I did my PhD in the dismal science at the University of Chicago. I was born in Cd. Madero, Tamaulipas, Mexico. My last name is “Tudón Maldonado”. Before becoming a worldly philosopher, I studied Economics and Applied Mathematics at ITAM in Mexico city, where I met my wife.
I enjoy cooking, soccer and playing almost any game, from chess to cosmic encounter. (Basketball is a notable exception; I think that the marginal point is worth very little but feel free to share your opinion!).
Some bad jokes:
Here are a couple of quotes I suggested to the JPE:
- Convexity of a State-Dependent Utility Function in JPE 123:5 (Oct 2015)
”Do. Or do not. There is no try.” (Yoda)
[Gary Kurtz, Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan, Irvin Kershner, George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, et al., Star Wars, Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back (Los Angeles: Twentieth Century Fox, 2004)]
- News Shock and Granger Causality in JPE 124:6 (Dec 2016)
Dr. Emmett Brown: [reads the “Save the Clock Tower” flyer and reacts with hope] “This is it! This is the answer. It says here that a bolt of lightning is going to strike the clock tower at precisely 10:04 p.m. next Saturday night! If… If we could somehow harness this lightning… channel it into the flux capacitor… it just might work. Next Saturday night, we’re sending you back to the future!”
[Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, Back to the future (Universal Studios,1985)]
- A Brief Lesson in Public Finance in JPE 126:5 (Oct 2018)
In The Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz, a Mexican Nobel laureate, explains public expenditure practices in the worldly and otherwise:
“I remember that years ago I asked the municipal president of a village close to Mitla: ‘How much does the Municipality’s income come from contributions?’
‘About three thousand pesos a year [around 12,000 dollars in 2016]. We are very poor. That is why the Governor and the Federation help us to complete our expenses every year.’
‘And how do you use those three thousand pesos?’
‘Well, almost everything at parties, sir. Small, as you can see, the town has two Holy Patrons.’”
[Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la soledad (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1959)]
And here is an embarrassing letter to the editor of The Economist in response to “Friction lovers”. You can find it here or in the print edition of Apr 12th 2017.
- Our foolish tax on efficiency
After looking for papers on “facile externalities” in the Scandinavian Journal of Economics, I got suspicious of the inclusion of a middle initial in the author’s name, Danilov P. Rossi, in “Friction lovers” (April 1st). You seldom do that. I solved the anagram. But am I still a poisson d’avril?
And here is a playlist that I hear when I’m running regressions. Be advised that it may reflect a rather cynical view of the less glamorous side of empirical work.
The profile picture is courtesy of Chuck Needy, a friend at the FCC.
Finally, the punchline: I’m a lifelong fan of Cruz Azul FC, which makes me quite resistant to frustration; a must-have in academia.