I love Econ-positng. Dan Habsmith of Guttermeyer Associates posts the most confusing chart you've ever seen and says "Quite surprising VARG numbers, SPLG index showing movement" and you get the context by one of his mutuals quoting it with "Buy a fucking gun and head for the hills. Right now."

When I worked at the Chicago Fed, we became interested in a unique quirk of insurance accounting: states can issue insurers "permitted practice" accounting exceptions. They're relatively uncommon but acan occasionally be quite significant. Our writeup is out: link.springer.com/epdf/10.1057...

Choosing to believe non-cash charitable contributions made the list because of the immense popularity of my work (and not the impetus for its existence at all)

While awful on its own, also see states doing this and think, wow, the ideas of economics have really failed to reach politicians

With very large numbers of n’s you don’t need randomization, and with LLM’s we can generate very large numbers of n’s, so I think all of science is solved by now. I don’t see any problems with this.

The impact of Trump's attacks on the IRS, in two charts. From my latest for @economist.com. www.economist.com/finance-and...

A tariff “refund” mostly goes to whoever wrote the tariff check: the importer of record. That’s not the same person who paid more at the register. So refunds -- if they're offered -- might sound like consumer relief, but in reality, they're corporate windfalls.

Team "Elsevier Highlights Subversion" strikes again! Best one yet! @deankarlan.bsky.social, Monica Lambon-Quayefio, Utsav Manjeer, @christopher-udry.bsky.social

Check out ‘Voices Carry’: Professor Brian Galle (@bdgesq.bsky.social) on Taxing the Ultrarich, in California and at the Federal Level www.law.berkeley.edu/article/prof... Host @gwyneth.bsky.social #CABillionaireTax

Internal bank documents show the scale of secret shareholdings in India’s Adani, at the very moment Hindenburg accused it of “brazen market manipulation” An FT and OCCRP collab. as.ft.com/r/eb906e00-d...

"Floridians are going to be paying for the relief. You're not getting savings out of nothing. You're paying for those savings by cutting services or by paying higher fees or by paying more taxes." -FPI's Esteban Santis on how HJR 201 would impact Floridians [Via @wusf.org]

Reposting for R&D credit stat, which is crazy

Someone told me lately "Bluesky is just like Twitter." I argued that was untrue on the basis that last time I had a Twitter account most times I got a new follower their bio said "single & looking for fun" & here when I get a new follower it tends to say something like "professor of rare moths".

Missed our conference “From Secrecy to Transparency: The End of Hidden Wealth?” You can still join the conversation 👇 We’ve published the full recordings from both days, featuring sessions that bridge the gap between research and real-world policy. 🎥 Watch here: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Didn't love this argument when it was presented at NTA, because it feels like making policy to undue previous bad policy. But have thought about since, and it might be more politically feasible than rolling back other policies. Which is probably most important thing

I'm proud to announce that I have defended my finance dissertation and that this summer I will become an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Texas at Austin! Most of all, I would like to thank Roberta Romano, whose JD-PhD program in finance changed my career.

/stares in Kyle (1985,9) Oh, so you’re telling me there are almost entirely uninformed traders in betting markets, because markets with too many informed traders sacrifice volume for efficiency, oh huh

HSBC and Barclays are facing a $12bn lawsuit over a Jersey trust allegedly linked to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Surprise your significant other the day before Valentines with a tax economics seminar!

📢 Don't miss our next #LunchSeminar! Étienne Fize ( @ippofficial.bsky.social ) presents: How Tax-Friendly Shareholder Agreements Affect Firm Outcomes. 🗓️ Feb 13, 2026 – 12:00 CET 📍 In-person @pse.bsky.social or via Zoom 👉 More information: www.taxobservatory.eu/event/eu-tax...

basically if you ever thought it would be fun to be miranda priestly's assistant except her favorite movie is sonic 3: have kids

Our paper “Inferring fine-grained migration patterns across the United States” is now out in @natcomms.nature.com! We released a new, highly granular migration dataset. 1/9

Day 2 kicks off with a session on Common Reporting Standard (CRS) & compliance. "There is significant tax evasion through offshore tax havens, mostly driven by the wealthiest. Third-party information is key to tax enforcement, & AEoI contributes to this objective." 💬 @hjaltefb.bsky.social

This part of our response essay is where I'm at. Boiling down all of politics to electoralism has been absolutely terrible for resisting rising authoritarianism. www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...

NTA is soliciting papers for presentation at the 2027 ASSA annual meeting to be held from January 3-5, 2027 in Washington, D.C.  Submit by April 30, 2026 👉 https://www.cognitoforms.com/NTA1/_2027ASSAMeetingCallForPapers

How effective are transparency innovations in curbing offshore tax evasion? We’re spending the next two days examining the latest evidence on illicit financial flows. 🎙️ Opening remarks by @gabrielzucman.bsky.social. Can’t make it? Catch the full recording on our YouTube later this week!

Apropos of that last QT: this is 3 conferences I know of now with a deadline of Feb 15, and apparently we just don't do Valentine's in this profession?

If you're doing anything macro+public-y, apply to this alongside @iipf.bsky.social ! Submission deadline is the same

Disgraced former Apollo CEO Leon Black reportedly consulted with Jeffrey Epstein on use of GRATs to dodge estate & gift tax. I searched the Epstein files and found a doc that appears to show that in 2015, Black held over 70% of his family office (value in the billions) in GRATs.

I'm teaching a new course at Stern on AI in Finance and opening it up! Syllabus/slides on Github: github.com/arpitrage/ai... Weekly summaries on Substack arpitrage.substack.com/p/1-three-ru... First post is on Amdahl's Law, Jevons' Paradox, and why finance was slow to learn the bitter lesson

The Criminal Justice team at Arnold Ventures now has a Slack channel up and running, to share research ideas and opporutunities we see in the policy/practice space, with academic scholars. All researchers are welcome! Email me for the link. [email protected]

Global minimum tax is getting real -- like basically erasing the GE Aerospace special tax rate in Singapore. www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Coauthor mentioned on a call today that our paper was passed around a firm’s desk. Someone on it saw our paper, read it, and thought that the work was fascinating and that that made them want to pursue a PhD Honestly, one of the cooler things that I’ve been a part of

Things are grim. But in more frivolous news... @jamesbrandecon.bsky.social and I have been chipping away at `dbreg`, a 📦 for running big regression models on database backends. For the right kinds of problems, the speed-ups are near magical. Website: grantmcdermott.com/dbreg/ #rstats [1/2]

ICE is now responsible for 66% of the homicides in Minneapolis this year.

The TACO cycle: Markets want to price in TACO. But TACO only works if Trump sees stocks tank. So we get a loop: Trump does things → nothing happens (markets already priced in TACO) → that emboldens him to do more → until markets start to think he might not TACO → stocks fall → TACO is restored.

1/ Multinationals shift hundreds of billions in profits to low-tax jurisdictions each year, but how do they do it? 🤔 Our latest WP by @kparraramirez.bsky.social & @vvicard.bsky.social takes a close look at #France to answer that question 👇 📄 www.taxobservatory.eu/publication/...

We hear it all the time: Since the turn of the 2010s, thanks to the rise of tech, the US has pulled ahead economically. This idea is everywhere from Washington to Davos—and it's paralyzing Europe But it's simply not true! Let's look at what's really happening, with charts🧵

zam *DANISH PENSION FUND AKADEMIKERPENSION TO EXIT US TREASURIES

this was good, actually www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/o...

Striking new work on how gangs shape economic development in El Salvador, Melnikov et al. in Econometrica Stunted development in gang-controlled territory driven by labor mobility limits: harder to commute/work outside territory, smaller labor mkt, less specialization —> doi.org/10.3982/ECTA...

📢 #CallforPapers: Public Finance Conference on Future-Oriented Public Policy 🗓️ 11.-12. Mai 2026 am #ZEW Mannheim 💬 Keynotes: Alessia Russo (Universität Padua) und Roel Beetsma (Universität Amsterdam) Einreichungen bis 15. Februar 2026 Weitere Infos: zew.de/VA4814/?twt=1

“Given a significant number of [US commercial ships] are beneficially owned by Danish operators, and are integral to the US Maritime Security Program it may appear that Denmark possesses a rather potent “rare earth” of its own” Danish weaponized interdependence, anyone?

What’s the quote for temporarily embarrassed billionaires

📢 It’s Time to Tax Billionaires! Panel discussion + book presentation with @gabrielzucman.bsky.social With: @steuergerecht.bsky.social, @spd.de, @fesonline.bsky.social, @taxobservatory.bsky.social, among others 📅 27 Jan 2026, 17:30–19:00 📍FES, Berlin 👉 shorturl.at/NIMfS