A postdoc position is now available in my project Markets and Mobility: How Employers Structure Economic Opportunity. Start date flexible within the next 12 months, apply by 9 May.

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

My @theifs.bsky.social colleague @gautamvyas.bsky.social is now on Bluesky!

Check out his new report, joint with Martin Brogaard, on the Soft Drinks Industry Levy reform, and follow him for more research on nutrition policy.

My @theifs.bsky.social colleague @gautamvyas.bsky.social is now on Bluesky!

Check out his new report, joint with Martin Brogaard, on the Soft Drinks Industry Levy reform, and follow him for more research on nutrition policy.

ESCoE work by @trfetzer.com, @christinavpalmou.bsky.social and @jschneebacher.bsky.social outlines a blueprint to help policymakers respond to economic shocks: tinyurl.com/mv4p8rec

A study on the identification and estimation of dynamic matching models of the labor market shows that usual measures of sorting and monopsony power are biased, from Cristina Gualdani, Elena Pastorino, Áureo de Paula, and Sergio Salgado www.nber.org/papers/w34973

Mergers, Foreign Competition, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry (Forthcoming Article) - Policy choices often create trade-offs between workers and consumers. I examine how foreign competition alters the consumer welfare and domestic employment effects of mergers. I construct a model incorporating consumer demand, endogenous product portfolios, and employment decisions. Applying the model to Whirlpool’s acquisition of Maytag in the appliance industry, I compare the observed merger to a counterfactual acquisition by a foreign buyer. Although Whirlpool’s acquisition decreased consumer welfare by $271 million annually, it preserved 797 domestic jobs. These jobs must therefore be valued at more than $345,000 per year for the domestic employment benefits to offset the consumer harm.

Forthcoming in the AER: "Mergers, Foreign Competition, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry" by Felix Montag.

🚨Replication alert🚨
I'm pleased to announce that my replication of Moretti (2021) is now accepted as a comment at AER.

I find ten issues in the paper. My comment focuses on two major problems; in the appendix, I document eight (relatively) minor problems.

1/

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

Screenshot of quoted post from @fetzert

This paper has, for obvious reasons, become quite relevant again...

Context: https://x.com/fetzert/status/1838600691520037294

Intrinsically, I think

a) thinking up good questions and
b) executing on them with good approaches is HARD.

I have not seen evidence that LLMs do this without prompting and guidance from a human agent.

But I have friends who disagree!

This looks like a great tool for PAPs.

Next Thursday at 3pm we launch @benzaranko.bsky.social's major new report on the UK fiscal framework at our in-person and online event, with a panel including @chrisgiles.ft.com, Victoria Clarke and Rupert Harrison chaired by Gus O'Donnell.

➡️ Sign up to join here: ifs.org.uk/events/does-...

Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol. 40 No. 1 Winter 2026

New JEP is out, with an excellent symposium on competition in labour markets:

www.aeaweb.org/issues/836?t...

Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol. 40 No. 1 Winter 2026

New JEP is out, with an excellent symposium on competition in labour markets:

www.aeaweb.org/issues/836?t...

Nine days left to submit a paper to the first CEP-@theifs.bsky.social Labour Economics Conference!

#EconConf

📢 Call for papers: 1st Annual CEP–IFS Labour Conference
London | 15–16 June 2026

We invite labour economics papers on wages & inequality, firm wage-setting, monopsony, unions, worker mobility & place-based policies.
Submit by 13 Feb 2026.
🔗 Details & submissions: ow.ly/yvGJ50XY3fK

Planning your summer conference schedule? I've updated my conference list for 2026, with deadlines, dates, locations, and links. You can also download calendar entries. Focus is on general conferences, IO, and theory. Let me know if I've missed something. Link: www.igorletina.com/conferences....

“Potential” and the Gender Promotion Gap† By Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue* We show that subjective assessments of employee “potential” contribute to gender gaps in promotion and pay. Using data on 29,809 management-track employees from a large retail chain, we find that women receive substantially lower potential ratings despite receiving higher performance ratings. Differences in potential ratings account for approximately half of the gender promotion gap. Women’s lower potential ratings do not reflect accurate forecasts of future performance: Women subsequently outperform male colleagues, both on average and on the margin of promotion. We highlight two mechanisms driving the gender potential gap: strategic retention and stereotyping. (JEL J16, J31, J71, L81, M12, M51)

"...women receive substantially lower potential ratings despite receiving higher performance ratings... lower potential ratings do not reflect accurate forecasts of future performance: Women subsequently outperform male colleagues..."
pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...

Are you an outstanding communicator who knows loads about the UK public finances? Are you attracted by the prospect of a public voice, and the chance to work alongside brilliant economists at the country's finest think tank?

We'd like to hear from you: app.beapplied.com/apply/4t6eys...

I made an IO starter pack a while ago that you might find helpful:

go.bsky.app/Rchu8QX

🚨Rare and exciting opportunity 🚨

We're looking to hire an exceptional economist to work on fiscal policy at the IFS. We don't do this often. It's a chance to shape, carry out and communicate research on some of the highest-profile topics in UK economic policy. [1/4]

Markets and Mobility: How Employers Structure Economic Opportunity

Intergenerational mobility, measuring the ability to achieve economic success regardless of family background, is a critical reflection of a society’s commitment to equality of opportunity. Rising income inequality has raised concerns about the potential erosion of upward mobility. While education has traditionally been viewed as the path to mobility, its transformative power is facing challenges in a rapidly evolving job market. This project reorients the focus of intergenerational mobility research by highlighting the labor market as an arena for the reproduction of advantage. It employs a comparative approach, using administrative data from four countries: Sweden, Austria, England, and the United States. It also incorporates evidence from a broader set of nations through cross-national surveys, longitudinal household surveys, labor force surveys, secondary data, and digital trace data. The project employs cutting-edge empirical methods, including quasi- experimental designs, event studies, within-family comparisons, decomposition analyses, counterfactual simulations, and diagnostic checks to rigorously assess the extent of inequalities in the labor market. The research investigates how family background influences the sorting of individuals to employers and workplaces, accounting for education and occupation, and explores variations in career progression within and between employers. It comprehensively catalogues and assesses mechanisms shaping workplace inequality, contributing to the development of social closure theory. Additionally, the project evaluates intervention strategies, encompassing both employer practices and government actions, to promote fair opportunity in the labor market.

JOB! I'm hiring a postdoc for 2 years on my ERC MaMo project.

Looking for someone with strong quant methods, ongoing work close to the project's aims, and a desire to publish in sociology. Start flexible in the next 12 months.

Formal call out shortly, but contact me first.

Best workshop, best keynote and best time to visit London! Submit your paper/abstract. Deadline Feb 1.

Refining our competition regime We are seeking views on measures to improve the pace, predictability, proportionality and process of the UK’s competition regime.

A consultation on UK govt proposals for "refining" the competition regime. The proposals would chip away at CMA independence, which - as John Fingleton has said on Linked In - businesses might like short term but creates longer term risks. Closing date to respond 31 March www.gov.uk/government/c...

Peter put together a starter pack of my colleagues at the IFS.

Follow them for high-quality, policy-relevant analysis on tax and spending, efficiency and equity, firms and workers, healthcare and education and much more.

Peter put together a starter pack of my colleagues at the IFS.

Follow them for high-quality, policy-relevant analysis on tax and spending, efficiency and equity, firms and workers, healthcare and education and much more.

There’s a paradox around remote work. Jamie Dimon says it will kill productivity, while startups are hiring for remote roles. Who is right?

With Abhinav Gupta and Elena Simintzi we try to resolve this dispute

Paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Substack: arpitrage.substack.com/p/remote-wor...

Jakob Schneebacher joins ESCoE’s Leadership Executive - ESCoE Jakob Schneebacher has joined ESCoE’s Leadership Executive, with a focus on developing UK micro-data.

@jschneebacher.bsky.social has joined ESCoE’s Leadership Executive, with a focus on developing UK microdata.

Find out more: tinyurl.com/yhye8vk9

Last few days to apply to the annual @escoeorg.bsky.social conference on economic measurement taking place in London in May!

I am once again the topic lead for productivity, so please send all your papers on productivity (including public-sector), business dynamism and firm dynamics.

Studying automation when tasks are quality complements rather than separable, from @joshgans.bsky.social and Avi Goldfarb www.nber.org/papers/w34639