ASSA/AEA Presentation (Boston) - Health, crime, and violence in Papua New Guinea

I am presenting some selected results from my project with Yana van der Meulen Rodgers (Rutgers University) tomorrow at the ASSA/AEA Annual Meeting in Boston.

We have used the 2009-2010 HIES to examine gender differentials across a variety of dimensions in Papua New Guinea. Based on these results we made policy recommendations to reduce these differences and promote economic growth in the developing country.

My presentation tomorrow will focus on some results concerning health, crime, and violence.

You can view the presentation below.


Yana and I plan to develop several papers using more robust methods of analysis.

Do you have any suggestions for us?

From a city currently overly saturated with economists,

I am a running master

According to the USATF, for road running, one becomes a master runner at the age of 40...as of December 24th, I have joined the crowd!

Coach Tom Clifford helped me celebrate the event by doing 40 x 200 meters @ :45 with 100 meters rest on Christmas Eve. It was a warm/humid and rainy morning, but we clicked through them talking about my life events at certain ages/laps. For example, I mentioned starting on the 16th interval that I became a handful at 16 and moved to Virginia at age/interval 29.

The first 10 or so were 45-46 seconds and then we gradually moved down to 44-45; the last 9 were :43 or faster and hitting 40 with a :41. Given that we have not worked on speed and have focused on strength (hills) and endurance, I was very excited about this workout.

40 @ 40 on the UNCW Track

Training has continued to progress since my surgery in August.While in Wilmington for the holiday I also had two solid long runs, getting up to 1:50, and another strong interval workout. Fingers crossed that this progress continues and I can toe the line at the 2015 Quintiles Marathon.

Swimming has certainly contributed to my improved endurance. I am on my 4th set of workouts from Coach Brett. One of my favorites this go 'round is 4800 yards including 3 x 800 on 15:00, 1 x 600 all out, 20 x 25 kicks on :40. My total yardage per week is still 21,000-24,000 on six days. I'm slowly getting better in the pool, but I find myself getting frustrated looking at my race times compared to others in my age group. I need to swallow my ego and enjoy the small improvements. Plus, remember that it is supposed to be FUN!