Welcome readers old and new to this week’s edition of the Best of Econtwitter newsletter. Please submit suggestions — very much including your own work! — over email or on Twitter @just_economics.
Absurdly high quantity of high-quality papers this week…
The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement
^it’s the summer of ```RSI’’’ in San Francisco…
More threads on the same paper:
Idiosyncratic favorites
Verónica Bäcker-Peral@VBPeral
What does quality change look like?
For $5.98, Sears sold a gingham dress in 1922; a silk-and-wool dress with embroidered sleeves in 1925; and an all-silk dress with a more ornate cut in 1928.
The sticker price never moved. The product transformed. (6/9)
5:12 PM · Jul 16, 2026 · 7.61K Views
2 Replies · 4 Reposts · 94 Likes
Lukas Freund@_LukasFreund_
1/ What can the flight patterns of birds teach us about innovation and economic growth?
Vasco Carvalho & I take a stab at this question in a new paper: Firms as Foragers
We develop an empirically grounded theory of growth in which firms forage in idea space.
🧵 (link below)
4:07 PM · Jul 13, 2026 · 31.1K Views
5 Replies · 42 Reposts · 178 Likes
Lukas Freund@_LukasFreund_
6/ Empirics. We embed the text of millions of US patents, cluster related patents into patches, and document 3 facts:
(A) Within a patch, the quality of successive patents declines (see figure): diminishing returns, or local 'good ideas are getting harder to find'.
(B) Firms
4:07 PM · Jul 13, 2026 · 456 Views
1 Reply · 1 Repost · 5 Likes
Elliott Ash@ellliottt
What happens when you roll out custom generative AI to half a country's judges?
New paper on Pakistan's courts with @ProfSultanEcon and @gochristoph.
In line with wemustactnow.ai -- we provide early empirical evidence on the impacts of transformative generative AI.
2:33 PM · Jul 16, 2026 · 67.1K Views
4 Replies · 47 Reposts · 163 Likes
^…what. Another thread
^“random assignment of divorces to judges”
More paper summaries
Soumaya Keynes@SoumayaKeynes
New study looking at where PhD economists get jobs. I knew about the trend towards tech hiring economists in the 2010s. I didn't realise Amazon was such a big part of that...
(Their data goes up to 22, so not including the latest job market collapse.)
cepr.org/publications/d…
3:32 PM · Jul 13, 2026 · 16.2K Views
3 Replies · 17 Reposts · 149 Likes
Simon Jäger@simon_jaeger
New @nberpubs paper w/ @PawelAdrjan, @BalgovaMaria, @jonasjessen & @JSockin: Workers infer unlisted job characteristics from what ads do list. Using a priced amenity—the 🇩🇪Deutschlandticket—we show this contaminates discrete choice estimates of WTP for amenities. 1/N
NBER @nberpubs
Job ads can signal hidden job traits. Evidence from German workers shows this distorts discrete choice estimates of workers’ willingness to pay, from Pawel Adrjan, Mária Balgova, @simon_jaeger, Jonas Jessen, and @JSockin https://t.co/NX0GP3sZhp
2:44 PM · Jul 18, 2026 · 6.53K Views
4 Replies · 10 Reposts · 33 Likes
Natalia Emanuel@NataliaHEmanuel
Wildfires reduce mothers’ employment by ~1%
Periodically taking off work is bad for moms’ employment.
Research ⤵️
3:12 PM · Jul 16, 2026 · 1.13K Views
1 Reply · 1 Repost · 9 Likes
Anand Shrivastava@econanand
New CSIE working paper (wonkish!) with @amitbasole and Pratyush Priyadarshi. Link at the end.
India's labour surveys sort households into strata before sampling. This can make estimates more precise, as compared to simple random sampling, but does it work? 🧵
9:54 AM · Jul 19, 2026 · 891 Views
1 Reply · 5 Reposts · 22 Likes