For the first time in three years, Americans' wages are no longer outpacing inflation, further compounding affordability concerns. https://cnn.it/3R39Zbe

📣 We're hiring a postdoc to join us on education research projects at Oxford @oxfordecondept.bsky.social @oxfordcsae.bsky.social. Join me @gamblingondev.bsky.social @roccozizzamia.bsky.social on multiple exciting projects! Applications due June 7th. www.economics.ox.ac.uk/csae-postdoc...

Forthcoming in AEJ: Microeconomics: "‘Identify the Expert’: an Experimental Study in Economic Advice" by Theodore Alysandratos, Aris Boukouras, Sotiris Georganas, and Zacharias Maniadis.

The EU flag is flying at Hungary’s parliament again after Péter Magyar was sworn in as prime minister — the first time it’s been displayed there since Viktor Orbán had it removed in 2014.

Hungary’s parliament sings “Ode to Joy” — the anthem of Europe — after Péter Magyar is sworn in as prime minister. Hungary is once again a proud member of the European Union.

Prime Minister Péter Magyar inaugural speech: "The psyche of the whole country was poisoned by politics that was artificially inciting hatred. The Hungarian state is not allowed to do anything like this ever again... This era is, once and for all, finished."

Congratulations to Chinemelu Okafor, recipient of the @weatherheadcenter.bsky.social Dissertation Writing Grant. 👏 The funding will enable her to travel to Nigeria to conduct research that will serve as the foundation for the first chapter of her dissertation. #GovGrads buff.ly/8ohbnJ8

Sub-Saharan Africans often valued 'wealth in people'. Women were especially valued, constituting the majority of slaves within Africa and commanding higher slave prices. Patriarchs then extracted rents by controlling that labour. www.ggd.world/p/are-queen-...

FWIW, I don’t think the major problem in my field, or related ones, is that people need to move faster & produce more. I read a lot of papers as part of the job, and I’m increasingly convinced we’d benefit from fewer papers and better ones, not more mediocre work produced ever more “efficiently.”

Female Power for Whom? Queen mothers, pawned girls, and the limits of the Standard Cross Cultural Sample www.ggd.world/p/female-pow...

There is no NYC without unions. A people united and organized cannot be defeated. Together, we're showing the world what solidarity means.

To understand what the Supreme Court is doing, you have to recognize that this is how authoritarians in Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela consolidated power. Scholars call it autocratic legalism. The Court isn’t complicit. It’s an active participant. Roberts is following a script.

The Voting Rights Act is essentially dead and it’s quite possible that we will, like when a similar SCOTUS gutted civil rights at the fall of Reconstruction, see a disappearance of much of the Black congressional representation, especially in the most heavily Black states, which are in the South.

I encourage you to read the 1901 final Congressional speech of George Henry White, who would be the last Black man in Congress for 30 yrs.This “is perhaps the Negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress; but…phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again… blackpast.org/african-amer...

“It was the most harebrained operation I’d seen in my 38 years with the U.S. government,” one career diplomat said about the second Trump administration's wholesale slashing of foreign aid. “Who knows how much damage was done.” (Published Dec. 2025)

"I’m done ceding my brain — the core of all that makes me who I am — to the financial interests of a small number of technology billionaires or the shortsighted conveniences of hyperactive communication styles......our slide into the cognitive shallows and decide to actually do something about it."

Spent Saturday with President Obama and New York's Cutest — turns out my first name is Mayor and I need to be doing more squats.  Here’s to building a City where families can thrive and every classroom is full of this much joy.

From our FirstView: The Impact of Welfare on Intergroup Relations: Caste-Based Social Insurance and Social Integration in India by AKSHAY GOVIND DIXIT. doi.org/10.1017/S000...

"The average taxpayer in 2025 paid: $4,049 for weapons and war, vs. $2,492 for Medicaid, which provided health insurance to 68.5 million Americans in 2025 — about one in five Americans."

Child: I know your name. Mamdani. Obama: What’s his first name? Child: Mayor.

Former President Barack Obama met with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for the first time Saturday, joining preschoolers at a child care center for a book reading and singalong. Source: Emma G. Fitzsimmons / NYT

I'd say that this applies to anyone traveling in a car in any city. Being in a car versus walking, riding, or taking transit fundamentally changes how you view a place and your relationship to it. I wish more leaders set this kind of example. www.npr.org/2026/04/16/n...

Tariffs? Inflation? War? For all the turmoil in recent years, nothing has stopped U.S. corporations from earning record profits. There's little reason to think the latest energy shock will be any different. Smart story from @talsmith.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/b...

"There is no justification for a regressive system in which the super-rich contribute less than the rest of us," write @josephestiglitz.bsky.social, @gabrielzucman.bsky.social, and @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social.

As wealth concentrates, so does power — the power to influence elections, shape policy, tilt markets and define the terms of public debate. Taxing billionaires is not radical. What is radical is allowing a system where extreme wealth exists alongside widespread hardship.

Truth is, Orbán is just the latest in long list of authoritarians to be defeated by anti-corruption politics. A Democratic landslide is possible if they can credibly take up the anti-corruption mantle. But that can’t happen if voters see them as corrupt and beholden to wealthy donors.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary's opposition leader Peter Magyar says Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceded his election loss in a phone call.

A new study shows that Black women outpace every other group of women in workforce participation. Yet they are still paid less & retire in poverty at twice the rate of white women. This is a system. It is long past time this country started carrying them the way they have carried us.

Studying how global warming affects deforestation and agricultural land use, from @allanhsiao.bsky.social , Jacob Moscona, Benjamin A. Olken, and Karthik A. Sastry www.nber.org/papers/w35029

Melina Matsoukas to direct Octavia E. Butler’s classic “Parable of the Sower” for Warner Bros

Great articulation of my main worry about AI use among researchers (including myself!) Among current students, a hugely beneficial trait will be the ability to force oneself to sometimes do hard stuff on their own to really understand it even when AI is faster. ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

As gas prices top $4 a gallon, these EV drivers have been able to avoid the spike that is squeezing many Americans' wallets. https://cnn.it/4sTN5ky

Neat to see our recent study written up in the @chicagoboothreview.bsky.social! 🤩 It's about how young people in China are still learning to think like rice or wheat farmers--even in Shanghai and Beijing. 🌾 www.chicagobooth.edu/review/new-r...

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

After Claudia Goldin became the first woman to win a solo Nobel in economics, she got hundreds of invitations. She accepted three. One was advising WNBA players on a labor deal. She helped players land the biggest % raise in US sports history. www.wsj.com/economy/wnba...

I need to shoutout my young students at Eastern High School, who have been working hard this month to revive their school newspaper! They were very excited to receive their press badges today. I am extremely proud of them!!!!

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico jury finds Meta's platforms are harmful to children's mental health and imposes $375 million penalty.

Looking forward to hosting the 2026 meeting of the Boston/New England Area Working Group in African Political Economy (BWGAPE) on May 8 with Jamie Hintson, @chinemeluokafor.bsky.social & Nic Wicaksono. Please submit your papers and research designs if you're in the region!

Deadline for submission to the Boston/New England Area Working Group in African Political Economy (BWGAPE) at Harvard is March 27. Please apply! @nlnathan.bsky.social @evlieb.bsky.social @piaraffler.bsky.social @scrosenzweig.bsky.social @chinemeluokafor.bsky.social Link: forms.gle/7R9PkFWEZTc6...

Presenting this paper at the CSAE @oxfordcsae.bsky.social conference today at Oxford, so feel free to stop by if you're in the area and want to hear about the effects of protests on economic redistribution (with some added results from the NBER paper). Comments and questions welcome #OxCSAE2026

Glencora Haskins and Joseph Parilla find that from 2014–2024, U.S. economic growth was strongest where immigrant workforce shares rose—benefiting both foreign- and native-born workers. The new Metro Monitor tracks 15 indicators across 196 metro areas, focusing on immigration and regional prosperity.

In the Kurdish regions of the Middle East, Nowruz celebrations — honoring the arrival of spring — are a fundamental expression of Kurdish identity. n.pr/4bFGClI

Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr around the world amid shadow of war https://aje.news/0u2m36

The call for 2026 APCG Award Nominations is live! The deadline for nominations is May 1st. Nominate scholars for Best Dissertation, Best Graduate Student Paper, Distinguished Africanist, Best Article and Best Book! www.afpol.org/blog/2026-ap...

Awards nominations are open for African Politics! Please share widely! @jsteend.bsky.social @stephaniewanga.bsky.social @evlieb.bsky.social @africasacountry.bsky.social @jsas-journal.bsky.social @chinemeluokafor.bsky.social @thelauram16.bsky.social @woldense.bsky.social

Dolores Huerta issued a statement following the New York Times’ investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez medium.com/@dolores_hue...

A group of grandmothers in central Kenya have formed a soccer team to keep fit and to give hope to a generation of teenagers — whom they sometimes outrun on the field. n.pr/3PIiAiy

It is hard to predict how big the ripple effect of this story is going to be. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/u...

Kent said he "cannot in good conscience" back the Iran war. In his resignation letter, he says Iran "posed no imminent threat to our nation." n.pr/4beHDST