Best of #econtwitter - Week of July 11, 2021
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.
Paper summary threads
Alex Eble@alexeble
The headline result: we found tremendous gains in learning.
In the commonly used SD metric, this was 3.2 SD, but the SD is hard to use in this context because counterfactual learning is so low
Here are the test score distributions for intervention and control kids
14/n
2:41 PM · Jul 7, 2021
30 Reposts · 190 Likes
Caleb Watney@calebwatney
New NBER paper calculates the magnitude of the "zoning tax" in different metro areas and compares it to median household income.
I.e. in SF, it takes ~4x the median household income to pay for the zoning strictness on a plot of land zoned for single-family housing.
7:40 PM · Jul 5, 2021
116 Reposts · 456 Likes
Armand Domalewski@ArmandDoma
A study of:
➡️ 50 unit market-rate housing projects in low-income areas
➡️ in 11 U.S. cities
➡️ covering 1483 buildings
Found that:
⬇️ rents fell 6% in the nearby buildings
⬆️ low-income migration INCREASED significantly
build. more. housing!
The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) @restatjournal
Local Effects of Large New Apartment Buildings in Low-Income Areas. Just accepted new paper by Brian J. Asquith, Evan Mast, and Davin Reed. https://t.co/VJBpjF8lQC https://t.co/76JQAtBL1X
12:57 AM · Jul 8, 2021
14 Reposts · 52 Likes
Alexander Theloudis@AlexTheloudis
New @nberpubs on earnings and other behavioural responses to lottery wins.
Golosov, Graber, Mogstad, Novgorodsky:
🔹use admin data on US lottery winners
🔹show reduced form responses
🔹build model to study responses to UBI & top marginal tax rates.
nber.org/papers/w29000
10:20 AM · Jul 10, 2021
6 Likes
^“UBI of $12,000 a year would reduce average household earnings by more than $6000”
Miguel Sarzosa@MSarzosaEcon
The Journal of Health Economics accepted our paper with @surzua_chile and Tomas Rau, “Children of the Missed Pill”!
Pharmacies tinkering with oral contraceptives prices caused huge increases in pregnancies that resulted in less healthy babies.
Link: dropbox.com/s/93064jbm9x43…
1/N
dropbox.com
Discontinuities_su-86.pdf
5:16 PM · Jul 7, 2021
303 Reposts · 623 Likes
Sean Higgins@SeanKHiggins
Our paper "How debit cards enable the poor to save more" (with @pierrebachas @paul_gertler @SeiraEnrique) was published this week in @JofFinance
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jo…
🧵on our paper for anyone interested on #EconTwitter
1/N
7:15 PM · Jul 9, 2021
40 Reposts · 224 Likes
Katherine Stapleton@KathAStapleton
A striking graph from @pqblair, @DebroyPapia and
@justinheck's new paper on the earnings of those with and without ('STARs'= Skilled through Training and Alternative Routes) bachelors degrees in 1976 & 1989 @nberpubs
nber.org/papers/w28991
11:21 AM · Jul 10, 2021
2 Reposts · 2 Likes
Lukas Freund@_LukasFreund_
📜 New @EJ_RES paper by Guido Ascari (@OxfordEconDept) & @TimoHaber (@CamEcon).
❗️ Empirical support in US agg. data for state-dependent pricing as an important feature of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy.
🔗bit.ly/AscariHaber2021
mini-🧵
bit.ly
Non-linearities, state-dependent prices and the transmission mechanism of monetary policy
1:22 PM · Jul 10, 2021
7 Reposts · 19 Likes
Alisdair McKay@AlisdairMcKay
Forward guidance is a big part of modern monetary policy, but how effective is it? Johannes and I explore this Q in a model of durable consumption subject to fixed costs. FG Is much less powerful than contemp. rates. Short thread 1/n
AEA Journals @AEAjournals
Forthcoming in AER: Insights: "Forward Guidance and Durable Goods Demand" by Alisdair McKay and Johannes F. Wieland. https://t.co/SB2wsErz1u
1:44 PM · Jul 8, 2021
12 Reposts · 64 Likes
Matt Marx@marxmatt
🚨 new @OrganizationSci "Employee Non-compete Agreements, Gender, & Entrepreneurship." is.gd/2DCl2Y
(Open-Access article not ready yet, but w/today's WH EO thought I'd mention it.)
Non-competes discourage women from founding startups😬esp. high-growth startups🧵
is.gd
is.gd - Shortened URL
11:15 PM · Jul 9, 2021
9 Reposts · 58 Likes
^see also: workers think noncompetes will be enforced, even in non-enforcing states
Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna@pedrohcgs
🚨Updated Working Paper Alert🚨
"Efficient Estimation for Staggered Rollout Designs", joint with @jondr44 (arxiv.org/abs/2102.01291).
This paper is all about how we can do better than DiD in setups with quasi-random treatment timing!
1/n
8:07 PM · Jul 7, 2021
56 Reposts · 253 Likes
More: economists’ opinions about economics; dynamic inefficiency in Aiyagari; absolute income mobility across 8 countries; market design under labor monopsony; audit study of financial advisors; relaxing school discipline improved scores; Inca road persistence
Public goods
ProfEmilyOster@ProfEmilyOster
This is a fantastic resource set for young Black and Brown economics students from @itsafronomics
annagifty.com
Resources — Anna Gifty
12:59 PM · Jul 6, 2021
12 Reposts · 29 Likes
Michael Eddy@MichaelEddy
First ever publicly available micro-estimates of wealth released for *all* low- and middle-income countries.
Also includes granular population estimates
*beta* version of their interactive poverty maps➡️ beta.povertymaps.net
#opendata
4:11 PM · Jul 6, 2021
62 Reposts · 163 Likes
More: Polish economic data; political economy teaching materials
Interesting discussions
Jon Steinsson@JonSteinsson
I want to take a moment to defend calibration. A common critique of macro by non-macro people centers on the supposed lack of scientific rigor associated with calibration of models. 1/10
6:04 AM · Jul 6, 2021
120 Reposts · 512 Likes
Beatrice Cherrier@Undercoverhist
Under the guidance of @MarthaOlney, a team of Berkeley students has assembled wonderful material on the history of women econs at Berkeley.
It confirms many of historians' conclusions, in particular decreasing representation of ♀ after 1940 econ.berkeley.edu/women-history
9:19 PM · Jul 5, 2021
55 Reposts · 173 Likes
Jennifer Doleac@jenniferdoleac
This is probably a joke, but since the academic job market begins again soon: What is something that you (or someone you know) successfully negotiated for in academia that might not be obvious to others that they could ask for?
(Obvious: salary, summer months, research $.)
Keith Schnakenberg @keithschnak
If I had it to do over I’d have tried to negotiate to never be forced to change my university password
1:07 PM · Jul 10, 2021
54 Reposts · 283 Likes
^interesting replies e.g. on childcare
Stefan Nagel@ProfStefanNagel
@florianspeters (Thread) Excellent question, but the answer is not simple: First, the next step would be to require data sharing. At this point, the JF only requires code sharing. (1/n)
Florian Peters @florianspeters
@JofFinance Why don't the journals employ research assistants with the task of replicating papers that are conditionally accepted, and one condition for publication is replication?
2:17 PM · Jul 11, 2021
10 Reposts · 41 Likes
🔥 Kareem Carr 🔥@kareem_carr
I've been reading a bit and getting better acquainted with the culture of econtwitter and academic economists. It turns out that...maybe economists...are...not that bad. Ugh. Feeling sick now. Going to go lie down now.
3:56 PM · Jul 6, 2021
28 Reposts · 901 Likes