Different Measure of Intelligence Peak at Different Ages

One potential concern with cross-sectional data is that it may be subject to cohort effects. Our findings in Experiment 2 are consistent with the possibility that people born in 1945 have unusually large vocabularies, people born in 1980 have unusually good working memory, and people born in 1990 have unusually fast processing speed. Such concerns can be mitigated by converging results from cross-sectional datasets collected at different times (Schaie, 2005). Here, we compared results derived...

 Close Reading: Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind— When we first discussed this text with the two teachers who were leading the project, Nealie Bourdon and Becky Campbell, they questioned our choice because they felt that the poem was too difficult for their students. We argued that we wanted to challeng...

 Chomsky on the Failure of Postmodernism to Simplify

Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (...

 High Rates of Return on College Education Comes with High...

Attending college has been considered one of the most protable investments, annualized returns ranging from 8% to 13% (Card 1999). I utilize a simple approach, as in Mehra and Prescott (1985), to quantify how much of the excess return to college is explained by its risk. I also explore the role played by heterogeneous ability by developing a life-cycle model with endogenous enrollment and analyzing the dropout risk effect on college returns. Under the risk premium approach, the permanent inc...