Best of #econtwitter - Week of March 13, 2022 [2/2]
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
We linked together a number of datasets including the @uscensusbureau, the @HMDatabase, @UN, and @NIH to estimate lead exposure from 1940-2015 and then 2015-2100. In 2015, 170 million people had elevated lead exposure as children (53%) -- some with VASTLY elevated exposure.
Reduced cognitive function is one of the most pernicious effects of lead. We estimate this lead exposure reduced the IQ of the average American by 2.6 IQ points. For the nearly 21 million people born between 1966-1980, this is an average deficit of 5.9 IQ points per person.
Longish thread:
I forgot the now mandatory promotional tweet of our recently published JME paper, "Kaldor and Piketty’s Facts: The Rise of Monopoly Power in the United States" joint with two of my former students Jake Robbins @thesugar and Ella Getz Wold @GetzWold. 1/x
My JMP was on the impact of the 1980 Windfall Profit Tax (WPT) on US oil producers. Sen. Democrats unveiled a new WPT today and it is similar to the 1980 WPT. Based on my work on the topic, I think the proposal is likely to reduce US output. 2/12
Paper:
Thread: My paper on revisiting income inequality in the USA is now online at the Economic Journal @RoyalEconSoc. Let me explain why it matters here. But first, just look at this graph which summarizes it all
doi.org/10.1093/ej/uea… #econtwitter #econhist #inequality #Economics
I wrote a new paper with @EXjiang! It's about house price dispersion, the effectiveness of housing as mortgage collateral, and how this affects mortgage credit provision. Here's the abstract and here's a link! And here's a thread summarizing the paper
anthonyleezhang.github.io/pdfs/LTV.pdf
Very happy to share our paper on Electoral turnovers with @benjaminmarx & @vincent_rollet ! ⬇️
We built a dataset of national election results since 1945 to estimate the effects of turnovers on economic performance, trade, human development, conflict, and democracy (1/9).
NBER @nberpubs
New paper "Internationalizing like China"!
We empirically characterizes the Renminbi’s bond market internationalization. We find that foreigners increasingly buy these bonds as substitute for developed government debt.
We provide a model to understand China's strategy.
New research alert!
Over 140 countries agreed on a fundamental global corporate tax reform in 2021, with the framework by @OECDtax.
Together with @rgomezcram from @LBS, we study the effects of this reform on firm values and countries' public finances.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
The effective tax rates on labor and capital converged globally since the 1960s, due to a 10 percentage-point increase in labor taxation and a 5 percentage-point decline in capital taxation.
^new database
@tomweingarten @Slate While we're talking about the dangers of traffic noise, here's some hot-off-the-press research examining 700+ European cities.
Authors found that excessive vehicle noise leads to 1000s of preventable deaths each year.
(IHD = Ischaemic Heart Disease) doi.org/10.1016/j.envi…
(1/11)Today we share our evaluation of the @village_ent Development Impact Bond the first in sub-Saharan Africa for extreme poverty. Our RCT was the first to measure the impact of a #PovertyGraduation program during #COVID19🧵#VillageEnterpriseDIB #IWD2022 bit.ly/35yRELN
More: Great Recession and mental health; cross-identity moral licensing; subnational Paraguay GDP; World Bank debt data revision patterns; liquidity constraints and education RCT; inheritance wealth
Interesting discussions
Let me offer a defense of complex models for everyday economic situations.
Of course workers aren't literally taking the integral. They're behaving based on a mixture of heuristics, common sense, and folk wisdom. 🧵
Khoa Vu @KhoaVuUmn
Since @kshantaram2 kindly requested it, here is a nontechnical summary of the research on unemployment and business-cycle stabilization presented at pascalmichaillat.org/t4.html.
There are 10 main takeaways.
Pascal Michaillat @pmichaillat
nothing will make me lose respect for you faster than if your study abstract says you have a gajillion observations but in fact the key variable you study only varies at a much, much higher level than these "observations" (so e.g. "treatment assignment" is at the cluster level)
