On the one hand, my three year old son shouldn't poor water through the holes in the top of my surround sound receiver / amplifier. On the other hand, who thought it was a good idea to have holes there, right at the front where they're most accessible. Do these people not have kids?

The Democrats needed to win the last election. There are numerous paths towards the centre they could have taken to ensure this. No amount of ideological purity is preferable to this. I really hope the Democrats are finally prepared to do what is necessary to win the next elections.

Which macro conferences are in the US this summer? All of the usual suspects seem to be on other continents this year. Am I forgetting any? (Except the NBER SI which I won't be accepted to.)

Worth joining Bluesky for this:

Looks the opposite to me. Pre-Milei, surpluses apparently did not respond to debt = active fiscal policy as required by FTPL. But debt/GDP was growing, contrary to the prediction of the FTPL that prices jump to ensure sustainable debt. (Maybe monetary policy was active even then?) 1/2

My last post was also a bit of a test of this place vs the other one, as I cross posted. There was some initial engagement here, with similar initial like counts, but the Twitter algorithm started showing it to more people once it realised people were commenting etc. then the like counts diverged.

Three authors seems about average for an econ paper these days. So when we see a solo paper on someone's CV, we should mentally multiply it by three. But the profession doesn't seem to do this for some reason. Why? 1/4

New call for papers. Conference on: "Structural Changes and the Implications for Inflation" Eltville (near Frankfurt), 7-8 May 2024. PDF of call: matthias-rottner.github.io/Files/Confer... Submission link: www.conftool.pro/business-cyc... Please submit!

Also posted on Twitter at the same time. There: 47 likes, 12 reposts. Here 0 of both. The great migration hasn't happened yet!

I have released a new version of my "Robust Real Rate Rules" paper here: www.tholden.org/assets/files... Featuring: empirics (no longer pure theory!), improved structure, new results on ZLB sunspot equilibria, more on communication, more on practicalities, etc. & even longer appendices!

One disadvantage of Bluesky's custom feeds is that it makes it harder to know when you're accidentally spamming people. On Twitter, I like literally every post from the Calvin and Hobbes fan account, but I like so much other junk that I know my followers are not going to see those likes. On Bluesky?

I don't think targeting top fives is crazy, but it's not always obvious on day one that a project has top five potential. More important is not wasting time working on things once you realise they definitely won't result in a decent pub (whatever is your definition of that).

I have a new proof of the Banach-Tarski theorem: Take a full washing basket. Fill the washing machine with half its contents. Note that the washing basket is still full. QED (The pressure of a blank timeline was too much. Future posts can only improve on this initial low bar.)