Real picture of my kids running around the house at "bedtime".

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @AditiSingh095, a newly minted PhD (congrats!) from @ubcVSE who works on topics related to development, political economy + history

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @dunc_webb @NovaSBE @duncanwebb.bsky.social who works on topics related to discrimination + human capital

The real scandal here: data in .xlsx format www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Icymi. . .@ifpri is on fire in the latest issue of JDE (well, soon-to-be the Jan 2026 issue of JDE) with six separate papers from 7 different researchers

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @nikita_sang at Queen's University Belfast who works on topics related to education, gender + environment

The answer to this excellent question from @kotsadam + Løvgren: yes! List experiments do not, in general, seem to be an effective tool for measuring IPV; we should not use them unless there is a convincing reason to think otherwise

Me attempting to return to yoga this morning after 2 weeks running after the kids

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @AimableNsabima1 at IFC who works on topics related to education, nutrition, infrastructure + local labor markets

New issue of JHR has three fascinating papers about fathers, mothers + daughters. Fathers: losing a father in the American Civil War has long-term adverse effects on socioeconomic status (even when instrumented by regimental mortality), from Dupraz + @Andreas_Ferrara

Important new evidence in EDCC suggests the prohibition of alcohol sales in Bihar (India) ⬇️ intimate partner violence @motu23 + Mukherkee

You haven't really learned the art of persuasion until you try to convince a 2-year-old of the proposition: let's not play on this part of the playground because someone just vomited in front of us. Tough sell

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @teremolin @DepartamentoFAE who works on topics including education, health + social protection

Me getting ready for family staycation next week

Hard to overstate how meaningful this could be for global health research. For others: if a tree falls in the forest + no one hears it, did it really fall? For development and global health researchers: if it happens + there's no DHS, how will we know? Now, we'll know!

How it started / how it's going to go

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @vidhyasrajan, research director at CAFRAL who works on topics related to finance, firms + trade

Still a projection, but a devastating projection: 30-40% drop in international students at U.S. universities this fall www.nafsa.org/about/about-... Hard to wrap your head around the full implications of this for universities

Is there anything more stressful in journal publishing than the step of copying referee reports into a blank document so you can start responding to them. Just did it + I feel like I have to stop work for the rest of the day to recover

Over the last couple years I've been running a mini-experiment to see how many different journals I can serve as a referee for. The cumulative count is 80 + here to report this has been a fun experiment, 100% endorse

The thing's so great about LLM models is that they're so confident even when incorrrectly leading me in circles attempting to debug. "Your code is close" "Finally getting to the root of the problem" Definitely not getting to the root of the problem, but love positive energy

Sometimes I feel like my work day lacks sufficient purpose and then I re-commit myself to the task of removing AI notetaking assistants from every meeting I join + I feel better

This article reminded me of a point that surprised me as a parent: somehow (naively?), I thought that someone would be chasing me to enroll my kids in public school . But in our town, it's just signs in front of the town hall + at the library saying, register for kindergarten.

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @raamadhok at U Minnesota who works on topics related to environment + development

Forward to the next 5-year plan comrades! Jobs for all, imaginary jobs for all

Depressed about the labor market report? Read my #econtwitter #econsky 🧵 about how to handle journal rejection! Seriously: rejection is the most common experience all research economists have. So, what to do when your paper is rejected?

It is a wild feeling when you look at your toddler's little face, he opens his mouth, + actually says a real human word in English. Even after several toddlers + many words, it boggles the mind

Fascinating new paper shows that papers reporting statistical significance get at least 60% more media attention #econtwitter #econsky: from Brodeur Cook @nikolaimcook @taylor_wright, a short 🧵

Two reflections on this morning's interview with Jeremy Lewin: 1) He's lying about PEPFAR 2) The goal of increasing U.S. investment + economic engagement with SSA is completely contradictory with other gov't policies (most notably tariffs)

Refine is at a completely different level from the other LLM-based review tools I have tried. It not only identified a large number of small errors in my paper, it also correctly identified what I think is the biggest conceptual weakness. Definitely worth trying.

New publication! #econtwitter #econsky tl;dr light-touch teacher training and community-led reading camps did NOT increase early-grade literacy in Mozambique. Joint with @NKarachiwalla @cherreralmanza Lauchande + Chimbutane

A description of researcher initiative that is both accurate (imo) + unflattering

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @monira_smf @AUG_SPH @AUG_University who works on topics related to gender + health, both in the the developing world + in the U.S.

Now every time I hand my toddler some milk and cuddle him while he guzzles it I see the faces of little kids who desperately need milk + can't have it, then I squeeze him even harder + murmur thanks

Re-making a bed with clean sheets is one of those tasks that I thought would naturally seem easy once I was adult, but I somehow still find it's not that easy. Also on that list: shopping for insurance, using a corkscrew, self-confidence

1 underappreciated dimension of balancing work + care: because you expect to have generally small chunks of time this incentivizes focusing on small chunks of work rather than big swings (eg a huge new paper or a substantial risky project)

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @ybcoliveira @pimes_em now at Bocconi who works on topics related to development, political economy + labor

Excited to wake up to this view in San Pedro Sula, Honduras this morning for the regional forum on school meals!

Me, seeing another referee report submission system with mandatory yes/no questions

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @ihsaanbassier @economicssurrey who works on topics related to labor + political economy, particularly in South Africa

This morning I realized sometime in the next 12 months I have to move my 2 year old from a crib to a bed and the thought of having all 3 unleashed for the nights filled me with terror

My 2 year old exerted a shocking amount of energy to prevent me from doing yoga this morning. like, total focus on the goal. I could learn from this

After several days of intensive use, I would summarize ChatGPT's advice on coding questions related to outputting tables in Latex as often useful, but also frequently wrong and contradictory

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @Healthserv4all @PlakshaUniv who works on topics related to health, development, + insurance

There are days where I aim to use my time productively and there are days where I shorten the highlights of my accepted article to exactly 85 characters. Today is the latter

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @FerSo47 at Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico) who works on topics related to development, crime + data science

Underated cause of cost-of-living overruns: the fact that every ice cream place requires me to shell out $5 or $6 for a gigantic ice cream cone for little children who will eat at most 2 or 3 mouthfuls. Kiddie cone for $1 is a thing of the past and it's bumming me out

This week's cool young researcher [late, post-conference edition!] #econtwitter #econsky is @luongthuha, currently post-doc @EconomicsUc3m who works on topics related to gender, development +health

Time for my 2nd + final @ashecon recap #econtwitter #econsky. To start the day, @monira_smf presented work joint w/ @hasan_emu128 showing there are intergenerational benefits of migration in terms of child health in Bangladesh (but primarily domestic migration)

Time to start my recap thread of #ashecon2025 first day! #econtwitter #econsky @ashecon @AjinkyaKeskar kicked off by showing the positive mental health effects of changes in inheritance law in India for women. (I also presented in this session! But no photographic evidence ;)