Best of #econtwitter - Week of June 13, 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
"Childhood Cross-ethnic Exposure Predicts Political
Behavior Seven Decades Later: Evidence from Linked
Administrative Data" in which we examine the very long-term (seven decades) effects of early life racial contact on politics much later in life.
When there's a large reform to top state tax rates, innovation falls in that state. The elasticity of patents to the net-of-tax rate is around 1-2 at the state-level depending on the specification. That's big! (~macro LS elast)
(Note x-axis in figure is residualized ln(1-taxes))
Innovation tends to "stand on the shoulders of giants." If taxes reduce innovation in t, one might expect it to reduce innovation in t+k as well. Distributed lag regressions show that this is the case: these effects grow and persist for decades.
A few simple facts that some people find surprising the first time they hear them.
Imagine $100 is behind door A or B and I give you independent hints about which. The hint says either A or B but is right only 55% of the time.
First hint is worth $5, second hint is worth... $0!
Why? Because the second hint never makes you *want* to change your decision. (Think about the four possible hint combinations.)
This is a key idea behind a beautiful paper by Meg Meyer, here:
2/
Work requirements for food stamps
⏩cut participation by 53%
⏩disproportionately screened out homeless participants
⏩didn’t increase employment
New @nberpubs
Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply
**Updated CPS Non-Response Paper**
Households refusing the CPS have skyrocketed in recent years.😵 We find non-response bias accounts for nearly 20 percent of the decline in the unweighted participation rate since the turn of the millennium. bit.ly/wolcottresearch
🚨New Paper Alert🚨 With @Viquibarone we have a new exciting paper on the causes & consequences of the opioid epidemic (tinyurl.com/3v599vsr). Let me tell you about (1/21)
We, @shakked_noy, @Schoefer_B, and I, have new review paper: What Does Codetermination Do? A comprehensive overview of #codetermination (worker representation in firms’ governance and mgmt), we cover history, implementation, and best evidence on impacts economics.mit.edu/files/21562
Absolutely nuts paper by researchers from U Chicago analyzing the productivity of 10,000 workers before and after the pandemic.
Conclusions: WFH led to 2 more hrs of work per day, more meetings, less focus time, and *less productivity* bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/upl…
Without relitigating questions about that paper, we examine a different question:
Are there market expanding benefits from FDA review? Can FDA certification increase revenues?
After all, firms make investments based on expected profits, which are *revenues* minus costs (3/5)
In this paper, we try to measure the “convenience yield” of safe assets like government debt- how much agents are willing to pay to hold a safe asset in addition to the present value of its cash flows. Akin to how we are willing to hold money although it pays no interest.
More: Floyd DiDs; misinfo warnings; CBDC design; caregiving marketing; toughness in negotiations; a nudge to save more didn’t work; self-insurance against job loss
Interesting discussions
2) EGHW argue that households should be sorted by wealth, not earnings. But wealth inequality among young adults is dwarfed by inequality in lifetime earnings. Sorting households by total wealth=wealth+ future earnings show that, for them, … 4/n
Dropping a new @Stata guide on #workflow management. In this guide learn about file and folder structures, use of relative paths, globals/locals, naming conventions, code styling tips, and working across multiple dofiles.
The Stata Workflow Guide
There is a certain amount of variation in the quantitative methods used across different fields
What proportion of that variation can be attributed to each of:
- Which methods are most appropriate by context
- Accidents of history
- Absolute differences in rigor/quality
- ???
I want to tell a story about why I think fieldwork is important. I happened to do my PhD at the London School of Economics, a place where fieldwork is highly-valued and where there is a tradition of important insights made in the field.
This is not true at all universities.
1/10
Today and tomorrow, most students in the U.S. will be attending school in temperatures well above 90°F (32°C).
In school buildings without adequate air conditioning, most students will learn next to nothing given their (and teachers') physical discomfort.
2 relevant papers:
I wanted so badly at one point to apply for one of those CIA jobs I’d sometimes see on the JOE. Does anyone know much about what economists in the CIA do? I was more mesmerized by the idea of it than the actual job description.
A tweet from a good thread on how “bad” RCT results are received from funders. Reminiscent of issues related to publication bias.
Jessica Leight @leightjessica
