If you teach intro to Econ and would be interested in being part of an RCT on AI homework tutor I have a good lead on funding. Participating faculty will get $500 to $1000. DM me or email sgitter@towson.edu
Please repost! Repost and I'll buy you a drink at ASSA 2027 or future conference
10 more days to get the early bird 🐦 discount for our @tinbergeninstitute.bsky.social summer school in development economics!
Congratulations!
📢 We are hiring a PhD student @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social!
Join the team of @steinhardt.bsky.social and contribute to research in labor economics, migration, political economy & gender economics.
🗓️ Deadline: 13 April
Details in the call www.fu-berlin.de/universitaet...
Tune in to learn more about industrial parks and policy in Ethiopia and beyond. #OxCSAE2026
Next up, @Mahreen Kahn @ox.ac.uk on the effects of soft skill training for students in Bangladesh. Skill and employment increase even in the medium term (6-12months), in particular for women. The program was very cost effective at less than 4USD per participant. #OxCSAE2026
Now, @marcjosefwitte.bsky.social @vuamsterdam.bsky.social presents on the direct and indirect impact of a nursing training program for women. The training increases both participants’ and connect individuals’ employment and earning. Spillovers likely emerge due information spillovers. #OxCSAE2026
The next presentation is by Lea Rouanet at the World Bank on whether information on earnings can reduce the gender gap in the impact of TVET training in the Republic of Congo. Short run results show reduced gender gaps but effects dissipate over time as women leave jobs at higher rates. #OxCSAE2026
My first session at #OxCSAE2026 is on female employment. First up is by Nissi Moses @rug.nl on the impact of fast internet on employment rates by gender. She find that access to internet leads aggregate employment to decrease but she observes a narrowing of gender gaps.
So good to be back @oxfordcsae.bsky.social and @ox.ac.uk for the 2026 CSAE conference on development economics. I will post on Bluesky about the papers I see over the next days. Stay tuned. #OxCSAE2026
🧵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
Psychology has a whole cottage industry in which people come up with some construct that is essentially "attitudes/beliefs/expectations/feelings about X", and then the central claim is that this construct is a super important determinant of future X outcomes.>
Forthcoming in AEJ: Applied Economics “University as a Melting Pot: Long-term Effects of Internationalization”
Debates on international students often focus on capacity, funding, or competition.
My paper shows the main effects on natives are not academic or economic, but social.
I am not right for it because I am neither smart nor innovative (and possibly also a bit older than 30), but if YOU are, this is a great opportunity. 👇
🚨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.
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Last call for applications. Deadline is on March 15.
Are you an African national thinking of applying for graduate study in Economics at the University of Oxford?
⏰ Deadline for 2026 entry is 27 Jan 2026
📽️ Watch our webinar round-up video to get expert advice from CSAE professors on how to make the best application.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9j5...
Why Underachievers Dominate Secret Police Organizations: Evidence from Autocratic Argentina Adam Scharpf Christian Gläßel Abstract: Autocrats depend on a capable secret police. Anecdotal evidence, however, often characterizes agents as surprisingly mediocre in skill and intellect. To explain this puzzle, this article focuses on the career incentives underachieving individuals face in the regular security apparatus. Low-performing officials in hierarchical organizations have little chance of being promoted or filling lucrative positions. To salvage their careers, these officials are willing to undertake burdensome secret police work. Using data on all 4,287 officers who served in autocratic Argentina (1975-83), we study biographic differences between secret police agents and the entire recruitment pool. We find that low-achieving officers were stuck within the regime hierarchy, threatened with discharge, and thus more likely to join the secret police for future benefits. The study demonstrates how state bureaucracies breed mundane career concerns that produce willing enforcers and cement violent regimes. This has implications for the understanding of autocratic consolidation and democratic breakdown.
Perennial reminder of this excellent paper about how secret police forces are swamped with underachievers
“We don’t want clever people. We want mediocrities.”
(Ungated summary here ajps.org/2019/10/08/w...)
Causal Inference Meeting in Oxford?
Here we go!
This year's European Causal Inference Meeting (EuroCIM / @eurocim.bsky.social) will take place in Oxford, UK.
What to expect?
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#CausalSky #EpiSky #EconSky #MLSky #StatSky
🚨 Deadline on Sunday:
🚀 4th CESifo Junior Workshop on the Economics of Education 🤩
👇
All three statements are true at the same time—
This Pluribus ad on a fridge caused a schizophrenic woman named Carol to be hospitalized.
Here me out but have you considered an 8 computer garage lan with Warcraft 3 installed.
We can save America one RTS at a time
Brilliant investigation into Saudi Arabia's discovery that the optimal shape for a city is not a 170-kilometre straight line ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...
🚨 2-Year Postdocs in Dev Econ at Uni Copenhagen 🚨
Come work on some exciting experimental projects😀!
Dedicated time for your own research.
Reach out to hear more!
** PLEASE REPOST **🙏
Application deadline 🗓️: Nov 11
👉http://bit.ly/4q2Uehf
#EconSky
I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.
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In the second half of the paper, we develop a model with a new mechanism to explain firms’ lack of wage posting. Firms do not include pay information as bargaining offers an insurance mechanism against not being able to hire profitably at the posted pay.
Why? Not because they don’t know which skills firms want. Rather, because job seekers in this context and other contexts have limited information about their own skills (two of my working papers provide evidence on this in Ethiopia and South Africa: docs.iza.org/dp17761.pdf, tinyurl.com/3wsydrv6).
2. Pay information does not increase sorting by skills as high wage salaries do not receive higher-quality applicants. So firms’ worries about under-qualified applicants do not bear out. However, there is also no positive assortative matching of applicants and vacancies.
