Best of #econtwitter - Week of February 19, 2023: paper summaries
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.
Belated edition this week!
Paper summaries
econimate@econimate
How do beliefs on the morally appropriate way to treat different groups shape our policy views?
@BenjaminEnke (@HarvardEcon), Ricardo Rodríguez-Padilla (@Uber) & Florian Zimmermann (@UniBonn, @briq_institute) on moral universalism:
youtu.be/-wb8yB9hNX0
4:24 PM · Feb 15, 2023
19 Reposts · 75 Likes
Journal of Public Economics@JPubEcon
Are ethnic and partisan segregation related?
In France, electing a left-wing (instead of right-wing) mayor led to an increase in the local share of immigrants due to different public housing policies.
Impact was significant, lasting, and linked to higher reelection chances.
7:00 PM · Feb 14, 2023
2 Reposts · 8 Likes
Andy Hall@ahall_research
How much were election-denying Republican candidates punished in the 2022 midterms? @janetmalzahn and I put together the data and find they suffered roughly a 2.3 percentage-point penalty in the general election, on average.
gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-resear…
6:15 PM · Feb 16, 2023
236 Reposts · 630 Likes
Andy Hall@ahall_research
The penalty is also uneven. In some states (like Kansas), election-denying candidates severely underperformed other Rs. In other states (like Arizona), gaps were much smaller.
6:17 PM · Feb 16, 2023
8 Reposts · 43 Likes
^Nate Silver: “2.3 points of vote *share* = 4-5 points of vote *margin* (how much you beat/lose to the other guy by) which is a pretty big effect. The view that "LOL, nothing matters" is sophomoric. Research is very robust that candidates pay an electoral price for extremism.”
Jon Rothbaum@jlrothbaum
**new** Using linked survey, census, admin and commercial data, we aim to produce the best possible estimates of income and poverty in the US.
We find median household income in 2018 is 6.3% higher than survey estimate, and poverty is 1.1 pp lower. (1/n)
2:24 PM · Feb 14, 2023
67 Reposts · 178 Likes
Maddalena Ronchi@MaddalenaRonchi
New CEPR WP with @tlebarbanchon & @juliensauvagnat is out!
We study a topical subject 🔥: what is the role of hiring difficulties for firm growth?
The pandemic has turned the spotlight on this issue as the share of firms unable to fill jobs hit a record high globally🌎📈
CEPR @cepr_org
New CEPR Discussion Paper - DP17891
Hiring Frictions and Firm Growth
@tlebarbanchon @Unibocconi, @MaddalenaRonchi @TheIFS, @juliensauvagnat @Unibocconi
https://t.co/Se0SaZHbvf
#CEPR_LE, #CEPR_BCF https://t.co/X6MU06FqY3
3:25 PM · Feb 14, 2023
14 Reposts · 86 Likes
Moritz Schularick@MSchularick
2/N More precisely, we show that when central banks keep the policy rate below the equilibrium/natural rate r* for an extended period, financial instability risks surge. We estimate r* following @marcodelnegro et al. The stance of monetary is the gap between policy rates and r*.
3:33 PM · Feb 14, 2023
6 Likes
Mahdi E Kahou 🇺🇦@KahouMahdi
(1/n) A 🧵on over-parametrization and one of its applications in economics:
Over-parameterization and first order optimization methods (e.g., SGD) lead to "smooth" interpolating functions.
Smooth here means functions with small derivatives/gradients (think of Sobolev seminorms).
Maximilian Kasy @maxkasy
Why is deep learning - with highly overparametrized models - so effective, contrary to what classical learning theory would suggest?
How can interpolating models predict well, even when uniform convergence of empirical risk fails? https://t.co/NK6f1aWKOP
10:49 PM · Feb 12, 2023
10 Reposts · 48 Likes
James Traina@EconTraina
Law of Iterated... Quantiles??
🚨 New draft up 🚨, economic theory with many applications by @kaihaoyang2020 and Alex Zentefis.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… #EconTwitter
2:01 AM · Feb 18, 2023
8 Reposts · 59 Likes
Anton Korinek@akorinek
Large language models (like ChatGPT and successors) will boost research productivity in economics and other disciplines, I predict in “𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵” ☛nber.org/papers/w30957
2:21 PM · Feb 13, 2023
138 Reposts · 472 Likes
^“I estimate current models make me 5 to 20% more productive” 🥴
Casey Breen@caseyfbreen
For some, ethnoracial identification continues to shift even later in the life course.
8:41 PM · Feb 13, 2023
2 Likes
^“paper on late-life shifts in ethnoracial identification using linked Social Security applications”
Brad Shapiro@btshapir
Thanks for the shout out, @MargRev and @tylercowen!
I noticed several things come up in the comments that I would like to address here.
(Paper in question is here: nber.org/papers/w30934)
Marginal Revolution @MargRev
Sentences to ponder https://t.co/PjYSJamx9f
9:58 PM · Feb 13, 2023
6 Reposts · 22 Likes
Garett Jones@GarettJones
5 pages of coauthors!
164 teams: Same data, same hypotheses to test.
They call the variability of findings across teams "non-standard-errors."
A key finding:
"...uncertainty due to non-standard errors is similar in magnitude to that due to standard errors."
Cameron Pfiffer @cameron_pfiffer
Apparently I have a forthcoming Journal of Finance paper with many wonderful coauthors! Well done to the lead team for getting this done.
https://t.co/3cZned09uM
4:13 PM · Feb 15, 2023
2 Reposts · 20 Likes
Ben Grodeck@benleo_econ
What happens when you tell people they are morally obligated to donate to charity?
@SchoeneggerPhil & I address this question in our forthcoming paper in JBEE.
1/9
10:56 AM · Feb 13, 2023
57 Reposts · 268 Likes
Matthias Rodemeier@MRodemeier
Donations for carbon offsets increased by 100% in 3 years. What does this market imply about people's valuations of environmental protection?
In a new study, I estimate implied willingness to pay for carbon mitigation using a field experiment with 250k consumers.
A summary!🧵
4:16 PM · Feb 9, 2023
44 Reposts · 190 Likes
Zachary Bleemer@zbleemer
Under #affirmativeaction, Black and Hispanic students were twice as likely to be admitted to Berkeley/UCLA as white and Asian students with similar SATs and grades.
That advantage fell to 40% in 1998, and the policies implemented since then haven't moved the needle so much.
4:44 PM · Feb 15, 2023
5 Likes
Naureen Karachiwalla, PhD 🇨🇦 🇰🇪@NKarachiwalla
🚨New @nberpubs WP Alert!🚨 w/ @AndrabiTahir @BauNatalie Jishnu Das & @aikhwaja. We evaluate the effects of providing grants to public schools on learning outcomes in public & private schools in Pakistan. Spoiler: learning improves in both sectors! nber.org/papers/w30929
8:14 PM · Feb 13, 2023
19 Reposts · 71 Likes
Jake M. Grumbach@JakeMGrumbach
Here's my new working paper with @aaronrkaufman & @ChrisMCelaya. My first experiment!
tl;dr audit studies tend to underestimate discrimination because of respondent noncompliance
ungated: dropbox.com/s/0cnayx1hsbh0…
1/n
dropbox.com
audit_noncompliance.pdf
5:13 PM · Feb 17, 2023
26 Reposts · 84 Likes
Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬@lymanstoneky
New paper claims that if you let parents raise their own children the children will become dumb and also criminals (in Finland).
nber.org
Paying Moms to Stay Home: Short and Long Run Effects on Parents and Children
4:58 PM · Feb 13, 2023
2 Reposts · 7 Likes
Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬@lymanstoneky
And here's the evidence to support those claims...
oh hold on wait it looks like those confidence cross zero in every case?
you mean the big controversial finding is actually insignificant?
yes.
5:02 PM · Feb 13, 2023
3 Reposts · 16 Likes
Nicholas says, NGDP Targeting Now! 🏳️🌈🌐🇺🇦@captgouda24
Ancient Babylon was a market economy. Using the clay tablets left by the priests of the god Marduk, which had daily astronomical information and monthly price data for six goods (allowing precise dating), Temin found prices followed a random walk, and were not administered.
6:36 PM · Feb 15, 2023
120 Reposts · 663 Likes
More papers
Susanna Berkouwer@BerkouwerS
New @nberpubs WP!📢
Multilaterals like @WorldBank @AfDB_Group fund 1000s of contracts each year to procure goods & services for infrastructure—but governments must follow donor contracting procedures. What do these do?
Wolfram @tedmiguel @e_o_hsu & I study Kenya electrification
3:48 PM · Feb 13, 2023
36 Reposts · 153 Likes
Max Krahé@maxkrahe
🚨New Paper Alert🚨
Understanding Italy's Stagnation 📉🇮🇹
Today is #Eurogroup. In the €, Italy is a puzzle. 1980s: among highest per-hour GDP. Today: long stagnation & problem child of €Zone. We tried to understand why. Here's what we found. 1/n
dezernatzukunft.org/understanding-…
6:39 AM · Feb 13, 2023
392 Reposts · 1.38K Likes
annapappp@annapappp
Tree planting is widely popular w/ programs from the Sahel to South Korea – but can it lead to *local* climate change?
@florian_grosset @ctaylor463 and I study this in a new WP "Rain follows the forest: Land use policy, climate change, and adaptation" bit.ly/3xoqQrL 1/8
7:41 PM · Feb 17, 2023
31 Reposts · 112 Likes