Best of #econtwitter - Week of January 15, 2023: paper summaries
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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.
Best of #econtwitter - Week of January 15, 2023: paper summaries
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.