics. I should be able to post more frequently in the next few months, as I don’t have to teach between January and September.
* * *
This has been a good year for me. In terms of research, I have published three new articles–two in my discipline’s top journal, and one in a top general political science journal. Another article was just accepted and is forthcoming in early 2018, and I have placed an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
(Update: And in an article titled “In Praise of Quinoa,” The Economist mentioned our work on quinoa–and me by name, although I wish they would’ve acknowledged my coauthors, too–in an article in their Leaders section.)
I have traveled for work within the US to Chicago (three times), Gainesville, FL, Washington, DC (three times), West Lafayette, IN, New York, Vail, CO, Columbus, OH (twice), Madison, WI, and New Orleans, LA; and internationally to the United Kingdom, back home to Canada (twice), and to Italy.
At Food Policy, my co-editor and I have seen our impact factor go up significantly yet again this year.
I have helped conduct, for the first time in my career, the external review of one of our peer departments, learning many new things in the process.
My personal favorite has been to see three of my PhD students successfully defend, graduate, and start in tenure-track positions that they are really happy with.
The most wonderful part of all this has mixed the personal with the professional: it has been to meet and talk with so many interesting people, old and new.
* * *
Whether you have been reading this blog since its very beginning or you have only started recently, thank you from the bottom of my heart for making time to read what I write. When I registered this domain name and installed WordPress on the site, I wasn’t sure I could keep this blog going for a year, let alone seven.*
Happy New Year! I hope 2018 brings you joy, health, and prosperity.
* At that point, I had tried and failed many times to keep a diary. This only changed recently, as I now write a few pages in a daily journal every morning as part of a more elaborate early-morning ritual.