Colleges and universities are going way too soft on policing AI, Tyler Austin Harper argues. “Institutions of higher learning can abandon their centuries-long educational project,” he writes. “Or they can fight.”

For no obvious reason one of Kei Hirano's classic economics haikus just popped into my head. Apropo of nothing: T-stat looks too good. Use robust standard errors-- significance gone. I'm sure it could be updated to reflect modern methods.

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social: "The undoing of economic sanctions: Evidence from the Russia–Ukraine conflict" By @rfisman.bsky.social, Giovanna Marcolongo, & Meng Wu www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #econsky #publiceconomics

I have a friend who had a successful career as a politician. When he retired from politics, I asked him what he was happiest to get away from. Without a moment's pause he answered, "The constant lying." www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

My 15 year old is proofreading my latest book manuscript. After the first paragraph he asked, “do people really consider you to be a good writer?” It’s only gone downhill from there.

Is @wbur.org (very subtly) trolling the Trump administration ?

Dev Econ people: I was trying to access the DHS data, and got the message below. Can anyone help and/or have ideas for access? Any suggestions much appreciated!

As a 4th of July special, here's another piece with @rfisman.bsky.social, on how some of the institutional features we used to think as protective of American democracy are now accelerating its decline. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Dear Nippon Steel: You would be insane to buy US Steel with the current American government holding this much control: www.reuters.com/business/us-... Signed - someone who used to teach business in emerging markets, where this sort of thing happened a lot and rarely if ever ended well...1/2

A bit of personal/professional news: I'm sad to be leaving the wonderful editorial team at @restatjournal.bsky.social now that my terms are up, but excited to be joining AEJ: Applied as editor in January. www.aeaweb.org/news/member-...

Corruption Watch: Trump Media edition

It's amazing that markets these days are so completely driven by whether the U.S. president says he'll do something completely unhinged, or says he *won't* do something completely unhinged.

The most jaw-dropping thing that came up in this week's Freakonomics story was Phil Zimbardo, in recounting the story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, casually mentioning that he'd just started dating his PhD student like it was no big thing, and the podcast just continuing without a beat.

A question about the proposed bill on stock trading in Congress (www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...). It wouldn't prevent someone from trading on macro news anyway, right? If I could have had inside info on tariff announcements, e.g., I still would've minted a fortune trading index funds.

Summer office is open for business

A little story I once heard, on good authority, about Peter Navarro. Some faculty at UC Irvine joked back in 2016 that they hoped Trump would get elected because then they'd at least be rid of Navarro, who was then an econ professor there. 1/2

Apropos of nothing

A serious question: Is Trump doing this just so politically-connected investors can profit from insider trading, or is that merely a side benefit?

Canadian economists (and others): I'm running a survey in Canada for the first time, and need to "translate" some U.S. questions. Could someone point me to what the equivalent of either/both of these would be?

Finally an idea that can unite us as a nation (the second sentence, not the first one)

Or maybe multiply by 2 instead🤷

On tariffs, straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Dear CEA: at least divide by 4. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/o...

Seems like it's worth asking again this morning...

Only 90s kids

After the craziness of “Liberation Day”, I am forced to return to what @rfisman.bsky.social and I wrote the other day. Personalistic systems are subject to the whims of unconstrained rulers, and we’re seeing the results very, very fast… www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I guess we don't know how bad it could have been but...the CEA has what seem to be some serious and earnest people. How is it possible that this doesn't make them resign? (I won't name names but some seem more serious and earnest than others)

As @rfisman.bsky.social and I wrote this past weekend: the problem with personalistic systems is precisely that you’re hostage to the leader’s “instincts”, which may or may not be right… www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Check out the latest from @rfisman.bsky.social and myself, on why even those who like Republican policy goals (and/or think Elon Musk is a unique genius) should still be wary of where they are taking us. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

We are proud to offer the REStat-NBER summer fellowship again this year. Information here: www.nber.org/calls-papers...

It used to be that hundreds of kids died from measles every year.

How it started: We don’t need anything from Canada! How it’s going: • Wait, they’re our main source of aluminum? • Oil too? Seriously? • Potash? So farms need that? • They spend billions in tourism? • They make American cars? • My house is basically Canadian? • WTF, we rely on them for electricity?

It is possible that this deserves a Nobel in literature and also economics

Yet another ruse to say, "incompetent, let's privatize"? Or simply yet more DOGE incompetence? Obervationally equivalent. I know docs at the VA had to waste their valuable time to compose emails explaining to Elon Musk how tending to veterans' health needs was useful. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/u...

The ability to control mass party opinion this directly is unlike anything I’ve really seen in my time covering politics.

Mancur Olson distinguished between stationary vs roving bandits. A roving bandit rapes and pillages then moves on. A stationary bandit takes the long view, cultivating the economy so they can maximize their extraction over the long-term. Mobutu eg was a roving bandit. I fear that's what we have now.

DJT has been a huge gift to the Canadian Liberals. It reminds me of something an Estonian acquiantance once said about why his country was relatively uncorrupt: the country's culture and values were defined in opposition to everything that defined its neighbor, Russia. Ergo, not corrupt.

I just can't get it out of my head why this isn't a much bigger story. I guess it's because people are generally so totally cynical about US politics already.

I don't think there's precedent for this level of open corruption at the federal level, certainly not in the last 100+ years.

Words I never thought i would write: Let's go Carlos Slim! www.msn.com/en-us/techno...

Maybe we can at least say that in the old days, insider trading on political information was more subtle? www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-...

As a break from handwringing over current events (which dominates most of my waking and sleeping moments), an observation about online reviews. My least favorite take the form: you didn't write the book I wish you'd written. 2 stars. My favorite ever in the next post...

"Have you said thank you even once?"

Spoiler: kids started dying

I remember reading @astille.bsky.social's Berlusconi profile and thinking the sycophancy of his underlings were so far beyond parody as to be barely believable (see below). But so easily surpassed by the obsequiousness on display in Washington.

What I feel is ashamed.

#Econsky 📉📈 I'm looking for examples of *obvious* under-regulation of markets -- cases that even the Friedmanites of the world would agree with. Ideally very specific (e.g., not "antitrust", but "the rise of Standard Oil"; not "banking reg" but "2008 Mortage Crisis"). It's for a book project.

This is quite the thread...

Does anyone have particularly egregious examples of regulations under the License Raj? Looking for extreme cases of red tape and/or overregulation. Happy to take examples from other countries as well.

This post is in my capacity as co-chair of the Review of Economics and Statistics editorial board.