This paper looks important!! www.nber.org/papers/w3407... #Econsky #FinSky

More incredible work by this team, plus the ability to explore these data on credit scores (Look at those geographic patterns! Perhaps not surprising but still striking) and more here: www.opportunityatlas.org

Aha, I learned the perfect new word to practice using for day 2 of potty training the kiddo

L.A. imposed a so-called mansion tax on real estate transactions > $5 million. Surprise! It covers, and has helped to depress, multifamily residential -- i.e., apartment construction -- along with commercial and industrial. Revenues are less than half expected. [@uclalewiscenter.bsky.social]

For weeks, I have thought about this at least 3 times daily: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGXE...

Today, it’s hard for me to look anywhere else besides what’s happening to our health agencies. US capacity for public health, regulation, research & development, research, etc. is being gutted in real time. www.reddit.com/r/DeptHHS/s/...

The funding for these long COVID research grants was given back bc disability activists urged us to contact our reps persistently, in high volume, and we did. Remember that these tactics work the next time someone tries to get you to passively react instead of taking an active part in organizing!

New, from me: Trump is whitewashing American history, removing not just people, but also the stories, images, and values to anyone who does not conform to his impoverished vision of America. Here is a partial inventory. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/whitewashi...

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

I had a front row seat to watch 18F get started a dozen years ago by some of the smartest and most dedicated public servants I’ve ever met. Their work saved countless lives, and yes, hundreds of millions, probably billions, of dollars. But just as significantly: it made government more responsive.

Been teaching @rand.org's useful Truth Decay framework for many yrs now in my Public Policy Ethics courses in a unit on policy discourse. If ever the consequences of diminished reliance on facts & analysis in public life for undermining govt institutions and decision-making were evident, it's now...

Well that's my cue. ✨NEW WP✨ What happens when SSA downsizes field office staff, even if the offices stay open? Fewer people end up enrolled for benefits. 🧵

Several good things are happening according r/fednews so I am going to drop them here. If federal workers are fighting back, how much more us? A thread/

Maybe I was naive, but the levels of “anticipatory censoring” and overcompliance I’ve seen over the past month have infuriated and devastated me. I hope shining light and pushing back on it can force change (or a hard conversation)

An inspiring article on courageous community college leaders who are *publicly* organizing and standing up against DEI attacks.. www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Good points. I’m not sure whether or what messaging might cut through, but the relative lack of outrage among policymakers about the potential dismantling of our country’s scientific infrastructure means we should clarify the potential consequences on all fronts.

I had a very insightful conversation with one of my colleagues about the nature of indirects on NIH grants. He pointed out that indirects are like a two-part tariff, helping defray fixed costs in a non-distortive way. 1/

This excellent piece by @chrisgeidner.bsky.social picks apart the precise extent to which the rule of law is holding. It is realistic about the stakes, but argues that the Rubicon has not been crossed -- and we need to fight to keep it that way.

New from me: The deferred resignation offer expires on Monday. An open letter from a federal employee as they decide their future, plus thoughts and insights about the damage being done from other public servants. Please read, and share. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-forced...

Informative and frightening discussion of the recent NIH directive to cap overhead at 15%. Although I admittedly still don’t fully understand my org’s own indirects, this gets me way closer to understanding the big picture.

This comments section is the first time I've felt even a shred of hope in eight days.

Everything you know about wrinkly fingers is probably wrong. Particularly, it is not a physical act of water on the body, it is a neurological effect of the body on itself. People who have fingers with severed nerves do not prune on those fingers.

Interesting to read this piece alongside our recently published study trying to detail the timing of precisely when (firearm) homicides started to deviate from expectation (hint: before 2020!). journals.lww.com/epidem/abstr...

Plus evidence suggesting work from home increases employment supply for people with disabilities: www.nber.org/papers/w32943

Look at how physicians diagnose more children with ADHD on Halloween (the red line in the middle of the figure). The authors hypothesize that docs are more likely to diagnose kids on this day simply because kids are excited for Halloween. Fascinating! www.nber.org/papers/w33232

For this week I went deep into the archives to create a short history of agencies reporting (and not reporting) crime data to the FBI to show how our national crime estimates have always been flawed (and frequently more flawed than they are now). jasher.substack.com/p/national-c...

New! Randomized control trial of New Orleans program finds that sectoral career training in high-demand fields (mfg, health, infotech) significantly reduced likelihood of rearrest. [S Anwar, M Baird, J Engberg, @rosannasmart.bsky.social @ RAND in J of Human Resources] jhr.uwpress.org/content/earl...

Spent this evening thinking and talking about the late Mark Kleiman’s contributions to criminal justice policy thinking, and how relevant his insights still are today. Huge thanks to @niskanencenter.bsky.social for bringing this terrific group together.

Left: books I’ve tried (and failed) to read in the past 4+ months Right: books I’ve read 40+ times in the past 4 weeks

As a former lurker on the other place, I benefited a lot from people sharing interesting intellectual or purely entertaining content. I hope to be more of a contributor vs just consumer here (but no promises!)