Best of #econtwitter - Week of January 2, 2022 [2/2]
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 two. Part one is here.
Paper summary threads
![Twitter avatar for @Omer_Moav](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/Omer_Moav.jpg)
The Origin of the State: Land Productivity or Appropriability? My JPE with @PascaliLuigi and Joram Mayshar. I consider this my most significant work in 25 years of research.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,h_314,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd61d35fd-5ea8-4ecc-b8b9-fb25b7a166bf_2400x3603.jpeg)
^“wheat is fascist builds state capacity”; more summary from an older thread:
![Twitter avatar for @NathanLazarus3](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/NathanLazarus3.jpg)
As an instrument, they used the relative productivity of local cereal and tubers. Tubers are naturally suited to tropical environments. Tubers are a worse proposition in northern latitudes (darker shades of grey) and tuber societies are equatorial (red). 7/
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FDkCbmBPU4AEpmoO.jpg)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FDkCbnJpVAAE9lO-.jpg)
![Twitter avatar for @NathanLazarus3](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/NathanLazarus3.jpg)
State-building, meanwhile, took off in areas that gained new access to cereals, even outside of colonies. (I’m skeptical of the magnitude of this, there were lots of other state-building pressures they don’t control for, like the slave trade and commodity trades.) 10/
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FDkCcgLoUYAE9m4Z.jpg)
—
![Twitter avatar for @RuveydaiZGi](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/RuveydaiZGi.jpg)
By exploiting the variation in policy adoption timing across states, I show that the number of women inventors rose significantly (especially in the long-run) after the adoption of independent property rights.
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFE48xaBXEAIL36F.png)
^a JMP
![Twitter avatar for @simon_jaeger](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/simon_jaeger.jpg)
Two cool new papers on intergenerational mobility in Germany and Sweden I came across recently. The one on Germany, by Dodin, @SebastianFind, Henkel, @Dominik__Sachs and Schüle cleverly overcomes the measurement problem in 🇩🇪
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFHtiszBXsAQVbdm.jpg)
![Twitter avatar for @DurRobert](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/DurRobert.jpg)
Evidence is accumulating that online teaching reduces learning outcomes:
doi.org/10.1086/669930 by Figlio et al. (2013)
aeaweb.org/articles?id=10… by Alpert et al. (2016)
aeaweb.org/articles?id=10… by Bettinger et al. (2017)
doi.org/10.1093/jeea/j… by Cacault et al. (2021)
(1/3)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFIGL44LXwAIu32c.png)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFIGL5AxXIAY7Bf_.png)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFIGL46FWYBEr4MT.png)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFIGL49HXwAIVwo5.png)
More: climate change and food; opioid epidemic; air quality in India; commitment savings box; wage diffs by major
Survey of economists
Special pop-up section for navel-gazing purposes:
![Twitter avatar for @AlvaroLaParra](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/AlvaroLaParra.jpg)
🧵Happy New Year! Doris Geide-Stevenson & I ran a new round of the "Consensus Among [AEA] Economists" survey after the ones in 1990, 2000, & 2011. Not only do economists agree on many issues, but consensus ⬆️ on many fronts. Let's check some results! dropbox.com/s/9npyqbbidcjm… 1/12
![Based on an extensive survey of the members of the American Economic Association, this paper compares consensus among economists on several economic propositions over four decades. The main result is an increased consensus on many economic propositions, specifically the appropriate role of fiscal policy in macroeconomics and issues surrounding income distribution. Economists now embrace the role of fiscal policy in a way not obvious in previous surveys and are broadly supportive of government policies that mitigate income inequality. Another area of consensus is the concern with climate change and appropriate policy tools to address climate change.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFH85PRFX0AIXEZJ.jpg)
![Twitter avatar for @AlvaroLaParra](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/AlvaroLaParra.jpg)
When looking at common questions across survey rounds, 2020 exhibited a remarkable increase in the share of questions that met our 3 measures of consensus (i.e., strong consensus).
Let's have a closer look at some results for individual questions that I found interesting.
5/12
![The 2020 survey exhibits a greater percentage of questions with strong consensus among the 22 that have been asked since 1990 (purple), the 33 questions included since 2000 (grey), and the 37 questions that were part of the 2011 survey (brown)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFH9OOtHXEAQ71Dt.jpg)
^“I do worry sometimes that this is just education polarization” says guess who, cf:
![Twitter avatar for @jmhorp](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/jmhorp.jpg)
AEA members identifying as liberal outnumber conservatives by 4:1 margin
This is consistent with other data, but I think a slightly bigger gap than past surveys
![Twitter avatar for @AlvaroLaParra](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_40/AlvaroLaParra.jpg)
Álvaro La Parra-Pérez @AlvaroLaParra
![Twitter avatar for @neocentrist](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/neocentrist.jpg)
We now have an updated version of the list of "things economists agree on" (aeaweb.org/conference/202…).
Highlights:
1. 98% like floating exchange rates
2. 97% think immigration is good for the US economy
3. 95% think that tariffs are bad
1/2
![Twitter avatar for @neocentrist](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/neocentrist.jpg)
4. 94% think fiscal policy can be useful as stimulus when below full employment
5. 93% want to enforce antitrust laws
6. 90% would expand the EITC
7. 86% would prefer more income equality in the US
8. 71% think that inflation is a monetary phenomenon
9. 74% believes in u*
2/2
Interesting discussions
![Twitter avatar for @ElliotLip](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/ElliotLip.jpg)
Economic theory is full of surprising results that are easy to describe to a layperson. Thinking about upcoming teaching, some (below) came to mind.
What other ones come to mind?
[I'm abusing tweeetic license and omitting caveats needed to make all these statements correct.]
^thread, replies
![Twitter avatar for @ProfNoto](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/ProfNoto.jpg)
My annual tradition continues -- my 10 favorite economics papers published in 2021, ordered alphabetically
[Meant to do this yesterday, but I had a paper rejected on New Year's Day -- Happy New Year! -- so I decided to deal with that instead]
![Twitter avatar for @ProfNoto](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_40/ProfNoto.jpg)
Matt Notowidigdo @ProfNoto
^see also here and quote tweets there