01/01/2011

The Best Blog Posts of 2010

Welcome to the Best Blog Posts of 2010. After the lukewarm reaction to last year's edition - as far as I'm aware, no tears of gratitude were shed - I've decided to spice things up a bit by adding five slots to the countdown and also handing out a few special awards. Work written for publication elsewhere remains disqualified, but there is now a special category for posts the strength of which is mainly based on a quotation. As last year,
brackets behind each link indicate that the post is Long, Medium lenght or Short and High-Brow, Mid-Brow or Low Brow - low-brow meaning in this context that it's easily digested, not that it's somehow lowly.
(Looking at the list, it doesn't really include a short post. Well, there you go.) This time round, it is also indicated whether the post is Funny or Not.

In summary, it's a surprisingly nondiverse collection, features three authors who made last year's top 10, and the slots are near-equally divided between economists and the rest of the world's population. But, hey, we don't do affirmative action here.

15. Mind the Gap: "In Which We Stand on the Shoulders of Midgets", by Jennifer Rohn (M, MB, N)

14. Marginal Revolution: "Haiti and the Problems with Foreign Aid", by Tyler Cowen (M, MB, N)

13. Marginal Revolution: "Don't Play Games with Your Kids", by Alex Tabarrok (L, HB, F)

12. The Mentaculus: "Cognitive Dissonance and Time Perception in Harry Potter", by Andy McKenzie (M, MB, N)

11. Meteuphoric: "Where Is Your Moral Thermostat?", by Katja Grace (M, HB, N)

10. Less Wrong: "Self-fulfilling Correlations", by Phil Goetz (L, MB, N)

9. EconLog: "Welcome to My Hypersensitivity Training Workshop", by Bryan Caplan (M, LB, F)

8. Overcoming Bias: "Real Rationality", by Robin Hanson (M, MB, N)

7. Meteuphoric: "Perfect Procrastination", by Katja Grace (M, HB, N)

6. Does That Make Any Sense? "The Silliness of the Coase Theorem", by Matthew Rognlie (M, MB, N)

5. Offsetting Behaviour: "In Defense of Price Gouging", by Eric Crampton (M, MB, N)

4. Jaltcoh: "We're All Hypocrites", by John Althouse Cohen (M, MB, N)

3. Total Drek: "Even I Think This Is a Bad Idea.", by Drek (L, LB, F)

2. @TAC: "Judging Bloggers by Their Books", by Austin Bramwell (L, LB, F)

1. Worthwhile Canadian Initiative: "Confessions of a Central Planner", by Nick Rowe (L, HB, F)


SPECIAL AWARDS SECTION

Best Blog Post Mainly Drawing on the Strength of a Quotation
The Sports Economist: "The Complexities of Olympic Cost Benefit Analysis", by Stefan Szymanski (M, LB, F)

The Church of Rationality Prize for Cool-Headed Contributions to an Emotionally Charged Debate in Memory of King Solomon
Marginal Revolution: "Do Women Today Have More Libertarian Freedom Than in 1890?", by Tyler Cowen (M, HB, N)

Comment of the Year
Overcoming Bias: Comment on Robin Hanson: "My Funeral", by Yvain (M, HB, F)

Special Prize of the Jury
Offsetting Behaviour: "Wage Discrimination: The Evidence", by Eric Crampton (L, MB, N)

8 comments:

Eric Crampton said...

Whaddya mean lukewarm? I noted your discerning judgment last year, here. And I'll likely get around to doing the same this year.

LemmusLemmus said...

Noted, shmoted. Were special celebrations held in my honour? Not as far as I am aware. Did included authors develop sudden illusions of grandiosity? As far as I can tell, no. Did nonincluded authors send me death threats? Nope. That's what I call lukewarm.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for #4!

Anonymous said...

as far as I'm aware, no tears of gratitude were shed

Ahem!

LemmusLemmus said...

John,

your're clearly not literal-minded enough!

Nick Rowe said...

Great tears of gratitude being shed here. Thanks!

That's the one post I have written which came directly from my own experience, as opposed to theoretical musings.

LemmusLemmus said...

Nick,

1. That's great to hear.

2. It's a hint!

Anonymous said...

John,

your're clearly not literal-minded enough!


Now there's something I've never heard before.