Best of #econtwitter - Week of July 3, 2022 [2/3]
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.
This is part two of three.
Paper summaries
Recently @hpschneider asked Powell which vacancy-to-unemployment ratio the Fed might target. Powell responded that the Fed doesn't have a goal in mind. This new paper (w/ Saez) shows that a vacancy-to-unemployment ratio of 1 is what the Fed should target:
arxiv.org/abs/2206.13012
Using two eligibility thresholds in the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) in an RD design, we find that enlistees experience increases in average annual earnings at both cutoffs. 2/9
But long-run returns to service vary significantly by race. Black servicemembers experience annual gains of $5,500 at the 31 AFQT cutoff and $15,000 at the 50 AFQT cutoff 11-19 years after applying. Service also increases homeownership and, at the lower cutoff, marriage. 3/9
Zoning reform is pro-natal policy
"We find a significant negative relationship between land use restrictions and fertility rates across all measures and geographies."
Every now & then I come across a beautiful paper that makes me answer the question "Is this economics?" with an emphatic YES.
The debutante season was disrupted in 1861-63 by Queen Victoria's mourning. This led to less assortative matching & reduced aristocratic power.
Who are the largest shareholders of America's largest firms?
You think you know?
Are you sure?
New paper dropped -- shows to which extent it's Mavericks vs "universal owners" vs "common owners".
🧵1/n
First, we document the extent to which fertility preferences are misaligned between women & their mothers-in-law (MILs). On average, a MIL wants her daughter-in-law (DIL) to have 0.9 more children & 1.4 more sons than the DIL wants to have.
12yrs ago we published paper showing @sevamandir 's small incentives sharply increased immunization in India. But it was hard to scale. Its been long road but new paper with @IRDGlobal @DanyaArif @AamirKhan_SG @ChandirSubhash Sara Abdullah & EDuflo gives a road map to scale 1/n
eClinicalMedicine – The Lancet Discovery Science @eClinicalMed
Interesting discussions
Very helpful slides: "Tips for Doing Better Field Experiments and Getting Your Work Published" by @Econ_4_Everyone from AFE:
s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperimen…
Should be helpful to improve your work & change the way you design, examine, interpret & write up future studies.
#EconTwitter
It's such an interesting tradition that mathematics courses are performed each time they are taught, with teachers writing out and thinking through the same things on a chalkboard, year after year. And also that it's not easy to find a better way to do it.
^lots of replies
The AEA is now recommending that all interviews be held virtually for the New Orleans meetings, both due to covid and to "promote equity." I think this is a reasonable compromise on all fronts and I'm grateful to the organization for providing this guidance.
W/o AEA interview commitment, market unravels. Already happening with Euro & mgmt dept exploding offers. Simple fix: public letter from 100s of chairs supporting reneging on offers exploding before Jan 31. Also suspect virtual is less "inclusive" - hate this language w/o evidence
AEA Information @AEAInformation
The boundaries of the Federal Reserve districts are *not* the same today as they were in 1914. And shockingly (to literally only me) the Fed hasn’t documented these changes in a single place. So here I present 5 major changes of the past century #FedThread 🔎🗺️
1/17
