Here’s Duke behavioral economist Dan Ariely asking Jeffrey Epstein for “the name and email of the redhead that was here with you.” This is four years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for procuring a child for prostitution.

you can follow @florianederer.bsky.social 's lead of using "The Wire" for his slides x.com/florianedere... or go one step further and make an entire Economics and Cinema course like i did ; )

2021: Meta acquires Within and its wildly successful VR app Supernatural for $400 million. 2022: FTC seeks to block Meta/Within acquisition. 2026: Meta lays off employees and announces that there will be no more content for Supernatural.

Very sad to hear of the passing of John Kagel. He was a foundational figure in behavioral and experimental economics and his research reshaped how economists think about strategic interaction and social preferences. His teaching and mentorship influenced generations of students.

1) Gino committed repeated research fraud (138 papers!). 2) Several influential and wealthy people (Lessig, Ackman, P&Q) continue to support her. 3) Harvard changed its review procedures. 4) Gino will likely get a settlement because of 3) ... which has nothing to do with 1).

A quarter million views and 1,300+ likes! Surely everybody wants to see this amazing paper (and my discussion 😂) tomorrow. Philadelphia Marriott Room 309 Sunday, January 4, 2:30pm

Skiing, an activity that Paul calls outdated, fixes this.

Over on Twitter/X, Bill Ackman (of Harvard/Claudine Gay/plagiarism/tennis debacle fame) has written another 3,000+ word post. He believes that Francesca Gino's RAs faked her data. And, plot twist, he's been funding Gino's legal battle against Harvard since 2024. x.com/i/status/200...

Devastating news. Kate was a great economist and a generous person.

A loss to us all and to the progress of Economics.

The brilliant Kate Ho has passed away. She was an amazing economist and a genuinely kind human being. Her work shaped how we think about healthcare markets and her generosity touched everyone lucky enough to know her. The profession and the world are poorer without her.

Goal for the next six months: dive into the debate on identification of demand elasticities in finance. Feels like asset pricing is rehashing debates from IO twenty years ago? But that’s good because it’s an important debate! @steveberry.bsky.social

In Sweden, corporate acquisitions lead to persistent earnings losses for workers. Wages fall, some workers are displaced, and the gains largely go to acquiring CEOs and shareholders. Employment and revenue stay flat. Profit rises because value is extracted from workers.

Freshwater-Saltwater's unexpected reunification

Lichtjahre vor weiten Teilen der medialen Berichterstattung: die Fankurve des SK Sturm. Danke dafür. Anlassfall ist der Femizid an einer Grazerin. (Foto: Sturmtifo.com)

Amazing things happening on X

Wow. The AEA has issued a life time ban against Larry Summers. www.aeaweb.org/news/aea-sta...

Not deadwood ... yet

Just a few years ago the economics profession completely marginalized @claudia-sahm.bsky.social for speaking out on this matter.

Summers conferred with Epstein frequently about how to extract sexual favors from a Harvard econ grad (AB '04, PhD '09) The grad is from China Epstein and Summers referred to her by the codename "Peril" Racism and sexual exploitation in one efficient package bit.ly/3LHpin8

IO is so cooked.

I updated the Larry Summers dual-axis inflation graph.

jmp pitch for the brave: how well does presence of faculty in this dataset predict university *jmr IP shares

As close to perfect as a videogame can get.

@stevesalop.bsky.social has an excellent write-up in @ProMarket_org about why the proposed merger between Novo Nordisk and Metsera was anticompetitive. www.promarket.org/2025/11/11/n...

Never thought of using classes. As Director of Undergraduate Studies, I had a lonely-hearts advice practice for young men (True rumor circulated that I had married before graduation.) Most common and most obvious advice: "Have you considered asking her out?"

Coupling this, fertility that. Why don't you academics actually do something about it?!? 😂

Beautiful article on Ali Riley who has retired after an amazing career in soccer. (If her last name sounds familiar to you as an economist, then that's no surprise. She's the daughter of UCLA auction theorist John Riley.) www.nytimes.com/athletic/678...

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.