1/ Lots going on these days, but I'm nonetheless happy to share a paper out today in Science Advances together with Simone Pieralli (European Commission Joint Research Centre) titled "Unpacking the growth of global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions". news.cornell.edu/stories/2026...

A little bit late, but I'm looking to hire a postdoc at Cornell to measure the private value of soil health improvements in US ag. A 2-year gig. Well suited for an ag/resource economist or data scientist w/ interests in soil health and solid programming & econometric chops. ad coming soon!

Interesting. Is this the first time the AEA bans a member for life?

Proper use of a bar chart

I'm excited, the RCT suggests Malengo increases psychological well‑being by about 0.36 standard deviations. As a reference point, this is similar in magnitude to the improvements after vision-restoring cataract surgery. This is not obvious a priori!

Exciting news on @malengo.org, the NGO that helps East African students move to Europe for education: Our research team has given us a glimpse of their early findings! Here is the full writeup, joint with @richardnerland.bsky.social: forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CpZYHk... Thread follows!

We're going through the second 100-year shock to the academic job market in the past 5 years

Update on the state of the job market courtesy of a nudge by @gottliebecon.bsky.social It's bad! paulgp.com/2025/11/24/j...

📢 Just accepted in #JAERE 📢 is now posted at @aereorg.bsky.social! 📍 Follow @aereorg.bsky.social to stay updated on all things REEP and JAERE. #EconSky 📈📉

Serious scholars have examined what happens when we change the number of H1-B visas issued. Cities that get more H1-B immigrants subsequently see the wages of natives *rise* substantially. Skilled immigrants bring new ideas, fill labor shortages and make us all more productive.

Hey, #EconSky! Got a policy-relevant paper that you want folks in DC to see? Present & publish it with NBER's Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy. Submission deadline is Oct 20. Conference is in DC on May 21, 2026. More details below. conference.nber.org/confsubmit/b...

First time seeing people out protesting against the government and congress in Watkins Glen, NY

Just added my signature to the letter. This is a no brainer. It’s wild we’re having a conversation about US central bank independence in 2025. But here we are. Please read and consider adding your signature.

Are there lawyers out there who have written about the most effective way to submit comments to government reports like the recent DOE one?

I have written about this before, when it was suggested as a possibility shortly after the inauguration. A quick summary here--in short, there's little clever or thoughtful about it, though there is some legal strategy at work, however cynical. 1/n www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/c...

Our paper is officially out 🎉 We argue that climate clubs show promise: - A climate club with coordinated penalties could curb 68% of excess emissions from free-riding -Unilateral carbon tariffs? Not nearly as effective

I'd love to fund studies of interventions that reduce real-time pollution exposure, in the US, on outcomes related to violence and criminal behavior. (There is strong evidence that such exposure increases violence in real time; the next question is how much interventions can mitigate this effect.)

Telling prospective PhD students that they should not worry about stating their research interests on their statement was not in my bingo card for 2025.

Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Who, us, delete #climate info? USDA has agreed to restore climate change-related webpages to its websites after it was sued over their deletions by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of NY and others, @melinawalling.bsky.social reports:

We received the dismissal emails yesterday. This report is congressionally mandated and aims to inform the US people about the impacts of climate change on the nation and what to do about it.

Federally funded R&D (not all of which is spent at universities) as a fraction of GDP is as low as it's been since we started tracking. Which is a different way of looking at it than "line go up." 4/x ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf2332...

There are so many ways one could provide context for this data. For example, in the last five years universities have received 52-55% of their research funding from the federal government. That's the lowest percentage since the 1950s. 1/x ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/high...

Opinions are not facts. E.g. Someone claiming vaccines don’t work, does not make it true. This distinction is more important than ever.

This framing is nuts, and the assumption is that public funding for a public good is somehow untoward and illicit. “The schools took the money” and became “warily beholden to the whims of politicians in Washington.”/1 www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/u...

Disappointing ragebaiting from @nytimes.com E.g. “The relationship was mutually beneficial, until President Trump decided it wasn’t.” Trump can CLAIM public research grants don’t benefit the public. He does not DECIDE this. Where is the rigor? www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/u...

Just posted updated version of our DID textbook! We now have drafts of all chapters, including the one on general designs! Now you can tell your friends still on X that they are DID-outdated :-) Happy easter for those of you that celebrate it. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Ok so yeah, this has quickly become the #1 misunderstanding about the canceled grants the grants are not “subsidies” or “entitlements” to Harvard or Princeton or whatever they aren’t going into universities’ endowments they are competitive contracts won by these universities to do research

I hope it doesn’t stop at redesigning websites & that other schools follow to defend their academic mission. Academia cannot afford to have pundits and politicians define what they are to the general public. Universities have to be proactive and tell their own story. No middle men.

still time to join!

BREAKING from @science.org: The Trump admin is seeking to kill nearly all climate research at NOAA, its climate science agency. Its near-final budget proposal would end all NOAA research labs, academic institutes, and regional climate centers. And it wants to fully end the NOAA Research division.

AERE@OSWEET returns *this Friday* April 11th at 2pm Eastern (11am Pacific) with 3 terrific talks on politics, media, & the environment! Presenters: ✨ Prashant Garg (@prashantgarg.bsky.social)  ✨ Rosanne Logeart (@rosannelogeart.bsky.social)  ✨ Hannah Farkas Register: buff.ly/JhWGo59 #EconSky 📉 📈

Just drove by ~150 protesters holding signs under the cold rain, at a rural intersection in the NY finger lakes… hours away from any city (including Ithaca). Never seen this before.

The US needs more publicly funded agriculture research & development to offset the effects of climate change. But instead the US has been investing less. Cutting agriculture R&D spending will dampen productivity at home & abroad while raising food prices. New paper by @arielob.bsky.social et al.

Farmers are reeling from Trump’s attacks on agricultural research A "rollercoaster" of funding cuts and layoffs have gutted critical agricultural research projects across the nation. grist.org/food-and-agr... #Farmers #Farms #agriculture #food #trump

Just heard that Trump is putting an end to atmospheric monitoring site NY67 that is run out of my lab. This is one of the oldest NADP sites in the US, continually measuring acid rain and other pollutants since 1977. Closing it down is tragic.

1/ We have a paper out in @pnas.org with @yurouhe.bsky.social, Bob Chambers (Maryland) & David Lobell (Stanford FSE) where we quantify the public R&D investment required to offset the emerging climate-induced slowdown of US agricultural productivity. paper: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... (open)

Once in a while I think back to my high school history teacher who told us: Rights are not given to you You take them

Econ papers are long & have converged to a "stacking-dolls" model where shorter versions of the paper are "stacked into" the full version of the paper. Title is the 8-10 word version Abstract 100-150w Intro 1.5-2k w Paper 10-15k w Why is this efficient? How does that influences writing? 1/

For those unaware, I would argue this is one of the most important pipeline programs supporting Black students in the US to enter the agricultural and applied economics profession.

The Federal Reserve is not as independent from the executive branch as we’d like to think. The NY Fed just cancelled this Thursday’s @aeacswep.bsky.social reception at #EEA2025 and withdrew from our summer fellowship program. Both support women and underrepresented groups in economics. #EconSky

Call for papers now open! The 9th Conference on Econometric Models of Climate Change will take place at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada on Aug. 27-28th 2025. Submit your abstracts by April 17th! #econsky Looking forward to seeing you in Victoria! More info at: www.tinyurl.com/emcc2025uvic

A bit late in the cycle, but I'm hiring a postdoc to work on natural resource drivers of US agricultural productivity. Looking for someone w/ clear interest in the area & good geospatial data skills. Email me for Qs. Plz circulate w/ potential candidates. academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/29631

1/🚨New chapter in Handbook of Regional & Urban Economics: Spatial Environmental Economics 🌍 How do spatial forces affect the environment? How does enviro shape spatial outcomes? Thread, chapter explore this nascent subfield via stylized acts, models, building blocks for rsrch. w Clare Balboni.

Freeeeezing sunny day at Cornell today

At this time it is essential for our press to write accurately and directly. The US President’s enormous new taxes are not taxes “on Mexico” or “on Canada”. They are taxes on Americans—Americans who buy goods, or inputs to production, from Mexico or Canada.

We spent time thinking carefully about best practices/suggestions for the use of social media in Economics and the report is now out here: www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/co... #Econsky 1/n

ATTN my 35 followers!! Call for abstracts is OPEN! BIG SKY WORKSHOP on the Economics of Agriculture and the Environment Hosted by Montana State University and PERC in Bozeman, MT -- June 19-20, 2025 Travel funding available for grad students. www.bigskyworkshop.net

I am very glad that our paper, titled “Inequitable Distribution of Risks Associated with Occupational Heat Exposure Driven by Trade,” has been accepted at @naturecomms.bsky.social.