Best of #econtwitter - Week of November 21, 2021 [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

Erika McEntarfer @ErikaMcentarfer

For new followers who are curious, I will tease one more graph from our paper in progress, showing the enormous dispersion in earnings for graduates of top schools and the earnings gap between graduates of top 5/top 20/non-top 20 programs in academia (1/3)

Erika McEntarfer @ErikaMcentarfer

This chart shows how non-academic placements for economists are distributed across sectors and how this has changed over time. Tech has grown as a share of initial placements, but remains a small share (gov't and consulting share of placements are larger and increased by more)

Erika McEntarfer @ErikaMcentarfer

So why does tech have such an outsized role in our conversations about economists? There are likely lots of reasons for this, but one might be that tech placements have increased *a lot* at top programs, going from near zero 10-12 years ago to 9% of recent placements

^navel-gazing, but based on (restricted!) data

Alex Holcombe @ceptional

New paper: "A billion-dollar donation: estimating the cost of researchers’ time spent on peer review" - by @BalazsAczel, @szaszibarnabas, & I. rdcu.be/cBmE0 🧵👇

rdcu.beA billion-dollar donation: estimating the cost of researchers’ time spent on peer review

Ben Golub @ben_golub

One of the first papers that I devoured because of a need to know a result in it was by John Conlisk. His writing made it clear why he is remembered for being a great teacher. To honor his memory, this is a🧵about "Comparative statics for Markov chains" 1/

UCSDEcon @UCSDEcon

In Memoriam: Sad to report that John Conlisk (1939-2021) passed away last month. A true force in building @UCSDEcon into what is today during his three decades (1969-1999) here. More details on his achievements and life at https://t.co/8WUCakqIC0. https://t.co/MaOvPA6vsC

Martin Beraja @MartinBeraja

🚨New paper🚨 AI innovation may both entrench modern autocracies and be promoted by them in a sustained manner. Read on for evidence of such mutually reinforcing relationship in the context of facial recognition AI in China. A thread 🧵 1/13 @MITEcon #EconTwitter

NBER @nberpubs

Study finds a mutually reinforcing relationship between frontier innovation and autocracy in the context of facial recognition AI in China, from @MartinBeraja, Andrew Kao, @david_yang, and Noam Yuchtman https://t.co/JyUbiCsiPS https://t.co/qDHvqz82Om

More: UK coal phase out; college decision-making among low-income students; macroeconomics of CTC; Thinking Clearly With Data; standardized testing correlations; labor dynamics with endogenous growth; TLTRO stuff; capital controls

Public goods

Imran Rasul @ImranRasul3

**NEWS ALERT** Think the world of academic economists can be organized better? Have a concrete suggestion of how to do this? Then read on: the @EEANews has launched a new initiative to fund research proposals on career incentives in economics eeassoc.org/career-structu… (1/2)

Imran Rasul @ImranRasul3

We welcome proposals using applied theory/empirical analysis tackling issues (with concrete policy suggestions) including: (i) recruitment, promotion & retention of talent (ii) design of tenure systems (iii) reforming publications process (iv) response to rise of teamwork (2/3)

Matt Clancy @mattsclancy

If you’re an economics job market candidate who wants to introduce yourself and your work to the wider #EconTwitter community, consider tagging in @WelcomeEcon in a reply to your tweet to get retweeted!

Welcome Economists! @WelcomeEcon

This account retweets people who want to introduce themselves to the #EconTwitter community. That's all it does!

Yannai A. Gonczarowski @YannaiGonch

Hi #EconTwitter! So great that many JMCs are sharing their JMPs online. And it's now easier than ever to keep track: -Follow @EconJMP: bot that retweets tweets with #EconJMP or #EconJMC in them -Follow @EconTheoryJMP: bot that retweets tweets with the above+#Theory in them Enjoy!

scott cunningham @causalinf

. @mattohom1 is an economist at Spotify and he sent me a great deck he made to help people learn more abt tech careers. dropbox.com/s/bmci0ffcfkhx…

^see also: new blog post on “Consulting and Freelancing in Academia”

Interesting discussions

Fabian Lange @fabolange

#PSA #EconJobMarket Applying for Assistant Prof: think about your field. Most departments divide the files into 4 piles: Applied Micro, Theory, Econometrics, Macro. If your primary is "Microeconomics", your assignment will be more random and/or based on secondary field.

Ben Golub @ben_golub

Formal proof verification is becoming a bigger deal in math. This is an idle thought about how this could play a role in changing the assignment of credit for mathematical advances. Tl;dr: get paid for proving lemmas on the blockchain. 1/

Alex John London @AlexJohnLondon

If you read a paper and you think, “man, this is a good paper” it costs you nothing to email the author and let them know that you appreciate their work. Compliments are rare in #academia but they needn’t be.

^to American (and non-American) readers, have a good Thanksgiving