Another fantastic new stylized fact from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com - stable or declining NEET rates in many developed economies have been driven by a decline in parenting. The share neither studying, in work, looking for work, *or parenting* has marched up steadily since 2000. www.ft.com/content/bd61...

Really interesting new paper that changed my priors on recent shifts in college education! In short, strong labor markets explain most of the decline in community college enrollments, while four-year enrollments have actually remained similar. See also www.chalkbeat.org/2025/11/11/i....

These big wins will embolden Dems to take on Trump's lawbreaking and show there's a price for GOP enabling of him. Folks hate to hear this, but normal patterns are asserting themselves: Liberalism isn't dead, Rs are likely to lose in 2026, and Trump is really unpopular, not a magical exception.

The Pentagon “inviting in” private equity “to refurbish some real estate, or even raise financing against the real estate” and to develop “financing tools for the army’s supply chain and overall capex”: surely the apotheosis of long-hegemonic-cycle theory. Arrighi undefeated. on.ft.com/3WPMwcU

Trump's mechanism to pay the troops during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything. It's also needless because Congress would easily pass a troop pay bill if Johnson were willing to gavel in. Long thread.

BREAKING via WSJ The Trump administration is planning sweeping changes in criminal division at the IRS. Full Story: on.wsj.com/3LbVFtK

RIP D'Angelo. Your favorite musician's favorite musician. Responsible for three of the greatest albums of all time, and played a hand in dozens of others. Such a loss. Before deciding to pursue economics, I thought I was going to spend my life as a musician. Back then, D was my biggest inspiration.

As I read this, I keep thinking over and over again about the two major groups I see in politics and policy spaces: folks who take opinion polls as gospel and folks who see them as indicators of what people believe at the moment that can be *shaped* into something else.

Incredibly useful new story by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com on the 'crisis' for young college grads. Most analyses compare mid-20s workers with/without a degree. But as John points out, the relevant comparison group is actually *new entrants* with/without a degree - most non-degree workers enter at 18-19.

This piece by @beaubaumann.bsky.social is really good and focusing on all the right questions. lpeproject.org/blog/rebuild...

The IMF too long assumed imbalances would recede. The Fund is now - thankfully - marching back into the global imbalance part of its mandate. IMF staff just released an interesting new paper. “Do trade imbalances boost incomes in surplus economies at the expense of deficit economies? 1/

Alright here we go: You Love America. I started writing this last year; it had this same title last year; depressingly little had to be changed for it to fit in to this moment. open.substack.com/pub/rottenan...

Oh wow anti-trust, wealth taxation...you are telling me these can be tools to promote democratic stability and there were a whole boatload of centrist economists who couldn't think beyond deadweight loss and consumer welfare?

So many immediate horrors right now, but I appreciated the invitation from @donmoyn.bsky.social to reflect on the future and how social scientists could help with the eventual federal government rebuilding. As @sbagen.bsky.social has argued persuasively, we need to start now with that effort! 1/

this from my piece on charlie kirk is probably the most important takeaway if you want to know why bad faith, right-wing voices in media are treated as just another set of peers

This is fascinating. Who in the admin is pushing to end corporate short-termism? Is this just intended to hide reporting on the current economic slowdown, or will it mark a genuine shift in policy? www.ft.com/content/d5d4...

Aaron Klein with a really clear summary of why the Lisa Cook firing is so important: in Februrary, the regional Fed presidents are up for reapproval. If Cook is successfully fired before then, Trump appointees would have the majority necessary to reject them and completely take control of the FOMC.

“Mr. Van Hollen saw a different lesson [from his role in the Abrego Garcia case]. ‘This finger in the wind stuff has got to end. We also need to stop deluding ourselves that the problem is all about messaging, or about volume, or style. We don’t just need to fight. We need to fight for something.’”

Today in 'stylized facts I'd never really internalized': the drop in the US employment + LFP rates during and after 2008 was so severe that we went from among the highest employment rate in the G7 to one of the lowest; just two points above France. (Chart is G7 ex Italy, with US series highlighted.)

Pluralistic democracy depends on people feeling safe enough in the public square to express themselves and participate in the political process. If they don’t, because the public square is dominated by intimidation and violent threat, democracy must perish.

The message should not be that political violence is bad because it targeted a good guy who was “practicing politics the right way” (which Kirk definitely was not). Political violence is bad because it inherently corrodes the democratic polity, because it makes democracy impossible.

Seems like a really interesting project - the first essays are already worth a read.

It was already clear that EJ Antoni was a remarkably unqualified pick to lead BLS. After this reporting, it's also clear that he is incredibly sexist and homophobic, and suspiciously into Nazi military history. His nomination goes through HELP cmte; Murkowski, Collins, and Hawley are all members.

I know there's a lot going on, but it should be getting more attention that the governor of Illinois just credibly accused Texas of planning to literally invade his state. I unpack how profoundly alarming this is @theunpopulist.net:

Most work out there argues that it doesn't pay off for center-right parties to move closer to the far-right. Using some of the best evidence yet, this paper shows that the same is true for center *left* parties. Crucial finding as these parties increasingly move in a nativist direction.

also Miran, 2024: "to pretend that one can easily shift between highly political and allegedly nonpolitical roles without letting political biases inform policy is, at best, naïve—and, at worst, sinister." media4.manhattan-institute.org/wp-content/u...

1/12 Yale Budget Lab's new analysis reveals mixed results from 2025 tariffs through August. Some effects align with economic theory, others present concerning developments, and a few show unexpected bright spots. Here's what the data shows: budgetlab.yale.edu/research/sho...

My brother @eithorpe.bsky.social just put out a fantastic new piece in Health Affairs on the deregulatory push at EPA and its effects on health. Give the piece a read, and give him a follow if you're interested in early-career scholars at the intersections of law, health, and the environment!

IMPLIED CONSUMER PASSTHROUGH. In June alone, we estimate 61-80% of the new 2025 tariffs were passed through to consumer core goods/durables prices, roughly in the middle of prior studies. This suggests US consumers were paying the majority of tariffs by June. 6/13

Fantastic new report on the effects of tariffs so far. See Ernie's thread for twelve big-picture takeaways. The YBL team remain the gold standard for data-driven policy analysis!!

What we do not know is what happens if the federal govt tries to send in troops and the state resists (beyond filing a case). In all previous episodes of a prez sending mil force into a state against the gov’s wishes, the gov protested, but did not attempt resistance. This would be v bad all around.

Great thread from Tim highlighting his new reseach on what 'Abundance' should (and shouldn't) look like in left-behind places. You should read the whole thread, but this tweet gets at the heart of the problem.

Matching the Forbes 400 to tax data finds that they pay a total tax rate of 24 percent of economic income, lower than the 30 percent tax rate paid on average in the US, from Akcan S. Balkir, Emmanuel Saez, Danny Yagan, and Gabriel Zucman https://www.nber.org/papers/w34170

@sbagen.bsky.social has a somber but timely warning about various 2029 rebuilding efforts. This to me is the key. If future leaders bake imagined political constraints into their planning, there just won’t be much “rebuilding” per se. www.offmessage.net/p/project-20...

Bingo. Westminster majoritarianism makes democratic backsliding not only easier to carry out but also harder to warn against, as I argued here. bsky.app/profile/leon...

Update: Appeals court overturns 90-years-settled law to make American employees' legal rights to speak up & act together to improve their jobs subject to presidential veto. Huge victory handed to Musk, Bezos, & other bosses. Big loss for labor. SCOTUS likely upholds prospect.org/justice/2025...

"That amounts to the loss of about one in eight federal civilian workers...." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/u...

Ironically this article really undermines the carve-out the Supreme Court majority has tried to create for the Fed, separating it from other independent agencies with a mix of legislative and executive powers

Horse race coverage, but the horses are democracy and authoritarianism

Apropos of nothing, a reminder that German stock markets kept climbing in an almost uninterrupted fashion in the run-up to WW2. Investors are really, really bad at pricing serious institutional and political risks.

Ominous: Trump and Stephen Miller are very clearly working to acclimate Americans to the spectacle of US troops in US cities, to the idea of the military carrying out domestic enforcement on US citizens. Harrowing stuff from @vermontgmg.bsky.social in this exchange: newrepublic.com/article/1995...

Lots of reporting on Cook's firing at the Fed overlooks probably the most important part: the presidents of all 12 regional Feds are up for renewal in February 2026!! If Trump replaces Cook by then, he will have appointed a majority on the Board of Governors, who approve regional Fed appointments. 🧵

Today’s Executive Order creating a *nationwide* military “quick reaction force” and setting up an online portal to permit random fascist vigilantes to join soldiers is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in U.S. politics in my adult life. Why is it not getting more attention?

To be clear, this is the ball game for Federal Reserve independence. If Trump can decide what constitutes "for cause" basis for firing, then every Fed board member can be fired until he has a Board that is completely acquiescent to his every demand. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/trump-uses...

There's a point Arendt makes in Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship that people who convince themselves to cooperate with the regime in pursuit of "the lesser evil" end up conditioning themselves to accept evil, which the regime then ratchets up. A similar story with the press here.

Sharing a new paper forthcoming in Harv. J. on Legislation. Takes a step back to ask when policymakers enact a new spending program or a tax cut, who pays for the policy? Policymakers may not say or, even if they do, what they say may not be the ultimate financing. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

With Rs using the ICA to unilaterally break approps deals, the only path forward for bipartisan approps is ensuring any new dollars are ineligible for an ICA §1012 rescission. If Rs say no and demand the ability to unilaterally break deals after the fact, we’ll be in shutdown land — because of Rs.

What the current administration understands -- and what Democratic establishment and many of my liberal fellow-travelers have ignored for far too long -- is that there are no *fundamental* rules in the game of politics. The rules are created by humans, and they are enforced by humans. Or not. 2/