Painful as a finance prof

Four items by Mokyr: the first is a topic already recognised by the Nobel, but the other three are less well known areas of Mokyr: his study of the Irish famine, his explanation of why the Dutch Republic was not the first, and his artisan theory of the Industrial Revolution.

Come work with me! Stockholm Sch of Econ (@handels_sse ) is hiring Assistant Professors this year, both in Economics (my dept) and in Finance. By revealed preference, I think it’s a great place to work + a lovely city to live in. Econ advert below: jobs.hhs.se/en/job/stock...

📢 Call for papers: 🚀 4th CESifo Junior Workshop on the Economics of Education 🤩 30-31 March 2026, Munich Keynote: Michela Carlana (Harvard) PhD students & early postdocs, please apply! www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/ev... Deadline: 11 Jan 2026 @caterinapavese.bsky.social @mtotarelli.bsky.social

Our new paper in EJ shows facts I've been curious about for ages. I'm biased but, IMO, these results are important. Most of all, though, this paper was fun to write --- coauthors who worked well together, steady progress, and referees who were demanding but made the paper SO much better!

I remember meeting Karthik & @singhabhi.bsky.social w/ the Mindspark/EI team when I was working at Global Innovation Fund back in 2017—and being blown away by how they were designing for impact @ scale from day 1. A stellar example of academics + do-ers partnering for scale 🚀📈👇

Really cool result here -- edtech intervention using personalized adaptive learning in RCT in India reduces mismatch between students and the (overly ambitious) curriculum

Many interventions “work” in small trials but fail at scale Also, EdTech often promises much, but delivers little In a new paper (bit.ly/3JKLgVn) @karthik-econ.bsky.social & I show how personalized adaptive learning (PAL) software can sharply improve learning outcomes at scale🧵1/16

📢Our CESifo Conference on Economics of Education is about to start!🤩 This will be so exciting!!!🥳 🔗https://www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/event/2025-09-05/cesifo-area-conference-economics-education-2025 @raffasadun.bsky.social @sandramcnally.bsky.social @christinafelfe.bsky.social @singhabhi.bsky.social …

Results so stunningly clear they inspired this classic xkcd (xkcd.com/2400/):

This would also be devastating for current US Econ PhD programs. Nobody finishes in 4 years, even 5 is rare! It would be strange if US unis were forced to move to the old UK/France model (separate Masters + 3y PhD) now when finally the top end of European programs finally converged to 5y programs…

Fans of "slow television" are in for a treat, as Swedish TV is live-streaming the effort to move an entire church in Kiruna from one place to another over the course of two days: www.svtplay.se/video/KnDgQ9... Enjoy!

I'm very excited to be in Nairobi again -- the last time was 15 years ago! I'll be busy with a conference Wed-Fri (which looks great): iipf.org/cng.htm But I have spare time over the weekend. What should I go and check out? Any friends still in Nairobi, please DM!

🪅DHS (not that one) Program website active again, and accepting requests for data access dhsprogram.com/Who-we-are/N... (via @ipums.bsky.social )

Independent reliable statistics are crucial in all modern democracies — and under attack in many parts of the world…

Stefan Zweig on borders is almost too much to bear

📢 #CallForPapers To honour the memory of Ghazala Azmat, the Economics Department of SciencesPo is creating an award in her name. Junior researchers can submit a paper in economics of discrimination, gender, education & organizational #economics. Submit by 31 August. cepr.org/events/ghaza... #EconSky

Nordic design — winning since the Palaeolithic Age!

This is a very neat demonstration of how subtitling promotes English language acquisition (compared to dubbing). I wonder what the net effects of Netflix etc is for future cohorts. You can watch in any language, subtitle *anything* and it’s always much nicer than dubbing. But it’s voluntary…

USAID has spent $2 billion supporting vaccines through GAVI. In research, published in AEJ:Economic Policy, Kartini Shastry and I find GAVI saved 1.5 million lives at a low cost of $9,000 per child saved. See the writeup of our research in VoxDev: voxdev.org/topic/health...

This thread about applying for ERC Starting Grants is super useful. Checks out 100% with my experience. Heck, now I wish I’d just spoken to Konrad before applying myself — took me ages to figure this stuff out at the time!

Ooh, I don’t like this either.What I don’t know: How much of my reaction comes from: 1) being a Masters student in the UK in 2007-08, or 2) broader Econ training/work in the ~17 years since I suspect 1 is a lot stronger than 2 (never worked on finance/macro, altho exposed to many folks ofc)

New blog: @rglenner.bsky.social & I suggest 4 criteria for donors choosing between multilateral education funds (eg GPE/ECW/IDA/IFFED/UNICEF/UNESCO) 1. Cost-effective interventions 2. Foundational literacy & numeracy 3. Poor countries 4. Financial & policy leverage www.cgdev.org/blog/four-cr...

I wonder if rich US universities will start setting up foreign subsidiaries in the near future just to reduce political risk. A hostile govt can always attack pipelines of funding and foreign students/staff. Harvard subsidiaries in Canada or Norway might be the best insurance?

christ, what a day to be an immigrant cursed with the ability to read

I'm so sorry for every international student at Harvard today. There's no version of this that won't be hugely stressful for everyone on visas right now (even if Harvard gets relief from courts). I've now spent ~18 years on visas. It's always hugely complex, but this step is just cruel...

Today, the ERC formally adopted a decision to increase its support for researchers moving to Europe. On top of its normal grants, the ERC offers 'start-up' funding to help PIs establish laboratories / research teams in Europe. This extra funding is now x2 (up to €2 million!) europa.eu/!6Vdgmp

AYFKM There is special circle of hell for those who fabricate data Immeasurable harm to all of us who break our backs to collect real data, to brilliant students who deserved that position, to other students who won’t get trust they deserve — just obscene

With the excitement (delirium?) surrounding the rise of AI, it's more important than ever that scientists and journalists maintain an attitude of skepticism and dispassion about new findings as they arrive www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mit-...

Gosh this thread is depressing.

Sue at the Stockholm School of Econ today. Honestly, what the Nordics do well is little pleasant things like this. It's nice to be in high trust, high social capital environments (even with the long dark winters...)

@dynarski.bsky.social is on her way to visit us in Stockholm. I wouldn't have predicted that the journey here would be so adrenaline-infused even before leaving US shores 😬

🚨 Just published in the Annual Review of Economics: 👉 Skills and Earnings: A Multidimensional Perspective on Human Capital 👈 www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... My review of what we know so far about the role of multidimensional skills for earnings @annualreviews.bsky.social 1/9

I'll be presenting tomorrow at the joint Harvard-MIT Development seminar (2:30 p.m.- 4 p.m.). Friends working on econ or edu in Boston/Cambridge, come over to say hi if you've got nothing else on!

As I meet people from aid agencies around the world this week I will be making the case for a radical simplification in how we do aid: fewer countries, fewer projects, radically simpler programs. It was key takeaway from my time in govt. Read why. www.cgdev.org/blog/radical...

This is a really great short memoir of Michelle White's time in economics. I had no idea (but should've) how ground breaking her presence was in the field econweb.ucsd.edu/~miwhite/sca...

This short memoir by Michelle White is worth a bit of everyone's time.

Remember the "Highlights" that some Elsevier journals require? Dean Karlan and friends developed an amazing way to troll them: haikus!

Gotta love some paper titles! Go on, Chuck, tell us what you really think about multiple imputation 😂 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

Breaking now: Ministry of Economics reporting the tariffs have not caused significant changes to our trading volumes

Let's find all the losers who plagiarised this one

A story I wished I'd written when I was in India was on the Uttar Pradesh Association Of Dead People. It is a real thing! A lobby group for people accidentally or malevolently declared legally dead. Fun America might need its own soon

Probably the best excuse for a train delay?

"I studied economics because I don't want to do science. In India, at the time when I grew up, you either became a doctor or an engineer." Swati Dhingra's blog resonates with many millennial econs from India. Also, how many of us owe Jean Dreze for inspiration! blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessrevi...

@henninghermes.com and I are looking for two PhD students for the ifo Center for the Economics of Education 👇

First, Manmohan Singh and now Mark Carney. @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social is doing well with the niche career track of Econ PhD ➡️ Governor of the Central Bank ➡️ Prime Minister! Mario Draghi (MIT Econ PhD) is another good example. Any others recently with this unlikely profile?

Today about a thousand folks Stood up for Science at Berkeley, and I was honored to be among them. Great energy — and it’s just the beginning #SUFS

Photos of the Stand Up for Science protests in the US were exactly what I needed to see on my timeline. I'm not American, never lived or studied there, don't usually comment on US internal politics. But US researchers are friends, brethren, collaborators. We'll all be worse if US science falters!

Kudos to @jpalfrey.bsky.social and the MacArthur Foundation for stepping up at this critical moment. Increasing foundation giving to fill the gap left by the broken promises and breached contracts of federal funding shows true leadership and compassion. #belovedcommunity apnews.com/article/maca...

So - I've actually led Ebola outbreak response at USAID. This is bunk from Elon. They have laid off most of the experts, they're bankrupting most of the partner orgs, have withdrawn from WHO, and muzzled CDC. What's left is a fig-leaf effort to cover their asses politically.