Burning trees for energy is as bad as burning crops for energy. New paper by the protagonist of a recent book!

Federal policy on biofuels goes from bad to worse under Trump The administration’s lavish biofuel subsidies for farmers are bad for consumers and the planet, but the problem goes way beyond his administration.

I wrote about how Trump is making America's terrible biofuel policies even worse - and how most Democrats and environmentalists are too afraid to fight back. @canarymedia.com www.canarymedia.com/articles/foo...

American Economic Association (AEA) Recognizes Donald Andrews as a 2026 Distinguished Fellow

Join us in congratulating Donald Andrews for being recognized as an AEA 2026 Distinguished Fellow!

His work has had a lasting influence on many topics in modern econometrics, and has repeatedly changed how econometric problems are understood.
economics.yale.edu/news/260410/...

the people who collect data for government statistics like the unemployment rate, the census, etc, have boring, tedious, thankless jobs that they overwhelmingly do with integrity and honesty.

Just recorded a great pod, and I gotta say ... solar and batteries are going to win. They are the main dish. Everything else is a side dish. In 10 years, you won't be able to find anyone who disagrees with this.

Chris is a very smart, conservative economist. I enjoy talking with and learning from him. You can hear him talking about the administration on this @hellerhurwicz.bsky.social podcast
open.spotify.com/episode/6eBS...

Large Datasets and Structured Databases: Claude Code for Economists Video 4 in a series on Claude Code

Wrote another post based on a video with Markus Brunnermeier

Use LLMs to lessen the large fixed costs of managing and organizing large databases. I use the setting of HMDA mortgage data to show how a massive 250m row db can turn into a trivial data exercise thanks to DuckDB + Claude Code.

The NSF 2027 budget has noted that they will close out the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Program (SBE). This is not a good thing. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...

US refining group says record biofuel quotas may worsen Iran war price spike The Trump administration ordered U.S. refiners ​on Friday to blend a record amount of biofuels into their gasoline and diesel this year and next, a move intended ‌to help farmers but that the refining industry said would only backfire by raising pump prices already spiking due to the war in Iran.

US refining group says record biofuel quotas may worsen Iran war price spike reut.rs/4c9wbrX

Correct. On the vast majority of the world's land, solar would produce 100x or more the useable energy per hectare vs. bioenergy. Meaning 1 hectare for energy, 99 hectares left over for food. (Also, solar farms don't necessarily need to be put on farmland, but crops do.)

🧵A thread on "AI one-shot papers".

This has not been a focus on Bluesky, but on Twitter/X and LinkedIn, there has been a large discussion of the ability to "one-shot" policy evaluation, which David Yanagizawa-Drott has been pursuing in an interesting way: ape.socialcatalystlab.org

These are the words I gave over at a recent Iftar gathering for Ramadan. I'm very grateful to our Muslim neighbors for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to connect and to be together with them at this significant time.

Chris Sims, brilliant macroeconomic empiricist, has died. His Nobel acceptance speech: www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018....

Competition in Health Insurance Markets Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

New paper out with Amanda Starc on competition in health insurance markets, in particular on the complicated ways in which asymmetric information and competition interact (spoiler: things aren’t going so well). www.nber.org/papers/w34928

The Health Care Affordability Lab at Yale produces new evidence to guide policymakers and lower health care costs for individuals and the health care system.

👋We’re the Health Care Affordability Lab at @yale.edu — a new initiative that pairs rigorous academic scholarship with strategic policy engagement to curb rising health care spending at every level of government.

Read more: www.healthcareaffordabilitylab.org/commentary-p...

Long 🧵 tl;dr:

- Global ag commodity markets are integrated
- Biofuel policies raise ag commodity prices, causing ag to expand
- This leads to land-use change emissions
- We need to get off fossil fuels ASAP! But beware “solutions” that just swap fossil emissions for even higher land emissions

Figure F3: Correlation of world prices of maize from the US, the EU, and the Black Sea. Graph shows prices tracking closely from 2016-2023. Source: Authors’ drawing based on data from the International Grains Council and FranceAgriMer. https://tobin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2025-01/Berry%20Searchinger%20Yang%20GTAP%20Paper%20%282024.12.%29.pdf

The global oil market is integrated. Changes to supply or demand in one place cause price effects that ripple around the 🌎.

But did you know this is true for non-branded bulk food products like grains & vegetable oils?

Below are export prices of maize (corn) from the US, the EU, & the Black Sea.

We are currently seeking organizational and individual support for our FY27 Funding Recommendation Letter and hope you will join us in asking for more robust funding for BLS. We are asking Congress to approve $754 million for BLS in FY27 which is a 5% increase over FY26. These funds will allow BLS to train new staff, implement delayed modernization efforts, and sustain response rates in multiple programs. We are accepting sign-ons from both organizations and individuals no later than COB Wednesday March 4. Please select the appropriate link below to read the full letter and sign-on.

Care about Americans, employment, earnings, consumer prices, your local or our national economy?

@usbls.bsky.social empowers us to better recognize these & make decisions.

Consider signing onto Friends of BLS's new letter to Congress re its budget.

And spread the word.

XVIII Premio Fronteras del Conocimiento en Economía a Charles Manski por incorporar la incertidumbre en la investigación económica y su aplicación al análisis de las políticas públicas

Congratulations to Charles Manski on winning the BBVA Frontiers Award for his foundational contributions to partial identification, semiparametric methods, subjective expectations, social interactions and policy decision-making under uncertainty
www.premiosfronterasdelconocimiento.es/noticias/xvi...

Re: Slater’s departure from ATR. Look at this Ticketmaster stock chart

Person who was fired here - you should still trust BLS data. The agency is being run by the same dedicated career staff who were running it while I was awaiting confirmation from the Senate. And the staff have made it clear that they are blowing a loud whistle if there is interference.

My co-author Charles Hodgson (Yale) is hiring a full-time pre-doc to work on projects focusing on the role of information externalities.

The hired researcher will meet regularly with faculty and receive dedicated research training & career development skills.

Application👇

“Higher caffeinated coffee intake was associated with more favorable cognitive outcomes. "
#econsky #academicsky #medicine
marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2026/02/befo...

Good explanation of why the MTA’s already very high 2nd Ave. costs keep rising with each new phase, despite what Alon generously describes as quarter-measures to cut them

Hospital Mergers Gain Momentum As Trump’s ‘Beautiful Bill’ Cuts Loom Hospital merger and acquisition activity ended 2025 with momentum expected to continue as drastic cuts to Medicaid spending under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act loom.

Hospital Mergers Gain Momentum As Trump’s ‘Beautiful Bill’ Cuts Loom www.forbes.com/sites/brucej...

Did Profits Cause Inflation? A popular narrative has attributed the post-COVID rise in inflation to a rise in corporate profits. The literature in industrial organization offers t…

1/2 Did market power drive post-Covid inflation? There have been strong public claims that it has. Neat new paper by Christopher Conlon examines what coherent analysis has to say about distinguishing between market power (softer competition) vs increased demand www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Opinion | This Is Why Our Rivers Are Turning Into Sewers

If you’ve called me a shill for factory farms (and even if you haven’t) you might be interested in my new @nytimes.com column about how factory farms get away with disgusting pollution. They shouldn’t be banned. They should be regulated like factories!

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/o...

George Will: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

I was curious about the state of labor *supply* on the job market. I pulled the stock of New First Year PhDs, ABDs and PhDs granted at Graduate Depts from the CSWEP reports. The left plot is the Flow of economics PhDs, and the right is the stock of ABDs.

Devastating news. Kate was a great economist and a generous person.