Ray fisman was supposedly discussing a paper about innovation but mostly drones on about diplomats and parking tickets. He even showed a table from his own published paper rather than the one he was supposed to be discussing
What's the worst thing you've witnessed at a conference?
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The worst was when Tim Bresnahan was discussing the paper of someone about to go on the market. He started by saying "well this paper offers the discussing a target-rich environment" and proceeded to absolutely destroy it without without any constructive comments
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It was r&r at JPE. Maybe not as bad as you think?
Which paper?
worst thing I've seen was an absolutely crappy paper on patents by DA on the summer institute program.
i mean it was something that a grad student would have been ashamed to write.
and it was the second year in a row it was on the program (different division).
DA didn't even show up.
2013
Daron Acemoglu, MIT & NBER
Ufuk Akcigit, University of Pennsylvania & NBER
Murat Alp Celik, University of Pennsylvania
Individualism and the Creation of Knowledge -
It was r&r at JPE. Maybe not as bad as you think?
Which paper?
worst thing I've seen was an absolutely crappy paper on patents by DA on the summer institute program.
i mean it was something that a grad student would have been ashamed to write.
and it was the second year in a row it was on the program (different division).
DA didn't even show up.
2013
Daron Acemoglu, MIT & NBER
Ufuk Akcigit, University of Pennsylvania & NBER
Murat Alp Celik, University of Pennsylvania
Individualism and the Creation of KnowledgeYou're making my point.
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Conference bragged to have a very big name giving a keynote.
everyone was excited but on the day found only a screen in the room.
We thought Ok, it's a Skype talk, this happens but they should have told in advance.
However there was no Skype, the talk was recorded, hence no question or discussion. Actually no mention of the conference either.
Most likely they asked for permission to screen a public lecture and called it "keynote speech"
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Agent A: A junior, early-career, fresh grad presenting his JMC.
Agent B: A well-known prof. with a competing paper
Agent B was assigned to be the discussant for Agent A’s paper
Rather than discuss the paper, Agent B spent 80% of his discussion time to talk about his paper, its strengths, and novelties, the remaining 20% only bashing the competing paper.
Agent B, years later, succeeded in publishing his paper in a journal widely believed for at least the past 6-9 years as a corrupt journal.
Agent A’s paper is a perpetual working paper.
The story is known to quite many.What's disturbing is that this isn't necessarily just one ("the") story, but could have happened multiple times.
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I once went to a session where Raj Chetty was supposed to be presenting but he didn't show up and gave no word to the organizers about his whereabouts.
I was at a conference where Wasylenko from Syracuse was supposed to be presenting on the last day. He told one of the session participants that he was going to leave before the last day, but he never told the session chair. Chair kept delaying the start of the session awaiting his arrival, which was never going to happen. The participant who W told he was going to ditch kept saying that the presenter wasn’t coming, but the chair didn’t believe him.