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The Hidden Curriculum

The Hidden Curriculum

By Hidden Curriculum

The Hidden Curriculum is a podcast on all the topics you wanted to learn in (econ) graduate school. There are lots of things about the profession that you only hear if you have a great mentor or during networking opportunities. This podcast aims to help decrease that knowledge gap by bringing that information into your headphones!
Artwork by @factorintrinseco. Music by Funk O'Clock by Delicate Beats. Licensed by Premium Beat
Email: hiddencurriculumpodcast@gmail.com
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E44 - Working in specialized departments with Joe Benitez

The Hidden CurriculumJan 16, 2024

00:00
42:55
E44 - Working in specialized departments with Joe Benitez

E44 - Working in specialized departments with Joe Benitez

In this episode, we talk with Joe Benitez on working in specialized departments. Joe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Management & Policy at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health. His research focuses primarily on the impact of public policy changes on access to care, medically underserved populations and the role of the health care safety net, and the Medicaid program. He has been published is Health Affairs, Health Services Research, and Medical Care, and featured on NPR and U.S. News & World Report. In 2016, he was funded by AcademyHealth’s New Investigator Small Grant Program to study the implications of Medicaid expansion for safety net hospital financing. More recently, Dr. Benitez received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study Medicaid use and participation among transitionally poor households. He is also on the editorial board of Medical Care Research & Review, and he will soon start as a member of the advisory board for the construction of a Medicaid Equity Database to be developed by the University of Minnesota’s State Health Access and Data Assistance Center (SHADAC).

Dr. Benitez received his PhD in Health Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he was awarded an R36 Dissertation Grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality to study the long-run effects of the Medically Underserved Area designation program.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Jan 16, 202442:55
E43 - How to get a book published with Andrew Friedson

E43 - How to get a book published with Andrew Friedson

This week we (@ajhollingsworth) talk with Andrew Friedson on how to get a book published. Andrew is a research director at the Milken Institute. Previously he was an associate professor on economics at UC Denver. He recently has published his first book "Economics of Healthcare" is out now! This textbook is an introduction to health economics to people without much of the Econ-background.

Get the book here


P.S. We've are back! Share any episode on your favorite social media and send us a receipt at hiddencurriculumpodcast@gmail.com or just by doing it on twitter we will notice it!


Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of at the Ohio State University

Andrew Friedson, PhD, is the director of health economics in the Milken Institute’s Research Department. He heads projects concerning health, health care, and related sectors. Prior to joining the Milken Institute, he spent over a decade in academia where he was an associate professor of economics at the University of Colorado, Denver, with a secondary appointment in the department of health systems management and policy at the Colorado School of Public Health.  He has wide expertise in health economics and has published peer-reviewed research on health behaviors, markets, and policy in premiere journals in economics, public policy, and medicine including the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, and JAMA Health Forum. Friedson received the Richard Musgrave Prize from the National Tax Association in 2014. His textbook, Economics of Healthcare: A Brief Introduction will be released soon by Cambridge University Press. Friedson received a PhD and a MA in Economics from Syracuse University and BAs in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Rochester.

Jan 04, 202451:26
Relaunch - We're back!!! (New season trailer)

Relaunch - We're back!!! (New season trailer)

We took a little break and now we are back with some great episodes. Some are recorded long ago, some more recently. All are newly edited. Looking forward to a great season :)

Jan 03, 202403:12
E42 - Pitch Perfect: The basics of making a great pitch with Mary Eschelbach Hansen and Zach Bethune

E42 - Pitch Perfect: The basics of making a great pitch with Mary Eschelbach Hansen and Zach Bethune

This week we have a special episode! We invite a couple of job market candidates to give us their pitch and we have a panel of judges identifying the great things about each pitch and broad lessons for everyone who is crafting the pitch for their paper. The "elevator" pitch is an idea whose objective is to talk about a particular paper to motivate a conversation. Usually job market candidates have to "craft" a pitch since they'll be constantly asked about their job market paper. It is not easy and there are many takes on how to get this done, this is why in this episode we have the hot takes from two professors. Our first panelist is Mary Eschelbach Hansen, she is a professor of economics at American University. Our second panelist is Zach Bethune, an associate professor of economics at Rice University. We have four candidates who have share their pitches with us:

Laura Montenovo a PhD student at Indiana University. Job Market paper

Alistair Macaulay a postdoc at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford. Job Market Paper 

James Flynn a PhD student at UC Boulder. Job Market Paper 

Ashley Bradford a PhD student at Indiana University. Job Market Paper

 We hope this is useful to both JMCs and early career scholars honing their skills on marketing a paper.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recs of the week:

Check out Mary Eschelbach Hansen's book Bankrupt in America (with Bradley A. Hansen). This book traces how and why bankruptcy was transformed from an infrequently used provision in the Constitution, to an indispensable tool for businesses, to a central element of the social safety net for ordinary Americans— all in less than a century.

Mary recommends for you to check out the pumpkin pie with bourbon recipe from Julia Childs, I think is this one. In addition, listen a Johnny Cash song! Here is a playlist of his work

Zach recommends to unplug from your phone and to do something else, maybe read a physical book! He recommends The Infinite Machine, by Camila Russo. You can find all the recommended books on our recommended book page https://bookshop.org/shop/Hiddencurriculum. Also check out Zach's research on his research page and his food rec is to order a Greenberg Smoked Turkey. 

Alex recommends the book When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein

Dec 06, 202201:00:35
E41 - Learning to Advocate for yourself with Jessica Calarco

E41 - Learning to Advocate for yourself with Jessica Calarco

In this episode we talk with Jessica Calarco about advocating for oneself. Jessica is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. Her research program focuses on systems of inequality, how policies and institutions cater to those with power and privilege while disadvantaging others. Professor Calarco has two books, "Negotiating Opportunities" and "A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum", which is very related to the topics of this podcast!

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Show notes:

You can find the book and all other books that we have recommended in our Hidden Curriculum library

One of the recommendations of the week is Zotero bib. ZoteroBib is a free service that helps you build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software. Find more here: https://zbib.org/faq

You can also check out Alex's guide on how to manage reference for research here: https://hollina.github.io/managing-references.html

Another recommendation is the Facebook group "Buy Nothing". This is a Facebook group, that aims to have people give out free items to members of their own local community. It's a great way of recycle or ask for favors!

Sep 09, 202248:40
E40 - American Society of Hispanic Economist with Jose Fernandez

E40 - American Society of Hispanic Economist with Jose Fernandez

This week we talked with Jose Fernandez about the American Society of Hispanic Economists. Jose is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Louisville. He graduated from the University of Virginia. He conducts research in crime, health, and labor economics. He is serving a second term as a member of the American Economic Association Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession, a fellow of the Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics (DITE), and the former President of the Hispanic/Latino Faculty and Staff Association at the University of Louisville. He was the past President of the American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE). 

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Show notes:

If you are more interested in learning about ASHE check their website: https://asheweb.org

Jose spoke about the list of URM economist working in many fields. You can see the list here.

Jose also talked about a paper on "Who gets invited to Seminar Talks" by Doleac, Hengel and Pancotti. Find that paper here

Jose mentioned his to-do app is called MinimaList

Jose's recommendation of the week is the book "Eat that Frog" by Brian Tracy. 

Alex's recommendation of the week is the book "Teaching statistics: A bag of tricks" by Andrew Gellman and Deborah Nolan. 

You can find these and all books recommended on our Hidden Curriculum Book List! https://bookshop.org/shop/Hiddencurriculum

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is the Chirr.app which is an app that helps write and publish twitter threads. 

Aug 25, 202247:47
E39- Statistical grammar with Sarah Hamersma

E39- Statistical grammar with Sarah Hamersma

In this episode we talk with Sarah Hamersma about statistical grammar.

Sarah Hamersma is an Associate Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs and a Senior Research Associate in the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Notes from the episode

Recommendations of the Week

Jul 12, 202253:24
E38 - Letters of recommendation for tenure with Kosali Simon

E38 - Letters of recommendation for tenure with Kosali Simon

In this episode we talk with Kosali Simon about letters of recommendation for tenure.

  • Kosali Simon is a Distinguished Professor at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. At IU, Kosali is also the Paul O’Neill Chair, a Herman B Wells Endowed Professor, and the Associate Vice Provost for Health Sciences. Outside of IU Professor Simon is an elected member of National Academy of Medicine and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. 
  • Sebastian Tello-Trillois an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.
  • Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.


Kosali mentions the COVID-19 research database, https://covid19researchdatabase.org. Note this episode was recorded a while ago, so this reference is a touch dated. 

We also touch on an article on the ASHEcon Newsletter on Data Resources on health care encounter data which can be found here.


Recommendations of the Week

  • Kosali recommends gapminder, https://www.gapminder.org, for accessing data on health (and other things). 
  • Sebastian recommends creating a shortcut that changes your phone to be black and white when you want to remind yourself to focus.
  • Alex recommends-- if you're using obsidian-- paying for obsidian mobile sync, https://obsidian.md/pricing






Jun 21, 202249:36
E37- Discussing a new book, Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School―But Didn’t, with Marc Bellemare

E37- Discussing a new book, Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School―But Didn’t, with Marc Bellemare

E37

In this episode we talk with Marc Bellemare about his new book, Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School―But Didn’t. You can pre-order Marc's book here

Marc Bellemare is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Distinguished University Teaching Professor, and Northrop Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. Marc's research focuses on agricultural economics and applied econometrics.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Notes from the episode

Recommendations of the Week

Apr 19, 202255:46
E36 - a framework for mentoring with the Research in Color Team

E36 - a framework for mentoring with the Research in Color Team

In this episode we talk with the team from the Research in Color Foundation about their framework for mentoring students. The Research in Color Foundation is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to increasing the number of Ph.D. students of color in economics and economics-adjacent disciplines, and amplifying meaningful economic and policy research on communities of color. RIC does this by matching minorities looking to pursue doctoral degrees in these fields with seasoned professionals who will serve as mentors. In this conversation we talked with Chinemelu Okafor (Founder and President), Odichinma Akosionu (Director of Operations), and Rahma Ahmed (former Vice-president).
Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.
Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.
Show notes:

Chinemelu recommends taking some time of your day to read a book! This could be any type of book, doesn’t have to be a “serious” read.
Odichinma recommends an air fryer, you’ll love it! She also recommends “Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself” by ****Nedra Glover Tawwab. You can find this an all other recommended books in this list.
Rahma, recommends using audiobooks as a way to read your books! She specifically recommends two apps, the first one is Libby which can connect to your local library so you can access free audiobooks! The other app is LibriVox which offers free public domain audiobooks
Apr 12, 202250:04
E35 - Digital Innovations in the Teaching Space with Abdullah Al-Bahrani

E35 - Digital Innovations in the Teaching Space with Abdullah Al-Bahrani

In this episode we talk with Abdullah Al-Bahrani on innovations in the teaching world. Abdullah is an Associate Professor of Economics and the Director of the Center for Economics Education at Northern Kentucky University. His research focuses on economics education and on the role of information on economic decision-making and market outcomes. He is the recipient of the Kenneth G. Elzinga Distinguished Teaching Award (2020), Excellence in Teaching and Instruction award (2016), Dean’s Citation award (2015), and several other awards that recognize my passion and ability for teaching. Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Shownotes: Check out the Econ Games. https://www.theecongames.com. Abdullah founded this event in which students use skills learned in their economics classes and apply it to real world situations. Check out Abullah’s youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrAbdullahAlBahrani Sebastian recommends the news site: https://ojo-publico.com and news aggregator: https://winno.app. Sebastian also recommends checking out Dbrands, https://dbrand.com, which are “covers” for your tech so they look nice and unique! Abdullah recommends Paperlike for the ipad. Screen https://paperlike.com Alex recommends Uni-ball power tank: https://uniballco.com/collections/ballpoint-pens/products/power-tank-ballpoint-pens Take the npr health insurance quiz: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/459346426 We also talked about Rebbeca Moryl’s resource on using podcast to teach economics

Mar 08, 202247:00
E34 - Working at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with Will Wheeler

E34 - Working at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with Will Wheeler

In this episode we talk with Will Wheeler about working at the Environmental Protection Agency. Will is an environmental economist at the U.S. EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics. He mostly conducts research regarding water quality and enforcement issues and is interested in the quality of EPA’s environmental data and helping people understand the EPA's data sets. He is also interested in the potential for gaming of environmental data. He is Past-President of the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association and is on the Editorial Board of the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy. In this episode we talk about What does the EPA do? What is the role of economist on the EPA? What are day-to-day tasks? What are some misconceptions about the work in a government agencies? and other interesting questions!

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations of the week:

- Will recommends checking the book  "No drama discipline" and if you are an environmental economist and are looking for research topics, look into the trade press like "Inside EPA"

- Alex recommends having a plain text file to "accumulate" things to do, and only concentrate on a number of things per day/week.

- Sebastian recommends the book "Make Time" by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. Find it here

Mar 01, 202238:45
E33 - Getting into graduate school with Price Fishback

E33 - Getting into graduate school with Price Fishback

In this episode we talk with Price Fishback about admission to economics PhD programs.

Price Fishback is the Thomas R. Brown Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona. His primary research interest is the political economy of Roosevelt’s New Deal during the 1930s, examining both the determinants of New Deal spending and loans and their impact on local economies throughout the U.S. Fishback is a research affiliate at the Centre for Economic History at Australian National University, a CAGE Fellow at Warwick University, a program scholar for the Hoover Program on Regulation and the Rule of Law, a fellow at the TIAA-CREF Institute and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Notes from the episode

Recommendations of the Week

  • Price recommends seeing/watching Hamilton
  • Alex recommends when running code that will take a while, preventing your computer from turning off and changing the background of your desktop to remind you that you did this. 
  • Sebastian recommends writing down what you want to do the day before!
Feb 22, 202258:45
E32 - Productivity and work habits with Patrick Baylis

E32 - Productivity and work habits with Patrick Baylis

In this episode we talk with Patrick Baylis about productivity and work habits. 

Patrick Baylis is an assistant professor and environmental economist at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He studies how people respond to environmental threats like climate change, air pollution, and wildfires. 

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Notes from the episode 

Recommendations of the Week

  • Patrick recommends deleting email applications from your phone.
  • Alex recommends buying a kitchen scale (he has this one Escali Primo P115C). (Note: Sebastian has now done this and also endorses this tip)
  • Sebastian recommends wakelet (https://wakelet.com) to organize lists of links 
Feb 16, 202251:51
E31 - Understanding differences about the international graduate student experience with Christine Strong

E31 - Understanding differences about the international graduate student experience with Christine Strong

In this episode we talk with Christine Strong about the graduate student immigrant experience. Christine is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Strome School of Business at Old Dominion University. She holds a PhD from the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on macroeconomics, monetary policy, politics of central banking and currency union, with a focus in African countries.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations of the Week

Christine's recommendation of the week is the book "Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah. You can find this and other recommended books in this link

Alex's recommendation of the week is the command binscatter or binscatter2. This is a command that helps understand relationships between two variables. The idea is that it will give the average y for equally size bins of the x variable. You can look find the command of this link: https://michaelstepner.com/binscatter. Another important point is that there are some potential issues with this version of the command that are explained here ( https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.09608) and a newer version of this command which fixed those isssues: binscatter2  https://github.com/mdroste/stata-binscatter2

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is the podcast "Professor-ing". Professor-ing is a new podcast from the NCFDD where faculty share the R&R - the real and realer about life in academia. Find out more at www.FacultyDiversity.org/ProfessoringPodhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/professor-ing/id1519285794

Sep 21, 202157:25
E30 - Get started with grants and tips for submission with Donna Ginther

E30 - Get started with grants and tips for submission with Donna Ginther

In this episode we talk with Donna Ginter on her tips to a successful grant proposal. Donna is the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her major fields of study are scientific labor markets, gender differences in employment outcomes, wage inequality, scientific entrepreneurship, children's educational attainments, and child abuse and neglect.

In her role as the director of IPSR at Kansas she helps people get funded through different means. Her research also focuses on scientific entrepreneurship. Finally, Donna has has extensive experience applying for grants and serving in committees that award grants. She shares what she has learned from all of these experiences with us.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations of the week:

Donna recommends that if you are looking for a way to quickly re-charge your batteries, go out for a walk in "nature". Donna feels that going out to nature even for 15 minutes can help recharge energy and get the creative flow going. Her second recommendation is to track your time. Pick a given week or period of time for which you will track your time. Then check how much %s of your time you spend on each category of your job and adjust accordingly.

Alex's recommendation of the week is to ask people for their successful grant applications. When he started this process, Alex didn't know where to start. Seeing a friend's application was very helpful in understanding format, and narrative of how an application looks.

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to apply for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. This fellowship provides you with financial support and importantly it can relief you from teaching assistant duties during your PhD Program, which can be very helpful. You can apply for this fellowship while applying for graduate school or in your first year of graduate school.

Sep 14, 202148:46
E29 - Tips to target a job at a liberal arts institution with  Allison O Luedtke

E29 - Tips to target a job at a liberal arts institution with Allison O Luedtke

In this episode we talk with Allison Luedtke (LID-kee) about procuring a job at a liberal arts position. Allison is an assistant professor of economics at St. Olaf College. Her research focuses on the macroeconomic effects of networks. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Virginia and Bachelor's degree in Math from William and Mary.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations of the Week:

Allison's recommendations of the week is a cocktail called greenpoint. It's a spin on a Manhattan. Ingredients are:

  • 2 ounces rye whiskey
  • 1/2 ounce yellow Chartreuse
  • 1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
  • 1 dash Angostura bitters
  • 1 dash orange bitters
  • Garnish: lemon twist

Alex's recommendation of the week is to sign up for "Bright by Text". It's a text messaging systems that "provides invaluable information from early childhood experts on topics including developmental milestones, brain development, mental health and resilience, social-emotional competence, STEM, language and literacy, nutrition, health and more." Text BRIGHT to 274 448 to sign up. They also have the text in spanish!

Alex also say you should watch Ted Lasso.

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to submit your JMP! This is taken from my adviser Kitt Carpenter. The main story here is that once you are done with the market, you will take a break, move and then the semester will start and life will be a bit hectic. It may be easy to keep scheduling working on the JMP for later. It may even seem like a huge task to do all the suggestions you got while being on the market! That's true but I still highly recommend getting back to it and just trying to submit it, and re-submit it until it is done. You will feel so great when it is off your shoulders!

Sep 07, 202154:15
E28 - Setting up a research project folder with Julian Reif

E28 - Setting up a research project folder with Julian Reif

In this episode, we talk with Julian Reif about setting up a research project folder for best replications purposes. Julian is an Assistant Professor of Finance and Economics at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He is also a Senior Scholar at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on health policy evaluation and the value of health and longevity. Professor Reif received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago and his BA from Vanderbilt University.

In this episode, we go over how to set up a research project folder structure. We follow the guide that Julian has on his page. [https://julianreif.com/guide/#folder-structure]. This is a great guide to follow for structuring all your projects. I usually have an "empty" project folder, and every time I start a new project, I copy and rename that folder for my new project.

We also have a companion video tutorial on how to do this, in which you can follow step-by-step how to do it. [https://youtu.be/KUtxJyauQ-o]

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.

During the episode, we talk about Julian's paper on teenage driving and mortality risk. You can find that paper here https://julianreif.com/research/reif.wp.driving.pdf

Recommendations of the week

Julian's recommendation of the week is to listen to a podcast while you exercise! His two recommendations are (1) Conversations with Tyler and (2) Mindscape. https://conversationswithtyler.com and https://www.mindescapepodcast.com

Alex’s tip of the week is to use code snippets when writing in latex and sublime text. Basically ways of automating annoying tasks. You can check out examples here: http://www.peterhaschke.com/workflow/2013/05/08/SLT2-Snippet.htmlFor example, you can type `fig` then hit tab and all the code to create a figure with a centered graphic will replace the `fig` text you typed, with your cursor in the place to add the appropriate file path. 

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to use the text-replacement app Autohotkey. This app allows you to map any keyboard combination to an action or other words. For example, I type "-zoom" for my personal zoom link, and my zoom link appears. https://www.autohotkey.com

Aug 17, 202151:47
E27 - Tips on how to talk to the media with Fenaba Addo

E27 - Tips on how to talk to the media with Fenaba Addo

In this episode we talk with Fenaba Addo about on how to talk to the media. Fenaba R. Addo, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr. Addo was the Lorna Jorgensen Wendt Associate Professor of Money, Relationships, and Equality (MORE) in the School of Human Ecology’s Department of Consumer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison prior to joining UNC and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Postdoctoral Scholar. She received her Ph.D. in Policy Analysis and Management from Cornell University and holds a B.S. in Economics from Duke University.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Show notes:

In the workflow section, Fenaba mentioned that she takes part of "Sunday Planning". That is have an overview of her schedule for the week. She tries schedule writing time during the mornings and schedule meetings during teaching days. Writing time can be understood as writing or research time (i.e. coding, reading, etc.). This takes about 30 min to an hour.

Fenaba's recommendation of the week is to start each class with a song, and if you can connect the topic of that lecture to the song! She says it's a fun way to set the mood for the class.

Alex's recommendation of the week is to use the feature on macs (and windows) that reads outloud your text. This is a great way to catch typos or odd-wording of the stuff you write! Perfect for emails

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is "The Public Professor: How to Use Your Research to Change the World" by M. V. Lee Badget. The work of academics can matter and be influential on a public level, but the path to becoming a public intellectual, influential policy advisor, valued community resource or go-to person on an issue is not one that most scholars are trained for. The Public Professor offers scholars ways to use their ideas, research and knowledge to change the world. You can find it with the rest of our books recommendations on our bookshop affiliate link [https://bookshop.org/shop/Hiddencurriculum]

Aug 03, 202144:23
E26 - Tips on mentoring undergraduate students with Jonathan Meer

E26 - Tips on mentoring undergraduate students with Jonathan Meer

In this episode we talk with Jonathan Meer on tips to mentor undergraduate students. Jonathan Meer is a University Professor for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence at A&M. He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Jonathan's research focuses on charitable giving and the economics of education. His recent work examines whether fundraising creates new giving, the impact of the minimum wage on search effort, and how the interaction between teacher and student gender affects student performance. Jonathan teachers an online principles to 2500 students a year.  Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Show notes: During the workflow conversation Jonathan mentioned he uses todoist which is a to-do app that Sebastian also uses! Check it out here: https://todoist.com/r/sebaz88_bfprtg He also uses the service "You can book me" https://youcanbook.me, in order to schedule meeting with his students. Jonathan's recommendation of the week is to choose a particular artist for every trip you take. That is only listen to one artist during the whole trip, such that it bonds the trip with that song and may be an easier way to remember a trip! Alex's recommendation of the week is to check out Lego Grad Student. Alex recently bought the Lego grad student calendar! https://brickademics.com Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to check out AERIP. The Association for Economic Research of Indigenous Peoples is a professional association of economists, political scientists, sociologists, policy practitioners, and others who are interested in economic research related to Indigenous peoples across the globe.
Jul 20, 202144:39
E25 - How to approach service in the profession with David Slusky

E25 - How to approach service in the profession with David Slusky

Service! What is it good for? In this episode we talk with David Slusky about how to manage service as a junior person. David Slusky is an applied microeconomist. His research is on health economics labor economics and public policy. He is the De-Min and Chin-Sha Wu Associate Professor of economics at the University of Kansas, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research fellow at IZA - Institute of Labor Economics in Bonn, Germany.  He's also Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies at KU, the founder of the Kansas Health Economics Conference, and a co-editor at the Journal of Policy Analysis & Management.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

The matrix that we keep referring to can be found here: [Link Here]

Recommendations of the week:

David's first recommendation is any of the recs of the week: Harry Bosch's books, the second recommendation is the board game Mage Knight. David enjoys playing it with the whole fam!

Alex recommendation of the week: if you select zoom to be optimized for two screen, you can separate the gallery window from the main screen, this can be useful if you want to separate them!

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to check out the AEA research's highlight podcast, where they interview authors of papers published in AEA journals. It's a great way to consume research!

Jul 13, 202146:33
E24 - How does an academic journal work? with Catherine Maclean

E24 - How does an academic journal work? with Catherine Maclean

In this episode, we talk with Catherine Maclean, a co-editor for the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM), on how a journal works? What is the hierocracy and process behind the inner workings of an academic journal? Catherine is an Associate Professor of Economics at Temple University. Professor Maclean's research uses health and labor economic theory to empirically explore the causes and consequences of substance use, mental health, insurance coverage, and labor market outcomes. Professor Maclean is a Research Associate in the Health Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Affiliate at the Institute of Labor Economics. She is a Co-Editor at the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Professor Maclean's research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Cancer Society.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.

Show Notes:

Check out the "TOPS" Seminar series at this link: https://www.tobaccopolicy.org.

The Tobacco Online Policy Seminar (TOPS) goal is to provide a free multidisciplinary, international forum for research using experimental or quasi-experimental variation (i.e., a well-defined counterfactual) to study nicotine-tobacco policies, with a particular interest in emerging tobacco products and modified risk tobacco products.

Recommendations of the week:

Catherine's recommendation of the week is to follow David Powell on Twitter. His handle is @thedavidpowell. His account is primarily lighthearted, punny jokes that relax the feed. Catherine's second recommendation is to get into legos!

Alex's recommendation of the week is to have an email template to reply to emails from students' requests about classes. Make sure you have several templates that you can copy and paste when responding to emails.

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to check out JPAM's closer look a podcast on the papers published on JPAM [link here]

Jul 06, 202101:07:38
E23 - A story about finding a dissertation topic with Monica Aswani

E23 - A story about finding a dissertation topic with Monica Aswani

In this episode we talk with Monica Aswani on the story of how she found a dissertation topic. Dr. Monica Aswani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research focuses on the distributional consequences of health policy related to payment/delivery reform programs, social safety net eligibility and spending, and health insurance.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations of the week:

Monica's recommendation of the week is the book "Economization of Life" by Michelle Murphy. You can check this and all previous book's recommendations in our "Bookshop" library, this is a great way to support the podcast as well! [Link Here]

Alex's recommendation of the week is to do a "semester plan". Fortunately, we show you where to start, here is a link of a template for a semester plan. [Link Here]

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to check "Econimate" by Hoai-Luu Nguyen. These are animated-videos that explain papers in a easy way to digest. It's a great way to "keep up" with a literature or to use them in class!  https://www.econimate.com or the YouTube Channel.


Jun 29, 202134:30
E22 - How to respond to referee reports with Ivan Rudik

E22 - How to respond to referee reports with Ivan Rudik

This week we talk with Ivan Rudik and a document he has been using in order to respond to referee reports. Ivan is the  Ruth and William Morgan Assistant Professor of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. Ivan is an Environmental Economist with a PhD from University of Arizona who works on climate change and air pollution. 

We discussed a paper on the Journal of Economic Perspective titled "How to Write an Effective Referee Report and Improve the Scientific Review Process" by Jonathan B. Berk, Campbell R. Harvey and David Hirshleifer. (link here)

We talked about a document that Ivan uses to respond to referee's, you can download it here (link here) [https://github.com/hollina/template-referee-response]

Ivan's recommendation of the week is the book Piranesi (Link here)

Alex's recommendation of the week is to check Anki Flashcards, a great way to learn a language or any memory, driven topic! (Link here)

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to check EconBrew a list of economist who are always up to have a coffee all around the world! (Link here)

Jun 16, 202149:42
E21 - What are specifications charts? With Ariel Ortiz Bobea

E21 - What are specifications charts? With Ariel Ortiz Bobea

This episode we talk about specification charts with Ariel Ortiz Bobea. These are charts that visually show how the baseline estimate changes across many types of model adjustments. Ariel Ortiz-Bobea. Ariel is an Assistant Professor of Applied Economics and Policy. He is an applied economist with interests in agricultural, resource and development economics. Ariel was a fellow at Resources for the Future prior to Cornell & special assistant to the minister of the environment in the Dominican Republic prior to grad school. At present, his research program is broadly focused on agricultural sustainability issues with particular emphasis on the statistical and econometric evaluation of climate change impacts on agriculture and other sectors of the economy. 

To visually see what a specification chart looks like [click here].

To see AOB's thread on specification chart's and how to implement it in R [click here].

Ariel also spoke about OSWEET, the Online Summer Workshop in Environment, Energy, and Transportation (Economics) if you want more information. Find it here: http://edrub.in/osweet.html

If you want to find out more about the paper that Ariel referenced in the episode [click here]

Recommendations of the week:

Ariel Ortiz Bobea: Comment your code!

Alex Hollingsworth: for journals and professional organizations, create a password which has the name of the organization/journal in the password. That way the system is the same, it just changes by organization/journal.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo: If you are looking for great images/pictures that are "free" to use. Check unsplash. It is a great source of freely-usable images.


Jun 07, 202142:26
E20 - Learn about the National Economic Association with Dania Francis

E20 - Learn about the National Economic Association with Dania Francis

This week we talk with Dania Francis about the National Economic Association (NEA). Dania is an Assistant Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts Boston. Her current research involves using experimental and quasi-experimental methods to identify structural causes of racial and socioeconomic academic achievement gaps. She received her doctorate from Duke University and also holds a master’s degree from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from Smith College. She is also a board member of the National Economics Association and a National Academies of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

She is also in the board of the NEA. From the NEA's site: The National Economic Association (NEA) was founded in 1969 as the Caucus of Black Economists to promote the professional lives of minorities within the profession. In addition to continuing its founding mission, the organization is particularly interested in producing and distributing knowledge of economic issues that are of exceptional interest to promoting economic growth among native and immigrant African Americans, Latinos, and other people of color.

Dania has really interesting research on biases in schooling, you can find more information on her site: https://www.daniafrancis.com/research

We made reference to the minority report. Which is not the movie, but a report created by CSMGEP. The Minority Report, an annual newsletter, jointly with the American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE) and the National Economic Association (NEA). [Link here]

If you are interested in research that related to the topic of race, check out the great work put out by two journals: The Review of Black Political Economy and the Journal of Race, Economics and Uncertainty

Dania's recommendation of the week is a cooking tip or maybe a cleaning tip? The tip is "Don't out FOG down the drain". FOG meaning, Fats, Oils, and Grease or anything that constitutes within that category.

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to check the YouTube Channel from Ali Abdaal. He is an MD from London and has a lot of tips on productivity. Sebastian finds his demeanor refreshing and entertaining.

Alex's recommendation is to get a kitchen thermometer! A simple kitchen tool that can greatly improve your cooking! 


Apr 27, 202143:36
E19 - Tips on navigating the tenure track with a young family with Lindsey Bullinger

E19 - Tips on navigating the tenure track with a young family with Lindsey Bullinger

In this episode we talk with Lindsey Bullinger about her experience dealing with raising a child, while having a partner that works a lot!. Lindsey is n Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. Her research examines how public policies affect children and families’ health and well-being, especially low-income families. Lindsey has started to work on how the pandemic has affected domestic violence. She has a paper forthcoming at the American Journal of Health Economics (link here). She also wrote a piece for the Ashecon Newsletter talking about measuring domestic violence and child maltreatment (link here). Her work has been published in American Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Policy Analysis & Management, Review of Economics of the Household, Contemporary Economic Policy, ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Housing Policy Debate, Children and Youth Services Review, Health Services Research, American Journal of Public Health, JAMA Pediatrics, and Maternal and Child Health Journal. It has been funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, the Spencer Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts. She earned my Ph.D. from Indiana University in April 2018.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Lindsey's recommendation is to take "work walks". This means, having your schedule "zoom-meetings" as a phone conversation in which you can walk and talk at the same time. Two birds, one-stone!

Alex's recommendation of the week is the book "Statistical Rethinking", is a book that helps introduce Bayesian statistics from an intuitive way! In addition to the book, the author Richard McElreath has recorded lectures on Bayesian statistic that pair will with the book.

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is the application Castro. This is an app to consume podcasts. The main feature that makes it different from others is that you can set it up as an inbox, where you decide which episodes you want to listen or not. Is a great tool when you follow several podcasts, but you don't really want to listen to all episodes.



Mar 09, 202149:18
E18 - Tips on mentoring graduate students with Trevon Logan

E18 - Tips on mentoring graduate students with Trevon Logan

In this episode we talk with Trevon Logan about his workflow & tips for mentoring. Trevon is the Hazel C. Youngberg Distinguished Professor of Economics and Dean, College of Arts and Sciences at "The" Ohio State University. Trevon holds a BS from University of Wisconsin, and PhD in economics from Berkeley. He is also an NBER fellow and director of the AEA mentoring program! He currently serves on the editorial boards of Explorations in Economic History, Historical Methods and Demographic Research. Professor Logan specializes in economic history, economic demography and applied microeconomics.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations of the week:

Trevon's recommendation of the week is try different vinegars! Lots of things to explore so why not try a different vinegar on your next stop at the supermarket

Alex's recommendation is to use "issues" in Github to communicate with co-authors as oppose to emails! It almost work like chat for a specific project.

Sebastian's recommendation is to add a bit of evaporated milk in your "home" ramen. Makes things more creamy. I got this tip Dr. Guanyi Yang. Second is to use the "Archive" feature in your email. Start using it now and start clearing your inbox! Archiving just puts emails in a folder and out of your inbox, so if you've dealt with something, then archive it. 

Feb 23, 202153:49
E17 - Tips on prioritizing mental and physical health with Jevay Grooms

E17 - Tips on prioritizing mental and physical health with Jevay Grooms

This week we talk with Jevay Grooms. Jevay is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Economics at Howard University. She is an applied microeconomist with research areas of interests that lie at the intersection of public economics, health economics, and studies of poverty and inequality. 

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Notes:

Jevay talked about National Panel Study of COVID-19, which is a on-going survey with questions regarding how people have been affected by COVID19. Jevay has a set of papers using these data set and you can find more information about them here. She also has a piece summarizing what we know on how COVID has affected people's mental health on the Ashecon newsletter which can be found here. Finally she wanted to promote the AEA summer program. A program by the American Economic Association aimed at underrepresented people in the economics profession who are thinking about going to a PhD program in Economics but are not quite sure. This is a great program for them!

Jevay's recommendation of the week is a quote from the CDC: "Be Kind to your Mind". It's a simple quote that reminds us that as we need to be kind to other people, our bodies, we also need to be kind to our minds. Keep that in mind ;).

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to think about two quotes at the same time: "Perfect is the enemy of good" and "Incremental is the enemy of the fundamental". These are two things that are always at odd with each other, specially in the policy making world. Be aware of who is making what type of argument when talking to people!

Alex's recommendation of the week is to use headspace! an app that helps your with relaxation and "winding" down, specially right before going to bed. 




Feb 16, 202139:58
E16 - Tips on how to connect research and policy with Delegate Sally Hudson

E16 - Tips on how to connect research and policy with Delegate Sally Hudson

In this episode we talk with Delegate Sally Hudson about her transition out of academia into public service. Sally is labor economist who studies recruiting and retention in the public sector. In addition to being a teacher and a community organizer she is also a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 57th district. She holds a PhD in Economics from MIT and a BA from Sandford. In this podcast she shared what her journey was and her take on how junior and non-juniors could start thinking about affecting policy. 

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations of the week:

Sally came in with a cooking-rec of the week and that is to put peanut sauce on pizza! Try it before you form opinions! Our second recommendation of the week is from Alex, and he recommends to try marmite as a seasoning item. Put it in your chili and let us know! Sebastian's cooking recommendation is to have hoisin sauce at home. It's somewhat sweet, deep sauce that goes with most things!

Alex has another-one (cue DJ Khaled) which is to check Color Brewer 2. It's a website you can thinker with to find a combination of colors that are friendly towards individual with color-blindness. 

Feb 09, 202145:58
S1E15 -Tips on how to approach co-author relationships with Ebehi Iyoha

S1E15 -Tips on how to approach co-author relationships with Ebehi Iyoha

In this episode we talk about how to deal with co-authors as a junior person, how to divvy up labor and setting expectations. This topic was brought to us by Ebehi Iyoha. Ebehi is a PhD student  in Economics at Vanderbilt University and a Job Market Candidate this year! She studies study inter-firm networks and their impact on economic growth through firm productivity and international trade. She is also a columnist for Stears Business where she talks about the Nigerian economy (click here).

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Shownotes:

Ebehi's fun fact is that she is been participating in "NaNoWriMo" or National Novel Writing Month since 2009. This is a time in a year when people commit to writing a novel in a single month. It's a very awesome initiative and you can learn more about it on their site: https://nanowrimo.org

We also talk about a book that Alex and Ebehi enjoyed called "Who Fears Death", this is a science fantasy novel by Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor. You can find this and other books we've recommended in our Bookshop "Book list". (click here)

Ebehi has two recommendations of the week, first is a novel called "A Girl is a Body of Water" by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. A story about a young girl who does not know much about her family history and her journey to find it. (click here)

Her second recommendation of the week is to check out pandas-profiling, a python package for quick and easy exploratory data analysis. (click here)

Alex's recommendation of the week is the application called Cyberduck. It's similar to filezilla and great for sharing and storing files across many devices. (click here)

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is the free ebook "Publishing in the Economics Profession" by Sebastian Galiani & Ugo Panizza as editors. They have several articles on issues regarding the publishing process and it's a great resource for starting to dig into that topic. (click here)

Jan 05, 202144:34
S1E14 - Tips to prepare for online interviews and presentation with Trang Hoang

S1E14 - Tips to prepare for online interviews and presentation with Trang Hoang

In this episode, we talk with Trang Hoang about preparing for video interviews and presentations. Trang is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Economics at Vanderbilt University. She was an International Economics Ph.D. Fellow at Dartmouth College in the fall of 2019. Her areas of research include international trade, development, and applied microeconometrics. Her job market paper has received two awards: one for "Best Graduate Student Paper" in the FREIT-EIIT conference and a second one for "Best Paper in Applied Economics" from the Econometric Society Winter School at the Delhi School of Economics. You can check it out here.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Show notes:

In this episode we talked about hardware that we use. We don't think you need to invest as much as we did, but if you want to know what we use, for microphone we use the Samson Q2U USB. For Webcam we both use the Logitech C920.  We also recommend getting some "light" whether that's coming from a ring light, or a lamp.

In terms of recommendation of the week, Trang recommends getting and Apple iPad with the apple pencil. It's a pricey item but she feels she has gotten value out of it.

Sebastian's recommendation is to check the application called readwise. Is an application that takes the highlights you've made on many e-books or articles and sends you an email with some of those highlights every so often. This is a great way to "remember" what you once highlighted.

Alex's recommendation of the week is the paper "The Environmental Bias of Trade Policy" by Joseph S. Shapiro. Here the abstract of that article: "This paper describes a new fact, then analyzes its causes and consequences: in most countries, import tariffs and non-tariff barriers are substantially lower on dirty than on clean industries, where an industry's “dirtiness” is defined as its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per dollar of output. This difference in trade policy creates a global implicit subsidy to CO2 emissions in internationally traded goods and so contributes to climate change. This global implicit subsidy to CO2 emissions totals several hundred billion dollars annually. The greater protection of downstream industries, which are relatively clean, substantially accounts for this pattern. The downstream pattern can be explained by theories where industries lobby for low tariffs on their inputs but final consumers are poorly organized. A quantitative general equilibrium model suggests that if countries applied similar trade policies to clean and dirty goods, global CO2 emissions would decrease and global real income would change little." (Click here)

Dec 24, 202035:49
S1E13 - Tips to keep in mind while in graduate school with Marianne Bitler

S1E13 - Tips to keep in mind while in graduate school with Marianne Bitler

In this episode we talk with Marianne Bitler on general tips to keep in mind while in graduate school. Marianne Bitler is a Professor of Economics at UC Davis. She is an applied microeconomist whose line of work lies within public economics, health economics and labor economics. She has also worked at UC Irvine, the Public Policy Institute of California, the RAND Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Trade Commission. She is a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at IZA. She just completed chairing a National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Panel on Improving Consumer Data for Food and Nutrition Policy Research for the Economic Research Service, USDA and she is a co-editor of the American Journal of Health Economics.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Show notes:

We refer to a "Failure CV". The path to have a "successful" CV is non-linear, and we usually only see people's success (i.e. published papers) but we don't get to see their failures. Doug Webber, has an example of this on his website.

Marianne's book recommendation is "Administrative Burden: Policymaking by other Means" Donald P. Moynihan (Author)  Pamela Herd (Author). (click here)

Alex's recommendation of the  week is to "print like a referee" so that you can see the tables and figures as referees may see them.

Sebastian's recommendation is the book "Range" by David Epstein. The thesis of the book is simple, in a world that values specialization, having "range" could prove a very useful tool to pair up with specialization. (click here). We talk about the book "Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way" by Steven Pressfield (click here)


****************Contest Rules***********************

- You have to be a Job Market Candidate (Defined as someone who is finishing their PhD and going on the Job Market to get their first job after graduated school)

- Listen to today's episode and make a note of our guest's recommendation of the week

- Choose one of your favorite episode

- Send us an email to hiddencurriculumpodcast@gmail.com with Marianne's recommendation and your favorite episode! Also gives us your name and your email address. You could also leave us a voice message on Anchor, be sure to leave us your email and name!

- You have 7 days from the episode to make you submissions. That is, we will take submissions until December 23rd

- We will randomize the entries and pick a winner. We are hoping to announce the 1st winner on our subsequent podcast (we'll send you an email if you win)

Dec 16, 202049:30
S1E12 How to approach networking with Jennifer Doleac

S1E12 How to approach networking with Jennifer Doleac

In this episode we talk about how to approach networking with Jennifer Doleac. Jennifer Doleac is an Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, and Director of the Justice Tech Lab. She is also a Research Fellow at IZA, and a Research Affiliate at the Institute for Research on Poverty, the University of Chicago Crime Lab, and the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities. Jennifer studies crime and discrimination, with particular emphases on prisoner reentry and the effects of technology on public safety. She also organizes the Texas Economics of Crime Workshop (TxECW), and also has a podcast! Probable Causation, a podcast about law, economics, and crime.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Show Notes

We referred to Parkinson's law, which is the adage that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". For non-research tasks, Jen schedules a finite amount of time, and she aims to finish those task by the amount of time allotted. For research tasks, her schedule is more flexible as she just assigns a amount of time (e.g. 2 hours) but won't put a specific tasks to get done.

Jen also mentioned that she enjoys reading the book "The War of Art" right before a getting into a project to her get pumped up! Check this an other books recommendations in our ever-growing list of books recommended by our guests. (Click here).

Jen also recommends checking out gather.town and the podcast Women at Work (click here)

****************Contest Rules***********************

- You have to be a Job Market Candidate (Defined as someone who is finishing their PhD and going on the Job Market to get their first job after graduated school)

- Listen to today's episode and make a note of Jen's recommendation of the week

- Choose one of your favorite episode

- Send us an email to hiddencurriculumpodcast@gmail.com with Jen's recommendation and your favorite episode! Also gives us your name and your email address. You could also leave us a voice message on Anchor, be sure to leave us your email and name!

- You have 7 days from the episode to make you submissions. That is, we will take submissions until December 15th

- We will randomize the entries and pick a winner. We are hoping to announce the 1st winner on our subsequent podcast (we'll send you an email if you win)


Dec 08, 202053:13
S1E11 - Transitioning from Private to Academia with Benjamin Hansen

S1E11 - Transitioning from Private to Academia with Benjamin Hansen

In this episode we talk with Benjamin Hansen. Ben is the WE Miner Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon. He is an applied-micro economist whose research focuses on crime, health, and other topics in labor and public economics. We talk with Ben about this transition from the private-consulting sector to academia.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. @dsebastiantello

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. @ajhollingsworth 

Notes: 

Ben recommends watch "unidentified" and learn the truth about unidentified objects in the world.

Alex recommends to check the app Zwift - an app for cyclers!

Sebastian recommends to schedule "calls" with friends and family. It may feel weird to put your loved ones in your schedule as a task, but it's a great way of getting it done! 

Nov 19, 202035:07
S1E10 - Tips on advising students towards the Market with John Cawley

S1E10 - Tips on advising students towards the Market with John Cawley

On this episode we talk with John Cawley on tips to prepare students for the job market. This episode is directed for people who are getting started with advising PhD Students. John talks about his process, and the process at Cornell. John is a Professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, and the Department of Economics, at Cornell University. He is co-Director of Cornell's Institute on Health Economics, Health Behaviors and Disparities. His research focuses on the economics of risky health behaviors; in particular, those that relate to obesity.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. @dsebastiantello

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. @ajhollingsworth

Notes: 

John invites everyone to check out the Virtual Seminar on the Economics of Risky Health Behaviors (VERB) on this site VERBseminar.org. John has also worked putting a job-market guide, you can find the updated version here (Click Here). He is also in the AEA ad hoc Committee on the Job Market and they put out reports on their site (Click Here)

Recommendation of the week:

John's recommendation of the week is to check the Netflix show "Love on the Spectrum".

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to get a monitor arm. There are many options, here is one that I've used this past year (Click Here)

Alex's recommendation of the week is the book "How to take Smart Notes" (Click Here). Alex also worked on a set of slides with job market tips and he is sharing it with us  (Click Here



Nov 04, 202047:16
S1E9 - How to handle multiple projects with Melissa Spencer

S1E9 - How to handle multiple projects with Melissa Spencer

This week we talk with Melissa Spencer about handling multiple projects. Melissa is a PhD student in Economics at the University of Virginia. She is a job market candidate this year! Melissa’s research focuses on well-being of women and minorities, across the areas of reproductive health, infectious diseases & domestic violence.

Alex Hollingsworth - is an Assistant Professor in the O’Neill School of Public and Environment Affairs at Indiana University. Follow Alex @ajhollingsworth

Sebastian Tello-Trillo - an Assistant Professor in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Follow Sebastian @dsebastiantello

Links:

We were talking about how to improve "focus" during work. One technique is the Pomodoro technique. You only need a 25 minute timer, but if you care for more fancy apps, Sebastian uses Tide (https://tide.fm/en_US/). He has also heard good things from [Forest]. Alex uses Focus-to-do (https://www.focustodo.cn).

Melissa started her own chapter of women in economics at UVA. If you are interested in starting a chapter, she recommends checking out the resources from "Women in Economics at Berkeley" (http://calwomenofecon.weebly.com)

In terms of recommendation of the week. Melissa recommends speaking to people that are not economist about your own research.

Sebastian's recommendation is to have a "Nice Emails" folder. Save any email in PDF format in this folder for when you are feeling down but also for any potential review you may have in the future

Alex's recommendation of the week  is a software that blocks access to fun-website so you can concentrate on your work. It's called self-control (https://selfcontrolapp.com)

Oct 22, 202042:49
S1E8 - How to stay connected with Anne Burton

S1E8 - How to stay connected with Anne Burton

This week we talk with Anne Burton. Anne Burton is a Economics PhD student (and job market candidate for 2020!) at Cornell University. Her research is primarily concerned with the social welfare implications of risky health behaviors and crime. Before going  to Cornell, She was a Senior Research Assistant in the Fiscal Analysis section at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. from 2012-2015. She graduated from Colby College in Waterville, Maine in 2012 with a B.A. in Economics and Government.

Alex Hollingsworth - is an Assistant Professor in the O’Neill School of Public and Environment Affairs at Indiana University. Follow Alex @ajhollingsworth

Sebastian Tello-Trillo - an Assistant Professor in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Follow Sebastian @dsebastiantello

Show Notes:

Anne's paper is on smoking ban's on alcohol and smoking consumption. She also gives a shout out to this paper by Jérôme Ada and Francesca Cornaglia. (Taxes, Cigarette Consumption, and Smoking Intensity)

Anne Burton & Barton Willage have compiled a list of conference in economics, which includes online conferences. Check it out! (Click here)

We also mention that in terms of tools for keeping connected you may want to try slack, or gather.town

Anne's recommendation of the week is to go vote!

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to use "Control + Backspace" instead of "Backspace", this will delete full words and will make your typing experience easier! It takes some time to get used to. If you want more tips to type fast, (click here)

Alex's recommendation is the STATA command "ds" (click here). DS can store a set of variables in a local or macro. For example, you can type "ds a*" and this will create a local with all the variables that start with a.

Oct 06, 202035:51
S1E7 - Alex's Research Workflow: Stata, Github, R & Overleaf

S1E7 - Alex's Research Workflow: Stata, Github, R & Overleaf

This week Alex show us his research workflow. How he starts a project, and moves through the different software of analysis and organizing to produce a paper. Although the this episode contains audio, we have a recorded this on a video format and you can find video here. Listening to the audio may be helpful but we strongly encourage to check out the video.  

Note: The audio episode is a shortened version. The portion where we show how to pull your code into overleaf using GitHub is only in the video version. 

Co-host: Alex Hollingsworth - Assistant Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Follow Alex @ajhollingsworth

Co-host: Sebastian Tello-Trillo - Assistant Professor, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Follow Sebastian @dsebastiantello

SHOW NOTES: 

Longer video episode with overleaf overview: (click here).  

GitHub repo of the code used in the episode: (click here) and associated Dropbox folder: (click here).

Alex's tip: use minimum working examples to both debug and build complex code. Example/more explanation: (click here).

Other tip: Preferred STATA Graphing Scheme Blind Schemes or `ssc install blindschemes, replace all`  then `set scheme plotplainblind` HT: Coady Wing 

Most excellent Keanu movies to watch (from video): Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Point Break  

BONUS: Grant McDermott offered a suggestion on twitter: "One suggestion, which will simplify life on the R side, is to use renv instead of manually configuring your project libs. This will automatically snapshot your project environment, create a project-specific library, add to gitignore, etc. Here’s a test repo for you to try out. Video link at the bottom too if you’re interested.  Just clone and run `renv::restore()` and it will take care of everything for you. Pretty sweet. (click here)

Sep 24, 202037:22
S1E6 - Talking with Kelli Marquardt on talking with people outside of your field

S1E6 - Talking with Kelli Marquardt on talking with people outside of your field

This week Alex and Sebastian talk with Kelli Marquardt, a PhD Student at University of Arizona. We talk with Kelli about how to approach people from outside your discipline and similar practices. Kelli is a health economist and is currently studying health disparities on the decisions that health providers make in a variety of situation.

Co-host: Alex Hollingsworth - Assistant Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Follow Alex @ajhollingsworth

Co-host: Sebastian Tello-Trillo - Assistant Professor, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Follow Sebastian @dsebastiantello

Links:

Here is the datacamp link for Kelli's recommendation.  This is a mini-course to learn how to do text-analysis by analyzing prince songs.  

Academic sequitur, a service that helps you search and keep up to date with research from your topic of interest across fields, or just in your field

Alex's recommends checking this website by Jonas Kristoffer Lindeløv that teaches how most models are just linear regressions

Unlocking Us is a podcast by Brene Brown, and the episode with Harriet Lerner is particularly awesome as you learn how to form a good apology.

Sep 16, 202023:33
S1E5 - Talking to Chase Eck about building an academic website

S1E5 - Talking to Chase Eck about building an academic website

This week we talk with Chase Eck. Chase, is a PhD Student at the University of Arizona. His research interests include the optimal design of transfer programs and the effects of occupational licensing in medicine. We talk with him about websites, what to include in them, what to think about, and we include a guide on Alex's website on how to make one for free.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. @dsebastiantello

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. @ajhollingsworth

Links:

Alex's guide to create a simple and a free job market website. This link will help you create a website that looks like this one

Chase's recommendation is to check this "command" in R to estimate fast fixed high dimensional fixed effects.

We refer a lot some advice from Sarah Jacobson on how to build your CV which can be found here.

Alex's recommendation of the week is to check Dan Quintana's blog. It has a lot of great advice.

Sebastian's advice is to check Libro.fm, is an app for reading books that sources the book from small bookstores. Try their monthly plan, very affordable. 

We also refer in this podcast to this book from Jonathan Schwabish

Sep 10, 202035:55
S1E4 - Talking with Carycruz Bueno about Postdocs (tips for employees and employers)

S1E4 - Talking with Carycruz Bueno about Postdocs (tips for employees and employers)

This week we talk with Dr. Carycruz Bueno. Carycruz is a postdoctoral research associate at Anneberg Institute at Brown University. She will help us clarify the benefits of being a post-doc and demystify thoughts on this issue. This episode will be helpful for job seekers and job providers!

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations for the week:

Book: Children of Blood and Bone

App: Libby (audio books from your local library)

Paper: How You Can Work to Increase the Presence and Improve the Experience of Black, Latinx, and Native American People in the Economics Profession

Webpage: Atlas Obscura (travel webpage)

Sep 02, 202032:30
S1E3 - Talking to Emily Nix on Teaching and Lightboards

S1E3 - Talking to Emily Nix on Teaching and Lightboards

This week we talk with Emily Nix. Emily is an Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics at the USC Marshall School of Business. We talk with Emily about her research & about lightboards, which could be a great tool for online teaching. We talk about how to make one and a number of question about using them. 

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. 

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Recommendation of the week: 

  • Emily's - Rescue time, Automatic Time-Tracking Software and Alias  (on Hulu). 
  • Sebastian's - Zotero, a reference manager 
  • Alex's: Papership 

Show notes:  

Aug 25, 202035:43
S1E2 - Tips on your first lecture & class

S1E2 - Tips on your first lecture & class

In this episode, Alex and Sebastian share tips and tricks they have learned that can be helpful for people teaching for the first time. We touch on things we do before our very first lecture and some other expectations for the rest of the semester.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Aug 18, 202040:57
S1E1 - Tips on managing workflow

S1E1 - Tips on managing workflow

On this episode we talk about why having a workflow is important and tips on how to adopt a workflow that fits your needs. 

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University. Follow Alex @ajhollingsworth

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an  Assistant Professor, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia. Follow Sebastian @dsebastiantello

Show Notes :

Aug 11, 202028:15
Promo - "The Hidden Curriculum"

Promo - "The Hidden Curriculum"

The Hidden Curriculum is a podcast on all the topics you wanted to learn in (econ) graduate school. There are lots of things about the profession that you only hear if you have a great mentor or during networking opportunities. This podcast aims to help decrease that knowledge gap by bringing that information into your headphones! Season 1 is hosted by Sebastian Tello-Trillo and Alex Hollingsworth.
Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an assistant professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Public Policy, University of Virginia.
Alex Hollingsworth is an assistant professor of economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University.
Artwork by @factorintrinseco. Music by Funk O'Clock by Delicate Beats. Licensed by Premium Beat
Aug 05, 202001:11