A lovely write-up of our last week's @leap-econ.bsky.social summit by Serena Doyle: melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/news/news/20...

The inaugural LEAP Summit for LGBTQ+ Research and Researchers in Asia-Pacific is in full swing! 🥳🌈 @leap-econ.bsky.social @ksaxby.bsky.social @unimelb.edu.au

Very cool analysis of the submissions to a major management journal that shows how much the system of science, built for humans, is under strain as a result of AI. AI can be used to do better science or it can be used to just do more stuff. The danger is that "more" is winning due to incentives.

🚨 U Melbourne flagship McKenzie Postdoc - 3 years fully funded, no teaching - 25K research budget - fame and prestige EOI closing 7 May, need to have a supervisor (email/DM me with Qs!) sites.research.unimelb.edu.au/research-fun...

Brutal.

And all of this started because Stanisław Ulam didn't feel like calculating the odds of winning a game of Solitaire...

The fateful V-Day is approaching once again, please be careful out there, folks! www.huffpost.com/entry/valent...

Vladyslav Heraskevych, Ukraine's skeleton racer, was scheduled to compete in his third Olympic Games on Feb. 12. He was barred from taking part in the competition after refusing to change his helmet, one depicting the faces of Ukrainian athletes killed during Russia's full-scale invasion.

The fateful V-Day is approaching once again, please be careful out there, folks! www.huffpost.com/entry/valent...

If you’re not using Claude Code, now’s the time to jump in!

Talking to lots of folks across various professions using Claude Code, it is genuinely surprising, even to me, how much of a leap they have seen in the ability of LLMs to do real work in the last six weeks. I know people on this site are sometimes skeptical of AI, but worth paying attention to.

Call for papers for Workshop in Causal Health Economics (organized by Erik Grönqvist and @helenasvaleryd.bsky.social) with @hitoshishigeoka.bsky.social as keynote speaker. Just before #ESPE in Helsinki and best time to visit Sweden 👇

If you'd like to embed a Bluesky feed on your website, check out this neat and simple widget: github.com/Vincenius/bs...

By the same token, Alfredo was just promoted to Full Professor, and I am sure the whole Wollongong is dancing in the streets. 🕺🎵🎶

My greatest 2025 accomplishment is that I pushed through a (very mundane) request that was summarily rejected by our central HR. Becoming Associate is nice and all that, but Jan vs. Kafka was the true fight of the year. 🤜🤛

While most of us are enjoying a peaceful holiday season, this horrific war is still happening. Please consider donating to the Ukrainian cause 💙💛 u24.gov.ua

G’day, mate. The night may lengthen, but it never has the final word—hate exhausts itself.

I need you to listen to and share this story - of how Trump is preparing to abandon Ukraine in exchange for Russian money for his billionaire friends. It could be the greatest corruption of American foreign policy in our history. Russia gets Ukraine. Trump's friends get rich.

What. A. Line-up!!! This is going to be such an amazing event, do make sure to submit your work! 🌈❤️

Check out the amazing line up of speakers!! Please submit and share 🌟 🌈 @jankabatek.com @drbrendannolan1.bsky.social

💻🏠 Work From Home arrangements are here to stay, so let's unpack their consequences for workers' mental health! Take a look at @theconversation.com piece in which we explore the key findings of our new study 👇

“ #Working from home had a strong positive effect on women’s #MentalHealth, but only in certain circumstances..biggest gains were recorded when #women worked mainly from home while still spending some time (1 to 2 days)..on-site each week.”: buff.ly/5cO4iR4 via @jankabatek.com

Can working from home benefit your mental health? Here's the promised Conversation article, reporting on the results of our new longitudinal study. TL;DR: Hybrid work is most beneficial, and women benefit more than men. theconversation.com/whats-workin... The study itself: doi.org/10.1016/j.so...

Really happy to see this paper published! We looked into the effects of WFH on mental health, finding substantive positive effects for women ♀️ A non-technical article in The Conversation is soon to follow, so watch this space 😊

Happy to see some uplifting 🌈 news! EU court rules in favour of cross-border recognition of same-sex marriage rights. This is a big step towards marriage equality in member countries that are still dragging their feet on this matter. www.reuters.com/world/europe...

Incredibly proud of this 🤩🥹! So much work and determination behind this publication. What a journey this was! Honored to have done it with you @vickybarone.bsky.social 🚀❤️

Recently accepted by #QJE, “Republican Support and Economic Hardship: The Enduring Effects of the Opioid Epidemic,” by Arteaga (@caroartc.bsky.social) and Barone (@vickybarone.bsky.social): doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

Trump has murdered at least 83 people with extrajudicial military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats. He needs to face consequences for this. His secretary of DHHS, RFK Jr., will kill several orders of magnitude more with this disinformation.

Our new website for coding university expenses should be paying some serious royalties to the Franz Kafka's estate.

AI-generated cake

What Jan said 👇🏼

Super excited for the inaugural summit of LGBTQ+ Economists and Allies in Asia-Pacific (LEAP)! Come and join us in beautiful Melbourne on May 13-14, 2026! ❗𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝟏𝟒 𝐃𝐞𝐜❗ melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/conferences/...

Are you working in #LGBTQ related research topics?! Come visit us in Melbourne next year!! While there is an applied/econ focus, the summit will be more multidisciplinary than most ;) Also there are a handful of scholarships available! @jankabatek.com @mckay.mobi @aeacsqiep.bsky.social

I've been working on a new tool, Refine, to make scholars more productive. If you're interested in being among the very first to try the beta, please read on. Refine leverages the best current AI models to draw your attention to potential errors and clarity issues in research paper drafts. 1/

September 2025 was the third warmest on record in the Berkeley Earth dataset. But this downplays how anomalous it was; without 2023 and 2024 this year would have been well above any prior records and well above the long-term trend:

Our Life Course Centre Data for Policy workshop is underway in Canberra. Over the two-day event, more than 80 participants from NGOs, government, research, and other stakeholder organisations will hear from leading speakers and explore practical case studies.

🎉 EALE is now on Bluesky! Follow us here for updates, news, and everything related to the European Association of Labour Economists. We look forward to connecting with you in this new space! #EALE

It’s always notable how the far-right uses “censorship” as a way to say “people publicly contradicted our horrible views and we don’t like that”

I've been on plenty of flights that were delayed because of late passengers. Waiting for a late captain, though... That's a new one. #qantas

It's mid-October & ARC haven't updated us since mid-July on the Brand New Grants System. When will we be told? What schemes will even run? ARC "paused" (cancelled?) the only Indigenous scheme, plus Laureates & all Industry Fellowships, and so far there's no replacements. ARC? Anyone?

On one hand: don't anthropomorphize AI. On the other: LLMs exhibit signs of gambling addiction. The more autonomy they were given, the more risks the LLMs took. They exhibit gambler's fallacy, loss-chasing, illusion of control... A cautionary note for using LLMs for investing without guardrails.

A really neat article on fertility: ourworldindata.org/total-fertil... Charts out the fertility dynamics and explains the complicated relationships between different statistical measures, such as TFR and CCFR.

🚨 Hiring Tenure-Track Assistant Professors in Econ at the University of Copenhagen! 🚨 Join a great group in an exciting (and friendly) city 😀! Details will follow. Pls repost and get in touch to hear more. All fields, and I’m esp. interested in hearing from DEV candidates 😀! #EconSky

On the topic of social media ban: I'm really curious how it'll play out. My Slav reference frame had me initially thinking that this will be a completely ineffective political gesture, but based on conversations with teachers, the ban might give parents more agency in saying "no" to social media.

The Australian government to kids:

👏 Bravi! 👏

The list of social media platforms that Australia is considering to ban (under the new restrictions for Aussie teenagers) includes—yes, you read that right—GitHub. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

Some important findings in this paper: 1) Working with AI boosts the performance of people solving math, science & ethics questions 2) The biggest boost is for the hardest problems 3) High performers remain highest performing, but low performers gain more 4) People who are good with AI gain most

Fellow econ folks! We are hiring! Come work with me and my delightful colleagues at The University of Melbourne! Applications close November 23, 2025 Link: unimelb.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UoM_Ex...