Our new piece, collectively authored by the Editorial Board of @econsocjournal.bsky.social, reflecting on the state today.

@campolis.bsky.social

Link to the full piece below:

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Lord Robert Skidelsky, an eminent economic historian & author of the award-winning 3-volume biography of J. M. Keynes.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this very sad time.
#econsky

New QJE paper measures spending flows between 1000s of small groups of consumers and producers, government, rest of the world. Most consumer spending stays domestic, esp in rural, older, less-educated areas->higher fiscal multipliers; targeting "left-behind" groups boosts economy

Finally got around to making my personal website on github, like a Real Academic...check it out! ⭐️ victoriaxltan.github.io

Reposting this 👇

- So? Second goodies?
- github.com/oliviergodec...
- What’s that?
- A staggered event study DiD R package.
- Again?!
- Yep—last event in a series of staggered DiD solutions.
- Explain?
- Unroll the thread…

She reportedly parted ways with Bezos with a jaw-dropping $38.3 billion in Amazon stock. Their divorce settlement included a 4 % stake in the online retail giant or 19.7 million shares. Under the agreement, Bezos kept 75% of the couple's Amazon stock, along with voting control of her shares. Jan 11, 2023

MacKenzie Scott has given away over $19 billion in the last 5 years and experts say she's 'changed entire fie... MacKenzie Scott acknowledged another $2 billion in donations as 2024 comes to a close.

MacKenzie Scott, worth $41.1 billion, is on a philanthropic tear and has donated an estimated 46% of her net worth.

Just to give a sense of the insane scale of billions of dollars…MacKenzie Scott got about $38 billion after divorcing Bezos in 2019. She has become the world’s most generous philanthropist, giving away over $19 billion…and she’s currently wealthier than she started.

Just. Tax. Them.

The first paper of my dissertation is published now in @sociologyjnl.bsky.social!

Press coverage of the richest Germans is rare but focused on a minority of highly visible individuals and varies along the historical origins of fortunes.

doi.org/10.1177/00380385261428292

Does Oxford University have a problem with Sticky Toffee Pudding?

Brightly coloured image of families with children watching balloons in the shapes of “450,000” floating upwards lifting a banner reading “children lifted out of poverty”

450,000 children no longer in poverty - and may more in less severe poverty - as the two child limit is scrapped.

A change that will see children supported when their family hits hard times, whether they are the 1st, 2nd or 3rd child to be born into their family.

A good start for every child.

Today the two-child limit is gone. Parents have told us what this will mean for their kids:

- A first-ever birthday party for a 10-year-old
- Better quality food
- Clothes that aren't completely worn out
- Going on the school trip without getting into debt
- A new mattress
- Swimming lessons

Unique daily likers as a graph over the last year. It's down from about 1.6 million a day a year ago to 1.1 million a day now.

I tend to get dogpiled every time I say this but: as someone *who likes bluesky and benefits from being here* we have a problem.

The network is shrinking, not growing. It's shrinking a lot: only about 1.1m people a day even like a post. This time last year it was 1.6m.

10 Valuable Reads on Inequality - Stone Center Understanding inequality requires cross-disciplinary insights. The field is evolving constantly, with new research shaping how we think about economic disparities and mobility. That’s why the work we ...

Delighted to find my "Greatest of All Plagues" in such excellent company (including @guidoalfani.bsky.social, @mivich.bsky.social, @aaronreeves.bsky.social, @samfriedman.bsky.social).

Volume 36 Issue Supplement_2 | European Journal of Public Health | Oxford Academic The official journal of the European Public Health Association. Publishes papers in public health from social medicine, epidemiology, health services research, management, ethics and law, health econo...

Really happy to see it out and free to read! Health for all policies- articles with tons of evidence on the co-benefits of health and health policies for everything from jobs to peace to democracy. Important work led by @obshealth.bsky.social @eupha.bsky.social

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Humility From Spinoza's thinking to the "humble brag" - Matthew Sweet and guests explore humility.

Terrific end to what’s been a great season of BBCFreeThinking. Proving again how academics can contribute to these baseline ethical questions. @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social with Lamorna Ash, @robertbuckland.bsky.social, @aaronreeves.bsky.social, Ceri Sullivan, Dan Taylor
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

US Presidential Party switches are mirrored in global maternal mortality In this observational study, we provide estimates of the impact on the maternal mortality ratio of swings in US aid for family planning and reproductive health driven by changes in the implementation ...

"Countries heavily reliant on US aid see a 10.5% increase in maternal mortality following a switch from a Democratic to a Republican administration—about 44.7 additional deaths per 100 000 live births."

gh.bmj.com/content/11/3...

Our latest conference, Assessing Meritocracy, brought together scholars from eight countries to examine how meritocratic systems are implemented across contexts. Hosted in partnership with the International Institute of Research in Paris, it sharpened ideas and revealed new research directions.

Scholars & organizers: consider submitting a proposal for this special issue of @jhppl.bsky.social. Community organizing has transformative possibilities. It should be studied, understood, discussed, and highlighted as a core democratic practice. This special issue does part of that work. Submit!

Graph of average annual fees for BA/BSc or equivalent courses in the OECD showing England as the most expensive and Nordics the least

Anglosphere agony vs Nordic nirvana.

(PS Can't believe I'd never seen this graph before, so grateful to @stephenkb.bsky.social for sharing in his fab morning newsletter (www.ft.com/inside-polit...)

Survivor networks: language & legitimacy, pathways (and limits) to civic engagement, visibility & performance of survivorship, emotional & practical lifelines

🧡 New (open access) research alert: doi.org/10.1016/j.ss...

“We can endure suffering but not meaninglessness”: Identity, meaning-making, and community in online firearm violence survivor networks

📢🎉The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, @sarahkunz.bsky.social and I coordinated a letter signed by 103 academics calling for universal anti-SLAPP provisions in the next King's Speech to protect academic freedoms. More info below:

The decline of child stunting in 122 countries: a systematic review of child growth studies since the 19th century Introduction Child stunting, a measure of malnutrition, is a major global health challenge affecting 148.1 million children in 2022. Global stunting rates have declined from 47.2% in 1985 to 22.3% in ...

Eradicating child stunting was a central feature of the modern health transition. A new paper reviews 923 child growth studies in 122 countries 1814-2016 to show massive decline in child stunting in the 20th century even in hi income countries & surprising heterogeneity in the regional trajectories.

Problem about the loneliness epidemic is, it's everywhere except in representative survey data. Let's look at where the claim comes from. 1/

📢 In this Social Forces article, I introduce occupational elitism as a novel measure of social closure: the share of upper-class background workers within an occupation.

Its consequences for earnings stratification can be examined using a social closure theory lens.

🔓 doi.org/10.1093/sf/s...

Excited to share a new #OA study with @dariatisch.bsky.social and @schechtlm.bsky.social🎉We show that while most people prefer equal inheritance, wealthy individuals are more willing to support unequal transfers when they help preserve wealth across generations ➡️ academic.oup.com/sf/advance-a...

What Corporations Say to Get Their Policy Way Industries' Narrative Playbook to Fight Regulations

Our latest piece in Commercially Determined breaks down 10 common tropes used by industry to sway policy. www.commerciallydetermined.com/p/narrative-.... Curious which you hear most in your policy space.

❤️

The paper on the class politics of Reform UK, which I've been working on with @aaronreeves.bsky.social for the last year and a half, is now available as a pre-print on SSRN. These are our main findings. Any feedback is more than welcome.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

A typically great post, but one with particular resonance right now.

This is a great opportunity to do truly world-leading research!