Best of #econtwitter - Week of January 30, 2022 [2/3]

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 two of three. Part one is here and part three is here.

Paper summary threads

Matteo Iacoviello @IacoIacoviel

"Measuring Geopolitical Risk" constructs a measure of adverse geopolitical events and associated risks. The GPR index is described and updated at matteoiacoviello.com/gpr.htm. The index spikes around the two world wars, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and after 9/11. (1/6)

AEA Journals @AEAjournals

Forthcoming in the AER: "Measuring Geopolitical Risk" by Dario Caldara and Matteo Iacoviello. https://t.co/rC9wzK0O05

Jamin Speer @JaminSpeer

***NEW PAPER*** Excited to tell you about my new paper with @adammosman and Andrew Weaver, “Discrimination Against Women in Hiring”. Half of establishments in our survey in Egypt admit to discriminating against women and we show how discriminators suffer.

Mathias W. Nielsen @mathiaswullum

1/ When outsiders enter an academic field, do they create new knowledge? Do newcomers launch new areas of research? New paper by @StephanRisi, me, Emma Kerr, Emer Brady, @lanukim, Daniel A. McFarland, @jurafsky, @james_y_zou and Londa Schiebinger: journals.plos.org/plosone/articl… 🧵

journals.plos.orgDiversifying history: A large-scale analysis of changes in researcher demographics and scholarly agendasBackground In recent years, interest has grown in whether and to what extent demographic diversity sparks discovery and innovation in research. At the same time, topic modeling has been employed to discover differences in what women and men write about. This study engages these two strands of schola…

Paymon Khorrami @PaymonKhorrami

Why do bond prices move so much (and in common)? This puzzle was noticed in 2001 by Collin-Dufresne, Goldstein, and Martin (tinyurl.com/CDGM2001). We take an intermediary asset pricing perspective and show that just 2 dealer factors go a long way towards a resolution. 2/5

tinyurl.comThe Determinants of Credit Spread ChangesUsing dealer’s quotes and transactions prices on straight industrial bonds, we investigate the determinants of credit spread changes. Variables that should in theory determine credit spread changes h...

Angela Cools @AngelaCools

Excited that my paper “Parents, Infants, and Voter Turnout” is now out (and open access) in @qjps! I provide some of the first evidence on how having an infant affects turnout in the U.S. Here are the coefficients on child age from a linear probability model of female turnout:

^someone should start a ‘best of #poliscitwitter’ newsletter thanks (and perhaps include info such as: is this graph causally identified)

Nick Bloom @I_Am_NickBloom

WFH saves employees about 70 minutes a day on average. Most (about 60 minutes) from no commute, and the rest (about 10 minutes) from less preparation in the morning. About 1/2 of this saved time goes to working more and 1/2 to leisure/tasks, so employers and employees benefit.

^“effective savings of 15% of the work week! HUGE GAINS”. Bloom tweets out a lot of these graphs, eg

Steve Cicala @SteveCicala

🚨 In today's American Economic Review: 🚨 Imperfect Markets versus Imperfect Regulation in U.S. Electricity Generation

Anthony Lee Zhang @AnthonyLeeZhang

New paper! Tl;dr is we analyze a unique form of housing credit: the Chonsei/Jeonse system, popular in the Korean housing market. We show what determines Chonsei deposit size in equilibrium, and the effects of monetary policy on the Chonsei system anthonyleezhang.github.io/pdfs/jeonse.pdf

Public goods

Aswath Damodaran @AswathDamodaran

I have spent the first week of every year, for the last 32 years, updating data on my website, and 2022 is no different. My website: damodaran.com My data page:

bit.lyUseful Data Sets

Chinyere Agbai @chinyereagbai

🔥 new comprehensive dataset on state-by-state spending on children 1997-2016 !

Margot Jackson @margot_jackson

Shoutout to @EricaHGreenberg, Julia Isaacs and Eleanor Lauderback @urbaninstitute for their efforts in creating the State-by-State Spending on Kids Dataset, a great new resource! https://t.co/UlZF5MrVXx

More: blockchain lectures; macro methods notes; Africa economic history course

Interesting discussions: on grad school

Ashley Craig @ash_craig

Some non-contradictory things: (1) You can get into an econ PhD without real analysis (2) Those who do have other apparent strengths (3) Doing it will help you get in, ceteris paribus (4) For some people it's useful during the PhD and after; for others it's not

Jonathan Roth @jondr44

Formal mathematics is a language. Like any language, getting good at writing in it requires practice. Real analysis teaches how to write in that language. Sure, you don't need to know the Hahn-Banach theorem. But you do need to know to write precise theorems/proofs

Anthony Lee Zhang @AnthonyLeeZhang

Honestly if you manage to get in econ PhD without real analysis, you don't plan to do micro theory, and you pass the first year, I'm not even sure you should bother taking real analysis in grad school. You really never use the content after first year outside micro theory

^another round of discussion this week on the topic of analysis and grad school

Jamin Speer @JaminSpeer

Here’s a fun data point on phd admissions… My Yale class was accidentally emailed the committee’s rankings of all 65 students admitted. So I knew I was #59. It also had a ranking of those on the wait list… Shout out to my good friend who was #65 but also got into Stanford.

David Ubilava @DavidUbilava

So, you got into a PhD program, now what? It depends. This thread, which is based on my own experience and observations, is primarily targeted toward international students but can be useful for local ones as well. [1/n]

More on grad school admissions: here, here, here