Best of #econtwitter - Week of August 7, 2022 [2/3]
www.bestofecontwitter.com
Best of #econtwitter - Week of August 7, 2022 [2/3]
Welcome readers old and new to this week’s edition of Best of Econtwitter. Please submit suggestions — very much including your own work! — over email or on Twitter @just_economics.
This is part two of three.
Paper summaries
New working paper!
"Estimating the Value of Offsite Data to Advertisers on Meta," with Nils Wernerfelt, @tuchmanna & Robert Moakler
We ask, "how much would it hurt advertising efficiency if Meta couldn't use 3rd party data for ad targeting?"
Under business as usual (using purchase optimization), the median cost per incremental customer is about $44. When advertisers can only optimize for onsite ad clicks, the cost per incremental customer rises by $16 for the median advertiser.
Yikes! Major efficiency loss!
^cf: “rename ‘online advertising’ to ‘small business customer discovery and economic growth technology’”
Short 🧵 on new NBER WP “Labor Misallocation Across Firms and Regions”.
The context: a giant literature has shown that frictions to labor mobility across space lead to spatial misallocation - simply put, some people are stuck in locations where there are no good jobs for them. 1/
NBER @nberpubs
❓How unequal is consumption between the top 0.01% and the median adult, before/during/after lockdowns?
👉How to answer this + many other Qs using granular bank transaction data from Spain in this paper by Carvalho et al.
❗️Amazing what 3bn transactions can shed light on
🧵
CEPR @cepr_org
Thrilled to see this joint paper with amazing co-authors @alagerborg1 and Evi Pappa come out!
Here's a thread about what we do.
1/n
The Review of Economic Studies @RevEconStudies
The 200+ stock market “factors” are all just trivial variations on value, momentum, and a couple other factors, right? Jack McCoy (PhD student @Columbia) and I add new evidence that the answer is a hard no. (1/4)
New in @PNASNews with @ylelkes and @eunjikim_media:
Measuring dynamic media bias
Examining cable news from 2010-2021, we find bias varies over time within and across:
- channels
- program times (afternoon/primetime)
- shows
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
^the measurement issues here look “challenging” to say the least
📢 New WP paper alert!
@pame_medinaq @mmorl89 and I study how self-employment opportunities shape the market power of employers in low-income countries, and its implications for industrial policy.
Link: drive.google.com/file/d/12PgVus…
A thread 🧵 1/n
Interesting discussions
Several colleagues have explained the reasons behind this, which I do not dispute. e.g. Eminent economists would not run for President if they had to compete. That seems plausible. That doesn’t mean the outcome is worse. We really are one of the most elite captured disciplines.
My other foot is planted in political science, which is dysfunctional in probably the opposite way. I’m honestly not sure which outcome I would choose if forced. But on process grounds I have to stand with the more participatory profession.
And via MR:
I am running as a write in candidate! The top 1% of economists control 99% of the data.
My promise
1. Universal Basic Instruments
2. Close P&P loophole
3. 15% min acceptance rate
4. Require FOIAd data be made public
5. Ban macro
Chris Blattman @cblatts
Wow, congrats to our colleagues from @JPubEcon; what an amazing rise in impact factor. #EconTwitter: What is behind this success story?
@Ahlfeldt @JPubEcon Almost certainly their fast track refereeing of COVID papers. It was a brilliant move—people opted for quick process at J Pub E > slow roll somewhere else. For ppl old enough to remember, Larry Katz used that template to supercharge the QJE back in the day.
^citation counts for authors & journals are broadly screwed up (in econ) now thanks to covid papers — due to cross-field citations, it seems? — it’s incredible, and doesn’t seem to be much discussed
'Tis the season for job-market advice. To mix it up, here are 10 super-basic tips for male candidates about the hidden *fashion* curriculum. For fun (YMMV)---but also, yes, it might matter (signaling of various sorts), and men seem to need more help on this than women. 1/12
Political Economy has now a JEL code. aeaweb.org/econlit/jelCod…
We are code "P".
We thank the AEA @AEAInformation @AEAjournals for engaging with the @nberpubs POL members. But particular thanks have to go to @renee_bowen_lyn a leader in our field who made all this really happen.
