So, something we got into a bit for the space book is the idea of resources as the source of wealth, because (a) it's widely believed, and (b) it's a claim used to justify all sorts of outlandish space ideas. The short version is that resources are a teeny tiny fraction of wealth.

I'd like to propose the following norm for peer review of papers. If a paper shows clear signs of LLM-generated errors that were not detected by the author, the paper should be immediately rejected. My reasoning: 1/ #ResearchIntegrity

I just reviewed my first LLM written paper, with prompts left in the text and invented citations. LLMs are making the (unpaid) job of reviewer much harder. Of course, I could just have the paper reviewed by an LLM, and me and the authors and the other reviewers could go have a drink on the beach!

New working paper out: A Century of Language Barriers to Migration in India, with Latika Chaudhary and James Fenske. warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/econ...

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose??? This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

I am looking for a specialist in the Akkadian language. It is for a good cause: a friend has a daughter called Ishtar after the Akkadian goddess (Inanna in Sumer). He wants to confirm the graphic symbols in Akkadian for Ištar. (Yes it is for a tattoo, to avoid tattooing "lentil soup" in Akkadian).

I saw that Mamdani was in the news and initially though "oh! Ugandan political scientist Mahmood Mamdani is in the news!", but then I realized that the Mamdani in the news was Zohran Mamdani, American politician. But then I checked and one is the son of the other

#StandUpForScience Les attaques contre la science aux Etats-Unis ont déjà des répercussions sur la science en Europe, et pourraient préfigurer ce qui nous attends. Il y a des événements organisés un peu partout en France 👉https://standupforscience.fr/tous-les-evenements/

As of today, a new term has entered our language. A “rubio” is a spineless lump of nothing. Example: Don’t be such a rubio.

Dear Bluesky community, I am looking for examples of empirical papers working with data organized in changing geographical admin units in two (or more) time periods and needing to aggregate the data up to consistent geographic units, in order to build panel data. 1/3

Picture a middle aged man waking up one morning in sweat, realizing he knows practically nothing on the history of China before the 20th century. What books should this man read first?

Such an interesting read!

New Working Paper: "Colonialism on the Cheap: The French Empire 1830-1962”, with Denis Cogneau, Elise Huillery & Sandrine Mesplé-Somps. French colonies did not cost French taxpayers much. Most of the cost was for the military, especially for the independence wars. shs.hal.science/halshs-04598...

A summary of our recently published work with Yasmine Bekkouche on colonial origins and quality of education in Cameroon www.aehnetwork.org/blog/colonia...

Communiqué de l'AFSE sur le projet de loi relatif à l'immigration voté par le Parlement le 19 décembre 2023

Bravo to Claudia Goldin, who is not only a great economist (and economic historian!) But also a very funny public speaker! (Her keynote at WEHC 2017 in Boston was great)

I'm sad to learn of the passing of Nick Crafts. I remember reading his work when I started studying econ history, then seeing him at the LSE library and feeling as if I had just seen Mick Jagger. Later, when I did a postdoc at Warwick, he was a very kind and generous mentor.