Best of #econtwitter - Week of October 18, 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.
Paper summaries
For all people doing IV in their work, this brand new paper seems *very* relevant!
arxiv.org/abs/2010.05058
One important takeaway msg is: Rule of 1st stage F stats > 10 can be very misleading.
Authors also give nice alternative inference tools that can “rescue” us all!
^potentially a big deal. Funny/meme responses here and here and here; good explanation:
I’m glad to see a weak IV paper getting so much attention! Since I know a lot of ppl won’t read past the abstract, I thought it might be helpful to do a short thread on the paper. 1/
Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna @pedrohcgs
🚨New Paper: Religious Revival and Social Order 🚨
Cultural beliefs are usually slow-moving. Not so with religious revivals: here beliefs change rapidly. [1/N]
osf.io/6kh9e/
The value of WHO surveillance and World Bank aid in the "Meningitis belt", by @belindaarch et al.
researchgate.net/publication/34…
Local outbreaks => big economic and health losses.
But if WHO declares a national epidemic, World Bank aid kicks in, all effects are reversed.
🥳 Our paper #Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from #Trump's #tradewars is forthcoming @EJ_RES. The paper is joint with Carlo Schwarz @Unibocconi ( @Warwick_econ PhD). Paper is ➡️: bit.ly/3nP059U and ⬇️ a short🧵describing what we do and how the paper is novel... 1/
🚨 In this new @cepr paper with @felipev84 we document the negative long-term impact of conflict on economic development, using highly disaggregated and newly available data on bombing campaigns, satellite imagery and development outcomes.
\begin{thread}
CEPR @cepr_org
Public goods
AAA For researchers: WTO has just made available a new structural gravity database! Covering manufacturing trade between 1980-2016. #gravity4trade #modellingtradepolicy Check it out at
More on the Nobel
ICYMI, our special Nobel edition of the newsletter from earlier this week
A coauthored thread: A lot has been said about the #NobelPrize2020 of Milgrom & Wilson, but @ShengwuLi and I would like to say a bit more. As two of Paul’s recent students, here’s our perspective on why auction theory is at the core of economic thinking. 1/14
^recommended
(Long thread--but worth reading)
I received lots of pushback (including some pretty nasty comments) on my tweets re. the most recent “Nobel Prize” in economics.
^not recommended
Fascinating thread on a Mexican grad student’s (acknowledged) contribution to multiple Nobel prizes. Who knows what he would have achieved had he remained in US universities, with all their pros and cons. Nice to see Ortega acknowledged though---economics has redeeming qualities!
Gerardo Esquivel @esquivelgerardo
Good discussions
Hello #EconTwitter. Some journals desk reject >50% of submissions. If there were no desk rejections and nothing else changed, we'd need twice as many referee reports. What is your preference (people with some experience with per review only please):
^a particularly good reply:
@wwwojtekk Unpopular opinion: I think there should be more desk rejects or an option for referees to click "this paper should be desk-rejected" when asked to review. I sometimes know that the paper will be rejected after reading the intro, and still have to waste time on a full report.
A thread on virtual seminars, econ terminology, and inclusivity in the profession.
I recently had the fortune to attend a fantastic virtual seminar. The paper was excellent and the speaker was a wonderful economist and person. But, as it often does in applied micro, 1/7
As promised last week, here is a thread to explore and explain some beliefs about interim analyses and efficacy stopping in randomized controlled trials.
Job market
What a disaster:
As of 2020-10-04, # of job openings on JOE for full-time academic jobs in the US is down 64.1% relative to same time in 2019. 2/6
An update a month later: sad to see that US Academic jobs are still down 75%, nonUS recovered a little but still down 35%, US non academic jobs down 35%, US academic non tenure track jobs (postdocs etc) down 20%. Also, broken down by the type of academic job (AP/senior). jmdt
Andrew Lilley @andrewlilley_au
