this is cool. emily wilson's (controversial!!) 'complicated' is her shot at 'πολύτροπος,' which is like literally 'many-turning' and therefore almost completely untranslatable as a personal descriptor

Supergiant did their fucking homework on these games and it's awesome. (See also the joke in Hades 1 where Zagreus and Dionysus prank Orpheus by convincing him they're secretly the same guy; in the "Orphic" myths they are!)

THIS is the type of Hades 2 “breakdowns” I’m looking for. Love me some dual translation references 🤣

Hades II is amazing. There are nods to both Lattimore's and Wilson's Odyssey translations. Lattimore: “Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways…” Wilson: “Tell me about a complicated man…” Hades II: “Some know him as the man of many ways; certainly he is a complicated one.”

In 1983, households aged 75+ were 5% richer than the average. In 2022, they were 55% richer. Meanwhile, under-35 households went from 21% of average wealth to just 16%. America’s wealth is aging way faster than its population. www.nber.org/digest/20251...

New WP (by me and others) on how disclosure mandates: (1) increase disclosure (primarily of negative outcomes), and (2) how expectations of increased disclosure by others slows down innovation. Link and more details in @florianederer.bsky.social's thread...

BU Questrom is launching a new PhD Program in Business Economics focused on how markets and firms interact with public policy. Graduates will be ready for research and teaching roles in both business schools and econ departments.

Transparency helps innovation ... until it doesn't. My new paper with Cunningham, Hodgson, and Wang (on the JM!) studies the 2017 FDA Final Rule, which required drug firms to publicly disclose all clinical trial results. Disclosure increased, but innovation slowed. cowles.yale.edu/sites/defaul...

Do incumbents buy startups to scale innovation or to stifle it? New research covering 60 countries finds that acquired startups were highly innovative before their acquisition, but their patenting drops sharply afterward, while acquirers' innovation doesn't rise. www.oecd.org/en/publicati...

Private credit has exploded. But why? It's not just replacing banks. It's also private equity's new frontier: BDCs now blend debt and equity, offer PE-like returns with less risk, and cater to a growing base of retail investors. melaniewallskog.github.io/files/robins...

I’ve decided not to post my annual “women on the Econ job market” thread this year. Social media has splintered too much, and now that I’ve left academia I’m focused on other priorities.

Richly deserved prize for Aghion ... ... but I am equally interested in the paintings and the designer chair in the background. Top and bottom left look like late Cubist (Bracque, Gris, Picasso). Far right looks like a Miro. No idea about the chair.

Dating your boss comes with risks and rewards. New research from Finland shows subordinatesä earnings rise 6% after starting a relationship with their manager but fall 18% after a breakup. Unsurprisingly, it also hurts team morale and retention. www.nber.org/papers/w34346

Why do people support tariffs even when they make everyone poorer? It's not just economics, it's jealousy of trade. People prefer protectionism when it feels like a win over others, even if it raises their own prices. www.nber.org/papers/w34351

Rich discussion of AI #acquihires (when are they a problem, what shld antitrust do?) turned into broader debate on “do we have a competition problem w Al & what is it?” Fireside w J Kanter, fab panel @florianederer.bsky.social @igorletina.bsky.social @lugaricano.bsky.social I Marinescu, H Zenger 1/

Posted a short blog post with updated data (and public repo with data) of current state of Econ job market: paulgp.com/2025/10/08/j...

Research output after tenure drops off a cliff for business, economics, sociology, and other non-lab fields. But it remains high post-tenure in lab-based fields such as chemistry, physics, computer science, and engineering. www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Change of format! Join us for a fireside w/ Jonathan Kanter moderated by @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social followed by an open panel discussion w/ @lugaricano.bsky.social @imarinescu.bsky.social @igorletina.bsky.social & Hans Zenger moderated by @florianederer.bsky.social. #EconSky

When NBA rookies land on stacked teams, they get less playing time, less visibility, and lower long-term earnings. Early exposure matters for careers.

Today’s firearm ownership in the US is partly rooted in frontier history. Counties with longer exposure to the frontier from 1790 to 1890 have higher gun ownership today and respond more strongly to demand shocks. arosenbe.github.io/assets/paper...

U.S. regions more exposed to AI saw faster emissions growth, more reliance on fossil fuels, and dirtier electricity generation. cepr.org/publications...

Super interesting paper. Colluders often switch or hide language to avoid detection. Will invitations to collude change language to avoid this specific detection? Many other classes of bad actors, e.g. posters of harmful content on social media, have so changed to avoid AI detection.

AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles and Economic Spillovers Webinar - 8 October @ 17:00 CEST 🗣️Jonathan Kanter @lugaricano.bsky.social @imarinescu.bsky.social @igorletina.bsky.social Hans Zenger Moderator: @florianederer.bsky.social Register: cepr.org/events/ai-ac... #EconSky

Collusion doesn't just happen in smoke-filled rooms. It can be out in the open in earnings calls. New research uses NLP on 300k+ transcripts to spot the language that firms use to coordinate publicly. Regulators can use this tool to detect anticompetitive behavior. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Restricting visas doesn’t lead to hiring non-immigrants—it leads to hiring foreigners. For every H-1B visa rejection, multinationals add ~0.4–0.9 foreign employees, especially in R&D hubs like India, China, and Canada. via @florianederer.bsky.social

Excited to moderate this panel on "AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles and Economic Spillovers" with the antitrust all-star team of Kanter, Garicano, Marinescu, Letina, and Zenger. Wednesday, 8 October 2025 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (ET) Registration: cepr-org.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Common Ownership & Employee Earnings updated & improved Consider a pair of companies that sell into the same product market. If pair shares common owners, the owners have incentive for pair to soften competition. Same with local labor market competition papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The AEA released the committee's report on the 2023 climate survey and it's chock full of depressing stuff, but I couldn't help but notice this pull quote. Posted here without further commentary. 👀

We usually rely on GDP, trade, or wages to study the past. This amazing paper flips the script. It analyzes 630,000 paintings (1400-2000) to extract emotions and shows how art tracks living standards, wars, inequality, and even climate shocks. (How is this economics? Everything is economics!)

Nascent competition, killer acquisitions, acquihires — join Meghan Rissmiller, Michaela Spero, Rahul Rao, and me for an American Bar Association Antitrust seminar on how innovation competition should be accounted for in merger control. September 10 12-1pm www.americanbar.org/events-cle/m...

Great in-depth piece on the Texas v. BlackRock common ownership lawsuit www.mlex.com/mlex/article...

Who is Maurice R. Greenberg?!?

More evidence of market / power concentration, cc @helenamalikova.bsky.social via @conjugateprior.org who recommends @florianederer.bsky.social as a follow. From the funders' perspective, it's a lot easier to "cash in" via a sale, so how can governments encourage them to accept the risk of an IPO?

How can tariffs improve welfare? Your country needs market power. A quick explainer below 👇🏻

I'm so excited to see this paper coming out in RESTUD. Fun facts about this paper: 1) My amazing co-author Bruno and I had never met in person until after we completed the first draft. 2) It's my first and only paper that was never rejected by a journal. 3) I can now claim to understand macro.

I do not like this trend. From "The Great Start-up Sellout and the Rise of Oligopoly" by @florianederer.bsky.social and Bruno Pellegrino. florianederer.github.io/startups_P&P...

"Common ownership grew dramatically in the US economy from 1995 to 2021. It could raise producer profits at the expense of consumer surplus & lead to a substantial deadweight loss." Recently accepted paper by @florianederer.bsky.social & Pellegrino: www.restud.com/a-tale-of-tw... #econsky #REStud

I was thrilled to join Emanuele Tarantino, Susan Athey, Cristina Caffarra & others for CEPR’s webinar on “Updating Merger Control as an Economic Policy Tool for Europe?” How can merger policy adapt to support innovation, growth & strategic autonomy? 📺: youtu.be/CO_IJhFczCk

Common ownership has risen globally since 2005—especially among large firms—driven by the broad, overlapping portfolios of the Big Three (BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street) asset management firms, from Antón, @florianederer.bsky.social, Giné, and Ramirez-Chiang https://www.nber.org/papers/w33965

Happy 4th of July to you all! 🇺🇸🎹🎶🎆

All posts critical of Yale Law School are hereby suspended.

🚨New Working Paper🚨 "Common Ownership Around the World"📈🌍 We analyze common ownership in 49 countries from 2005 to 2019 and show that it is widespread and rising globally.

Alright, I've peaked. It's only downhill from here.

"But how is this economics?" www.thepeakmagazine.com.sg/influence/it...

The past really sticks. Even after 4 generations, your great-grandfather’s economic status still largely shapes your own. 👉 33% persistence across time for whites 👉 But racial inequality is the key driver The American Dream? More inherited than we thought. www.nber.org/papers/w33923

AI + social media = polarization machine 🧠📱 Recommender systems trap users in echo chambers and ad-based platforms profit from partisan division. www.nber.org/papers/w33892

Koijen & Yogo's (2019) demand system approach transformed asset pricing by linking portfolio data to demand elasticities. But why are estimated elasticities so low (around 1) when classical models say they should be much higher? Enter Fuchs, Fukuda & Neuhann (2025)

🚨 BlackRock, Vanguard & State Street are being sued for allegedly colluding to cut coal output via ESG. The case tests the common ownership theory and a win "would embolden and encourage others to bring similar lawsuits." Big case. Big implications. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Why do dictators target the socially isolated? 📢 New theory by @ksonin.bsky.social: Propaganda works best when people are either totally atomized or tightly unified rather than in between. 🎯 Optimal strategy? Don’t focus on influencers. Target the fringes of the network.

The #MeToo movement led to a 10% jump in sex crime reports and the effect lasted over 2 years. ✅ More reporting ✅ More arrests ❌ Not just more crimes ✅ Impact across race & income Social movements can change high-stakes behavior. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....