Best of #econtwitter - Week of September 6, 2020
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Best of #econtwitter - Week of September 6, 2020
Welcome readers old and new to this week’s edition of the Best of Econtwitter. Recommendations always welcome over email or on Twitter @just_economics.
New papers
“The small effects of political advertising are small regardless of context, message, sender, or receiver: Evidence from 59 real-time randomized experiments”
Kevin Munger @kmmunger
^This, in one figure: (though do note commentary on the statistical power)
New work with @aecoppock @vavreck @ScienceAdvances advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/e… We find little evidence of heterogeneity in persuasive effects of presidential campaign messages.
“Stable Income, Stable Family”
@IsaacDSwensen (r) me (r) @krishregmi
An extra $100 in max weekly unemployment insurance benefits ⬇️ divorce among laid off men by 1/3 of a percentage point, or 14% of the extra risk of divorce assoc with their layoffs. 1/n
nber.org/papers/w27753
🚨 New paper alert 🚨
"Are All Managed Care Plans Created Equal? Evidence from Random Plan Assignment in Medicaid"
with @MikeGeruso and @jwswallace
nber.org/papers/w27762
Our @nberpubs WP uses a mover-based event study design to estimate what happens when similar workers from the same original firm land at firms paying different wages & track their separation response (key measure of monopsony). @snaidunl @ihsaanbassier
nber.org/papers/w27755
👮👮👮 search black motorists 3x more than white motorists.
But (!), searches of black motorists don't yield more contraband.
Source (TX): "Racial Disparities in Motor Vehicle Searches Cannot Be Justified by Efficiency"
nber.org/papers/w27761
🚨New paper alert!🚨 bit.ly/31JCiz6
@doquocanh, @GalbiatiRoberto, Miguel Ortiz Serrano and I study discrimination in financial markets in the context of France’s "Dreyfus Affair."
We show that investors can earn excess returns by betting against discriminators (1/8)
Fantastic null effect of contact study in Afghanistan.
Null effects are *especially* important here because the existing contact literature shows signs of publication bias -- i.e. our literature-prior is that contact tends to work, but the pub. bias may have misled us... [1/4]
Yang-Yang Zhou @yangyang_zhou
Other paper summaries
Excellent paper on the economics of data just published in the AER (@AEAjournal) by Charles Jones and Chris Tonetti (@StanfordGSB).
Data is non rival and can be used by any firms or people simultaneously, without being diminished. But this can generate privacy concerns.
1/
This paper is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in development and misallocation.
It is one of my favorite papers and can be beautifully summarized in one figure, hence a short thread follow.
Key take-away: a lot of misallocation could be poor measurement.
1/N https://t.co/VfyQxf5izN
Jeffrey Bloem @JeffBloem
^Arpit Gupta asks the right question about this whole literature
Our paper “Scientific Education and Innovation: From Technical Diplomas to University STEM Degrees”, joint work with @BianchiEcon, is coming out in print in the October issue of @jeea. Here’s a summary of the paper. https://t.co/ZLcCXMAQYV
Imran Rasul @ImranRasul3
I am very happy to announce that my paper, "Interpreting OLS Estimands When Treatment Effects Are Heterogeneous: Smaller Groups Get Larger Weights," is forthcoming in @restatjournal. Below, I explain its contribution & implications for applied work.
doi.org/10.1162/rest_a…
1/n
Do people have children at the age they want? Or do desires change? Our longitudinal analysis today in @DemographicRes finds ~33% are earlier, ~16% as planned, ~49% later & 50% change desires as they get older @OxfordDemSci
🥳 🥳 🥳
Our paper (with @cogeorg and Matt Elliott) “Systemic Risk Shifting in Financial Networks” was accepted by the Journal of Economic Theory!
🥳 🥳 🥳
Link to latest draft: dropbox.com/s/fzm7opdmjady…
What’s the paper about? \begin{thread}
(1/8)
New EHR article. Structural transformation (from agricultural to industrial to service) in 🇯🇵 over the century 1885-1985: decomposition into demand (consumption changes) & supply factors (productivity). By Fukao & @Saumik78267353 (blog of article in EHR) ehsthelongrun.net/2020/08/31/bau…
Economic History Review @EcHistSocReview
My latest (with @cdcrabtree, Kern, and Pfaff) is out today at @PAReview.
We show that public schools discriminate a lot against Muslim and Atheist families.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…
Public goods
Quarterly macro and financial data since 1950 for a large group of countries: ericmonnet.eu/macro-financia… Thank you @MonnetEric and Damien Puy!
🔥 job market public good alert 🔥 There's a lot of info to stay on top of during the job market. I created an organizer to keep track of apps, interviews, flyouts (zoom-outs?), reimbursements, and offers. Find it below or on my website
Sasha Indarte @SashaIndarte
As teaching is about the start, I have uploaded very accessible codes that solve the Krusell-Smith model via the two most popular solution methods for heterogenous agent models with aggregate shocks: Perturbation (as in Reiter's work)and MIT shocks (as in @SorryToBeKurt's work).
If anyone wants a step-by-step tutorial to try this, there’s a nice one from @nchan on YouTube: youtu.be/ALesylse5a0 https://t.co/CsuF6Va1CA
Shengwu Li @ShengwuLi
Good discussions
Some, but not all, of the usual biases have shifted during the pandemic, so it's not obvious that the overall CPI bias has switched signs. Regardless, a lot of these effects are very short term and will have equal and offsetting effects in the rebound. He identifies 4 causes of
Justin Wolfers @JustinWolfers
