Best of #econtwitter - Week of October 4, 2020
www.bestofecontwitter.com
Best of #econtwitter - Week of October 4, 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
Biggest findings: as a whole, health care has value above cost. This implies that medical care productivity is high, not the stagnant or falling productivity we are used to seeing. 7/10
Fifty Shades of QE: When central banks a study the impact of QE they find a bigger effect than other researchers. Those that find particularly big effects enjoy faster career progression. 🧐 nber.org/papers/w27849?…
^prompted a lot of discussion as one might imagine
🎲Noise-induced randomization in regression discontinuity designs📈
A new approach to inference that directly uses the "local randomization" — from measurement error or other noise — that is often used to informally justify RDDs
arxiv.org/abs/2004.09458
"Socialism causes Fascism" has to be the most politically spicy NBER working paper I've ever seen.
I'm sure everyone will carefully read the paper before offering any hot takes on this idea.
nber.org/papers/w27854
If it’s true that social returns to investment in innovation are far larger than the private returns (seems plausible to me) this seems like a gigantic source of market failure and an argument for substantial public sector intervention.
James Pethokoukis @JimPethokoukis
New paper "Present Bias Amplifies the Household Balance-Sheet Channels of Macroeconomic Policy" w Laibson & Maxted
benjaminmoll.com/PBMP/
Main results in title, though some more subtlety for monetary policy bc present-biased households procrastinate refinancing their mortgages
Untouchability across India, district-level analysis
epw.in/journal/2020/2… a new article on how reported practices of untouchability vary by social networks, income, education, region, caste, & religion - by Amit Thorat & Omkar Joshi in @epw_in
Recently accepted in Econometrica: "Policy Persistence and Drift in Organizations"
Link: scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/…
The paper models dynamic policymaking in groups with endogenous membership. Here, a thread explaining the main results and some interpretations+applications (1/n)
4/ Decades after reunification, East Germans still return to work after a year, according to the institutional incentives in the former GDR. West Germans, on the other hand, often only return after 3 years when current job protection ends.
Interesting paper shows large gender gap in work commutes play a role in increasing wage disparities.
Working from home therefore has the promise of expanding work opportunities to broader set of workers than those who just live very near employment.
QJE @QJEHarvard
Glad to share that our paper with @antonnakov on the 'Effectiveness and Addictiveness of Quantitative Easing' is forthcoming in the Journal of Monetary Economics. doi.org/10.1016/j.jmon… [Short thread]
Some interesting findings from the paper:
1. returns to schooling have gone up (between 79 and 97)
2. but sheepskin effects (returns to degree) have stayed steady
OK who wants a thread on why gangs rule? Not why gangs are great. I mean, when and how do they govern civilians.
Here we are meeting one gang leader who, besides running the drug trade, has built this crafts school behind him, a recycling center, and a community pool.
Wow crazy paper. I appreciate that they actually put the magnitudes in the abstract, that is weirdly too rare.
Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias
Public goods
Very happy to be part of the new PREDOC consortium, whose website just launched today
predoc.org
A great new resource for students interested in pathways to doctoral programs in Economics, and hopefully this is just the start
New Paper! Ever wanted to run an online survey or experiment, but didn't know where to start? The paper with @openwaterabby @AlexChinco @abbysussman lays out what you need to know to start collecting data in an afternoon!
Interesting discussions
I was trying to think of the jargony word(s) I use most often (or have to stop myself from using), in "normal" conversation.
Exogenous/endogenous?
Ex-ante/ex-post?
Marginal?
What about you?
^navel-gazing but fun
#EconTwitter hivemind: where can I find thoughtful discussions of "How do economists choose between different, perhaps competing models?"
Beginning of term here and one of my @LSEEcon MSc student asked this excellent questions. I obv have my views but references would be nice!
First year PhD students in economics: first year is hard for many of us. You may be thinking about quitting. It’s your life, friend, but let me give you a few tips of advice. First, you should try to calculated expected utility from staying for four more years vs leaving. 1/n
I’m seeing lots of ads from faculty in top/rich Econ departments this week hiring full-time pre-docs. You sure you all can’t just admit these talented students into your PHD programs, let them train and coauthor with you, and get on with their adult/professional lives? 🤷♀️
^provoked the usual drama/discussion on predocs, not recommended but included because the development itself is important
There is an amazing thread going on below, which touches upon Cournot, Bertrand, von Neumann, von Neumann & Morgenstern, and finally Nash. Having read these books/articles from the originals, I've got two comments on the strategic equilibrium before Nash 1/N #EconTwitter
Shengwu Li @ShengwuLi
