Best of #econtwitter - Week of May 30, 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.

This marks the one-year anniversary of the newsletter — thanks for joining for the ride :)

Paper summary threads

Sylvain Chabé-Ferret @SylvainCF

Fascinating! Publication bias severely biases upward estimates of the capital/labor substitution. Biased estimate=0.9 Biased corrected estimate=0.3 Huge range of consequences for a lot of theories. Very very important result and a vindication of meta-analysis tools 👍

Sebastian Gechert @SGechert

See these so-called funnel plots (effect size vs. 1/SE): you can clearly spot that something is missing at negative σ’s. σ<0 do not match any theoretical prediction so it is plausible that authors tend to discard such estimates and search for “acceptable” values. https://t.co/L7flFgl4iY

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp

Wow. This is an interesting result from Kleven et al. in the new AER:I Child penalty for adoptive kids for women is nearly identical for biological kids. Similar zero effect for men in both cases. pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10…

Clara Martínez-Toledano @cmtneztt

Given the rise in economic inequalities in the Western world since the 1980s, one might have expected to observe rising political demand for redistribution and the return of class-based politics. Turns out that is incorrect (or at least more subtle). A 🧵:

Clara Martínez-Toledano @cmtneztt

The most striking result that emerges from our analysis is what we propose to call the transition from “class-based party systems” to “multi-elite party systems”.

^in GIF form across countries

Alexander Berger @albrgr

Interesting paper finding that polls showing close ballot referenda in Switzerland cause slightly higher voter turnout: davidecantoni.net/pdfs/BCFSY_202…

Jacob Robbins @thesugar

New working paper day! Returning to macro theory with "Old Keynes and New-Fisher: A Model of Animal Spirit Driven Recessions". Why does government spending sometimes have Old Keynesian effects (left panel), and sometimes "Neo-Fisherian" effects (right)? jacobarobbins.com/model_writeup_…

Aaron Schwartz @A_Schwa

🚨🚨New Paper Alert🚨🚨 Private health insurers have very different medical necessity policies than Medicare. 25% of Medicare Part B spending would require prior authorization under a private insurer's coverage rules. THREAD. (1/10) jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-…

jamanetwork.comMeasuring the Scope of Prior Authorization PoliciesThis cross-sectional study measures the extent of prior authorization requirements for medical services and describes the services and clinician specialties affected by them using novel data on private insurer coverage policies

Frank Schilbach @FrankSchilbach

⏰📢New working paper! ⏰📢 "Learning in the Household" with @JohnConlon7 @malavika_mani @raogautam @matthewridley93 My first-ever 🧵 Paper: economics.mit.edu/files/21115 Slides: economics.mit.edu/files/21517 1/N

More: minimum wage and food spend; electricity subsidies; DEX HFTs; credit booms; gender / job search; microcredit GE ; monopsony in Colombia; tbill market; cicadas

Public goods

Jennifer Doleac @jenniferdoleac

So exciting! Check it out. And thanks to all our amazing panelists for their insights.

Criminal Justice Expert Panel @CJExpertPanel

The results of our first survey are up! https://t.co/ClxaK6dF7v

^IGM-type survey for criminal justice

Ashvin Gandhi @ashdgandhi

Gary Chamberlain's lecture notes are amazingly insightful. I kept mine from 2013. We used to joke that the first time you read them, they don't make sense. The second time, they start to. And the third time, you see God.

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp

Hi all, I collected together Gary Chamberlain's (incredible) lecture notes from the course I took from him in 2010 at Harvard and posted them here: https://t.co/6udHHmK5Z8 Very grateful to Gary's family for letting me post these, I hope you find them as inspiring as I did. https://t.co/Wat6WJEEoY

Matt Clancy @mattsclancy

Excited to invite all #EconTwitter science fiction fans to a brand new online event: July 29 at 3pm EST will be the first #EconTwitter Science Fiction Book conversation! Read on for details. (cc @klakhani @AlexBartik @ash_craig @RyanReedHill @RemyLevin @inaganguli)

Livia Terenzi Alfonsi @livia_alfonsi

Hey #econtwitter ! @gaiagdossi and I have put together a (very un-exhaustive) list of best practices for Applied Micro RAs - feel free to use it, share it and contribute! 👇 dropbox.com/s/eej9n1ywknlz…

Interesting discussions

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp

What are big questions in your field of economics that you think are worth thinking about for grad students who are about to finish their quals and pivot into full-time research?

^Also, a lot of discussion on “what to do summer before grad school”: eg 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Fabio Ghironi @FabioGhironi

A thread on second- and third-order comments as research killers, related to a recent @bopinion post by @tylercowen. 1/n

^other commentary on the Cowen piece: Krugman, Clancy, Doleac

Hans Henrik Sievertsen @hhsievertsen

How much do I (assistant prof in econ) work? #dataviz #EconTwitter #dataisbeautiful #R R code is on my github

Matt Blackwell @matt_blackwell

One practice that is useful to begin in grad school is empathetic criticism, in which you try to give feedback from the target’s own perspective. Instead of saying X is dumb, try to understand the trade-offs that led the author to choose X and tailor your comments accordingly.

Chris Conlon @conlon_chris

We don't really have many successful open-source "projects" in Economics. (ie: teams of people not-necessarily co-authors working to build common infrastructure). Maybe QuantEcon/Dynare are examples -not a coincidence that central bankers can be paid to do much of the work. 1/4

Jimbo Brand @jamesbrandecon

A friend of mine in a health policy field tells me that they have "coding" coauthors sometimes. When I see the amount of coding work for method papers (e.g. DiD stuff by @pedrohcgs and @borusyak), I often wonder why we don't see that form of specialization in econ. 1/

Adrien Matray @AdrienMatray

Hi #econtwitter: what good "general audience" books in econ / socio / political sciences would you recommend to good undergrads / PhD students that touches on economic phenomena? Some of personal favorites below (in no particular order)