Wiseman is a great hire for Vandy, though a loss for OSU. Wiseman is top-notch, and generous with his time -- we should all be happy for him.
-former OSU grad. student
Political Science Job Rumors » General Job Market Discussion » Methods and/or Formal Job Rumors and Discussion
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Vandy Formal Search
(247 posts)-
Posted 6 months ago #
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Do you think Burt and Larry yield power? Please. I actually like both of them, but gatekeepers of power they are not.
Posted 6 months ago # -
^
would u please take this to another thread. You are cluttering this impeccable blog in the wrong thread.Evans yields big time power. One word: whips.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Is wiseman really going to vanderbilt, or is this just a rumor?
Posted 6 months ago # -
Not a rumor, friend of mine at vanderbilt confirmed it yesterday.
Posted 6 months ago # -
surprising that he chose to leave OSU
Posted 6 months ago # -
^Really? When will anyone here begin to understand that people can do lots of different things for lots of different reasons, and that those decisions don't have to conform to anyone else's incredibly narrow view of the world.
Posted 6 months ago # -
^ amen.
Posted 6 months ago # -
rumor about wiseman is true. he has informed faculty at OSU.
Posted 6 months ago # -
>> surprising that he chose to leave OSU
Not really. OSU isn't that great despite its pretensions and the location is nothing special. Vanderbilt has made more interesting hires in the last 2 years than OSU in the last 10.
Posted 6 months ago # -
"Sorry, would *not* generate Alan Wiseman. Meaning you need pure formal and pure institutions people to train someone of Wiseman's quality."
curious to hear what others think of this. Does a department need pure formal and pure institutions to produce someone like Wiseman?
Posted 6 months ago # -
Yes, I really think that you do. Teaching formal theory requires real knowledge of economic theory. Not true that using formal theory and even creating models with testable predictions requires deep knowledge of economic theory.
The key is knowing the limits and opportunities. If you are only an applied modeler, it is difficult to pass those lessons on.
Posted 6 months ago # -
If you look at all of the "pure formal" people, all had extensive, if not exclusive, training in economics departments. If you want to be a formal theorist -- or even a good applied formal theorist -- no doubt you will need extensive training in economics. The question is whether you are better able to use those tools in political science by working with an pure or applied formal theorist. Given training in economics, it is not obvious to me that you would be better off working with John Duggan (pure theory) over Keith Krehbiel (applied theory) in terms of connecting theory to political science if your goal is to be an applied modeller.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Interesting set of comparisons. I would say that you don't need to be all the way at Duggan to provide good training. Best case scenario is having access to people of both types. A pure theory sequence with Duggan and an applied theory section with a Krehbiel. At Stanford GSB you can get that using their two econ departments. Not sure if you can get that anywhere else at the moment.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Creativity and imagination are important too. You need to be able to identify interesting puzzles/questions and figure out how to get leverage on them. Hard to teach. Krehbiel is excellent at this.
Posted 6 months ago # -
^ very good point.
Posted 6 months ago # -
^^Yeah, I guess those are the intangibles that you get from a good applied theorist that you might not get from a pure theorist.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Who has produced more applied modelers that are successful in the discipline, Duggan or Krehbiel? That should answer your question about the best way to train formal modelers that also conduct empirical tests. It is no accident that Wiseman worked with Krehbiel at Stanford. Look at the others Krehbiel has worked with - The list reads like a "who's who" of the best young applied formal theorists in the discipline. "Pure" theorists often communicate to their students a disdain for empirical work, which shows up in the quality of the empirical research that their students conduct. Krehbiel's articles and books indicate that he values the empirical side of the discipline. He is also very creative about identifying empirical puzzles and devising helpful indicators. In a lot of ways, the empirical tests in ILO are what make that book great.
Posted 6 months ago # -
^ agree wholeheartedly. Except that Pivotal Politics is a better book than ILO, and shows more creativity and breadth.
Posted 6 months ago # -
^^I agree as well. But his students benefit from getting very rigorous formal training as well. That's why there are two parts of the training: Strong pure theory base on which to build a great applied set of skills (creativity, relevance, institutional details, empirical approaches).
Posted 6 months ago # -
^Both ILO and PP are great books. But I think that ILO is more creative and important. The empirical tests in PP have been heavily and rightly criticized (Smith's parties book) and the theory is warmed over Black with a touch of Romer-Rosenthal. The empirical contents of ILO are masterful and are a model of how applied formal research should be conducted. The measures Krehbiel created for that book were a major step forward and ILO changed the direction of congressional scholarship. I think the impact of PP was more incremental.
Posted 6 months ago # -
should have been ^^
Posted 6 months ago # -
> Who has produced more applied modelers that are successful in the discipline, Duggan or Krehbiel? That should answer your question about the best way to train formal modelers that also conduct empirical tests.
A silly argument, considering they don't start with students of equal talent.
Posted 6 months ago # -
An interesting question is where you can go other than GSB to get that combination of skills. Not Rochester anymore in AP. Other possibilities are Princeton and WUSTL. But the strengths of GSB and Stanford are rare in the discipline right now.
Posted 6 months ago # -
^ Good point. It is very difficult to be admitted into the GSB program and their graduates probably would do well even without the superb training. However there is also a large value added from people like Krehbiel. From what I've heard, he is as good a teacher as he is a researcher.
Posted 6 months ago #
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