New survey on tool use in quantitative social science: "AI-assisted research" now refers to radically different practices depending on whether you've crossed over to agents or are stuck with old chatbot interfaces.

How are coding agents changing how we study the economy, society and politics? New results from a baseline survey with @tomlyttelton.bsky.social and Maxim Massenkoff, about who is using AI coding agents and what they're doing with them.

CVS's acquisition of Target's retail pharmacy business reduced pay, especially for low-wage workers. Just Accepted new paper by Enas Farag, Alaa Abdelfattah, Chris Compton, Anna Stansbury @annastansbury.bsky.social and Marshall Steinbaum @econmarshall.bsky.social zurl.co/NvgSz

I adopted this workflow and created a simplified version using R, quarto, and only Claude (high effort sonnet 4.6). I kept the prompts with minimal changes, but executed them one after another, and checked the artifacts created (codes, reports, etc.).

Some quick thought on what this means for the way we communicate science: time to kill the peer reviewed article? pardoguerra.org/2026/05/09/i...

super interesting. the use of coding harnesses specifically; imo these products are built with software project management design choices baked in and produce papers shaped by these design choices. the results here show the expected fingerprint of squeezing research through a “fail fast” shaped mold

Social science Gastown has arrived

This is a very good and thoughtful paper. I recommend reading the papers that this workflow actually produces. They are quite strange to read: signals of competence such as rigorously explained empirics but much more underdeveloped positioning of the research. www.nathanwilmers.com/paper_factory/

What can we learn from automating an entire quantitative social science paper, from prompt to finished product? Thread about ongoing work with @natewilmers.bsky.social 1/12 Paper: osf.io/preprints/so...

❗️ Tue, Apr 14, 13:45-15:15 CET 📍 A 231 and ZOOM MZES Speaker Series with @natewilmers.bsky.social "The Paper Factory" 👉 www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/en/news/even... This talk is organised in cooperation with the Academy of Sociology. 1/2

JOB! I'm hiring a postdoc for 2 years on my ERC MaMo project. Looking for someone with strong quant methods, ongoing work close to the project's aims, and a desire to publish in sociology. Start flexible in the next 12 months. Formal call out shortly, but contact me first.

I’m hiring a postdoc! Flexible in terms of details, but I’m looking for someone to collaborate with on research about labor market inequality. I’ll review applications as they come in and the posting just went up here: apply.interfolio.com/178873

Great work! In Scandinavian data that lets us look at a longer career span up to age 40 we find much higher referral rates. Direct = working at father’s workplace. Indirect = working with a former colleague of father. Forthcoming with @natewilmers.bsky.social at @amjsoc.bsky.social

How does increased worker #voice benefit #wages? Dylan Nelson @uofillinois.bsky.social and @natewilmers.bsky.social @mitsloan.bsky.social show that worker voice pays earnings premium that is attributable to increased #productivity and greater worker bargaining #power. doi.org/10.1177/0019...

What happens when manufacturing companies regularly incorporate worker feedback and ideas into their production processes? Productivity is generally higher—and so is production worker pay. New findings from Dylan Nelson of UIUC & @natewilmers.bsky.social @mitiwer.bsky.social: tinyurl.com/4vhswpvr

Nice new profile of MIT Professors @natewilmers.bsky.social @mitiwer.bsky.social @mitsloan.bsky.social & Rohit Karnik of MIT Mechanical Engineering, for their skill at mentoring graduate students: tinyurl.com/yajarpas

This paper from @tomlyttelton.bsky.social and @natewilmers.bsky.social is amazing. It shows that removing educational requirements can have big impacts for workers...except that employers don't really hire those workers below the normal education level anyway.

Early results suggest Chavez-DeRemer's prior pro-labor stances weren't exactly deeply held. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

"Cuts to social programs will have a major impact on local economic activity." Social programs are a key part of the regional economic base. @robertmanduca.bsky.social on how Medicaid and SNAP cuts in the #ReconciliationBill will negatively impact local economies: equitablegrowth.org/medicaid-and...

My 40 year old book, Recapitalizing America was reissued. Here is my reflection today. www.wipsociology.org/2025/07/02/r...

At the blog I wrote about a new paper by @natewilmers.bsky.social , @zparolin.bsky.social , and @lukaslehner.bsky.social . We're living in a novel era of inequality discordance. What's going on?! asocial.substack.com/p/inequality...

David Weil & I are hiring a full-time post-doc to work with us on new strategic enforcement research. Folks interested in computational methods, labor policy, industrial relations, labor economics, etc.. pls apply (+ don't hesitate to get in touch)! Apps due 1/8/24 shift.hks.harvard.edu/about/jobs/

"Is this the end of corporate capitalism?" Probably not the end--but an opening for alternatives. lpeproject.org/blog/is-this...

"The Economics Profession's Socioeconomic Diversity Problem" w/ Robert Schultz is now out in the JEP Here's the paper: pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/... and the Twitter thread from Mar 2022 (aka before I was on Bsky - sorry!) twitter.com/annastansbur...

New paper in Socio-Economic Review! We examine the relationship between the density of college majors in occupations and occupation-level earnings. This "major specialization" of occupations boosts earnings, over and above closure mechanisms and skills. doi.org/10.1093/ser/...

When it's time to change... we change. Here's my Substack: www.wildworldofwork.org I'll publish every couple weeks on this wild world of work we now inhabit: how we're handling intelligent tech and how we could do better. I couldn't ask for better early readers than you folks: please subscribe!

Another strike! Strikes happen when 2 sides differ in view of power balance. Unionized employers in America are only slowly realizing workers have more leverage now than in decades past. A key reason: historically tight labor market over past 5 years.

Just the MOST incredible news! 🎉🎉🎉

Some relevant lit abt workers dealing with imperfectly observed employer heterogeneity: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1... papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/28mbj... www.nber.org/papers/w29623 www.nber.org/papers/w30266 What else do you know in this area?

For this new site audience: I’m hiring a postdoc! Very flexible in terms of details, but I’m looking for someone I can collaborate with on labor market inequality research. Apps due 11/1. It is based at MIT, but I’m open to remote work. apply.interfolio.com/130576

A quick reminder that the share of prime working age Americans with a job is at a 22 year high and, with luck, we’ll set a new post-2001 record tomorrow. Only 1 percentage point from the all time high!

"The Americans most at risk of eviction are babies and toddlers." I'm so excited to finally see this research in print. www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/u...

Newish paper with Haowen Zheng (1st author): gender differences in field of study account for about 36% of the segregation of male and female college graduates across occupations. Implies that 64% is unrelated to field, get-women-in-STEM programs not a panacea. read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...

Great new article on long-term inequality effects of RtW: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...