Best of #econtwitter - Week of January 15, 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.
Massive negative TFP shock for newsletter writing this week, thanks to the shutdown that Joshua Gans describes here:
Twitter shutting off its API to other apps without warning is unconscionable. Having never used the main Twitter app, it is impossible to replicate my use-flow that I had in Tweetbots. I now get why some people didn’t think moving to Mastodon was a problem.
As always, submissions welcome, if things are missing from the newsletter. Still a lot of juicy content below, though!
Paper summaries
!!New Paper!!
"Sprouting Cities: How Rural America Industrialized"
w/ @jjuneauii & Michael Peters for the AER Papers & Proceedings
The paper shows that *new* cities played a crucial role in industrializing the US economy between 1880 and 1940.
Paper:
New work in @nberpubs today by @Courtemanche_CJ @jordanthejones @KoumpiasAM @Danizapata reassesses the effects of Medicaid expansion on mortality, this time using synthetic control & generalized synthetic control. Tl;dr, basically no effect
nber.org/papers/w30818
1/
^another thread here. Separately: “17% decrease in postpartum hospitalizations (in 1st 60 days after both) in states with Medicaid expansion c/w those without”
Meta-analysis on the distribution of school spending effects with @c_mackevicius is conditionally accepted at AEJ: Applied.
We move away from the "does money matter?" question and provide evidence on how much and for whom.
ungated pre-publication copy:
A thread to describe my new paper:
"A Theory of Payment-Chain Crises"
static1.squarespace.com/static/57844f0…
How to avoid paying overtime? Make your Front Desk Clerk a "Director of First Impressions".
Cohen, @umitgurun & @NB_Ozel have a compelling new @nberpubs WP suggesting that mamy firms give fake managerial job titles to avoid paying overtime. (1)
^another summary thread here
Our paper (@DrenikAndres @mpplotkin @Schoefer_B) on paying outsourced workers with evidence from 🇦🇷 in the Jan 2023 issue of @restatjournal - we find that high-wage firms pay temp workers ~50% of the premium paid to regular workers. 🧑💼👷♂️👇
4/ Figure says it all. This out-migration net of new arrivals. Note: x-axis shows base year, so the spike at 2019 are people who were CA residents in 2019 and departed in 2020.
^“using administrative tax data takes a deep dive on California's loss of high earners”
Really cool paper in JUE this week. Say a nice new apartment opens up in your city, what happens?
I'll tell you two plausible stories, and this paper (along with a similar paper by @EvanMast2) can point us to which seems to be happening
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
In this paper in JDE, we provide new evidence on the impact of teachers' stereotypical attitudes on students' cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. sciencedirect.com/science/articl… (1/4)
🚨MASSIVE NEW STUDY ON DIGITAL/FB POLITICAL AD EFFECTS 🚨 in @NatureHumBehav from Minali Aggarwal, @_JenAllen, @aecoppock, @dfrankow, Kelly Zhang, @jimmyeatcarbs, Andrew Beasly, Harry Hantman, Sylvan Zheng!
nature.com/articles/s4156…
Ungated: solomonmg.github.io/pdf/acronymNHB…
Technological transitions are *slower* when skill specificity is *stronger* b/c it is driven less by the fast reallocation of older incumbent workers and more by the gradual entry of *younger* generations.
One insight from Adao, @MartinBeraja, and @nityanayar (2022).
A mini-🧵
@BaiyunJ Here's the paper and abstract!
In Korea, there are two ways you can rent an apartment. You could do the standard thing where you pay, say, 1.2mil KRW ($1,000 USD) per month in rent
anthonyleezhang.github.io/pdfs/jeonse.pdf
Another fascinating result in .@Nature “US scholars enter into the for-profit sector…at a much higher rate than international scholars. International scholars enter the academic sector in tenure-track job-types…at twice the rate of US scholars.”
nature.com/articles/nbt.4…
JMPs
Hi #EconTwitter, I’m an applied microeconomist and I'm in the #EconJobMarket
In my JMP I use machine learning to study gender attitudes in economic seminars.
A cited finding is that men interrupt women more than women interrupt men. I provide evidence disputing this #JMP 🧵
Hi #EconTwitter! I am a labor economist with a background in theory on the 22-23 #EconJobMarket. Here’s a thread on my JMP.
You can also check it out directly: jkohlhepp.com/files/kohlhepp…
#EconJMP #EconJMC
More paper summaries
Do Economists Replicate? New version of our paper, now in @I4Replication's DP series. A short thread – but to spoiler the answer: no, they don’t. Comments & feedback welcome! 1/6 bit.ly/3kg5CZM
1/ Why do people invest in actively managed funds when index funds consistently give higher returns after fees? In a new paper, @OleAndreasNaess and I examine whether misperceived beliefs can explain this "active investing puzzle".
We exploit a discontinuity created by BOE's reserves constraint to assess impact of central bank credit rationing. Rationed counterparties had higher P(failure), but conditional on survival, they learned from their experience & changed behaviour during a subsequent crisis!
Very excited that our new paper on "IT Shields:Technology Adoption and Economic Resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic" is out in Labour Economics - coauthored with the extremely talented @timmer_yannick and Nico Pierri
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Investing money? Looking for a new job?
Often, we do not know the probabilities of potential outcomes (aka ambiguity).
Yet, we know much less about ambiguity attitudes, compared to risk attitudes.
New WP (joint with @econ_hmg and Axel Wogrolly) tries to change that 👇
🎉🎉Paper with @giorgio_gln now forthcoming in AEJ:Applied 🎉🎉
We find that dishonesty is contagious!
🇮🇹 Supermarket customers when self-scanning their shopping cart are more likely to cheat after a local corruption scandal
A short thread 🧵
AEA Journals @AEAjournals
New paper uses LAYS (learning-adjusted years of school) to put quality & quantity on the same scale.
Over the last 20 years quantity of schooling has increased/improved 4-5x more than quality
beta.u-strasbg.fr/WP/2023/2023-0…
Very interesting paper documenting the rise of industrial innovation policy in the US (via @krishkhubchand). A 🧵 about its findings and some thoughts in the end
Thread on a new working paper: Weak States and the Commons: Fisheries and Economic Development in the Gaspesian Peninsula circa 1830
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
#econhist #econtwitter cc. @nhotte @JoelWWood @MarketPowerYT @PeterBoettke @tylercowen @ATabarrok 1/n
Nuevo paper en el Journal of Development Economics: “Lucky women in unlucky cohorts: Gender differences in the effects of initial labor market conditions in Latin America” de @InesBerniell, Leo Gasparini, @marumarchionni y @ViollazMariana
authors.elsevier.com/a/1gPlm15DRG0H…
Hilo [1/9] 👇
Income inequality increased substantially in the US since 1970s. How about in Canada? Time to find out.
🧵 on" "Four decades of Canadian earnings inequality and dynamics across workers and firms"
By Bowlus, Gouin-Bonenfant, Liu, Lochner, Park
doi.org/10.3982/QE1846
JPubEcon
Syringe exchange programs may have important costs.
Comparing counties with a SEP opening to those without in a event-study framework, SEP causes:
🔽HIV by 11.8 percent
🔼opioid-related mortality by 21.6 percent
🔼opioid-related ER visits
FAQ: apackham.github.io/mywebsite/FAQ.…
State-mandated health insurance benefits for diabetes save lives, specifically from diabetes-related deaths, by 3.1 per 100,000 annually.
Expanding insurance coverage for the treatment of certain diseases can reduce the associated mortality.
Cool to see papers on the 2014 Medicare expansion because it reminds me of a project I did on it sophomore year. It was just a regular DiD, I have to find it and see what the results are. It definitely wasn't robust because we definitely did not take into account selection effects when making it, but I guess that's what synthetic control models are for.