Happy Caturday from Big Gus and Archie who like to politely join me at the kitchen counter for an afternoon snack.

Hi Bluesky! I'm excited to share my job market paper (for the 2025-26 market)! It introduces a new extension of RDD where outcomes are entire distributions: Regression Discontinuity Design with Distributions (R3D). Thread below 👇 (1/)

The letter is ready, thanks to all those who helped out! Starting to gather signature now, please consider signing (link at top of letter) & spread the word. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

PhD students working on projects in the crime & criminal justice space (empirical w/ a causal focus) - see below for a fun workshop in October! Will be a great opportunity for feedback and networking with other scholars.

There is some great discussion by one of my dissertation committee members, Jimmy Roberts who happens to be an excellent industrial organization economist, around claim #4. Market concentration and market power, while sometimes correlated, are not the same thing.

Excited to announce the call for papers for the inaugural MidSouth Education Policy Workshop, October 16-17, in Lexington, KY! Send us your abstracts on all things econ of ed & ed policy by 8/27. Grad students & early career folks especially welcome! Info & link to submit here: bit.ly/44TdiGf

38 states have legalized sports betting, but little is known about the financial, social, and behavioral impacts. @arnoldventures.bsky.social is committed to building the evidence base with our newest RFP. LOIs due 9/15 and details here: www.arnoldventures.org/causal-resea...

As an amateur appreciator of urban amenities, I just arrived in Vancouver and the Canada Line train into the city is so nice. Easy to use, clean, and right on time.

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It’s Day 2 of the Brookings Muni Finance Conference (livestream: www.brookings.edu/events/14th-...)! I will be live tweeting a lot less today but the papers—including my own paper on green muni bonds—will hopefully be just as good as yesterday

The Brookings Municipal Finance Conference is today (available livestream: www.brookings.edu/events/14th-...) and the lineup of papers is excellent! I’m not much of a live tweeter but I’ll try to share a few highlights

Finished a Ph.D. dissertation related to employment during July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2025? Does it have policy relevance? Do you like winning money? Awards? If yeses, consider applying. Get more info and check out the list of past winners. #EconSky #Sociology #policysky #polisky #FundSocSci

Why are most muni bonds that qualify for ESG labels issued without them? Our new working paper uses an unexpected data release to show investors price ESG info—even when bonds aren’t labeled. Political & institutional frictions drive the labeling gap. Link here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

🚨 Call for papers! The second edition of the Transatlantic Political Economy Conference (T-PEC) will be in November in London. Organized by @clpennec.bsky.social Cevat Aksoy and me. The submission deadline is July 4, 2025. Apply here (and RT!): sites.google.com/view/tpec-mo...

56 miles with my dad for his 56th birthday (only 15 or so years after the fact) It turns out that was a hard ride for both of us in this heat

Just a couple of proud American cats who do not recognize the authority of any king. #nokingsonlycats

I had no idea this is how RePEc worked despite having used their indexing a whole lot in searching through existing research. Authors can help by updating their own profiles.

EXTREMELY BAD NEWS for economic research, per former BLS Commissioner @ericagroshen.bsky.social on LinkedIn. BLS is suspending access to its restricted data "for the forseeable future." Applies to projects through the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers & onsite projects with BLS. #EconSky

The Chicago Fed is hosting a brand new muni finance conference this fall!! The call for papers is due this Saturday (5/31): www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en...

In a paper with @sophieshive.bsky.social, we argue that transferability is good for incentivizing private investment by reducing scarcity of tax equity capital. Removing transferability could make tax credits less efficient. Working paper (comments welcome): papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets TOMORROW, 4/30, at 11am EDT! Our presentations will be by Hala Moussawi (Stanford) and Renping Li (WUSTL) covering topics in municipal finance and taxation and competition. Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

We cannot take democracy for granted. The turn towards more democracy is a huge human achievement. It is more recent than we often realize. Only 9 countries have had an electoral democracy for over 91 years - and even fewer for liberal democracy. Let's take care of these important institutions.

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets TOMORROW, 4/16, at 11am EDT! Our presentations will be by Viral Acharya (NYU) and Tuomas Tomunen (Boston College) covering topics in municipal finance and the environment. Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

Today is Tax Day. And while few people enjoy paying taxes, they want a fair system. That system is in danger right now. My latest in @postopinions.bsky.social pinions with former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel is here: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets TODAY, 4/2, at 11am EDT! Our presentations will be by Ryan Israelsen (Michigan State University) and Kyle Zimmerschied (University of Missouri) covering topics in municipal finance and immigration. Papers and Zoom link: muni-workshop.com

Local public economics and federalism are important! I'm excited to return to Berlin to give the keynote at this conference on local public finance issues around the world. Travel funding available! Submit your local PF papers here: events.tax.mpg.de/event/10/

Carl Shapiro has an excellent review of Louis Kaplow's intriguing antitrust book "Rethinking Merger Analysis" in the latest JEL issue.

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets this Wednesday, 3/19, at 11am EST! Our presentations will be by Federico Mainardi (University of Chicago) and Michael Varley (University of Kentucky) covering topics in municipal finance and the macroeconomy. Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets this Wednesday, 3/5, at 11am EST! Our presentations will be by Casey Dougal (FSU) and Bingkuan (Bryan) Cao (UNL) covering topics in stakeholder relationships in municipal finance. Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

If you're like me and waited till the last moment to submit to the Brookings Muni Finance Conference, now is that last moment!

Dean Karlan was one of the first research economists I met as a young person who didn't know what research was. At the time he was generous with his time, thoughtful, and inspiring regarding the potential for careful research to positively impact people's lives. This interview is worth reading.

For folks engaged in research on municipal finance or state and local finances more broadly, the 14th Annual Brookings Municipal Finance Conference has a call for papers that ends next Friday, 2/28. Please submit any related working papers! www.brookings.edu/centers/the-...

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop starts this Wednesday, 2/19, at 11am EST! Our first presentations will be by Delphine Samuels (UChicago) and Gustavo Cortes (UFlorida) covering topics in information creation and distribution in municipal finance Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

We are currently putting together another set of seminars for the Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop for next year. We won't have a formal call, but we've tried to do an exhaustive search for new working papers. Feel free to send me any of your own papers we may have missed! www.muni-workshop.com

It's great to see to may tax/public finance researchers now on BlueSky! Thanks for putting together this great public good, @shuyioei.bsky.social

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop is BACK tomorrow at 11am ET! Our first seminar for the semester will be Matthias Fleckenstein presenting "Do Municipal Bond Investors Pay a Convenience Premium to Avoid Taxes?" (joint with Francis Longstaff) Paper+zoom: www.muni-workshop.com #EconSky

It's a little early to post, but I'm excited, so... The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop (muni-workshop.com) will be back for the Spring 2024 semester!! Our first session will be on February 14 (who doesn't *love* muni bonds?). I'll post descriptions of the papers closer to the start date. 📉📈