NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Directorate has awarded only 16 grants since October. No big budget cuts went through. No freeze. The courts have acted to keep funds flowing at every turn. The money just isn't going out. Why...? 1/x source: grant-witness.us/funding_curv... 🟦🧠 #academicsky

🚨New working paper alert! 🚨 The US spends huge $ on special education services for students with disabilities. Is that spending effective? Today we released a working paper suggesting it is. "Special Education Substantially Improves Learning: Evidence from Three States" Let me explain...

One of the best thesis titles (and actual theses) our program has ever produced

try and imagine a bigger W as an academic

This (both the data and digitization method) is extremely “Peter catnip” (@riacton.bsky.social’s words)

"Tenure-track faculty have not received salary increases in real dollars for the past decade." 😬 And then we wonder why we get headlines like this... www.chronicle.com/article/when...

Staff and administrators saw one final year of pay raises exceeding inflation this year, but that won't happen again for a while. Tenure-line faculty have had raises below inflation every year for the past decade. Tenure and promotion boosts are often modest (3-10%), and only happen twice.

I don't think people fully appreciate how apocalyptic things are for US science. I haven't had any new funding since 2024, but I'm still ok since typical grants are for three years. This means next year I will be completely out of funding and will have to fire everyone in the lab. It's not great.

I'm thrilled to share that I got tenure!

Asking the internet to help crowdsource - what are your small pieces of advice for a successful campus visit? Things like: 1. have a protein bar 2. drink lots of water, 3. wear comfortable shoes because someone will inevitably suggest a walk instead of meeting in their office

Riley rocks! The NESCAC rocks! Riley in the NESCAC double rocks!! Congrats to Bowdoin 🐻‍❄️

🤩🎉🍻

Sharing some news... After a decade of posing as a Midwesterner, I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to get back to my New England roots this summer! I'll be joining the stellar @bowdoincollege.bsky.social faculty and moving to one of my favorite parts of the world: midcoast Maine! 💙

There's a big issue where people only study things at Harvard and then pronounce that their findings show how the world works for all colleges and, when people push back, we're often told that we must be crazy

Had been waiting for evidence from a network of public universities on the High School GPA versus SAT scores debate. Credit to the authors Joyce, Khosroshahi, Truelsch, Gentsch, and Du. www.nber.org/system/files...

🚨 Pre-Doc Opportunity at LEHD 🚨 Do you know graduating seniors or recent graduates in economics, math or statistics? The LEHD group at Census is hiring up to 2 positions in this category. Apply following the instructions here: www.census.gov/about/census... If you have questions, DM me!

You can also catch my coauthor Paola Ugalde presenting our paper on politics & college choices on Friday afternoon, and @loismiller.bsky.social and @julia-turner.bsky.social sharing our ongoing work on community college bachelor's degrees on Saturday! #AEFP2026

The Republican candidate for Ohio governor has talked of closing public universities, but is really talking about something else. No public university has fully closed in decades; another institution has always operated at that site. www.chronicle.com/article/why-...

Hi all, I’m hiring a post doc for next year! Heavy focus on building and designing AI for economic mobility in various domains. Please share widely if you don’t mind! utaustin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UTstaf...

Heading to Chicago today for my favorite conference, #AEFP2026! 🤗 I'm looking forward to chairing this great higher ed session with @curs.bsky.social, @crossancooper.bsky.social, Cristhian Molina, and Victor Quispe on Friday morning. Come join us!

Lunch at #AEFP2026 with not one, not two, but THREE of my star former students! @jo-r-king.bsky.social @emmajlag.bsky.social & Brittany Lowe Truly an honor to play a small role in their journeys to becoming stellar researchers & wonderful humans 🥹

Important Miami facts: Miami (Ohio) was founded in 1809. The city of Miami, Fla. was settled in 1858. The Miami Valley in Ohio was named after the Miami people. The city of Miami, Fla. and Miami river were named after the Mayaimi people, no relation to the Miami people.

Headed to @aefpweb.bsky.social? Find me to chat about @peerresearch.bsky.social! We help fund and support #highered scholars to translate timely & relevant higher-ed and workforce research to policymakers. Learn more about our priorities at peer-center.org. We'd love to hear what you're working on!

Congratulations to our #AEFP2026 Thomas A Downes Best Paper Award winner!

1/ Safe travels to all heading to @aefpweb.bsky.social 2026! There are so many awesome panels this year. If you have time, please drop by the paper (2.13) & poster session where my PhD advisees present new work we're super excited for about immigrant-origin youth and their acculturation in the US.

Heading to Chicago today for my favorite conference, #AEFP2026! 🤗 I'm looking forward to chairing this great higher ed session with @curs.bsky.social, @crossancooper.bsky.social, Cristhian Molina, and Victor Quispe on Friday morning. Come join us!

I'm glad to see attention given to the problem of new faculty members not being paid on time. I didn't get paid until October 1 in my first job, and adjuncts here have had payments delayed due to a new enterprise software system.

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @mirandainez#econtwitter#econskytamuecon, a brand-new PhD who works on topics related to development and behavioral economics

NSF Update through March 13, 2026 1/2

It is time for EconMadness! Put your prediction models (or vibes to the test) in the annual economist bracket challenge for March Madness. Enter your brackets here Men’s 🏀 : fantasy.espn.com/games/tourna... Women’s 🏀: fantasy.espn.com/games/tourna...

Featured in the latest Digest: The Earnings of Community College Bachelor's Degree Graduates www.nber.org/digest/20260...

"A department generating high credit-hour production across the university but with few declared majors is not an inefficient department. It is a department whose students are not being counted in the metric being used against it."

Great morning in the applied micro room of the @miamiecon.bsky.social undergrad honors conference! We heard about community college finances, nursing home ownership changes, copyright law & American literature, and how NIL is affecting college basketball @peternka.bsky.social

Please note most federal grants *required* information on how the grants would benefit underserved or understudied groups. If you applied for a grant, you *had to* include something that would speak to diversity and equity.

YOUR MAC WBB CHAMPION MIAMI REDHAWKS!

Great morning in the applied micro room of the @miamiecon.bsky.social undergrad honors conference! We heard about community college finances, nursing home ownership changes, copyright law & American literature, and how NIL is affecting college basketball @peternka.bsky.social

This is a really cool program. If you are a graduate student in the humanities (e.g. history) definitely check this out!

Best of luck to all our Departmental Honors students this weekend presenting their work at our Departmental Honors Conference!

Glad to have @lizananat.bsky.social visiting us today!

The University of Kentucky told the federal government that it has ties with over 1,200 organizations that are alleged to be discriminatory, including the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the Kentucky Maple Syrup Association (!).

Great coverage of a recent AEJ:Applied paper by my colleague @jieezhong.bsky.social!

I put my applied micro proofreader Claude Code skill/prompt here. Go crazy and catch tiny errors in your writing and inconsistencies between your tables/text github.com/peternka/aca...

Great coverage of a recent AEJ:Applied paper by my colleague @jieezhong.bsky.social!

Great work by @jieezhong.bsky.social! If you are trying to make sense of the evidence on test-based grade retention policies, I have a new chapter that just came out @aefplivehandbook.bsky.social: livehandbook.org/k-12-educati...

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be starting as an assistant professor at @williamseconomics.bsky.social in July 2027 after a year at @stanfordeducation.bsky.social as a research scholar! Some brief reflections: (1/4)

I think @lavaredmonds.bsky.social is tongue in cheek here, but I honestly love this. Easiest way to screw up as a grad student or especially junior faculty is to not submit any papers.

🚨Ed policy researchers, look at the newest special call! 📲 We’re eager to fund RCTs and quasi-experimental studies that produce actionable evidence on how K–12 cell phone policies affect student learning, behavior, and well-being. 🗓️ 3-page LOIs due May 1. Learn more: bit.ly/47n9e1L

"total abortion bans reduced rents...with the effect reaching 4.0% in the most recent year...bans increased rental vacancy rates...with the effect reaching 1.8 percentage points in the most recent year. Estimates for home values and homeowner vacancy rates are similar" www.nber.org/papers/w34921

I wonder what happened the last time the government limited Bostonians access to their favorite drink.