I'm Climbing Up Those Walls Again

My three weeks of relative isolation have ended. I think the time alone has done me some good, despite the obvious tendency to get lonely (alleviated from time to time by turning all the radios in the house on to NPR).

There have been few exceptions such as a fun visit from Kyle and Matt and the occasional movie-outing/Soul Calibur 2 fight with Jon, but for the most part I've felt no excitement connecting me to this place. The lack of the constant barrage of (much appreciated) friendship at Clemson will make it a little easier to get on that plane.


I've got a good bit of reading to do; some official correspondence from Oxford has revealed a 'need to know' reading list:

Economic Theory:

H. Gravelle and R. Rees, Microeconomics
H. R. Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics
R. Dornbusch and S. Fischer, Open Economy Macroeconomics
P. Krugman and M. Obstfeld, International Economics

Math and Statistics:

A.C. Chiang, Fundamental Methods for Mathematical Economics
Harold J. Larson, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Statistical Inference

Development Economics:

D. Ray, Development Economics
A. Sen and J. Dreze, Hunger and Public Action
A. Sen. 1999, Development as Freedom
W. Easterley, The Elusive Quest for Growth
G. M. Meier & J. E. Stiglitz, Frontiers of Development Economics: The Future as Perspective
J. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents
Commission for Africa (Full Report)
World Bank, World Development Report
UNDP, Human Development Report

Quantitative Methods:

"By the end of the course, you will be covering material at the level of"

W. H. Greene, Econometric Analysis

"Listed are four books that would allow you to build up to this level of complexity, given below in order of difficulty"

D. N. Gujarati , Basic Econometrics
J. Kmenta, Elements of Econometrics
J.J. Johnston & J. DiNardo, Econometric Methods
C. Mukherjee, H. White, and M. Wuyts, Econometrics & Data Analysis for Developing Countries


Luckily I'm familiar with a lot of the basic econ stuff, although it looks like I've got a fair bit of development reading to do. This is not worrying - it's what I enjoy! I've got two months to tackle this stuff.

Oh, and today's song:

The Bad Plus - Flim (Aphex Twin jazz cover)

and another picture of the lovely Ms. Johansson