What happens if the explanatory and response variables are sorted independently before regression? Suppose we have data set $(X_i,Y_i)$ with $n$ points. We want to perform a linear regression, but first we sort the $X_i$ values and the $Y_i$ values independently of each other, forming data set $...

stats.stackexchange.com/questions/18... i'm hoping it's the same people

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011 The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011 was awarded jointly to Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims "for their empirical research on cause and effect in th...

So weird: there's more than one scammy memorial site inviting donations or tree-planting in my dad's memory.
We are not asking for that, but if people feel moved, donations in lieu of flowers to www.aclu-mn.org, www.aclu.org, or www.eff.org
Econ folks, can you help get the word out?

the best slide in an econ history talk

Predoctoral Research Associate (Summer 2026)

Link to apply here. My projects are a mix of IO, media economics, and economic history. Day-to-day tasks range from structural estimation to managing text and image data pipelines. Check out my colleagues' work as well!

careers.harvard.edu/job/predocto...

My colleagues at HBS and I are looking for predoctoral researchers, starting Summer 2026!

The ideal candidate recognizes that the traditional RA role in econ research is obsolete with coding agents, yet loves econ so much that they want to learn how to do it with new tools. 1/2

i gave a talk recently where we could only open the slides on Edge so it was an ideal scenario where the buttons serve as proof of work but cannot actually be clicked

AI and the Quantity and Quality of Creative Products: Have LLMs Boosted Creation of Valuable Books? 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...

Can LLMs help humans to write books? TLDR: sort of.
@imkereimers.bsky.social and I have a new paper with a longer answer. 1/n www.nber.org/papers/w34777

i've been doing markdown preview -> mathjax but it's not the best

I’m still trying to codify this with the agent and it is not a obvious thing to codify so I’d love to hear suggestions

I think the oracle view makes sense for app dev where the bottleneck is “does it fail loudly” vs in social science where the bottleneck is “can I explain this to a seminar audience if they ask how I did XYZ.” the moment I say “I have no idea but Claude said it made no mistake” my career is over.

Gemini 3 Solves Handwriting Recognition and it’s a Bitter Lesson Testing shows that Gemini 3 has effectively solved handwriting on English texts, one of the oldest problems in AI, achieving expert human levels of performance.

Great post, and an excellent example of the Bitter Lesson of AI: generalized models are always over time going to beat specialized models. substack.com/home/post/p-...

very cautiously optimistic about her as Dot

Applications for the Economic History Association Graduate Dissertation Fellowships are due in two days (January 14)

eh.net/graduate-dis...

what a world

Never heard of jupytext, looking forward to learning

Outing myself as a Python notebook enjoyer but now that so much work happens via Claude Code and Git PR review I've found the format to be basically unworkable.

I guess I should just read whatever @jeffgortmaker.com does.

Have the agents helped you with these? I found 2) can really be sped up since you can have another agent code up the dataset, and 3) since the agent can suggests properties to check, but I still find manually verify 1). I hear ChatGPT 5.2 is good at math. Maybe that? But then how do you verify?

How do people write numerical tests for an estimation routine? I have three layers: 1) unit tests: simple numerical examples that I compute _by hand_ (literally on paper with a calculator), 2) synthetic datasets coded up separately, and 3) checking that some properties of the estimator hold... [1/2]

I spun up another agent whose role is a "Replicator Grad Student" and that agent can pick up obvious stuff like this, but then it comes up with a report and then the original agent writes more test, and now I have more tests that I have not read.

screenshot of the iconic Onion article of De Blasio with headline "De Blasio: "Well Well Well, Not So Easy to Find a Mayor that Doesn't Suck Shit, Huh?". De Blasio's head has been replaced by a poorly cropped headshot of Ange Postecoglou, his name has been replaced by "Postecoglou", and the word "mayor" has been replaced by "Manager"

Katherine Ho, esteemed health economist and ‘true role model,’ dies at 53 A memorial will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 27, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

Rest in peace, Kate Ho.

She was one of the most incredible people I could ever have hoped to know, and I can't wait to hear more fond memories of her. Thanks for contributing and remembering her together. [2/2]

Memories of Kate Ho A place for us to gather and share memories of Kate.

sites.google.com/view/memoriesofkateho

My advisor Kate Ho passed away two weeks ago. Her students have put together a memorial for her here.

With permission from her family, we are sharing the site with the academic community. We'd love to hear from everyone who knew and loved Kate... [1/2]

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

I have a lot more to say about Kate and how all my life I've wanted to be able to work with someone like her and when I finally got do it she exceeds all of my expectations about how great a great advisor can be. I want everyone to know how incredible Kate was to her students.

At Princeton's holiday party in 2023, I recorded a version of "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" with the lyrics changed to "Kate Ho is the Best Advisor." I still feel that way. I couldn't have asked for a better advisor. I can't believe she's gone.

The brilliant Kate Ho has passed away.

She was an amazing economist and a genuinely kind human being. Her work shaped how we think about healthcare markets and her generosity touched everyone lucky enough to know her.

The profession and the world are poorer without her.

Every IO economist's favorite weekend of the year!

man this is so exciting