Best of #econtwitter - Week of November 15, 2020 (2/2)
Welcome readers old and new to this week’s edition of the Best of Econtwitter. Thanks to those sharing suggestions, over email or on Twitter @just_economics.
This is part two of two for this week’s newsletter, due to the unusually high quantity of good tweets this week. Part one is here.
Paper summaries
Ulf Zölitz@uZoelitz
"Peer Personality and Academic Achievement" is now available ahead of print at @JPolEcon
journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jpe/0/ja
Our paper highlights that the personality of your college peers has a causal impact on human capital.
12:41 PM · Nov 17, 2020
90 Reposts · 356 Likes
Ben Golub@ben_golub
In this issue of Econometrica:
"Targeting Interventions in Networks"
We take an old question: "Whose incentives matter most for aggregate outcomes in a network game?"
and give some new answers and a new approach.
w/ A. Galeotti @LBS and S. Goyal @CambridgeINET
🧵
6:36 PM · Nov 19, 2020
57 Reposts · 318 Likes
Anna Stansbury@annastansbury
Tenreyro & McLeay argue that the apparently weak Phillips Curve could actually be consistent with a strong underlying Phillips Curve. Optimal response from monetary policymakers - who respond to demand shocks - would mean we wouldn't observe the underlying PC relationship ex post
5:51 PM · Nov 20, 2020
4 Likes
^thread summarizing a couple macro papers
Simon Jäger@simon_jaeger
How does an unequal distribution of land shape development? In work with @CharlyBartels and Natalie Obergruber, we investigate this question studying historical inheritance rules for land across Germany. economics.mit.edu/files/20830
4:57 PM · Nov 18, 2020
37 Reposts · 139 Likes
Ugo Gentilini@Ugentilini
What happens 10 years after giving #cashtransfers + assets programs in #India?
⬆️ consumption (1 SD)
⬆️ food security (0.1 SD)
⬆️ income (0.3 SD)
⬆️ health (0.2 SD)
Why?
Programs help people get jobs and have an economic return of 336%
Banerjee et al
nber.org
Long-term Effects of the Targeting the Ultra Poor Program
5:00 PM · Nov 16, 2020
22 Reposts · 56 Likes
Catherine Maclean@JCMecon
1/11 📢New @nberpubs working paper📢
@jmallatt79 @KosaliSimon @christopherruhm & I review economic studies on the #opioid crisis in the US
nber.org/papers/w28067?…
nber.org
Review of Economic Studies on the Opioid Crisis
4:42 PM · Nov 16, 2020
15 Reposts · 67 Likes
Hannah Ritchie@_HannahRitchie
Results from a new randomised control trial on GM eggplant in Bangladesh:
→ 51% increase in yields
→ 37.5% reduction in pesticide use
→ 128% increase in net revenues for farmers
→ reduction in farmers reporting symptoms of pesticide poisoning
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aj…
10:16 PM · Nov 18, 2020
106 Reposts · 517 Likes
Job market papers
Shmuel san@san_muly
How helpful are socially connected parents for young workers’ who are entering the labor market? In my #JMP, I use administrative data from Israel to find out.
Website: sites.google.com/view/mulysan
#EconTwitter #EconJobMarket
A thread
1/9
1:29 PM · Nov 22, 2020
32 Reposts · 132 Likes
David R. Agrawal@DavidRAgrawal
🚨🚨Consider my student, Kenneth Tester, who is on the job market. He is presenting @NatlTax today.
He is doing interesting work at the intersection of public finance, urban economics, and labor economics. #EconTwitter #taxtwitter
His website: kennethtester.com
Thread👇
6:33 PM · Nov 19, 2020
8 Reposts · 19 Likes
Margaret Bock@margaretbock_
My JMP links the construction of the ADHS to mortality outcomes in the region. Specifically, I examine changes in mortality rates where improved travel times could directly impact survivability over the course of the 50 years of construction. (7/15)
10:25 PM · Nov 19, 2020
3 Likes
Maxi Guennewig@MaxiGNWG
2/ In my JMP, I discuss private, centralised digital currencies (PCDC). These currencies are issued and operationally managed by firms or groups of firms that produce consumption goods.
I highlight the consequences for monetary policy in a theoretical framework.
7:04 PM · Nov 19, 2020
Michela Tincani@MichelaTincani
College education in the OECD is characterized by high rates of dropout and of major switching. Is the system good at letting students learn about match-quality through experimentation, or bad at matching students to the programs they are most likely to graduate from? 1/
9:04 AM · Nov 15, 2020
15 Reposts · 85 Likes
Public goods
Panka Bencsik@PankaBencsik
Just sent out an update to everyone on #EconBrew (the list of economists happy to grab coffee with visitors to their city post-pandemic).
Will also add quietly how happy I am of a major milestone the initiative reached: There are now 150(!!) economists on the list! 🗺️
7:39 PM · Nov 20, 2020
6 Reposts · 108 Likes
Ralph Lütticke@RalphLuet
Thanks to @glviolante I had the pleasure to share my knowledge about perturbation solutions of heterogenous agent models with PhD students at Princeton. I have uploaded my lecture slides on GitHub. These provide a good introduction to our method and codes.
github.com
ralphluet/KS_Perturbation_vs_MIT
12:19 PM · Nov 20, 2020
34 Reposts · 216 Likes
Jonathan Portes@jdportes
For anyone interested in inequality (over time and between countries), fascinating charts and discussion here from @PIIE
piie.com/microsites/how…
10:39 AM · Nov 20, 2020
59 Reposts · 108 Likes
Jason Lyall@jaylyall_red5
For Divided Armies, we built a new dataset, Project Mars, that sought to incorporate these excluded belligerents and wars. A team of 134 coders worked for nearly 7 years to add 124 new belligerents & dozens of wars not included in the Correlates of War for 1800-2011. 3/10
6:05 PM · Nov 20, 2020
8 Reposts · 45 Likes
Interesting threads/discussions
Jason Furman@jasonfurman
I did a talk in the excellent @MarkusEconomist Academy series yesterday on “Do Debt and Deficits Matter Anymore.” You can watch the video, see the slides, or read this longish thread for a summary.
youtube.com/watch?v=SwZnLV…
dropbox.com
20201119 Princeton Debt.pdf
4:03 PM · Nov 20, 2020
101 Reposts · 426 Likes
Michael Ewens@startupecon
I tell students that you are often better off “embracing the endogeneity” than trying to address it poorly. Understanding confounds, signing resulting bias and then clearly presenting the economic story to the reader can be quite convincing...and we still learn something. https://t.co/KYIUdVFRGv
Jacob Montgomery @Jacob_Montg
I would love for this to become a standard way to argue about confounding.
The tendency to reach for totally implausible causal designs (IV or RDD) is so much worse than just putting bounds on for readers to decide for themselves. https://t.co/ErO7sbwwZE
4:59 PM · Nov 21, 2020
40 Reposts · 301 Likes
Elisabeth Leduc@leduc_elisabeth
Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to take part in the @AEACSWEP mentoring workshop for female and non-binary PhD students. Great advice and insights were shared by mentors, panellists, and organizers. Here are my 10 key take-aways for those who could not join:
1:22 PM · Nov 21, 2020
42 Reposts · 196 Likes
Paul Romer@paulmromer
I am a big believer in talking to people from other disciplines. To illustrate, I’ll tell a story about a brief coinversation with @CT_Bergstrom that was literally one of the of high points of my entire career.
1/N
12:35 AM · Nov 17, 2020
45 Reposts · 324 Likes
Devin Pope@Devin_G_Pope
Everyone should scroll through this NYT article for the graphics alone.
Question for academics: At what point should the QJE allow authors to submit a dynamic scatter plot? Good graphics can help editors/referees/readers understand a paper's message.
nytimes.com
States That Imposed Few Restrictions Now Have the Worst Outbreaks
6:50 PM · Nov 19, 2020
6 Reposts · 55 Likes