Best of #econtwitter - Week of April 24, 2022 [3/3]
Welcome readers old and new to this week’s edition of Best of Econtwitter. Thanks to those sharing suggestions, over email or on Twitter @just_economics.
This is part three of three.
Paper summary threads
Thomas PHILIPPON@ThomasPHI2
(1) New Working Paper: the fundamental driver of growth in modern economies, Total Factor Productivity (TFP), is linear, not exponential.
This is a paper I did not expect to write...
3:42 PM · Apr 18, 2022
490 Reposts · 1.99K Likes
Alexey Guzey@alexeyguzey
@ThomasPHI2 Hi Thomas - note that I argued this precise thesis 7 months ago in my essay: guzey.com/economics/bloo… Am surprised that it is not mentioned in the Introduction as a prior work, since your paper appears to be following directly the argument I made there.
4:26 PM · Apr 18, 2022
7 Reposts · 114 Likes
^COI notice: @alexeyguzey was one of the very first people to promote this newsletter. Matt Clancy also comments: thread. Tough, since $$e^x \approx 1+x$$ for small x
Bernhard Ganglmair@ganglmair
Matt, thanks for the shoutout!
In the paper that comes with the data we describe the construction and document how process intensity of patents has changed over the last century.
papers.ssrn.com/abstract=40699…
@ganglmair
@wkeithrobinson
M. Seeligson
Thread with the results 🧵👇
Matt Marx @marxmatt
@ganglmair w/ Robinson & Seeligson just open-sourced a massive dataset categorizing patent claims from 1836-2020 as process, product, or product-by-process. find it at https://t.co/1lpx4L7JdM
huge contribution! pls download, use, and reward them with citations
4:29 PM · Apr 21, 2022
4 Reposts · 5 Likes
kennethcwilbur@kennethcwilbur
This research design by Bai, Chen, Liu, Mu & Xu (2022) fascinated me. Among other things, they randomly purchased, rated and reviewed infrequent sellers on alibaba. 1 order causes 0.1-0.25 future orders; review effects are n.s. I can't remember seeing an exp design like this.
4:48 PM · Apr 19, 2022
7 Reposts · 95 Likes
Robert Metcalfe@RDMetcalfe
We recently completed a field experiment showing how fake reviews impact on consumer demand and welfare.
For every dollar spent, fake reviews reduce consumer welfare by $.12.
Paper: rmetcalfe.net/_files/ugd/fe9…
Matthew E. Kahn @mattkahn1966
Congratulations to @RDMetcalfe and co-authors for conducting policy relevant research! @USCDornsife @usc
https://t.co/jmC3CR2cQp
7:18 PM · Apr 21, 2022
18 Reposts · 95 Likes
Lee Crawfurd@leecrawfurd
So we turned this thread into a report chapter.
This figure shows:
3 ed programs with steeply diminishing effects as they scale (early-grade reading programs, home visits, & teacher coaching)
2 that seem much more consistent (longer hours & meals)
Justin Sandefur @JustinSandefur
"Feed all the kids, and let them go to school for free"
No, really.
Our new @CGDev report on the economics of achieving universal education in low- and lower-middle income countries.
https://t.co/QEsTIHbxva https://t.co/kXd0F3I7Sj
8:42 PM · Apr 21, 2022
3 Reposts · 24 Likes
Lois Miller@Lois_Miller
We find that although tuition freezes/caps keep "sticker price" tuition low, they also cause 4-year institutions to offer lower financial aid than they would have in the absence of the freeze/cap. 4/n
12:03 AM · Apr 24, 2022
1 Like
More: Nash meets Samuelson; political economy of life insurance (US); burglaries and guns; university research motives; hysteresis
Interesting discussions
John List@Econ_4_Everyone
JPE-Micro also will include Registered Reports: authors can have their lab or field experiments reviewed and approved for publication before empirical results are known. Overall guidelines coming soon!
3:39 PM · Apr 23, 2022
81 Reposts · 576 Likes
Nick HK@nickchk
Statistics terminology is truly unhinged. Different names for the same terms across fields. The same names for different things across fields. Common language terms applied in highly specialized ways. Two similar terms used to mean entirely opposite concepts.
7:46 PM · Apr 23, 2022
52 Reposts · 597 Likes
Benjamin Hansen@benconomics
Real answer. Reviewers, stop trying to prove to editors how smart and knowledgeable you are by writing 4-8 page reports. There should be a hard cap at two pages for a report.
Fred Feinberg @grazzidad
I've been DE, AE, or reviewer on three revisions in the last month where the "packet" has exceeded 150 pages. If this is a trend -- "stomp them with details" -- I wish Editors would take steps to curtail this. The bar for the review team is going through the roof.
4:07 AM · Apr 23, 2022
2 Reposts · 26 Likes
Pinar Yildirim Honold@Prof_Yildirim
@grazzidad Simple solution: AE/DE highlights a subset of reviews to focus on AND makes it clear that you should not address other referee concerns. This is an outcome of ambiguous feedback or summaries that end with "try to other comments as well."
1:31 PM · Apr 22, 2022
43 Likes
Nick Bunker@nick_bunker
Props to the Fed for releasing a Python version of FRB/US. EViews ain't cheap!
federalreserve.gov
The Fed - FRB/US in Python
4:43 PM · Apr 23, 2022
30 Reposts · 178 Likes
Ben Golub 🇺🇦@ben_golub
A big and interesting cultural difference between macro/finance and some arguably comparable fields in economics like micro theory is that discussions play a MUCH larger role in the former. E.g., people put discussions on their websites.
I wonder which equilibrium is better.
2:14 AM · Apr 20, 2022
1 Repost · 24 Likes
^post your discussion slides!
Noah Williams@Bellmanequation
A Phillips curve for Google searches on "inflation" and "unemployment" over the past two years looks about how you'd expect. We've been on vertical part since October 2021.
6:46 PM · Apr 18, 2022
502 Reposts · 2.73K Likes
Dripped Out Economists@DrippedOutEcon
Alfred Marshall
5:49 PM · Apr 23, 2022
4 Reposts · 101 Likes
^Vernon Smith, Hayek, Elinor Ostrom, Friedman
Jacob Robbins@thesugar
Going to try using this deflection in seminars from now on. #econtwitter
3:15 PM · Apr 20, 2022
1 Repost · 2 Likes