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.
This is part two of two. Part one is here.
Paper summary threads
Peter Hull@instrumenthull
Very excited about this new working paper with @aislinnbohren & @alexoimas, "Systemic Discrimination: Theory and Measurement"
dropbox.com/s/sp72pogz0lem…
We develop theoretical & empirical tools to model & measure the systemic drivers of discrimination in many settings
Summary 🧵:
3:00 PM · Mar 14, 2022
231 Reposts · 719 Likes
Max Miller@mjmill611
🚨New Working paper🚨 with Marco Grotteria and @lakshminyn
Foreign Influence in US Politics
We hand collect data on meetings between legislators and foreign country lobbyists and find that countries that meet more often get more government resources.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
1/X
10:34 PM · Mar 15, 2022
13 Reposts · 64 Likes
Jessica Leight@leightjessica
1/ Wanted to do an #EconTwitter 🧵 on a new + important topic that's growing in the literature: rigorous evidence about how policy-makers use + respond to evidence! Most of these papers are very recent, many still WP
6:31 PM · Mar 15, 2022
152 Reposts · 539 Likes
^and a followup thread
Kris Gulati@krisgulati
Who gains from this? "We find considerable evidence that graduate students are excessively optimistic regarding the state of academic job market, their chances to become faculty, and their chances to publish in the very best scientific journals."
docs.iza.org
6:49 PM · Mar 15, 2022
14 Reposts · 118 Likes
Aaron Chalfin@AaronChalfin
Can the effect of street lighting on public safety endure over time? In a new paper w/ @dmitre88, @tahamonster & @jd_lerner, we report results from a 3 yr follow-up of the first RCT of street lighting. Large treatment effects endure three years later! 👇
achalfin.weebly.com/uploads/8/5/4/…
3:59 PM · Mar 17, 2022
112 Reposts · 319 Likes
Kelsey Piper@KelseyTuoc
The top-line result of this study of microlending is that it helps women start businesses and earn income. But unfortunately, the businesses they are starting are often multilevel marketing businesses, where you mostly make money by signing up other people. (1/7)
MDRC @MDRC_News
"A three-year study of [@GrameenAmerica's] microlending program for low-income female entrepreneurs in New Jersey found that participants increased savings, earnings, and credit scores, according to [an MDRC] report Friday," writes @amyyeewrites @citylab. https://t.co/hR7l3lkxbh
6:36 PM · Mar 15, 2022
311 Reposts · 1.42K Likes
Jay Van Bavel@jayvanbavel
A meta-analysis of 1,506 studies of cooperation in social dilemmas (eg the Public Goods Game) conducted across 70 societies (k = 2,271) found little cross-national variation in #cooperation psyarxiv.com/z82tf (via @g_spadaro90)
2:38 AM · Mar 16, 2022
35 Reposts · 93 Likes
David Evans@DaveEvansPhD
It’s been more than 2 years since schools began shutting down due to COVID! In a new review, @lhmosco and I look at actual estimates (not projections) of learning loss and/or dropout rates from 27 countries.
Paper cgdev.org/publication/le…
Blog cgdev.org/blog/two-years…
🧵 1/12
12:19 PM · Mar 15, 2022
75 Reposts · 166 Likes
David Wessel@davidmwessel
The 12 Fed regional banks published 4,715 working papers between Jan 2006 and June 2021. NY (not surprisingly) and St. Louis (!) were the most prolific. via @cconces & @CParaSkinner papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
12:58 PM · Mar 14, 2022
14 Reposts · 34 Likes
More: ⬆gas price ⬆electric cars; teacher perceptions of underperforming students; occupational licensing and race; sex ratio IV; FX reserves; legal counseling in evictions; refugee mental health
Interesting discussions
Jason Abaluck@Jabaluck
There is a very bad idea popular in the humanities, among historians, and in popular culture that trying to massively extend human lifespans is immoral hubris, & that more generally, society must be short-signed due to the urgency of our current problems. nytimes.com/2022/03/15/pod…
5:16 PM · Mar 17, 2022
25 Reposts · 193 Likes
^thread!
Abigail Wozniak@AbigailWozniak
Some evidence on time to the (Econ) PhD...
Turns out median age at the PhD has fallen over the last 2-3 decades, in econ as well as soc sci and STEM.
🤔 1/n
6:04 PM · Mar 17, 2022
51 Reposts · 260 Likes
Todd Jones 🦊@toddrjones
What kind of starting salary (and stock options) do PhD economists get at places like Facebook and Amazon?
4:42 PM · Mar 19, 2022
23 Reposts · 238 Likes
^not any different info from (and smaller sample than) Glassdoor or levels.fyi, but replies may be of interest
Anup Malani@anup_malani
Many journals in economics require exclusive submission: a submitted paper not be under consideration elsewhere.
Given the long review times at econ journals, this delays publication of research. Given fixed tenure clocks, it creates large career risk for junior economists....
2:18 PM · Mar 20, 2022
34 Likes
^thread; more, on possible solutions, from Malani
Shengwu Li@ShengwuLi
Nice one, @ZachWeiner. Actually, it's standard advice for PhD students that one should not worry about getting perfect grades, because it's better to spend time on research.
2:18 PM · Mar 17, 2022
84 Reposts · 631 Likes
^some actual serious discussion in the replies. Full image, because Substack crops (from SMBC):
