Links for 2/23/10

Burton A. Weisbrod and Evelyn D. Asch

Endowments provide income for important spending each year. But they also are a college’s savings -- their insurance for a rainy-day loss in revenue. With insurance, a college can sustain its programs even when bad times cause donations, tuition revenue, or government grants to shrink. Clearly, we have been having a very rainy day. Yet colleges and universities with the largest rainy day funds have been cutting expenditures rather than drawing down their endowments to continue their activities and fulfill their mission until the economy improves…

Now is exactly the time when the rainy day insurance funds should be tapped -- not the time to decimate programs to maintain endowments…

Al Roth

In England, universities faced with unexpectedly many applicants are raising the grades required for admission, which is apparently regarded as somewhat suspect...

Alex Tabarrok

anonymity [for referee reports] is essential because the opportunities for repeat play and thus collusion are too common.

The primary effect of published referee reports would be on editors who would have their work put under greater scrutiny...

Rob Jenkins

Over time, real-life experiences began to challenge my comfortable, theoretical assumptions…