Best of #econtwitter - Week of August 9, 2020
Welcome readers old and new to this week’s edition of the Best of Econtwitter. Recommendations always welcome over email or on Twitter @just_economics.
New papers
tl;dr @pabarcar finds for every one migrant nurse from the Philippines, there were an additional TEN LICENSED NURSES IN THE PHILIPPINES due to increased nursing graduations
(can we please put brain drain to rest now??)
Paolo Abarcar @pabarcar
Starting in 1998, Michael Kremer and I evaluated a large-scale public health program that provided an additional 2-3 years of medical treatment for intestinal worm infections to tens of thousands of Kenyan primary school children. [1/5 thread]
NEW @NatureHumBehav study of direct classroom replication of centralized buyer-seller trade ("invisible hand") and ultimatum games nature.com/articles/s4156…
@Caltech release here
My article on place-based jobs policies was published today in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. This article summarizes evidence for the "market failure" argument for such policies -- but w/ caveats about how current policies need reforms: aeaweb.org/articles?id=10… (1/N)
Everywhere in the world, urban workers earn higher income, have larger consumption and more human capital (see 👇).
David's survey is a must read for everyone interested in macro-development, and especially for grad students looking for research ideas: lots of open questions!
David Lagakos @LagakosDavid
🔴WORKING PAPER🔴 Regional Divergence and House Prices, w/ Greg Howard. Model of US house prices & rents for the last 80 years, we explain recent housing boom + time series + x-sec of prices/rents: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… live tomorrow: seminar.re Quick summary here:
A short thread on my new CEPR working paper "Financial Frictions: Macro vs Micro Volatility" with Seungcheol Lee and @MortenORavn. Gated: cepr.org/active/publica…
Ungated:
New overview paper: "Urbanization in the Developing World: Too Early or Too Slow?"
One key finding:
- Areas with higher population density are richer 💸
- .... but are not any healthier💉
pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10…
"US life expectancy is estimated to be 2.8 years longer among women and 2.1 years longer among men if all US states enjoyed the health advantages of states with more liberal policies" (e.g., re: tobacco, labor, immigration, civil rights, and environment). -@jennkarasmontez et al.
Andrew Fenelon @andyfenelon
How others' incomes affect individuals' distributional preferences? Are individuals particularly bothered by those at the very top of the distribution? or those just ahead of them? if you are interested in these questions, check out our paper @jeea #econtwitter. Summary below 1/n
Imran Rasul @ImranRasul3
💥🔥Working Paper Alert🔥💥
1/ Industrialization experiences differ across countries. Using a model of structural change we shed light on the sources of this heterogeneity and, in particular, the phenomenon of premature deindustrialization. A thread with some facts and findings:
NBER @nberpubs
Next paper:
"Sentimental Business Cycles"
with Andresa Lagerborg and Evi Pappa
cepr.org/active/publica…
Question: Are there aggregate effects of autonomous variations in consumer confidence? (ie. impact of "demand shocks")
Answer: Yes
1/11
Does it boost your performance to be *just* behind in a competition, so that you are actually more likely to win in the end?
Very interesting new study using a lot of data on Basketball, American Football, Rugby, and Australian Football says *no*.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Newly-published papers
The Brodeur, Cook, and Heyes paper on p-hacking has been published by AER:
aeaweb.org/content/file?i…
They show that the amount of p-hacking / publication bias varies by research design. Figure 2 shows their main results very clearly.
“If the entire world ate like the developed world, we’d need 5 planets!”
should really be
“If the entire world cultivated like the developed world, we’d have enough for 100B people”
Max Roser @MaxCRoser
Wow
QJE @QJEHarvard
Its out @JPolEcon Bidwell, Casey & Glennerster on the impact of debates on politician behavior! Thanks to @SFCG_, @poverty_action but mainly the politicians and parties of #SierraLeone who embraced new ways of reaching voters. Early ungated v here 1/5
gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/…
Research shows that gaining Medicaid under the ACA improved financial well-being. In this new work just released in @JPAM_DC, I explore whether child support (CS) is affected by Medicaid expansions. 1/4
Very interesting paper! 👇 Large-scale affirmative action improves public good access for targeted minorities.
Saad Gulzar @saadgulzar
My paper: "How does past experience impact hedge fund activism?" (with Linlin Ma and Bob Mooradian) was conditionally accepted at the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (@JournalFQA)😀. A thread about the paper: 1/21 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Useful threads that should be blogs
Some simple calculations to provide a perspective on the decline in the stock market and its recovery, despite the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the real economy. See here the dynamics of the S&P500 so far this year: (1/n)
(1/n) An incoming student wrote me today to ask about classes and resources for aspiring economists. I wrote the following reply, which may be useful for others so am posting parts of it here:
Many are asking why, even though the CARES Act set an expiration date for UI benefits four months in the future, Congress did not begin negotiating until the week it expired.
Welcome to the wonderful world of waiting for federal UI reform. Our story begins in 1976.
(thread)
1/
Good discussions in the replies
Thoughtful thread with good advice on PhD applications🚨
Adding that GRE is sort of random at the top so might as well keep fishing for upside shocks 🎣 . I'd keep retaking GRE every month until time is up or you maxed out quant.
Alvin Christian @_AlvinChristian
Many people cite articles in top 5 journals to signal that their article address an important literature. I have been directly advised to do this.
This entrenches top journals and prevents rising journals from overtaking declining journals.
Can we fix this somehow?
