We're hiring in applied micro. Come be my colleague and if you don't like me then we have a ton of other great people in the department. apply.interfolio.com/173387

We updated our paper on employment protection of older workers. It now includes estimates of both externalities as well as "deadwood labor" effects. Still no externalities but up to 4.8% separation effects once EPL is removed suggesting modest "deadwood labor" among workers 60+: tinyurl.com/4kh6tykr

If you don't like the numbers just make them up. I was born in a country that had "full employment". Based on experience I don't recommend going this way. Also it's ironic that he hates China so much but basically is turning US into China

Not great evidence for Mamdani idea: www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=.... Sure maybe it's b/c it's temporary but we can probably all come up with better ROI public interventions.

Been waiting for this to come out for a while now: www.nber.org/papers/w3397.... That's such a cool paper!!!

new fun AI hallucinations: Gemini keeps upgrading JOLE papers to JPE papers when creating references in bibtex. Since AI will be our new overlords, I wonder if I can also upgrade my CV :)

This is such sad news. I've personally interacted with Ghazala only a few times but loved her papers. Economics lost a brilliant researcher way too soon...

I find it really amusing when a journal that has been sitting on my submission for almost 9 months is sending me a reminder that I'm late with my referee report by two weeks...

If you think US politics is messed up then newsflash Poland just elected ex gang member and ex pimp as a president. Times of Israel also called him Holocaust revisionist and yet he was supported by the current US administration. So yeah, universities are not about antisemitism...

New paper out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... We study (using DiD) effects of 1968 Poor People's Campaign on election outcomes. Overall these peaceful protests had no effects on elections (contrasting prior civil rights era findings) but they hurt Ds in the South and helped them in the West.

@wsj.com coverage of our latest voucher research: www.wsj.com/opinion/edch.... I wouldn't conclude with "But its results are consistent with a large and growing body of evidence that school choice can lift all students" but I think it'd be good to do more research on choice rather than demonizing it

New research out: positive participation and competitive effects of EdChoice vouchers for college attendance and graduation. Participation compared to remaining in underperforming public school. Competitive compared to schools that just missed voucher threat.

As someone who wrote multiple papers on consequences of childhood disability for families, I find this disgusting. That's why you should increase funds to these families rather than cutting them. A+ geniuses!!!

Lars is right. Especially those highways that go left ;)

Meritocracy in action ;)

That's kind of obvious but oh well. ROI in publicly funded research is something like 5 to 1 on average so basically you're killing a goose laying golden eggs... but let's be clear here, this was always about cutting people off information/services/anything that could make them vote D.

just imagine what would Republicans do if this mess was generated by Biden, Harris, Obama, ... [paste any other Democrat]. Also can someone explain to me why congress cannot end this? Aren't there enough Republicans worried about 2026? Or are we not planning the economy to survive to '26?

Here is a simple solution to this: pass the cuts onto your consumers and see how they and their families vote in '26. In the short-run issue bonds. It's not like demand for education and healthcare is very elastic. Maybe then the public will realize how much public goods these funds generate.

That about sums it up...

I mostly just feel sorry for the poor penguins... how are they going to survive the tariffs...

OMG this makes sense. That's how they will solve fentanyl/drug abuse crisis - just stop tracking it. Reminds me of Covid when they suggested that we just don't test and then Covid will vanish ;)

This is very noble of NAS members but they are missing a big picture statistic: PEW reports that 45% of Americans believe that universities negatively affect US (up from 26% in 2012). Modal American doesn't care about higher education and science so I doubt we can avoid the destruction...

will be hanging out at Uni Melbourne for the next week to do work and wrap up projects. Also presenting on Thursday work on teacher mental health with @jonasvlachos.bsky.social and others. If you're around come say hi! Thanks @adegendre.bsky.social and @nsalamanca.bsky.social for organizing this!

Everyone is always considering leaving but then they learn about salaries and infrastructure at EU universities. Compensating wage differentials sure exist but not by a factor of 3 to 5X. If EU/CA/AUS step up $ game though then US science is done

Patients from Idaho overflowed WA hospitals b/c they worried more about getting third limb 20 yrs down the road than of ending up on ventilator. As broken as the US healthcare is the way to solve it is via premiums - lower them for those who vax as they are lower risk. www.axios.com/2025/03/06/s...

Democrats should be able to turn this into a winning issue - public education is popular and people oppose abolishing the Department of Education.

Wonder if 45% of Americans believing that universities were negatively affecting the US know where their drugs, chips, resistant crops etc. come from. It feels like middle ages: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/u.... I'm surprised that Canada, Australia, and EU and not trying harder to pick up the talent

Jen is right. If objective is to max kids' opportunities then data is essential. School choice shouldn't be about "faith" but "facts". I wrote papers showing +, -, & 0 effects of choice thus we absolutely need data so parents & kids can make INFORMED choices. Choice w/o information makes no sense

In some good news I will be visiting Hoover Institution for the full next academic year. Really excited about and grateful for this opportunity. Expect finally some new research output after teaching crunch. Also hit me up for seminars and research chats.

This is actually a pretty good idea from Aix. From econ perspective, if you're an empiricist, France has some really good admin data too. One question is how can they keep US talent, given FR salaries, once the compensating differential of Trump craziness is no longer there.

‼️ The ifo Center for the Economics of Education is now on BlueSky 💙 - please follow! 👉 @ifoeducation.bsky.social

Protest at Point Reyes National Seashore today!!! Thanks to everyone who showed up! Protect OUR National Parks and public lands from madmen!!! These are what makes America great. Also where are the Democrats!?

It's actually pretty hilarious that American people themselves installed Russian agents in the Oval Office

What in the actual f#ck!? I was joking few weeks ago that I'll have to go to Canada to get my flu shots but it might actually be real: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u.... I'm sorry but where are the Democrats? This is just nuts....

Teaching UG DiD. What is consensus when it comes to non-parallel trends now? (a) adjust honestly a'la @jondr44.bsky.social; (b) pre-fix trends a'la @darkhangel.bsky.social; (c) give up project idea. For business apps (a) or (b) make sense but from pub. perspective can you get it to top journals?

I have level of tolerance for what's happening but hands off the National Parks!!! (www.sierraclub.org/Sierra/natio...). These are what makes America great and likely the only thing that Rs and Ds have in common! 37/63 parks are in the red states! If it was not for NP it'd be easier for me to leave

Issues with these papers were known for some time in the "after third beer economics gossip" but I'm very grateful to @i4replication.bsky.social for taking this seriously & actually replicating the work. Key here is data/code availability which is currently under attack in the US at federal level

That was a bummer email in the morning. It was fun interacting with y'all. Hope CesIfo and NBER won't be next.

Meanwhile in Texas: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/s...

Ok, so anti-vaxer just become a Health and Human Services secretary and two republican MDs voted yes. I'm pretty sure I would not want them to ever treat me if that's their view on medicine. Oh, American how low can you fall.

@theonion.com has balls to go after Peter Thiel www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwlB...

This is just objectively funny how dumb these people are. We're moving to idiocracy.

Scott is right. Also #1 few private unis with big coffers in red states! Also #2 demand for Harvard is inelastic but I'm not sure about demand for FSU or ASU. Another example of Americans voting against their own interests. But it's been a long-term goal of republican party to make America dumber

This is an insane statistic from @kff.org (www.kff.org/health-infor...). Frankly, these kids, along with parents of kids who cannot be vaxed, should be suing their parents for endangering their lives and health. In another statistic 24% of republicans think risks of MMR vaccine outweigh benefits.

I should be in Whistler instead of writing referee reports 😭

LOL I guess the Trump's ``meritocracy'' really wants to cancel credibility revolution and go back to correlations since we cannot talk about biases anymore. Applied micro be canceled. All hail untestable theories: Tariffs will not raise prices b/c we assume this possibility away ;)

If you've not seen it yet then check out FireAid concert (fireaidla.org). Pretty crazy lineup. Big thanks for everyone who donated or purchased merch.

To be fair: We know very little (if anything) about effects of new school choice expansion initiatives. There is also no credible way to evaluate vouchers post initial expansion. In our AEJ paper we've seen flattening of gains around 2017 so it's conceivable that they reversed now; no data to know.

✨ Exciting News! Big congratulations to HEDG Professor @anthonywray.bsky.social and @chriskarbownik.bsky.social‬ on their new paper, "Lifetime and Intergenerational Consequences of Poor Childhood Health"🤒👩‍👧‍👦👷 Read it here: jhr.uwpress.org/content/60/1... #EconHist #SDU

after years in the making (/w @anthonywray.bsky.social) it's finally out in JHR: jhr.uwpress.org/content/60/1.... We show long-run (education, disability, and occupation) and intergenerational (father-son) effects of lower health capital in childhood using sibling-FE design and some cool data.