Best of #econtwitter - Week of July 26, 2020
Jul 27, 2020
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Best of Econtwitter. Recommendations always welcome over email or on Twitter @just_economics.
New papers

Jeff Denning@JeffDenning
We've updated our working paper "Why Have College Graduation Rates Increased?" with @EricEide1 @merrilldub and two new coauthors @KJMumford and @Richwpatt
We have added some evidence on why GPAs are increasing
edworkingpapers.com/ai20-77

2:56 PM · Jul 20, 2020
21 Reposts · 44 Likes

Natasha Sarin@NatashaRSarin
In a new NBER WP out today, @LHSummers and I estimate that investment in tax compliance can generate over $1T in the next decade.
NBER: nber.org/papers/w27571.…
A version is also out in Tax Notes today:
taxnotes.com/tax-notes-toda…

5:20 PM · Jul 20, 2020
79 Reposts · 245 Likes

Ryan Edwards@ryanbedwards
New paper alert! 🚨🎉
Fight fire with finance: a randomized field experiment to curtail land-clearing fire in Indonesia
w/ Wally Falcon, Grace Hadiwidjaja, Matt Higgins, Roz Naylor and Sudarno Sumarto @FoodSecurity_SU @tnp2k @SMERUInstitute
Paper: bit.ly/30ATmWc

8:29 AM · Jul 21, 2020
35 Reposts · 101 Likes

Kimberly Clausing@KClausing
(1/9) How to make a more equitable globalization? The tax system is essential. Of late, the labor share of income has fallen, yet capital is difficult to tax due to its international mobility. In a new draft, @gabriel_zucman, Emmanuel Saez and I propose a coordinated minimum tax.
2:53 PM · Jul 20, 2020
97 Reposts · 261 Likes

Matthias Doepke@mdoepke
The impact of the Covid-19 recession on women's employment is unlike any other in history.
In a new paper with @janeor_econ, @TertiltMichele, and @TitanAlon, we explore what this implies for the recession, the recovery, and gender equality.
faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~mdo738/resear…
(thread)

2:00 PM · Jul 20, 2020
166 Reposts · 364 Likes

Jake Vigdor@JakeVigdor
Q: Why is rent so high? (median US renter paid 14% of income for rent in 1960, 24% by 2017.)
That’s the topic of my new paper with @evansuw alum Alanna Williams, presented this morning @nberpubs #NBERSI2020.
Want the answer (or at least a partial one)? Follow along! (1/11)

5:45 PM · Jul 23, 2020
11 Reposts · 26 Likes

Jonathan A. Parker@ProfJAParker
(1/7)I'm going to take this @JoeVavra Tweet as the taking off point to Tweet out my new-and-improved (and should be accepted "as is") paper on the dynamics of lending standards with @ludwigstraub and Mike Fishman. Link: s3.amazonaws.com/mitsloan-php/w…

Joe Vavra @JoeVavra
And if anything, we probably understate limits on refi right now because we don't have tightening lending standards, delays in underwriting, and inability to refi due to huge unemployment spike. cc: @MortenORavn @SorryToBeKurt @RalphLuet @stef_alba @pilossopher @claudia_sahm
8:05 PM · Jul 21, 2020
3 Reposts · 7 Likes
Summaries of existing papers
Thanks to NBER SI, a lot of these this week:

Adrianna McIntyre@onceuponA
This paper is so interesting, and it's going to make (some) people mad. There was a great chart in the presentation—doesn't appear to be in the current paper draft—on what a small sliver of overall earnings medical school tuition is (2%). conference.nber.org/conf_papers/f1…

Jason Abaluck @Jabaluck
This is an excellent descriptive paper with fascinating new data. It raises many questions. In my view, the foremost among them is -- what bad stuff, if anything, might happen if we pay physicians less?
7:41 PM · Jul 23, 2020
7 Reposts · 42 Likes
^the thread here made a lot of doctors on twitter mad (see this chart); very important research. The original thread here.

Arpit Gupta@arpitrage
Really looking forward to seeing this paper by @TradeDiversion and @FelixTintelnot
jdingel.com/research/Dinge…

6:26 PM · Jul 23, 2020
4 Reposts · 35 Likes
^thread

Matt Lowe@hmmlowe
A classic question in development economics is whether (and what types of) poverty traps exist. This new paper by Balboni, @orianabandiera, Burgess, @maitreesh, @anton_heil finds evidence for poverty traps in Bangladesh. Let me try to explain... [1/N]
dropbox.com/s/4tfuhclfvh6y…

6:36 AM · Jul 22, 2020
350 Reposts · 989 Likes

David McKenzie@dmckenzie001
@jhaushofer @VictoriaBaranov @hmmlowe @orianabandiera @maitreesh @anton_heil @BerkOzler12 In my overview of poverty traps with Aart Kraay in JEP aeaweb.org/articles?id=10… we argue that poverty traps are geographic - @cbb2cornell work and others found poverty traps for really poor people in remote places where cows are main production. 4/n
aeaweb.org
Do Poverty Traps Exist? Assessing the Evidence

9:52 PM · Jul 22, 2020
4 Reposts · 19 Likes

Penn State Econ@PennStateEcon
Why do innovations often come from startups rather than more established firms?
Our current faculty Vijay Krishna & former PhD student Yu Awaya [now Rochester faculty] explain in their paper, "Startups and Upstarts", forthcoming in the JPE.
Link: drive.google.com/file/d/1L-u4TC… 1/4
drive.google.com
Startups and Upstarts.pdf

4:01 PM · Jul 22, 2020
27 Reposts · 85 Likes
Data

Arpit Gupta@arpitrage
Nice new comprehensive land price data from FHFA team and Larson, Shui, Davis, Oliner:
fhfa.gov/PolicyPrograms…

2:52 PM · Jul 23, 2020
4 Reposts · 12 Likes

Kevin Rinz@kevinrinz
Also, if you want to play with the data on mean physician earnings by CZ and specialty that Josh mentioned, you can download them here:
kevinrinz.github.io
Data

8:20 PM · Jul 23, 2020
5 Reposts · 17 Likes

Arpit Gupta@arpitrage
Looks like really cool data on mapping farms in case someone thinks of some good use cases.

Shan He @heshan_cheri
First public project we did at team Unfolded in collaboration w/ @Indigoag. Mapping 8 million farm fields with H3-based vector tiles, visualized in https://t.co/SqbQgo2asx, and published by Unfolded studio! More to come at https://t.co/A9HZuJczqe
--> https://t.co/1pHG6y4uom <-- https://t.co/HSblr9rjJY
3:23 PM · Jul 23, 2020
3 Likes

