Best of #econtwitter - Week of September 27, 2020
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Best of #econtwitter - Week of September 27, 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.
Paper summaries
Happy to share our new WP that uses data on 60K Facebook interests of 2 billion people to propose new measures of cultural distances between populations (nber.org/papers/w27827.… and doi.org/10.31235/osf.i…) with @klausvanieper @acrumin @rcuevasrumin @iyadrahwan @EdmondAwad
How efficient markets are vs how efficient economists believe they are: our paper looking at more than 600 experimental markets is just accepted at @RevOfFinStudies!
We found economists likely believe markets are much more efficients than they are! 1/n
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Super cool paper by three junior economists, @LukasMergele @CESifoGroup, @AAoritz and @MoritzLubczyk @ZEW, who study one of the most interesting episodes of economic history in post-war Germany: "The Big Sell: Privatizing East
Germany’s Economy" cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_…
🚨 Working Paper 🚨: “Did the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic kill the US Life Insurance Industry?", together with @CortesGustavoS.
Short answer: "No"
Medium answer: A video 👇
Long answer: papers.ssrn.com/abstract=36978…
(Unlike @arpitrage, we can't create an on-location video. We tried!)
What happens when women in introductory economics courses are (randomly) assigned to study groups in which they are in the minority?
They are a full 10 percentage points more likely to drop the course.
dropbox.com/s/inf6epcepg3w…
This paper is fantastic. My summary: Technology has been killing the mom and pop store for a century. Transport technologies facilitate scale, effectively aiding big business.
The death of small business is mechanically the outcome of human preferences and technology.
AEA Journals @AEAjournals
Excited to share my job market paper! I ask: Do voters respond to economic policies, outcomes, or both in the ballot box? Using county-level data on New Deal spending, I show robust effects of economic policy on voting. bit.ly/32Yuomh
Does antitrust matter? Read this!
New paper from Tim Besley, Nicola Fontana and Nicola Limodio forthcoming in AER: Insights @AEAjournals
Firm-level data from 10 million firms, 90 countries, over 10 years. They look at profit margins, and concentration.
Results:
1/2
📣📣LIBERTY, SECURITY, AND ACCOUNTABILITY📣📣
---------The Rise and Fall of Illiberal Democracies---------
With @bartonelee2
Still hot from the oven!
Thread: 👇👇👇 (1/11)
gratton.org/papers/Liberty…
My solo paper on why trade unions can survive in markets where labor can free ride on traditional benefits, finally came out in JOLE! journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.108…
I propose and test a model where union membership acts as legal insurance against allegations. 1/6
Since I just presented part of our @AnnualReviews paper on "Taking State-Capacity Research to the Field: Insights from Collaborations with Tax Authorities" at the #AFE2020, I'm taking this opportunity to finally tweet a summary of this paper (joint with @josevilabelda):
1/n
Public goods/advice
Valuable info for Econ PhDs planning to go on the job market in 2020/2021. 🙏for this public service.
▶️Supply side ~stable.
▶️Higher-ed employers expect to contract their demand by >= 50% in median scenario.
▶️Non-ed employer expect to make ~ as many offers as last year.
Ben Golub @ben_golub
I read great applied JMPs on interesting & timely topics.
Here's some writing advice from better scholars/writers than me. Advice I still struggle to follow.
Once you have a draft, you've done the hard work: data collection & careful analysis.
Now, get your message across!🧵1/n
As the school year kicks off & grad students start signing up to see profs, here are some thoughts about planning your research.
To me, the 2 questions PhD students ought to ask themselves:
1. How will this research change people's beliefs?
2. Who are those people?
Hi Econ friends😊
If you are applying for masters or doctoral programs in Economics, please feel free to message me!
I will make a group so we can connect: share our questions, insights, events, etc.
What it’s like doing research in government jobs? Check out my short article @AEACSWEP + some info applies beyond govt. Other early career info @MelanieKhamis Susan Vroman @kmpjones Linda Hooks, co-editor @SarahJacobsonEc aeaweb.org/content/file?i… #EconTwitter #econjobmarket 1/N
Good discussion
There are many problems with Difference-in differences design, but many of them can be addressed (or evaluated more clearly) If you follow a rule of 1) stack by event date, 2) insist on "clean controls."
A trivial proposal for improving the refereeing/editorial process:
- we run experiments on literally everything (even water supply!), but not on ourselves
- shouldn't we run some controlled experiment to test whether our reviewing/publishing process can be improved?
1/n
👇 Valuable summary thread by @KathAStapleton -- thank you! -- covering papers presented at day 1 of the @nberpubs Economics of AI conference.
For day 2, see her separate thread here:
Katherine Stapleton @KathAStapleton
Top 10 most powerful Economics departments measured by editorial roles at high ranking Econ journals.
The Geographic Diversity Project @geo_diverse
