New Journal of Behavioural and Experimental Finance

Brian Lucey of this parish has launched a new journal of behavioural and experimental finance. He details this aims and objectives of the new journal here.

By Stephen Kinsella

Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Limerick.

93 replies on “New Journal of Behavioural and Experimental Finance”

It would be news is if there was a platform for compelling research on the future challenges facing a small island economy that has failed over a half century to develop an internationally tradeable indigenous sector that would keep it among advanced nations, as FDI receded.

The editorial board for the new journal is a bit weighted towards folk who have never worked in the sector, although the guy from Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena does have experience of working in the world’s oldest bank (founded in 1472), which in recent times had to be bailed-out by Italy. The bank also seems to have dabbled in those thingies called derivatives.

Brian Lucey has appointed himself editor. Who knows, he may turn out to be a wise one?

A few weeks ago he was in The Irish Times calling for public participation in a debate on education funding while being hypersensitive here to perceived criticism of his sector.

Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde?

“Brian Lucey has appointed himself editor”
err no Michael. Elsevier have appointed me. Again you demonstrate that for all your talk on what universities and the academy should do you actually are grossly ignorant of what modern academia is about, to the point where perhaps some might conclude that your views are valueless?
In any case, heres another opportunity for you to submit your thoughts on the intersection of behavioral and psychological issues with funding. Im looking forward to your paper on agency conflicts and insider venture capital markets.

Oh and M? “folk who have never worked in the sector” Again, I suspect that you glimpsed at the current affiliations and meandered off to biliously spew over the keyboard. Go look at the CVs of the people you sneer at before sneering.

@ Brian Lucey

The intemperate reaction seems to be a mismatch for criticism that is mild compared with what you dish out yourself.

It’s a common behavioural issue in organisations and across business that opportunities for feedback are stifled because the thin-skinned outnumber those who can make a distinction between the personal and professional, when it comes to criticism.

I wouldn’t be surprised if most people would not guess your day job from your online persona and as for the ‘grossly ignorant’ charge, it has a whiff of old-style arrogance.

In a division of labour economy, there are obviously aspects of technology, manufacturing, global supply systems and finance sectors that I have worked in, where you would not have the same familiarity. It would be ignorant to say that you can have no valid views or opinions on such sectors.

I assume you’re referring to me being ‘grossly ignorant’ in relation to writing on the commercialisation of university research. So have the cojones to challenge me on anything I have written on this issue since 2006.

What I wrote last year on R&D tax credits was confirmed this year when the first audits since 2004 were carried out.

You describe yourself as ‘founding editor’ and presumably you presented a proposal to Elsevier – the company has a great business model with free content and the economics of short print runs through tech advances has resulted in a proliferation of journals.

As for the “the intersection of behavioral and psychological issues,”
I’ll leave that to you but camels seldom see their own humps.

As for the term ‘sneering,’ here again you’re on the defensive seeing a point about better weighting of the editorial board as an attack on academics.

Boom cheerleaders like you used to term dissenters like me stupid; given the staggering level of myopia at the time and colossal collateral damage since, a little humility wouldn’t go astray.

So you wont be submitting a paper I take it Michael? Pity. I would, genuinely, like to see your articulated, thought out, research grounded views on how to use behavioral insights into how to better align the venture capital ecosystem internal and external to universities with organizational and policy conflicts. Its hard, I know. But come on, 5k words with references and some analysis? Itd be fun….

Meanwhile, back from soliciting papers… The fees such as they are are to be recycled back into student support. Some people raised eyebrows at their existence.

@Brian

Speaking as an academic with close to 100 publications, most of them in peer reviewed journals, your inference that publishing journal articles is difficult gave me a good laugh. Once you know the code words, incantations, style and fashions it is not that difficult. The difficulty of course, is breaking into the magician’s circle. And as with magic, the greatest sin is in revealing the tricks to the general public.

The trolls are out early today I see. The welcome for a high quality new publication in an emergent area, which will support Irish research and researchers on the international statge, and one where Irish participants can take a leading role in shaping same must be caught in the spam queue.

Looks like an interesting new journal. I don’t work in academia myself, but I do keep up with some finance related research relevant to my work. Best of luck with the new endeavour.

@ Johnny Foreigner.
A lot of occupations have their own jargon that seems impenetrable from the outside. Academia isn’t unique there. Many legal documents I come across look like they were written by an 18th century scholar for instance! Is it really true to say that any old jibberish will get published in a reputable journal as long as you know the code (i.e. the right lingo) to get in?

And can research really be ‘false’? New papers will add to the discussion on a topic. An author’s conclusion might ultimately be shown to be incorrect but isn’t there still value to the substance of the work? Not in all cases perhaps, but certainly in aggregate.

@Michael Hennigan

Brian Lucey has appointed himself editor. Who knows, he may turn out to be a wise one?

Michael, that is one of the saddest, most self indulgent and frankly pathetic diatribes you have yet posted.

This place is dying anyway. I harbour hopes that Stephen Kinsella, Kevin O’Rourke and the rest of the reality based community that contributes here will find somewhere else with more active moderation (or simply stricter limits on posting) to write leaving the right to suffocate in their own ignorance and prejudice. If I never again have to read another comment about how the vampire public sector needs to bend itself to serving the needs of dynamic and vital entrepreneurs, or how the government let down the private sector by not protecting it from itself, it will still be too late.

@Carson

I’m not saying that any old jibberish gets published, more that the jargon is unnecessary and is there is intimidate those outside the circle into imagining that something more complex is being discussed than is actually the case.

Yes research can be false and whole fields of research can be nonsense if everyone shares the same biases or uses the same flawed methods. Cost-effectiveness research in health economics is a good example.

@ JF. Fair enough.

@Shay. I wouldn’t say this blog is dying. There’s still a lot of good stuff posted here I think. If you want to weed out the low quality comments then you would probably have to restrict anonymous posting. That would also cut down on some ‘good’ posting too of course.

Congratulations, Brian. The opportunity for Irish researchers is great. If you can attract solid research on the topic you proposed for MH it will benefit us all.

@Carson

More active moderation would help, when someone starts trolling or going off topic a gentle public reminder from the management might help concentrate minds, followed if needs be by a ban.

I think restricting anonymous posters to two posts per thread (unless someone responds to them) would be a good start, perhaps followed by an overall limit on characters for any one contributor – being forced to edit your argument down to size might encourage people to use data to refine their arguments rather than pad their opinions.

One open thread per week could be allowed to accommodate the rest of the spleen venting/hobby horse riding/paid lobbying that makes up so much of current content.

That is my two posts.

@Shay Begorrah

As a disinterested observer, I have to say I find Michael Hennigan’s contributions very fair and balanced. Yes, he returns to the same themes repeatedly, but only because they bear repeating. I don’t think he’s especially critical of the public service, or academia for that matter; rather, he says, correctly, that the PS needs to be reformed (and – speaking as a public servant – this still hasn’t happened), and that academia as a whole needs to reflect on what kind of graduates it is aiming to produce. His main criticism is of the delusional thinking still prevalent in this country which equates stating a wish for something to happen with creating the conditions for it to occur.

Best of luck, Brian.

I don’t know much about the world of journals but I wouldn’t be too worried about the elite competition. It’s not like the elites were any use in 2008.

I read recently that it may take another 2 decades to sort out the liabilities of Lehman Bros.

Regarding the proposed sphere of coverage of the journal the whole subject of the human brain and how it works would have to be key. We basically don’t know anything. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/mar/21/homunculism

Get a few psychiatrists on board for the ride. They might learn something themselves as well.

The tone of this new avenue for economics reminds me of a quote I read years ago.

“In the old days everyone read Life magazine. Now it’s split up into specialisms with titles like “Gay Indian biker”. ”

But I suppose the markets will still be using simplifications like P/E long into the future.

And the delusion of optimism in the face of damning facts .. how can this be modelled ?

“During the war we were taught that Japan, the land of the Gods, was a righteous, divine country and that America was an evil, barbaric country. We didn’t actually believe this, but merely followed along, thinking that, since there was no such thing as a just war , such poisonous, simple minded rhetoric was a way to whip up a state of furious belligerence in the people. Again, we had doubts as to whether or not Japan would be capable of guiding the Greater Asia co-prosperity sphere.. We did not think we would be defeated. It was not that we were so convinced of victory we never thought of defeat. It was simply unbearable to contemplate it, and because we could not imagine what our fate would be afterward we shielded our eyes from the possibility and went on believing in certain victory.
….
People of the future will find it strange that during the war we so easily accepted an education smacking of distorted self esteem and hostility that advocated such preposterous ambitions, but for us the reasons seemed compelling”

Diary of writer Yamada Futaro, October 1945, quoted in “So Lovely a country will never perish” p 152-153

@ Brian Lucey

I would, genuinely, like to see your articulated, thought out, research grounded views on how to use behavioral insights into how to better align the venture capital ecosystem internal and external to universities with organizational and policy conflicts.

I don’t have time to waste on ‘behavioral insights’ and aligning with ecosystems in a paper when the venture capital model itself is on a respirator.

Since Brian Cowen announced a $500m innovation fund in July 2010 with half subscribed by international investors, in particular VCs, the Irish Government itself has actually given up to $200m to 3 international VC firms to invest and the Silicon Valley Bank may have got up to $100m. One of the VCs opened an office in Dublin in 2011.

The original Cowen fund doesn’t appear to have received any significant outside investment and like the UCD-TCD innovation alliance, it’s still there but just about.

In the US VC funding supports a small fraction of startups and most funds have lost money since the 1990s.

Less than 1% of US companies have raised capital from VCs, and the US VC industry is contracting.

Facebook isn’t the typical high-tech startup. The typical high-tech founder is an experienced manager of about 40, who is well-connected in the industry.

The typical Irish university spinout has 1-4 staff in the first 3 years; most such firms do not grow.

There are about 50,000 high-tech jobs in 1,500 firms in the area around Cambridge University after 50 years:

40% of firms are micro and employ 1-5 people;
20% of firms are micro and employ 6-10 people;
Only about 2.5% of firms employ more than 200 people

VCs are only interested in investing in companies with strong growth potential and in Ireland with an exit in a max of 5 years, via a sale to a bigger international firm.

Dr. Steve Collins, founder of Havok, a games company which was sold to Intel in 2007, who according to an Oireachtas report is part-time lecturer in TCD, has criticised universities and told would-be entrepreneurs to avoid academic environments, claiming there is a chasm between university based research and commercialising that research into companies. In particular, he said that the process of licensing a technology from the university where it was initially developed was slow, taking up to nine months. This was partly because universities generally thought their research could become a company ‘worth billions’ and were slow to agree a price for licensing research. He said there were significant problems with funding early-stage, research based companies. ‘There is a ton of money going in from Science Foundation Ireland, and we are not getting the output. Something is going wrong,” he said.

Less than €1m is collected in licensing fees annually in the third level sector.

@johnnyforeigner
100 articles published? Identify yourself otherwise your talking BS

So you don’t have time to comment because you don’t believe there is an issue or is to damaged or? I call chicken 🙂
Tell ya what…ill waive the submission fee. If you so strongly feel l it’s bust then try my other journal IRFA and yes…ill waive the fee there also. Its time to sogotp Michael….

IMHO it’s poor form to start the comments by channelling Statler and Waldorf. Sure, there may be some strong feelings pertaining to the Pope’s children years but the Prof is making an effort and it should be respected. Maybe throw in the digs at post 10 or something but when it’s at the start it derails the discussion.

via Text from Blind Biddy

Government accused of ‘targetting’ most vulnerable after cut
St Michael’s House has lost €12.3 million in funding since 2008

The Government decision to cut the budget of St Michael’s House will threaten services to some of the State’s most vulnerable individuals, the service provider itself and Opposition parties have claimed.

St Michael’s House provides community-based services for people with intellectual disabilities – currently 1,663 children and adults – in more than 170 centres in the greater Dublin area and Navan, Co Meath.

The organisation is facing a €1 million budget cut on top of annual cuts that have totalled €12.3 million since 2008.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/government-accused-of-targetting-most-vulnerable-after-cut-1.1508608

@Brian Lucey

5*

Should be enough in the recent Irish context to keep a platoon – nay a battalion even – of researchers busy up to the end of the century. Blind Biddy is available for the Editorial Board! Best of luck with the venture …

@Brian Lucey, Ed. JBEF

Brief research note; topic – Corporate Governance

Irish Corp. Governance pre-crash (2007) = Irish Corp. Governance ongoing-crash (2013)

statsig*****

End.

I challenge anyone to refute it.

finally (I’m not anonymous)

@all around the Lincoln Memorial in 1963

+1

Q: What is the present Irish dream?

So, I’m in on holidays in Ireland and decided to check out the new journal I had heard about while over here.

Done a quick google and found this complete and utter load of drivel, never heard such a bunch of whining jealous cry babies in my whole life. The problem with Internet forums in Ireland is that it gives those a platform who never go to mass to still talk about someone who done good for themselves disparagingly statsig***

Brian fair play on the journal hopefully it carves a niche that can be housed in Ireland for a global audience, only in Ireland would you get publically flogged for creative thinking. Any wonder Oscar Wilde hit the road

@Ffa would go way out that,issue 1 is jan next year what are ya a time traveller?
Where you “hear” bout it then ?

“As a disinterested observer, I have to say I find Michael Hennigan’s contributions very fair and balanced. ”

I find them stupid and boring. Lolz

Rf,
He annoys the hell out of me and his prose style is turgid. That said he is right on the money on some our herd of sacred cows. Without him, this blog would be a lot poorer.

It’s interesting to be lectured or abused by anonymous posters who for whatever reason are hiding their identities.”

“Academic Knuckle dragger” bizarrely challenges another poster to reveal his identity. “Flinging from afar” claims to be on holidays in Ireland and rants about: “The problem with Internet forums in Ireland…”

Is the weather that bad? If you are a genuine visitor, I would suggest the evening Literary Tour, which begins weekdays at ‘The Duke’ public house off Grafton St. in Dublin. It may better acquaint you with Oscar Wilde who at the age of 23 in 1878 on graduation from Oxford stayed in England. His mother joined her two sons there a year later as her deceased husband had left the family with huge debts.

“rf” finds my posts “stupid” and that’s not a problem but I may well have forgotten more than he or she will ever know. I cannot recall any of rf’s contributions here. So I cannot return the compliment.

“Shay Begorrah” wants a new forum of like-minded people leaving “the right to suffocate in their own ignorance and prejudice.”

Something about hedgehogs comes to mind!

Keynes may or may not have said: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” However, how many are open to changing their minds?

David Milbank of The Washington Post wrote yesterday: “A poll of Louisiana Republicans released last week contained some strange news for President Obama: Twenty-nine percent of them said that he was responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina — in 2005.”

Those people get the convenient facts from Fox and talk radio.

I have no problem with being queried on the facts but of course it’s easier to engage in Muppet sniping.

Ireland has a long history of quashing dissent and it doesn’t require research to show what legacy that can leave.

Brian Cowen has been reported this week to have said in a TV interview:

“Well, the truth is that we didn’t believe it. We thought the economy would have a soft landing, that economic growth would continue and we could pay for it through the growth that was to come.”

I believe him and there were many in the same boat.

The reason why dissent is important today is that the country and the rest of the main institutions in official Ireland, are still mainly run by older men who not too long ago believed that the free lunch had been invented.

Why would they have solutions for the future?

@michael hennegan I could have scrolled Wikipedia in order to justify my comments re Oscar Wilde also but I thought I would let you fill in the blanks, cheers. However I still don’t see what your musings and rumblings have to do with the launch of a new behavioural finance journal ? Believe it or not but some people actually follow social media, the very fact

@john Gallaher maybe OA is good but it seems to me strange that you wouldn’t look closer to home on the issue, from a tourists perspective it looks to me that the €25 per annual subscription to finfacts which may or may not contain any original research could be an excellent starting point.

Further to this the fact you think it’s entirely impossible to know about the launch of a new journal prior to its publication date shows how little you understand about it, in fact some might say that it’s a little embarrassing on your part.

As I said before, good luck with the journal I look forward to reading it.

@Brian
I admire your refreshingly unIrish attitude to self-promotion.
@Flinging
“So, I’m in on holidays in Ireland and decided to check out the new journal I had heard about while over here.” Come on fella, you can do better than that.
@Academic Knuckle Dragger
You reveal a lot about yourself if you think 100 publications is hyperbole.

@All

I’ll make it very simple:

Brian – best of luck with the venture and hope it goes extremely well.

Ends.

@ Michael

That Cowen quote is par for the course . Most people are not interested in dissenting opinions.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/32dca746-950d-11e1-ad72-00144feab49a.html

“The physics of markets and economics can be strange. Trends continue in motion long after they should have halted. It can take years for ineffable logic to work itself out in market prices. External shocks take time before they are reflected in inevitable damage to the overall economy.

There are reasons for this. Hope springs eternal; investors, executives and all other economic actors tend to hope for the best. Once they are down, excessive pessimism can depress economies and keep asset prices low. And in markets, prices are now largely set by investors with a strong incentive to latch on to a trend and prolong it as long as they can because they are paid to do so. That is what the pay structure for hedge fund managers and banks’ proprietary traders encourages.So market trends can carry on far longer than logic dictates before correcting, and economies can take a while to bow to the inevitable”

Of course the thing about denying reality logic is that when you inevitably bow to the inevitable the costs are far higher..
and climate change is the mother of them all

@seafóid

When things are going well (e.g. Irish housing market in 2006) we are old there is no chance of a crash. When things are going badly (e.g. Irish housing market in 2012) we are told there is no sign of a bottom and to anticipate further price falls. Excessive optimism followed by excessive pessimism. And never any accountability – whenever the predictions are shown to be false we are told that the data supported the claims at the time. Nice work if you can get it.

@Ffa agreed this is not the forum for debating/discussing OA,regarding embarrassing perhaps you can explain this,they be the same outfit…

“According to the BBC “The firm [Elsevier] offered a $25 Amazon voucher to academics who contributed to the textbook Clinical Psychology if they would go on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble (a large US books retailer) and give it five stars.” Elsevier said that “encouraging interested parties to post book reviews isn’t outside the norm in scholarly publishing, nor is it wrong to offer to nominally compensate people for their time. But in all instances the request should be unbiased, with no incentives for a positive review, and that’s where this particular e-mail went too far”, and that it was a mistake by a marketing employee”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier

“@BL fair enough he/she can’t possibly be a supplier a future mark yes.”
err i dunno. S/He could well be for example on of the two thousand people in the IRFA journal database – aka an academic. You seem very dubious here John.

@Johnny Foreigner

And it’s very hard to get your hands on any data or documentation justifying decision-making in Ireland.

@BL,thanks for the link another hard hitting piece from the Indo,it just goes from strength to strength.
Ah Brian,first off congrats and I do mean that,my “problems” and there are one or two is with Open Access and the shop involved.Perhaps,more a “yank” thing but they have not been exactly what we call a good corporate citizen.
I’m assuming most readers here are familar with the OA debate,the link above to Gowers,is a good starting point for anyone not familar.
Anyway unfair off me to cloud your big day,so again well done and all the best.

@seafóid

You can find some stuff, but it falls apart like confetti the minute you scrutinise it. Ever wonder why the hospital system is configured the way it is?

JG – when the best OA jounrals in finance are as good as the lower level paid for, let me know. I find it odd that Elsevier get all the rap. Presumably Springer, Routledge, OUP, CUP and Sage are purer than the driven snow…or is it size? Anyhow, that is entirely another days work.

@ Academic Knuckle Dragger , JF

Just to put things into perspective for you. When I finished my PhD, after about 3.5 years, I counted 2 dozen publications, all peer reviewed, in English, I never bothered to count other stuff. That was a little higher than institute average (ca 16), but I do not know of anyone with less than a dozen, at PhD finish. And that is at the start of a possible academic career, when you learn the trade.

Google counts my publications now around 100, depending on whether one counts “pending”. About half of it patents, since I went for industry.

Brian Lucey counts over 200, good German Science professors like TU Munich president Herrmann, or MPI Queisser count around 700.

To be fair to economists, they have more typically around 2 authors, applied science more around 4.

@ Carson

The problem is, like this one really good Greek John P. A. Ioannidis PLOS link above points out, that the most publications, especially in medical and social sciences, claim a significance, they do not have. For folks interested in this kind of stuff, please also look up Feynman on the historic development of the Millikan elementary charge determination.

@ Flinging

To compare MHs straight, simple 25 $ subscription to the business practices of Elsevier, I have a very hard time to believe that you do this with a straight face.

Even in a half a million city like Dresden, I still do value that I have online access to a larger university in the West.

@ Michael Hennigan, all

I do value your writings, on your place and here, a lot. Very good quality.

@ seafoid

As a physicist I just want to quote Feynman “Can you imagine how hard physics would be if electrons had feelings”

These psychological bubble dynamics are nothing new, these are not “external shocks” coming out of thin air, even Sir Isaac Newton finally bought into the south sea bubble 1720 : – )

@ John Gallaher

Your excellent links, like the ones here about the despicable Elsevier, are a significant reason, why I come here.

@ Shay

And naming and shaming like we do with Elsevier here, to openly address problems like strategic defaulters, is a very different thing than your Stalinist censorship phantasies, you keep repeating here.

@ all

Open debate is very crucial for a functioning society. As e.g. Jared Diamond “Collapse” pointed out, the most prior societies ran themselves over a cliff, not just little ones like the Easter Islands.

But I still hope, that the Spengler “Decline of the West” 800 year civilization cycle can be broken.

Utilizing the behavior of competitors as an excuse or seeking to justify “ones” own actions by those committed in the same price gouging arena,is facile.
Anyway,perhaps given the publicity garnered by this it will provoke some further discussion/debate in Ireland about taxpayer funded research disappearing behind pay walls,the loss off copyright to the taxpayer etc.

I think there are one two more to add here,and yes size is always important….Link above.
“The company has been criticised not only by advocates of a switch to the open-access publication model, but also by universities whose library budgets make it difficult for them to afford current journal prices. For example, a resolution by Stanford University’s senate singled out Elsevier’s journals as among those which might be “disproportionately expensive compared to their educational and research value” and which librarians should consider dropping, and encouraged its faculty “not to contribute articles or editorial or review efforts to publishers and journals that engage in exploitive or exorbitant pricing”.[9] Similar guidelines and criticism of Elsevier’s pricing policies have been passed by the University of California, Harvard University and Duke University.[10] The elevated pricing of field journals in economics, most of which are published by Elsevier, was one of the motivations that moved the American Economic Association to launch the American Economic Journal in 2009.”

@ JF

I think the hospital system is built on the Heathrow airport model. Nobody ever thought 40 years ahead. You need loads of different carpets . It works but not very efficiently.

BL ,
I always had Francis down as something high up in proctology.

Good luck with the journal. Maybe you could use your editor’s chair to ensure the articles are written in English..

@Tull McAdoo

…Without him [Michael Hennigan], this blog would be a lot poorer.’

I .. er .. er .. er .. agree. Is this a first?

@all

It ain’t the ‘volume’ on publications; it’s the quality of a few and whether or not they stand the test of ‘time’.

@all at all

56 comments and NONE from DOCM. The poor dear must be somewhat citation challenged! As for the poor dears who had to wade through one of ‘francis’ submissions – they have my deepest sympathy.

@ JF: “… whenever the predictions are shown to be false we are told that the data supported the claims at the time.”

Indeed the data may have ‘supported’ something. But what? Something was amiss.

@ francis: Your a Physicist! Thank you for that. I’ll be a tad careful about my ‘scientific’ comments in future. Never trust ‘expert opinion’. Check the stuff yourself.

“Your [sic] a Physicist!”

Hopefully the editor of the new journal will pay a little more attention to detail than has been shown here. 🙂

On a more serious note, good luck with it, Brian.

Congratulations to Brian Lucey!

The clear errors of what passed for economics need to be addressed. I hope that some understanding of rigged markets and pyramid financing, aka Fictional Reserve Banking, will be properly stressed in tutoring the next generation? The Rentier conspiracies would be too much to hope for and too close to home?

“But you don’t seem to be too eager to screw it up with people,”
that right Frank. I hide. Why I have been doing so for years.
I simply dont believe you are in Dresden, have a PhD or are a physicist. Prove it.

Maybe, before we get more just 7 minutes later posts to a long reference, from a distinguished, tenured Professor, which may look a little bit intemperate, especially when he cuts off the second, relevant part in the sentence he cites,

We try to turn this into a fun game.

How do I prove to be

a) in Dresden, Germany, and

b) a Physics PhD, with some citation statistics

WITHOUT revealing my identity to people, I certainly do not trust with that?

For point a) I could make a picture of a Dresden landmark place at a certain time, like Saturday midnight, with a lovely photo of Prof. Lucey and a dead fish of his choosing sort, and then sent it from an anonymous account or so to Prof.s Kinsella or Rourke, or however DoD and Shay trust : – )

Point b) looks a little bit more difficult. Solving some equation, time triggered here? But, come on people, use your imagination.

On a second point, how about Prof. Lucey publishes the publication statistics of his PhD students?

My Prof had on average a dozen PhD ponies running in the field, with numbers I have given above.

Francis
No, a verifable email address posted here, perhaps from a physics related workplace. What on earth is preventing you from doing so? I mean, its not like you have anything to hide. I mean we can see why, say Eoin Bond might want to keep a figleaf over his persona here versus elsewhere. But a german physicist posting on an irish economics board has hardly much conflict of interest.
The more you hide the more you come across as having to hide.
My PhD students details are on my site Francis. Not sure what your question is. Of course, if you are a working physicist your familiar with my publications in Physica A….

We should bear in mind that francis might be a nobel prize winner, hence the need for secrecy

distinguished David O’Donnell,

the distinguished Prof. Brian M Lucey will get the answer he deserves over the weekend.

Tonight we celebrate the historic defeat of the war mongerers in Downing Street, with more than one bottle of Champagne.

And you should too, if you would be a true friend of the common man.

I have no illusions, win some, lose some. But I indulge in the weasel words of FT and Economist, tonight.

I remember that I have scrutinized Colin Powells UN 2002 statement in detail, and I am open for proof now, IF, and only IF there is any.

I consider that as unlikely.

… he might even release what Heisenberg revealed to Bohr in Copenhagen! Don’t hold your breath.

David
Im more interested in the Fourth Secret of Fatima, or perhaps the dublin forward lineup tomorrow in Croker

@ brian lucey

After you asked,
I am presently looking at Ricardo Cuelho et al., Physica A 376(2007)455- 466,
which shows up on your citation list

Since the length of the author list is unusual for economics, may I ask you to comment on your specific contribution to this?

Describing the main result(s) in a few of your own words would be a plus.

What would actually be quite interesting,living in the states,as i haven’t a clue about the open access debate/discussion in Ireland would be a tread on it!
The above business model is fatally flawed,it’s over,the fat lady has sung.Sure a few more bucks can be squeezed out this lemon but for how much longer?
There is an opportunity for Ireland and its 3 level institutions/academics to lead the way here but,but ….
Regarding the Indo link above,one had to wonder off what interest to its rapidly dwindling readership is an esoteric not yet published journal,but looks like they both headed in same direction,oblivion.
What other paper in the world would “review” or promote a not yet published journal or was it an advertisement,perhaps Charlie should just have a little “warning” above his musings….

Few bits on Ireland O/A.
“Speaking at the public forum in the Royal Irish Academy, the Director of the European Research Area, said that ‘Open access is the way in which Science must and will be done”
http://www.ria.ie/about/our-work/policy/ria-initiatives/making-open-access-work-for-ireland.aspx

@Brian Lucey

Methinks all economists might learn a lot from a brief study of Neils Bohr – it would certainly shatter a few illusions about ‘equilibrium’, provide some sense of the ‘dynamic’ nature of the human universe, and completely shatter the illusion of so-called ‘objectivity’ in scientific observation so-beloved of the neo-positivists (the poor ontologically-challenged dears!) who dominate the editorial boards of so many economics journals (particularly in the U.S.A.).

I note that ‘francis’ has failed to respond to either of my little teasers on physics. The ‘poor dear’.

Up the DUBS (with apologies to Mickey Hickey)!

Francis
Really, is that it?
a) multiple authored papers are the norm. See any economics or finance journal.
b) Consequent on the failure of your basic axiom for ‘truthiness’ the rest is facile. Bu as you ask “may I ask you to comment on your specific contribution to this?” . It was four authors. Therefore every fourth word. Thats how its done in economics and finance. Apart from those starting with J. Those I refuse to use. Hate em…

@ Brian Lucey,

probably a misunderstanding.

That was just an intermittent question, before you get my qualified reply, which goes of course a lot deeper.

@DoD,if ya want play hurler on the ditch,and yeah I can just c ya now on Hill 16,supporting the Dubs….

“I am writing to inform you of my resignation from the editorial board of the Journal of Number Theory, effective immediately. I will also be adding my name publicly to the list of people who refrain from volunteering for, or submitting manscripts to, Elsevier journals.”
http://gowers.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/elsevier-journals-has-anything-changed/

And when and where Francis will I get your qualified reply? Will it be posted here? Left under a stone outside Dresden at midnight? Do tell….

@ John G

shouldn’t you enjoy the last (long) weekend at the pool, given that you have your Labor day in true american fashion some other day than everybody else?
1st of May is in remembering some german anarchists /Haymarket : – )

@ Brian L

I wrote above “over the weekend”, and I usually keep my word (and pay my bonds).

Brian,

talks here often trigger me to look at related things, taking some time, but that is a significant part of the worth for me. This is here probably the last lovely weekend too, I am not just looking at this blog here, but pool, lunch, dinner, friends & family … and

It will now be US parliament (congress) to decide on the Syrian war, and not a trigger happy administration, to put it mildly : – )

Last one to go down is now Hollande. I am looking forward to it and depart to buy another bottle of champagne. Justifying that otherwise circumstantial post here, I think.

Perhaps Francis is an Iranian nuclear scientist or as Assad supporter worried that the CIA might get him. Perhaps he has a PHD in the delivery of gases.

By his own admission he is a supporter of the CSU, a worship of Franz Josef Strauss one off the most corrupt German politicians ever.

Perhaps he thinks he is Napoleon.

Im going to have s nice lunch and then watch the Game. So should I’m you Tull
sure Francis is laboring in teutonic fervour to get my pressie finished. Wonder if it requires batteries?

1. Now, what is done in this paper, the first Physica one from the top of Lucey’s list?

Ricardo Coelho took in 2006 a compact standard data set (MSCI) of 475 weekly data points of 53 national indices, and threw a standard algorithm (Minimum Spanning Tree, MST), pre coded in programs like matlab, mathematica, against it, (searching for excel MST yielded something interesting to look at, “Tannenbaum”).

Of course there is correlation, nowadays this has often reduced to a simple “risk-on, risk off” 2×2 matrix heat map, to put things a little bit into perspective. One will get always “some result”. Similar attempts are PCA (Principal Component Analysis, which I find useful) or Haldane / Hall, Claire and Brian tried in 2005 (“The Dynamics of Central European Equity Market Integration” : – )

2. The result of the paper is, as far as I can see, just stating the obvious, indices follow somewhat the real economy, and that becomes increasingly connected.

When I look at the trade data of e.g. Czech in 1984 / 1986, the trade fraction was 21 / 118 = 18%, of which SU (Russia) 45%, and West Germany 5%, being 1% of their total economy.

Looking at the same data for 2013, at e.g. CIA World Factbook, I have 29.6% Germany and Russia 4.8%, France not mentioned, of a trade fraction of (129 + 134) / 2 / 193 = 68% or 20% of their total economy, the typical size of the whole manufacturing sector of countries now.

(The precise numbers are just given, so that readers can identify, what I am looking at, without spilling links here.)

A pattern, which is typical for central Europe.

For Ireland we have trade fractions very unusual for Europe: UK 39.8%, US 13%, and Germany only a distant 3rd with 7.8%. You are not part of the mainland European manufacturing and trade cluster, with trains and trucks running uninterrupted from the ports of Rotterdam to Bratislava, and back.

Assuming, for simplicity, equal impact in absolute terms our real world, “physical” economics show up in their data, but vice versa barely come out of the noise, given the (trading) size differences.

The UK is somewhat the odd man out, given its large holdings of global mining, etc. Germany switching out of the central role in those data, during the times of our reunification difficulties around 2000, all expected obvious.

3. Content wise, when I look at the CV of Ricardo, this should have been a student paper, with his professor, Stefan Hutzler, as the sole additional author, in a lower grade journal like physica. But since the research grants various folks got, as mentioned at the end of the paper, the resulting author list of 5 was apparently needed.

These things are published somewhere, but if I would have been an editor of a “high quality” journal at that time, I would have rejected it outright, even without trying to suggest major changes.

Real “material” physicists tend to bitch a little bit about what things like this have to do with “physics”, but this stuff is obviously standard lore in this journal.

I tried to say something more positive about this paper, wondered why this is cited 55 times, by whom, but as somebody raised on red meat, and not spuds and cabbage, I do ask you, Brian Lucey, as yesterday,

“where is the beef”?

Just for reference, when I look at impact factor rankings, whatever they are worth
http://kofegeek.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/list-of-physics-journals-impact-factors-2011/
it roughly reflects our perspective, when I was active in academia, more than a dozen years ago

@ francis

‘For Ireland we have trade fractions very unusual for Europe: UK 39.8%, US 13%, and Germany only a distant 3rd with 7.8%. You are not part of the mainland European manufacturing and trade cluster, with trains and trucks running uninterrupted from the ports of Rotterdam to Bratislava, and back’

Ireland was never part of ‘Europe’, unless you go back to the early Middle Ages when St Gaul and other monks spread the Gospel. Pace Michael H and Ford of Cork, our manufacturing industry was never more than low tech food processing, or branch-plants of UK firms. This ‘tail’ was wiped out along with much of UK manufacturing in Thatcher’s era.

Native handicrafts were stifled by the 1800 Act of Union, a bit like what happened to Indian crafts under the Raj, although it must be acknowledged that the latter were much more developed. They didn’t manage to kill the music though 🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DON3xCMwpqk

Insofar as there is ‘stuff’ going to Europe, it’s mostly FDI driven high tech product with few linkages to the domestic economy. The ‘stuff ‘ is increasingly virtual, in the form of opaque BTB ‘services’ or even more opaque finance flows.

Well,

3 evenings later, I haven’t got an answer from Prof. Lucey on one of his publishing crown juwels.

Maybe you want to showcase some better example of your intellectual prowess?

I actually dont see what your point is? That youve identified one article thats not great? That Lucey put his name to research that wasnt primarily his own? That a paper based on Coelho’s PhD wasnt up to scratch?
Really, not a notion.
It doesnt say anything (one swallow not making a spring and all that) It doesnt say anything about what professional norms are here. Its just a subjective reading of one paper backed up by mealy mouthed implication (look at the equivication in your comment. *IF* you were the editior..* as far as I can see*) but you havent actually shown any professional wrongdoing or even anything that would be outside the norm in this field
So whats your point? That you identified a sloppy paper? (Which, as you claim, isnt even primarily Luceys, so youre picking on a new juniour academic)
Your comment, as are so many, was idiotic. I really dont know what response you expect

rf,

It was Brian Lucey who brought up this paper in a question to me, not me.
My intermittent question last Saturday, naming it, was also an opportunity for him, to say: please look at a different one.

There should be one in his over 200, of which he is really proud of, and for that I am asking now.

Comments are closed.