Submission deadline for the Columbia New Thinking in Industrial Policy Conference is this Friday, Sept. 12, 11:59pm ET. Congressman Ro Khanna (@khanna.house.gov) will be the keynote speaker. Send us your papers!

Submission deadline is this Sunday.

Submission deadline for this PEDL young scholars workshop (to take place the day before the Oct 24-25 @theigc.bsky.social/@yaleegc.bsky.social ‬Firms/Trade/Development conference) is Sept 7 (soon!). For researchers post-PhD but untenured (or <=8 years out). Hope to see many of you there.

Call for papers! 3rd New Thinking in Industrial Policy Conference ‪at Columbia, Nov. 6-7, 2025. Submit here by Sept. 12: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F.... Conf page: cdep.sipa.columbia.edu/content/new-.... Hosts: ‪@ipdcolumbia.bsky.social‬, @cdepcolumbia.bsky.social, ‪@columbiaigp.bsky.social‬, CPE.

Check out our conversation with Eric Verhoogen @ericverhoogen.bsky.social, who visited us this past year. Hear about his path from union organizer to development economist, how to optimally tile pentagons when making soccer balls, and more rpde.princeton.edu/news/2025/co...

A randomized evaluation of matching grants to promote exports in Tunisia finds large effects on exports, but mainly of existing products to existing destinations, from Nadia Ali, Giacomo De Giorgi, Aminur Rahman, and @ericverhoogen.bsky.social https://www.nber.org/papers/w33985

New paper! RCT on subsidies for fixed market-access costs in Tunisia. Big effects on exports (for existing destinations/products) but not # of destinations/products, in contrast to policy goals and some workhorse trade models. w/ Nadia Ali, Giacomo De Giorgi, Aminur Rahman www.nber.org/papers/w33985

Economists well represented at a vigil for recent @columbiasipa.bsky.social‬ student Mahmoud Khalil at ‪@columbiauniversity.bsky.social yesterday.

Tomorrow 10am ET/4pm CEST, open to all.

Call for papers: @theigc.bsky.social/@yaleegc.bsky.social conference on Firms/Trade/Development, Oct. 24-25, 2025. The leading conference in the firms & development space! Early decision deadline (to accommodate visa processing): May 30. General submission deadline: July 18.

Attention: Every single university president

Looking forward to this virtual seminar! Registration open to all.

Stanford’s president and provost release a statement supporting Harvard. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/15/l...

Backing the truck holding all Americans' private info up to the dock for pillaging...

RIGHT NOW: Columbia physicians, nurses, researchers, & faculty are calling on the Board of Trustees to resist the Trump admin’s assault on students, research, teaching, and patients. @cuimcstandsup.bsky.social @aaupcu.bsky.social

Harvard stands up Letter to the Harvard community from President Garber

Same.

Plenty of complaints about Harvard over the years, but a proud Harvard alum today. wapo.st/4cH9vy3

I asked the one high ranking policeman I saw on 5th Ave why there were so few police. He said “We did not expect anything like this. Don’t tell anyone but I’ve only got 44 officers out here — and it’s a great crowd, great event, no incidents.”

It's all a shame, because there's a version of tariffs - with industrial policy that builds leading the way - that makes sense. And it's important to acknowledge that workers who have been beaten down by unfair trade understandably see benefit to well-designed tariffs. END.

Universities really need to pull together. This is a good blog post from @aaup.bsky.social about this letter (sites.google.com/view/we-must...) with ~2,500 signatures from 60 Trump-targeted institutions. Please share widely. academeblog.org/2025/04/01/f...

Me too.

“The Trump administration is trying to dismantle all democratic institutions, & like other fascists, they start with universities. Cornell cannot capitulate to this. We must stand firm & refuse to be complicit in these unconstitutional actions.” — Risa Lieberwitz, President, Cornell AAUP

👇

Tenured friends, please sign.

“One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.’ I believed him. *** He “began to whimper,” as his head was roughly shaved, “folding his hands in prayer as his hair fell.” He “asked for his mother & cried as he was slapped again.”

The $400,000,000 Trump is withholding from Columbia University is no arbitrary amount. It was the amount Donald wanted Columbia to pay him for land he owned. They refused. And Donald was furious. That was 25 years ago. And petty Donald has not forgotten.

Excellent article by Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber. Columbia could use more support like this.

NEW today from @miamiherald.com: more men sent to El Salvador on Saturday have been identified by their families, including a 27-year-old who entered legally at a port of entry in 2023 through the CBP One app and a 29-year-old father of a baby born here last year. Neither have any criminal record.

“Imagine the chief executives of America’s top universities and richest corporations…issued a public statement that spoke clearly and loudly about the dangers…” Those who speak out will at least put themselves on the right side of history. www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/w...

New from me at Cato: in its demands that Columbia surrender its academic and administrative independence to federal overseers, the Trump administration has violated one law after another. And there's every reason to think it's planning to roll out the same game plan to other universities. /1

I couldn't agree more with this eloquent statement from my colleagues @vickymurillo.bsky.social @pagefortna.bsky.social @profsaunders.bsky.social Turkuler Isiksel and Allison Carnegie. Columbia happened to be first in Trump et al's sights, but they won't stop here.

This is a courageous statement. I hope this courage sparks more. The core problem is that the regime is threatening universities with something near elimination unless they betray their core values and mission - which is just another path to elimination.

Hang together or hang separately.

Criminalizing protest is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes

Re-upping this. One might have hoped that its relevance would have faded by now, but the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico are slated to take effect tomorrow. The Trump craziness is not going away.

Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts. Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They’ve saved millions of lives. 🧵

Buried lede: The UK is cutting development aid by 40%. "Mr. Starmer said the change would be funded by cutting overseas development aid from 0.5 percent of gross domestic product to 0.3 percent, adding that he regretted the reduction." Ugh.

BBVA Foundation award to Olivier Blanchard, Jordi Gali, and Michael Woodford. Congratulations! www.frontiersofknowledgeawards-fbbva.es/noticias/fro...

At a London bus stop. The Brits are telling it like it is.

www.npr.org/sections/cod...

The Washpost, which is bleeding millions of dollars and shrinking its staff, accepted -- and then rejected -- a $115,000 ad that criticized Elon Musk. Anyway, here's the ad that the Post's business side didn't want its readers to see ⤵️ thehill.com/media/514849...

If you wanted to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, you would empower the inspectors general. If you wanted more waste, fraud, and abuse, you would fire them.

There you have it. The Economic Policy Uncertainty Index (www.policyuncertainty.com) just hit an all-time high, surpassing its previous high from May 2020 - the teeth of the #COVID pandemic. Consequences: worse investment climate, higher risk premia, (likely) higher interest rates...

Dear Donald Trump: We already have tariff reciprocity. And no, value-added taxes aren't protectionist paulkrugman.substack.com/p/more-than-...

I swear to God I told my daughter this very week that this was coming: some GOP politician was going to propose that. There’s a race to the bottom in showing fealty — and there is no bottom.