How many times have you been out and about town, saw or heard something cool and wanted to tell everyone about it? I just started using twitter, it’s really cool. It’s a text message service where you can “follow” people and receive their texts as they send them to twitter. The service also posts your text messages to your profile page where you can even have them displayed on the public timeline. There could be loads of practical uses exploited here. For instance, I added topgold, of award-winning blog IrishEyes, as a friend and he just said this morning his washing machine can be setup on twitter to text him when the cycle is finished, how cool!

This is such a great way to blog on the run and speak your mind with a virtual diary. My twitter name is [jamesbritton] in case anyone wants to “listen” in on my thoughts. You can also use twitter with IM services and even Google Talk. This is really helpful if you don’t want to rack up the text msg charges. From Ireland twitter uses a UK number, so with Meteor I’m paying €0.12 per text and gotta be careful I don’t lose my shirt in topup charges. Watch out, it’s addictive! C U L8R…

I am very busy this week preparing for a presentation for my research thesis. My topic is regarding the proposal of increasing gasoline (petrol) taxes in the US in order to reduce petroleum consumption, thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions and slowing the inevitable global warming trend. I am looking at federal and state gasoline taxes as compared to other OECD countries. US gasoline taxes are significantly lower and do very little to encourage conservation of oil. One of my favorite economists, Dr Greg Mankiw, is a champion of Pigovian taxes which are taxes that correct negative externalities. In other words, a graduated increase of the federal gasoline tax will correct the market in order to reduce oil consumption, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and encourage innovative technologies and cleaner alternative fuel sources.

Dr Mankiw’s manifesto has inspired me to research this further. My research will examine the optimal tax at which consumption will be reduced and will study the proposal of offsetting payroll or income taxes so that there will be zero gain or loss in tax revenue overall.

If your head isn’t spinning and I still have your attention. You will see that I am extremely busy and likely will not post again until the dust has settled from my presentation on Thursday evening. I might have to have a few pints and some good craic. See you soon!

Image credit: Wikipedia

I’m in the process of working on three research papers this semester, one of which is a collaboration with two fellow economics students on the trade growth of the U.S. and China and it’s implications (topic changed) to what extent the World Trade Organization (WTO) stimulates economic growth in developing nations. Another deals with the economic performance of Irish Counties using census data. Finally, my third paper will focus on the role of the banking sector during the financial crises of Argentina and East Asia.

I have found several great online resources for writing in a connected world. It’s a great time to be a college student…I wish it were this easy 10 years ago.

• Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) is an excellent resource for formatting and style guidelines; also includes discipline-specific guidelines.
• Writely, (recently acquired by our good friends at Google) is an excellent online document collaboration tool; work on a group assignment with ease!
• Renowned Harvard economics professor, Greg Mankiw, has a nice post on his blog aimed at economists writing for a general audience - useful for students of other
• disciplines as well.

Feel free to comment with your suggestions for helpful writing resources.

Well, back to my papers…