Looking back at the old year

Hoping for a better one next time

2022 has been a pretty quiet year for me and Nancy. The high point was a visit from our son Dan and his wife Katelyn, whom we hadn’t seen in person since their (very well-timed) wedding in late 2019. Our other son Leigh also visited us, along with Arianna, James, Sophia and Flo.

Although the fight against Covid has been abandoned, the virus didn’t get the message. I’ve tried a halfway course, which included staying home a lot and avoiding unnecessary meetings as well as wearing a mask in high-risk situations. That didn’t stop me catching the virus, though it was fortunately a mild case and there have been no signs of post-viral syndromes (long Covid). Travel was limited, but we had Christmas in Sydney with Leigh and the family. I also made it to Canberra for my mother’s birthday, and the 50th (!) reunion of my high school class from 1972.

I’ve been shifting the focus of my research work more to policy and put in a lot of submissions to public inquiries. I’ve made submissions on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander economic strategy, the case for a 4-day week, monetary policy, full employment, productivity and electric vehicles among others.

My theoretical work is still going well, focusing on a couple of big papers that I hope will round out research agenda. One, with Flavio Menezes is a generalization of standard models of industrial organization which reconciles the dominant theoretical approach, based on game theory with the dominant empirical approach, based on the idea of conjectural variations.

In social media, I’ve joined the shift away from the dominant advertising-based platforms. Although I haven’t completely abandoned Facebook and Twitter, I’ve moved much of my activity to Mastodon (a Twitter alternative, where my address is johnquiggin@mstdn.social) and, of course, Substack, which I’m using to send this email

My sporting efforts had more downs than ups, but at least ended on a fairly high note. Two DNFs (Did Not Finish) in the Mooloolaba Olympic and the Gold Coast Marathon were followed by a broken wrist (bike crash) which forced me to pull out of the Sunshine Coast 70.3. The only success before the crash was an enjoyable and fast run in the Brisbane half-marathon. But I ended the year with a return to triathlon at Raby Bay, where I ran close to my times from 10-12 years ago, and picked up a podium finish (3rd out of 4 in my age group, but still a legitimate placing).

I won’t comment on political and social developments for the moment, except to hope for a better 2023. And I hope the same at a personal level for all of you

Happy New Year

John