Monday, September 26, 2005

Tenure and Porn

Some of my regular readers (who am I kidding, no one reads this) may have noticed a marked change in some of the topics I'm posting. You see I've recently be awarded (or maybe I earned?) tenure. With tenure comes academic freedom, the ability to pursue research that truly interests me. That is not to say that my previous research on exchange rates did not interest me, but I feel as though I need a change of pace. Really, do we actually need another article on PPP? I think my marginal contribution is too small to warrant spendng much more time on the topic. I won't completely give up on it, but I need to make room for my new research agenda.

Strippers and Porn. Thats right, I want to study the Adult Entertainment industry. You may (or may not) be surprised to find that there is almost no work by academic economists on the industry. Sure plenty of sociologists have taken a crack at trying to understand the industry, but when it comes to the important economic questions, they completely drop the ball. It is amazing how socioliologist can report that strippers say the main reason they got into the business was for the money, yet they NEVER ask how much money they make.

In the case of porn can you think of a better way to understand the evolution of contractual relationships, then by comparing Hollywood to Van Nuys?

So A Random Walk will start to track articles I'm reading for my research, I'll try to point out when they are not safe for work, but no guarantees. After all, its just research for me and I can't be fired. I still want to talk about Teaching and Learning and I'll continue to point to macro topics of interest.

Keywords: Tenure

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