TQ: a bumpy ride

Posted on 07/28/2016 by actions15

K. always need reassurance. He needs to learn that this is a real game. As such, there will be win or lose. The question is how you deal with it. If you cannot control your emotion, and let the temporary setback consume you, you won’t get very far.

——————————

Hi, K,

We put a lot of efforts into this paper. I have no doubt about its quality. I would be surprised if AE would reject the paper for quality reason. Even if it is the case, we can still go for MS: our paper is much better than B.’s.

We will prevail.

Hi L,

I think the AE rejected the paper – the status indicates waiting EIC decision.

K.

\section{Day 276, 6.19S}

Posted on 06/19/2016 by actions15

RUN: 0;
SWIM: 0.5KM;
LEARN: ALIPRANTIS, 4HRS;

TQ2: FINISH THE FIRST DRAFT, 3HRS;
CHAT WITH MY SISTER, 1HR;

To wait, or not to wait, that is the question

Posted on 06/13/2016 by actions15

Yes. That is the opening of the paper I am working on. In the last few days, I tried to work out the first draft. The process has been painfully slow, for two reasons. First, the subject is new. Without expertise, I have no confidence to just write as I know. Instead, I spent quite some time to read others’ work. The notes I took is about 100 pages long. The rationale is simple: only after knowing the literature, you can position your work, that is, tell your own story.

Second, I was interrupted by teaching. This quarter I teach four classes. This is a very demanding schedule. It took toll on my productivity. As you may know, writing an academic paper requires long time focus—you must pas the bar of the first round review. Otherwise, it is a total waste of time, as much as half year’s work. For teaching, although I have taught the subjects before, this time I add new stuff. So it is quite taxing.

The good news is, the teaching is over. And I have full control of my time till next April. Use it wisely.

WRITING 137: WORK PLAN FOR FEBRUARY

Posted on 02/01/2016 by actions15

For a long time I’ve been quite cynical even hostile to my area. I believe most of the papers in my area are garbage. They at best make epsilon improvement. Only 5-10 percent are truly original.

Yet people still devote tremendous amount time in this meaningless game. For juniors I understand: this game is the path to power and security. But I have little respect to the tenured ones who still keep producing garbage, the garbage even themselves do not believe in

But unless the academic tenure system collapses, not much will change. The logic is quite simple: if you don’t want to play this game, just quite; there are hundred part-time, adjuncts dying for a permanent, tenure-track spot.

Complaints aside, the tenured are still required to produce to justify their unreasonable pay (yes, i believe most of US academics are overpaid), which never make sense if only justified by teaching alone.

Another justification for playing this useless game is to help students and juniors, a more sensible course. Currently I am involved in four projects with four juniors. Among them, AO is most mature and motivated one. He initiates and takes the responsibility. I only need to discuss and do the final write up. The workload is about a week.

KK needs more guidance. For TQ2, he will email me the computation part. Then I need to finalize it. There are 3 papers to read for the literature review part.

The most troubling one is PL. He wants the result but does not want to work. Instead, he recruit another guy from his previous school. I haven’t heard from him since mid-December. But I am in no hurry: after all, it is him, not me, who needs the paper out so badly. He is working on the extension now. Once that is done, he needs to rework the numerical part two. The writing will be a pain. Expect 1-2 weeks’ work.

WRITING: NOTES ON AO

Posted on 01/20/2016 by actions15

This morning I had a discussion with A, mainly on the pooling equilibrium.

The basic model is as follows. The supplier S has two distribution channels: direct sell to the end consumers, and through a retailer R. The retailer is more efficient in retail operations with less retail cost. However, the retail channel suffers efficiency loss due to double marginalization (DM) (we assume that the channel is managed by the wholesale price contract). In addition, the supplier’s type of retail cost $c_i$ is his private information, high or low. The consumer demand is linear. Both parties are risk-neutral and profit maximizing.

We frame the problem as a signaling game. First, S learns his type $c_i$ and sets wholesale price $w(c_i)$ . Second, R orders quantity $q_R$ . Finally, S delivers $q_R$ and sells $q_S$ directly to the market. Hence the market clearing price is $P= a - b(q_R+ q_S)$ . The payoffs for R and S are
$(P-w)q_R$ and $Pq_S + c_i(q_S + q_R)$ , respectively.