New year, new op-ed from me and Vincent Reina on the need for aggressive multifaceted action to address the housing affordability crisis: It’s not simply a zoning story! thehill.com/opinion/fina...

Just looked in my son's room and I think I need to accept that he does not share my views on optimal urban transportation.

Join us Saturday at 10:15am for an #ASSA2026 session on Development of American Cities featuring papers on mortgage markets, slavery, migration & ghost towns by L D'Amico, S Naidu, T Jaworski, M Hoelzlein Discussants: @econhist-allday.bsky.social, S Heblich, @allie-green.com, @jeffrlin.bsky.social

HPV Vaccination Tied to Huge Reduction in Cervical Cancer Risk www.medpagetoday.com/hematologyon...

NYT: “.. high insurance costs are cascading into the broader real estate market, suppressing home values by an average of $44,000 in the top 10 percent of U.S. ZIP codes most vulnerable to hurricanes and wildfires ..” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

NEW: In 2024, Tierra Walker was sick and getting sicker. She was also pregnant. She knew abortion was illegal in Texas, but thought there was an exception for women like her, whose health was at risk. Doctors told her there was no emergency. Then she died. www.propublica.org/article/texa...

🚀 I'm on the #EconSky Job Market! My JMP asks a classic question: Do large, dominant firms foster or hinder innovation? To study this, I turn to the Great Merger Wave (1895–1904), when >2,600 U.S. firms combined into corporate giants like U.S. Steel and DuPont. A JMP 🧵👇 (1/13)

After 15 years together, it was time to refresh DRECON.

Rick, you dropped this. 👑 Seriously what an incredible data project!

This Day in Labor History: October 26, 1825. The Erie Canal opened, eight years after construction commenced. This engineering marvel would have enormous impacts on the future of American work, including spurring ever-greater industrialization. It also killed over 1,000 workers building it!

Thrilled to work with @andrewvandam.bsky.social on this piece! wapo.st/46ZuESX

Recently accepted by #QJE, “The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890–2006,” by Lyons (@ronanlyons), Shertzer (@econhist-allday), Gray (@econhistoryorbust), and Agorastos: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

@enghin-atalay.bsky.social, Ali Hortacsu, Nicole Kimmel, & Chad Syverson argue that standard measurements understate true #productivity growth in the US #manufacturing sector, especially in industries were it is difficult to track changes in quality growth. cepr.org/voxeu/column... #EconSky

Mokyr's work could not have been done today in most economics departments, but the irony is that his work would not fit in history departments today, either. Methodologically he seems more 'history' than 'economics' to economists, but the content and reasoning are too 'economics' for most historians

Ronan is dropping more facts about the U.S. housing market over time and space using the HHP dataset: ronanlyons.substack.com/p/101-things...

Help my colleague find all the ways in which his work is reaching your students!

Examining the effects of public debt on municipal services and real outcomes during financial crises using data on US cities from 1924 to 1943, from Pawel Janas https://www.nber.org/papers/w34011

New release for the HHP project. We now have rent and sales price indexes for 30 cities along with rental yields, capital gains, and housing returns for the years 1890-2006. Online data viz tools and download here: www.philadelphiafed.org/surveys-and-...

One of the most surprising details in the latest CPI: an increasing share of price data was estimated, not observed. In June, over 1/3 of #CPI imputations came from other items or locations likely due to budget cuts and staffing shortages at BLS. We can’t fight #inflation without reliable data.

I am looking for a research assistant to work with me on the development of U.S. housing markets. Experience with ArcGIS, Stata useful. We build datasets that allow us to understand housing affordability, the impacts of transit and zoning, and more: rb.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FRS/jo...

My 9 yo composed a song about me. 🥹

How was this in the bargain bin??

This isn't good: "BLS is reducing sample in areas across the country. In April, BLS suspended CPI data collection entirely in Lincoln, NE, and Provo, UT. In June, BLS suspended collection entirely in Buffalo, NY." #EconSky www.bls.gov/cpi/notices/...

Economic historians take note - big methodological advances in digitizing data from old, irregularly formatted tables. But they are easy to use.

In Dublin to meet with @ronanlyons.bsky.social and present to @cephie.bsky.social. Enjoying the sunshine, eating all the pub food, and doing research in together in person. Highly recommend getting an Irish coauthor.

JUST IN: ProPublica’s “Life of the Mother” series, which exposes the fatal consequences of abortion bans, has won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. This is the second consecutive year we’ve been awarded this distinction and our eighth Pulitzer: www.propublica.org/series/life-...

The next OSUS seminar is tomorrow at 11:30am ET. osus.info Marco Gonzalez-Navarro (UC Berkeley) presents “Immigration and Slums”. Sebastian Galiani and Aradhya Sood will be our panelists.

Petting zoo inexplicably set up by the federal building next door today. If anyone is trying to think of a present for me, I'd like one of these tiny pigs.

As I was walking home, all the neighbors and kids were wishing me a happy birthday and I couldn't figure out how everyone knew 🥲

📢Heavily revised working paper on AI + Zoning — with @alexbartik.bsky.social and Dan Milo, we have a new draft of our paper which expands on our method to understand housing regulations with AI. Incudes a new public data release with more housing regulation data:

To switch up everyone's feed, an example of progress. My husband is fixing up this house we bought in Philadelphia. May I present living room before and after:

Super congrats to my amazing collaborator Ronan Lyons (@ronanlyons.bsky.social) for his promotion!

me: all the news is terrible, let me cheer myself up reading about exciting new research in economics the NBER: www.nber.org/papers/w3362...

Excited to dust off my professor hat and looking forward to meeting some great students!

Why do sewers matter for the economy? People like them! But not only that: sewers encourage agglomeration economies, making us more productive. Super interesting new working paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Let's see if bluesky has hit critical mass of economic historians. Does anyone know what policy drives the near-doubling of government transfers from 1949Q4 to 1950Q1 in the NIPA?

The Research and Statistics Division at the FHFA was put on leave last week: nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news/housing...

Life-threatening infections in Texas have soared among women losing a pregnancy after the state’s abortion ban. www.propublica.org/article/texa...

It's been a day since we fled our home to escape the toxic smoke from this explosion. We have one change of clothes each and my toddler's stuffies. No timeline on when we can go home. It's surreal to live through a highly localized disaster like this. whyy.org/articles/mas...

This is a gem of a little book on the legal history of Euclid v. Ambler

Bleak day as my husband and 2/3 kids are ill with the second bad stomach virus our family has had in the last few weeks. But the healthy 7 yo declared, "I'm going to shovel the sidewalk for you!" She got dressed and did it all by herself. 🥹

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is cutting back production of some regional consumer price inflation indexes due to the pinch from chronic underfunding. This is not from a recent policy change, just from funding not keeping up with costs. www.bls.gov/cpi/notices/...

Our report on Trump’s dismissal of the national archivist www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

(Cross-post on X and BS) Great opportunity (I think) for junior faculty, postdocs, or graduate students at the dissertation stage to hang out at a participating institution (Philly Fed included) during the summer. Please consider hanging out with us! Application deadline on 2/1. shorturl.at/g3SWN

Registration now open for @urbaneconomics.bsky.social meetings in Berlin: urbaneconomics.org/meetings/emu.... Thanks to everyone who submitted papers (a record number, meaning difficult decisions for our program committee). If your paper was accepted you must register by Jan 30 to be on the program.

Endogenous history

Original Battleship game box, notice anything in upper right corner? Just incredible how far we've come since the 1960s. @draliceevans.bsky.social

A poignant classified listing from Miami in 1918. A big issue with historical newspaper research is that you can't stop to read them or you'll just keep losing your morning!