It’s a bit of a challenge working reference/source identification into teaching.* In too many cases, the expectation appears to be that students will identify appropriate external sources based on what is included in a class’s reading list, with mixed results. I tend to discuss strategies for assessing reference quality with my dissertation students, and introduce […]
Brief thoughts on reviewing
One of the more frequent and most underrated activities as an academic is reviewing materials for publication. Training for this at the PhD level is often ignored. One of the interesting aspects of receiving reviews is seeing how others approach the process. Sometimes this is interesting for good reasons (as in, ‘I should do this’) […]
Financial innovation and macroprudential policies
A project with Max Bernier, a former MSc student of mine, was recently (and very speedily) accepted at Research in Economics, after spending a long time awaiting a second reviewer at another journal. We take an aggregate approach to financial innovation, in contrast with most other research (which focuses on distinct methods of innovation), and […]
The OBOR Problem
Over the past few years, China’s One Belt-One Road (OBOR) investment and trade initiative has gained a lot of attention from students, particularly those visiting UCL from China. This seems to be the result of political announcements and media coverage: ‘everyone is talking about it’ is a frequent motivation. This, in itself, is not at […]
Pacific International Politics Conference
The third meeting of the Pacific International Politics Conference (PIPC) was held at Hong Kong University at the beginning of this month. I received the call for papers through the International Political Economy Society (IPES) email list earlier this year, and the combination of attractive location, substantive focus, and friendly (and established) organizers convinced me […]
Journal metrics
I keep a list journals that represent possible outlets for my various research projects. Each year, when Scimago updates their SJR rankings, I go through my list and update my metrics.(1) I like the SJR scores because they reflect the weighted importance of references, rather than a simple citation count. Rather than treating references to […]