Our "Dodging Day Zero" paper is out in JEEA. We uncover how Cape Town avoided 2017's catastrophic drought. But in doing so, created longer term sustainability challenges and weakened the fiscal viability of public water. A lesson for the 1B living in drought vulnerable cities. #climatesky #econsky

Editors, check this out!

Increasing the minimum wage decreases poverty and food insufficiency.

🚨Update: Acting USDA ERS administrator among those placed on indefinite leave over the termination of the food insecurity/hunger survey. This was reported by Agri-Pulse and has since been confirmed to me by an internal source. www.agri-pulse.com/articles/234...

Some of the terms I've flagged for review for this MIT Press book I'm editing: shagging, wankers, gas-bagger, and seagulls on cocaine

Why do some securities cases move from civil to criminal enforcement? Nathan Herrman, Sara Toynbee, and Matthew Kubic (all UT Austin McCombs School of Business) join @busscholarship.bsky.social to discuss their paper "Beyond Misconduct: What Explains DOJ Involvement in SEC Enforcement?." 1/2

"Top economists and Jerome Powell agree that Gen Z’s hiring nightmare is real—and it’s not about AI eating entry-level jobs" finance.yahoo.com/news/top-eco...

🚨 It's been a long time in the making, but I'm happy it's finally out! Standing on the shoulders of giants, in this preprint we propose an avenue for theoretical development in the field of environmental (cyber)criminology with practical applications for crime analysis. bsky.app/profile/soca...

The 15th Workshop on the Economics of Risky Behavior, sponsored by @au-spa.bsky.social, will be held July 8–9, 2026 in Cagliari, Italy! 🇮🇹 Keynote: Paolo Pinotti Organizers: Erdal Tekin & Claudio Deiana, Ludovica Giua, Marco Nieddu 📅 Deadline: Mar 6, 2026 📄 Submit: www.american.edu/spa/risky-be...

In a world riven by inequality and devastated by climate + ecological crisis, what would it take for "green industrial policy" to empower the working class in Global North + South, and be truly green? New @cplusc.bsky.social report by me and Isabel Estevez (1/3) t.co/78sQQe4d1g

📢 Our new VoxDevLit on Organised Crime is out now! Senior Editors @santiagotobon.bsky.social & Micaela Sviatschi @princetonecon.bsky.social review research on the roots & development impacts of organised crime. Read & download here: voxdev.org/voxdevlit/or...

Visiting LA this week

🚨 Kids LOVE fear?!🚨 Our new study led by Mihaela Taranu from the Recreational Fear Lab uncovers something surprising: Children across all ages actively seek out scary experiences - for fun! 📄 doi.org/10.1007/s105... [1/🧵]

Virtual Seminar on Climate Economics starting back up 🚨🚨TOMORROW🚨🚨 with an amazing line up of fall speakers, beginning with Obie Porteous on agricultural trade and climate change impacts in Africa Line up here: cepr.org/events/event... Make sure to register for the zoom link #econsky

Join us in Berlin for another great Masterclass 🚨 This time, we’re hosting Andrea Weber for a two-day workshop on UI 📋 Apply by Sept 6th! #EconSky

This is so cool! Any #QueerSFF writers want to take advantage of this opportunity. These are fantastic editors. #WriterSky #SFF

We usually rely on GDP, trade, or wages to study the past. This amazing paper flips the script. It analyzes 630,000 paintings (1400-2000) to extract emotions and shows how art tracks living standards, wars, inequality, and even climate shocks. (How is this economics? Everything is economics!)

Want to get feedback from a professional editor on the opening pages of your #QueerSFF novel? This year, @spacemagiccon.bsky.social has created that opportunity for you! Submit your novel's opening pages to apply for a one-to-one session. ⬇ forms.gle/vaqPkKYwM1ex... #RSM2025 🌈📚🪐 #WriterSky

Does #inequality affect what poor households consider "necessities"? Yes, a 🆕 study finds, with implications for understanding the decline in caloric consumption over time in #India. Very insightful! Paper: doi.org/10.1093/jeea... Authors: @clement-s-bellet.bsky.social @eve-colsonsihra.bsky.social

For those still complaining -- in this day and age! -- about tables/figures at the end of the paper because it's a "hassle to scroll up and down", here's a tip. If you click on a link on a page (e.g. to a fig/table), you can return instantly to that page by: Preview: ⌘ + [ Adobe: ⌘ + left arrow

Interesting long read in the @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/o...

Switching it up a bit today: proofreading Federal Reserve transcripts on using FRED instead of my usual copyedits 🤓

The preliminary program has been posted for the 2026 ASSA / American Economic Association / American Finance Association / etc. meetings in Philadelphia January 3-5 2026 www.aeaweb.org/conference/2...

📢 Organised crime is not a marginal security issue — it is a core development challenge. At our VoxDevLit launch event (Sept 11), Santiago Tobon & Maria Micaela Sviatschi will summarise research on the roots & development impacts of organised crime. Register ➡️ cepr-org.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Three ingredients for a perfect Fluffernutter: white bread, Fluff of course (made in Lynn, MA), and Teddie peanut butter (made in Everett, MA). Picked up the latter two on my trip back to Boston last week 🤌🏾

1./ At last! 🎉 After years in the making, my paper with Manuel Fernandez & @marcogn.bsky.social is out as an IZA Discussion Paper. We ask: Can better streets boost property tax compliance? 🚧💰 If so, why? We answer this with an RCT in Mexico + a model of tax compliance. docs.iza.org/dp18082.pdf

The Arnold Ventures Criminal Justice team is hosting another *free* causal inference workshop for researchers interested in sharpening their skills. This one will be taught by Sarah Tahamont the day before ASC (11/11 in DC). Interested? Sign up by Sep 7! events.arnoldventures.org/en/3ipjnC6/g...

Just another morning yelling at Word while trying to format a document...

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social: "Old money: Campaign finance and gerontocracy in the United States" By @adambonica.bsky.social & @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #econsky #publiceconomics

This is Nora. She has been chosen as leader by a flock of ducks. Either that or they think she's a loaf of bread. 13/10 (TT: subirbanmom)

Call for Papers! 🧵 The Public's Science–A New Social Contract for American Research Policy a Special Issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Editors: Alondra Nelson (IAS) and Jenny Reardon (UC, Santa Cruz) Abstract Deadline: Sept 19 www.ias.edu/stsv-lab/pub...

Nascent competition, killer acquisitions, acquihires — join Meghan Rissmiller, Michaela Spero, Rahul Rao, and me for an American Bar Association Antitrust seminar on how innovation competition should be accounted for in merger control. September 10 12-1pm www.americanbar.org/events-cle/m...

New study finds pretty close alignment between the circumstances in which the public (🇺🇸) thinks police should terminate a vehicle pursuit and when police typically *do* terminate pursuits (higher speeds, busy traffic, bad weather, minor crime, etc.)

My free one-hour workshop, How to Publish a Book from Your Dissertation, is coming up on September 3. Learn what academic presses are looking for when they acquire a new book project and how to avoid the dreaded “we don’t publish dissertations” rejection courses.manuscriptworks.com/courses/diss...

anyone have recommendations for a relatively short form read about Ferguson/BLM origins? ideally would be written for lay audiences; cover fines and fees practices in Ferguson; Michael Brown; and ensuing BLM protest wave

'Exploring the effect of motor #traffic on street #crime'. New preprint with @toby-davies.bsky.social jmpinasanchez.github.io/static/Traff... When neighbourhoods are affected by 'heavy traffic' perceptions of vandalism, burglary and theft grow from 6% to 9%, and that is most likely an underestimate.

Short piece by Tobias Ide on how horribly wrong AI bots are when asked to analyze research, in this case around climate security. I found when dealing with environmental security, it keeps referring back to ideas from the 1990s, most long since discredited www.newsecuritybeat.org/2025/08/hall...

Wholesale prices came in hot in today’s PPI report, but veggies stole the show 🥦📈 Vegetable prices at the wholesale level surged nearly 39% in July. @willmasters.bsky.social & I unpack what’s behind this spike in today's @marketplace.org 🎙️ www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0...

Heads up, academics! A number of academic journals/pubs are also on this list. It's worth checking your name!

The latest JEP has an extraordinary set of papers on the economics of housing. My favorite? The one showing that most people incorrectly believe that increasing housing supply won't lower housing costs. Subsidizing home-buying is popular even though it raises costs. 🤦 www.aeaweb.org/issues/814

🚨 New brief: scholars.org/contribution... "The review highlights how gun violence sends shockwaves through families, neighborhoods, and entire communities with ripple effects that can persist and change over time." Access our full review here: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... #PublicHealth

Seagull demanding some of my grapes, and of course I gave him one

"The annual income needed to afford monthly payments on a median-priced home in the US was $126,670 in 2024—a 60% jump from $79,330 in 2021, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Meanwhile the US median household income was $80,610 in 2023"

On my way to Boston, but my connecting flight from Dallas is canceled. Why not relax at the... yoga "studio"?

📢 New Publication 📢 📄 Review article in Nature Climate Change It examines how resistance to climate policy is reshaping politics & why populist right parties are the main beneficiaries? (with Valentina Bosseti, Italo Colantone & Giorgio Musto) Short 🧵 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Enjoy this photo of a tiny horny toad (horned lizard) I found while hiking this weekend

Blacks/Hispanics caught with drugs are 2x more likely than white offenders to be charged with possessing just barely enough of these substances for the mandatory minimum to kick in. See the spike in the histogram for Black (black outline) & Hispanic (green) relative to white offenders (light blue)?

Rich people are far more likely to see economic success as a product of intelligence, genes, and hard work—less so family ties or luck