On the 34th anniversary of the end of the USSR, I’m reposting my article from earlier this year, which argued that we should have understood the moment as liberation rather than only as collapse: www.eurozine.com/liberation-n...

Cutting the funds to deliver 116,000 medical kits to treat victims of rape saved U.S. taxpayers $2 million. But it meant many women in eastern Congo could not longer get the pills they needed to prevent medicine, HIV, and deadly sexually transmitted diseases. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

"Now, those symbols of economic progress — mortgages and car payments, property taxes and tuition costs — are bills that thousands of Tyson workers won’t have an income to pay." apnews.com/article/tyso...

Um, ok... This paper forthcoming at the JOP provides evidence that rent control in Germany actually made tenants MASSIVELY *less* NIMBY. This result was in the opposite direction of the authors' pre-registered expectations. And the effect sizes are, truly, massive.

Today, we are publishing our World Inequality Report, which reviews the most recent #inequalitydata and exposes the magnitude of #inequality across time, space and all its dimensions. 👇Share this thread, share the report! www.youtube.com/watch?v=R67u...

My study of 🇪🇺 public opinion is now published! Check it out if you want to know how attitudes towards European integration really covary with political ideology, which policy views predict EU support, and how party positions structure public opinion. www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandg...

“Faculty will be required to submit the materials to department chairs, university administrators and ultimately the Board of Regents for their review and approval.” www.texastribune.org/2025/12/01/t...

New Publication with @lhaffert.bsky.social in @ejprjournal.bsky.social! We study the role of generations in the urban-rural divide, which is increasingly shaping the politics of many democracies. Studying Switzerland, we show: The urban-rural divide is stronger among younger generations. (1/10) 🧵👇

How Texas Tech is incentivizing us to complete grading on time.

Two million Americans will lose access to food stamps next year. www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

It's no secret that going to college can be very expensive, with tuition costs rising faster than financial aid. But what's causing that price tag to rise so quickly?

Is upward mobility a solo journey, fuelled by talent and hard work? Or is it an inherently relational process, shaped by enduring connections to one’s class and family origins? Malik Fercovic explores in our latest blog post #LSEInequalitiesBlog

📣 Upcoming seminar: Standard measures of poverty and income inequality often overlook how sharply the cost of living varies across places. Dr Beatriz Jambrina Canseco uses the case of Spain to explore this issue. 🎟️ Register in-person: buff.ly/zioZK79 💻 Register online: buff.ly/dUYC6ys

💡 How does moving to opportunity reshape political behavior? 🗞️ In our new BJPolS paper, @thmskrr.bsky.social and I show that residential relocations that increase access to opportunity foster political integration and shift political preferences to the left. 👉 tinyurl.com/46utjj65

New article out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social with Tabea Palmtag and @dpzollinger.bsky.social 📝 We use open-ended survey questions (in Germany) to assess how and among whom social status shifts are perceived. This tests cultural backlash narratives in voters' perceptions. 🔗 doi.org/10.1177/0010...

One of those evenings you spend glued to your phone…

How can we compare the size and structuring power of different cleavages over time? Check out @jacobgunderson.bsky.social 's great paper and dataset for scholars working on cleavages at the party system level! The latest from @dpzollinger.bsky.social and I's Special Issue in @wepsocial.bsky.social.

NEW - Seeking Opportunity in the Knowledge Economy: Moving Places, Moving Politics? - https://cup.org/3LgxVos "moving to opportunity results in... more left-leaning self-identification, and lower support for far-right parties" - @valentinaconsiglio.bsky.social & @thmskrr.bsky.social #OpenAccess

🚨New publication with Kristijan Kotarski: Enduring Structural Power? Assessing the Dominance of the Anglosphere in Global Finance Before the Trump Turn Includes novel visualizations of global finance (banking, portfolio inv & FDI) showing persistent US centrality hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/487488

"In a campaign for water efficiency, Amazon, the biggest owner of datacentres in the world, chose to account for only a smaller water usage figure that does not include all the ways its datacentres use water to minimise the risk to its reputation." #ClimateCrisis www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

SNAP isn't about "people who don't work." It's about people who don't get paid enough to live. Of the 40 or so million people who rely on food stamps: * Two-thirds are children, seniors, or disabled * Most working-age adults who receive SNAP are employed—but in jobs that pay poverty wages

Nice + accessible overview of my @jepsjournal.bsky.social paper on validating populism treatments, showing that some “thin” populism treatments also affect perceptions of host ideology. Also makes broader point about validating conjoint treatments #Openaccess paper: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Starting in Obama's first term and continuing through the presidencies of Obama, Trump, and Biden, the relationship between income and presidential vote has switched. Connected to this, the relationship of education and racial resentment with Democratic voting has become much stronger.

The last time I posted the income relationship to presidential vote among White respondents to the @electionstudies.bsky.social ANES, people asked for additional estimates among all voters. Updated estimates here:

🌍 New in @nature.com: The geoeconomic turn in decarbonization, with data from Simon Evenett et al. and @industrialpolicy.bsky.social @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @natureatcal.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵

“That fund will be invested and designed to pay out about 4% annually, which will be divided among the HBCUs to help stabilize their budgets. The 8 Ivy League schools received $5.5b from the 1,000 largest US foundations compared to $45m for the 99 HBCUs in 2019.” www.cnn.com/2025/09/22/b...

The Newest Face of Long-Term Unemployment? The College Educated. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/b...

9-0 SCOTUS ruling from last year: “Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.”

The comments under this piece are… either uplifting or weighing on you, depending on the perspective.

Millions of dollars worth of contraceptives destined for low-income countries were destroyed at the direction of the Trump administration.

📘 64.4 How do welfare systems shape views on immigration? A 🇪🇺 study from @alinavranceanu.bsky.social & @bpetrova.bsky.social finds: Generous welfare → more positive attitudes toward immigrants Welfare cuts → increased hostility (evidence from 🇩🇰) Read more:

Signs bearing President Trump’s name have gone up at major construction projects. They were financed by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law which he passionately opposed ahead of its passage.

Every time I reread this book, I am struck by how utterly heartbreaking it is.

Trump’s attacks on renewables sector quash nearly $19bn worth of projects on.ft.com/47EBJcg

150 pages of comp grading for 3 students make me wonder how my advisors graded at least 280 pages when my (unusually large) cohort took the exam in 2014... Not to mention handling our entire job market packages (CVs, cover letters, teaching statements, research statements, and diversity statements)

Measuring intergenerational educational and occupational mobility in China and Russia during the transition to market economies, using new Markov chain methods, from Kristina Butaeva, Lian Chen, Steven N. Durlauf, and Albert Park https://www.nber.org/papers/w34124

Rising Young Worker Despair in the United States: David G. Blanchflower; Alex Bryson

🤷Why do Americans' views on social spending move in parallel across policy areas? ➡️ @steven-vanhauwaert.bsky.social @cbwlezien.bsky.social & R Carlin show spending mood reflects shared preferences and responsiveness to overall spending and presidential party cup.org/3HdCwX3 #FirstView

New Cambridge Element 'Voters' Perceptions of Party Brands' by @fortunato.bsky.social, Thiago N. Silva & Laron K. Williams is now free to read for 2 weeks. cup.org/4mkBibw #cambridgeelements #politics

I’ve always found the incredible faith and optimism that (some) Americans seem to have in the future striking and deeply impressive. This piece reflects a different reality (that some in the US grapple with more often). Thought-provoking.

How do federal and state governments drive innovation in the US? My new paper @cjres.bsky.social shows how the 'Polycentric Innovation State' with multi-level, place-based policies is reshaping regional growth in places like Michigan and Maine academic.oup.com/cjres/advanc...

More than 40 percent of U.S. citizens are in some form of medical debt. These Americans explain why they left for Italy, South Korea and France, after crippling debt or a lack of coverage left them afraid to seek medical help at home.

I’ve got a new working paper with @danielavidart.bsky.social, hot off the press. We develop a new method for measuring the risk preferences of agents in the past, and apply it to the U.S. from 1890-1920. Check it out! Feedback is welcome. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/chcof...

NEW - Cleaning up Politics: Anti-Corruption Appeals in Electoral Campaigns - cup.org/4msGB8X "Surprisingly, a clean disciplinary record does not substantively enhance a candidate’s anticorruption appeal..." - Sofia Vera #OpenAccess

🎉 Delighted to share new research out today: The Political Consequences of the Mental Load 📄 European Sociological Review doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcaf019 @europeansocreview.bsky.social What happens to political engagement when the “mental load” of running a household gets too heavy? 🧵

The effect of unions on wages has been a classic topic of interest in economics for over a century. Do unions raise wages? Well, it turns out, there's a lot of heterogeneity in union wage effects! Some unions decrease wages, some raise wages, and some have very little impact.

Do men see gender parity in representation as detrimental to their interests? What about when women’s representation exceeds parity? And how do such shifts affect men’s fairness perceptions? I address these questions in my article, now published in PRQ. 1/9 
doi.org/10.1177/1065...

From the ANES 2020: Should federal spending on #SocialSecurity be increased, decreased, or kept the same? Weighted totals: 55.8% increased, 4.4% decreased, and 39.9% kept the same. See the ANES Question Search: electionstudies.org/data-tools/a...

In their piece for the #EGEssaySeries, @davidautor.bsky.social, @profdaviddorn.bsky.social, and Gordon Hanson break down the China trade shock of the early 2000s, its impacts on manufacturing and the labor market, and how it has shaped U.S. politics. Learn more ⬇️ equitablegrowth.org/how-the-chin...