Hello my friends. I'm back. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, with end-of-year travel, crew regattas, graduations, etc.

A highlight was lecturing at European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. I tortured a pan-European audience of forty or so Ph.D.'s, mostly from central bank research departments, with nine two-hour seminars on almost every paper I've ever written. (The syllabus is here, and related information is here.) But seriously, nothing is so exhilarating as a talented and advanced group completely interested in one's work. Above I show some of the participants with me, on the porch of our villa looking outward, and at right I show part of the the storybook Tuscan scene on which they're gazing (just to make you insanely jealous).

Anyway, great things are happening in econometrics these days at EUI / Florence. Full-time EUI Economics faculty include Fabio Canova and Peter Hansen, frequent EUI visitors include Christian Brownlees (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) and Max Marcellino (Bocconi University, Milan), and just down the road is Giampiero Gallo (University of Florence). Wow!