Best of #econtwitter - Week of November 29, 2020 (2/2)

Nov 30, 2020

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. Part one is here, featuring the ‘paper summaries’ and ‘public goods’ sections.

More public goods

Danila Serra@danilaserra_eco

*ADOPT A PAPER program* Call for mentors & mentees of all genders! Junior scholars in Econ submit a working paper and receive comments from a senior scholar. Aims to expand & diversify access to high quality feedback. Excited to launch with @EliraKuka! adoptapaper.org

3:44 PM · Nov 24, 2020

280 Reposts · 1.01K Likes

Josh McCrain@joshmccrain

New paper with @MattGrossmann and @MartyPJordan: The Correlates of State Policy and the Structure of State Panel Data (joshuamccrain.com/wp-content/upl…) We introduce the Correlates of State Policy Project data, describe its structure and advantages, and use it in an applied setting 1/n

3:48 PM · Nov 24, 2020

39 Reposts · 123 Likes

Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi@AmbrogioCB

📢 The VAR TOOLBOX 3.0 is now available 📢 sites.google.com/site/ambropo/M… The VAR Toolbox is a collection of Matlab codes to perform Vector Autoregression analysis. It comes with a "Primer on VARs" (code + slides) with examples and replications of well-known papers [Short thread] 👇🏼

sites.google.com

VAR Toolbox - Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi

12:36 PM · Nov 27, 2020

135 Reposts · 543 Likes

Interesting discussions

Ivan Werning@IvanWerning

Eddie Lazear managed to write tons of interesting papers in Labor Economics without being on the hunt for natural experiments or randomization. Non-Causal Applied Micro, a lost art? Are we still training this? (This is no critique of causal tools, but maybe of its tyranny)

1:57 PM · Nov 25, 2020

64 Reposts · 610 Likes

Ashvin Gandhi@ashdgandhi

I never understood complaints about journal fees. We don't balk at spending hundreds of thousands or even millions (faculty salary, RAs, data, equipment, etc.) to write a paper, but we get squeamish about $10k to finance a thorough review process and widespread dissemination?

Carl T. Bergstrom @CT_Bergstrom

Hybrid open from the Nature family of journals for “only” $11,390. I suspect Nature is about to learn that people publish there for the certification, not the distribution. ht @hardsci https://t.co/a9Mvz7Xy53

6:12 PM · Nov 24, 2020

3 Likes

^good discussion in replies to both of these first two

Justin Sandefur@JustinSandefur

Academics should record audiobooks of their papers. I'm tired of listening to pop non-fiction books while I cook, clean, etc.

2:47 PM · Nov 26, 2020

37 Reposts · 388 Likes

Paul Novosad@paulnovosad

What if all the research productivity gains from computers and the internet are being lost to a worse journal process. More referee dialogue, more rejections and revisions with new formatting requirements each time, etc..

9:22 PM · Nov 28, 2020

10 Likes

Tim Bartik@TimBartik

A very good question was asked during Q&A, that I wanted to further respond to. The question in essence was: why do place-based policy to respond to high non-employment -- aren't there more direct policies to address the market failure? (I don't recall who asked Q).

Anna Stansbury @annastansbury

Fantastic lineup on GOOD JOBS today. First up: @TimBartik argues for a big public investment policy to *create* good jobs in areas with low employment rates. Note - should be through public investment, not tax incentives (which aren't cost effective per job created!) https://t.co/aSSBKnw4kA

2:50 PM · Nov 24, 2020

5 Reposts · 14 Likes

Jason Abaluck@Jabaluck

A field that doesn't exist but should: econometric epistemology. Using modern empirical methods to isolate the causal impact of expertise on beliefs might be the best way to figure out what's true in many (most?) contexts.

11:35 PM · Nov 22, 2020

7 Reposts · 72 Likes

Job market papers

Cora Bennett@coraebennett

Hi #EconTwitter, I’m a job market candidate at the University of Tennessee. I research topics in labor and public economics and I’m excited to talk to you about my job market paper! #EconJobMarket Link: papers.corabennett.org/ILdraft.pdf 1/n

3:19 PM · Nov 23, 2020

30 Reposts · 207 Likes

Nicolas Gendron-Carrier@nigeca

🚨 Ian Herzog from Toronto studies the effects of London’s congestion charge on traffic, commuting, and the spatial distribution of econ. activity. His ambitious JMP features reduced form evidence and a quantitative model with endogenous congestion externalities and mode choice.

5:57 PM · Nov 18, 2020

24 Reposts · 108 Likes

Dina D. Pomeranz@DinaPomeranz

Study finds that when far right mayors get elected, hate crimes against immigrants increase. The paper compares localities in Italy where far right mayors narrowly won to localities where they narrowly lost. Job market paper by @alessio_romarri bit.ly/3fhnYmC

UB School of Economics @ubeconomics

📣Meet our #JobMarket candidate @alessio_romarri! His research fields are #PoliticalEconomy #Migration and #PolicyEvaluation. Learn more about Alessio at: https://t.co/19uuWA9nU1 @EEANews @AEEmedia @RoyalEconSoc @ASSAMeeting #EconTwitter #PhD #Economics #Research https://t.co/t0Ge1jDi2r

1:46 PM · Nov 25, 2020

31 Reposts · 160 Likes

Chris Blattman@cblatts

A thread on @mmoralmo's amazing job market paper, one of the best crime/social policy papers I've seen. Suppose you're mayor. You learn that a program--maybe it's drug treatment, lighting, social services, or policing--drops crime by a big amount. How much should you invest?