Five-Year Plan Update?

 How time flies. Hmmm.

In my (most recent) prior post, of, uh, five years or so ago, I referred to five papers I was in some stage of working on/thinking about. I will update the situation with those papers, and mention the next, short turnaround project.

I'll take the five papers in the reverse order in which they appeared in the prior post:

(5) "Compensated Live Kidney Donations," co-authored with my friend Randy Beard. Here it sits, as it did before, on ssrn. Nothing of note has been accomplished since that posting, alas. I have a vague notion to turn it into a more fun, shorter paper, titled along the lines of "What Would the Touch of Filthy Lucre Mean for Kidney Donations"? But I can't even bring myself to express that vague notion as a loose commitment. 

(4) The cocaine regulation paper has transmogrified into an article in the Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy (Vol. 5, Issue 1, 7-12, 2021), pdf available here. Happy about this one.

(3) The Parthenon Marbles paper has been retitled! (OK, it has been significantly updated and revised, too.) The new title is "Athens or London?: The Parthenon Marbles and Economic Efficiency," and it will soon be available to the world in the online journal Social Sciences & Humanities Open. I imagine that the published version can be tracked (when available) at the updated ssrn link, here.

(2)  I was hoping to post my casino regulation paper on ssrn by July 8, 2017 -- I was a few weeks late, but here it is. But revising this paper is my current research activity -- this one is getting a new title, too. Fortunately, casino regulation is an evergreen topic! I want to submit the revised version within a few days -- though exactly where, I am not sure.

(1) I did post "Vice Policy in Russia: Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling," on ssrn as intended, though about ten days late. But a revised version, available here, has been published in Policy Sciences. The published version has been available for a couple years, but the official issue publication date (I just now learned) is 2022. I also should update the nDrafts reader on my plan to improve my Russian language skills. I have done that, mainly via Duolingo (which, alas, is rather limited in its Russian content relative to languages like French or Spanish). But my frequent travel to Ukraine and Russia has come to a halt, and world events are such that I expect that halt to be maintained for some time -- so the shine is off my desire to improve my Russian. French beckons, however.

Why have I updated nDrafts after a lapse of five years? Because I have a very tight deadline to write a paper on drug prohibition, so I am reviving my Five Drafts (and relatedly, nDrafts) method.

It was the Summer of '17

Time to check in, what with, oh, a year passing since the previous post. Should I chronicle the slew of missed deadlines, or focus on the odd past success or the ambitious agenda for the weeks ahead? Perhaps a smattering of all...

Loose ends to tie up:

(1) complete "Vice Policy in Russia: Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling," which I presented in November, 2016, but do not yet have a complete draft ready to post on ssrn.com; my new due date on this one: July 1, 2017 [as a side note, let me mention that I intend to upgrade my very poor Russian this summer];

(2) revise and post on ssrn.com "Selling Hope, Casino-Style." I have a complete draft, and presented it twice (in March and April, 2017); time to put on the finishing touches. Due date: July 8, 2017;

(3) revise the Parthenon Marbles paper -- I have never been happy with the last few pages. Due date: July 15, 2017;

(4) possibly revise, and maybe seek to publish, the cocaine regulation paper. Due date: July 22, 2017.

(5) take a look at my paper with Randy Beard, "Compensated Live Kidney Donations," and think about revising it or submitting it somewhere. I sort of like this paper, but like most of my papers, can't think of any obvious outlet for it. Due date: July 29, 2017.

So much for loose ends? As for my ambitious agenda on the reading front, this summer I hope to read up on animal welfare and policy. First in the queue is Can Animals Be Moral?, by Mark Rowlands. (One year ago, incidentally, I committed on this blog to reading Narconomics, by Tom Wainwright, and this is a case of the odd success.) And as for the research/writing agenda, well, I'll try to make some headway on my behavioral economics stuff...

Parthenon Marbles, etc., Update

The delayed revision of the Parthenon Marbles paper was "completed" some time ago, though perhaps there will be more revisions in the future? At any rate, the current version is available here. And I did meet my reading goal of Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, which is one of the best social science books I have read in quite awhile; only sorry I didn't read it a few years ago. Here's a short article by Cass Sunstein applying Haidt's ideas to the Republican National Convention of July, 2016.

For the future, well, I must buckle down for a (new) paper on Russian vice policy (alcohol, tobacco, gambling), but events related to that endeavor will be chronicled on the sister blog. I would like to make a reading commitment here, though: how about Narconomics, by Tom Wainwright? I'll also think about further revisions to the Parthenon Marbles paper,  and possibly look into submitting it to some perfectly innocent, unsuspecting journal.

Mann Act Book Review and One Missed Deadline...

...or at least one that I am willing to acknowledge. But I will start with something completed, as foreshadowed in my previous nDrafts post: a book review of Policing Sexuality: The Mann Act and the Making of the FBI by Jessica R. Pliley, available here. Further, the short paper on regulating cocaine has been completed, as has been the referee report on a paper concerning addiction. Oh, and yes, my reading commitment has been fulfilled, with The Parthenon Enigma, by Joan Breton Connelly, added to the "books promiscuously read" pile. OK, so I did manage to take care of a few loose ends in the last couple months.

As for the missed deadline, that refers to the revised version of a paper about the Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum. The new (missed?) deadline is April 18. I'd also like to begin to at least muse over the paper for this fall on vice policy in Russia, and hmmm, what to read, what to read? How about The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt?

Loose Ends Revisited, and Next Steps

Some 8 months ago I noted the status of a few "loose ends;" I thought I would take this opportunity to update those, and to indicate some plans for the next, uh, 8 months or so.

The loose ends, and the updates:

(1) reading a book on prostitution policy and writing a review of it; this is complete and the review should appear forthwith;
(2) revising markedly a second kidney compensation paper; this is complete.
(3) writing a paper on the Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum; this is complete, and
(4) preparing a paper on vice policy for a conference in Russia; this is complete. A Russian language version of the paper should soon be available(!).

The next few weeks involve revising the Parthenon Marbles paper; I hope to post updates on Five Drafts. In this same time period I have to write a referee report for a paper concerning addiction --  I only mention it here as a personal reminder and spur to action. I also intend, over the next few months, to write another Russia-related vice paper, this time covering alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. There will probably also be a second paper (topic yet unknown) to employ some of my time in these next 8 months, and there are rumblings of the next book. When the book project materializes, I will post more here; the other projects are likely to be discussed or lamented on Five Drafts.

Oh my goodness, I almost forgot -- in the next few weeks, I hope to produce a short paper on regulating cocaine. 

I am always game for trying to commit to reading a book or two, too; right now, let me make that commitment to The Parthenon Enigma, by Joan Breton Connelly -- I already am well into it, so I am feeling confident. 

The Law and Econ Project, Culmination [Updated, July 16, 2015]

Concepts in Law and Economics: A Guide for the Curious will be out soon, oh but it will, through the good offices of Oxford University Press. Please celebrate by buying (OK, pre-ordering) multiple copies. If you are impatient -- and why shouldn't you be? -- the e-book already is available.

Loose Ends

In the most recent post I mentioned a few other tasks beyond the ongoing Law and Economics book project. They involved...

(1) reading a book on prostitution policy and writing a review of it;
(2) revising markedly a second kidney compensation paper (paper one is now out, available here); 
(3) writing a paper on the Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum; and, 
(4) preparing a paper on vice policy for a conference in Russia.

Here is where progress stands...
(1) the book has been read, extensive notes taken, and a draft review has been fashioned but not polished; this project is now behind schedule, and I want to complete it soon;
(2) the revisions are complete and the kidney paper, for the time being, is in the able hands of my co-author;
(3) the Parthenon Marbles paper is essentially unstarted, but is now a top priority, with a schedule, and everything; and,
(4) the vice policy paper -- "Robust Alcohol Policy in Russia: Some Aspirational Measures" -- is complete, and can be downloaded at zero nominal charge here.