Thanks. This is going straight into my ECON 101 problem set.

Sara Benetti - Vancouver School of Economics

Congratulations to Sara Benetti from @ubcvse.bsky.social, winner of the @echistsoc.bsky.social New Researcher Prize for her paper on the social consequences of technological change!
economics.ubc.ca/profile/sara...

To be clear, I’m perfectly fine with people running their texts through AI. But random bolding makes the text noticeably less readable, and does not reflect well on the writer.

What’s the deal with randomly bolded words in emails, letters, grant proposals, etc? I find them utterly distracting. I understand ChatGPT does it by default. Are people trying to accomplish anything else other than broadcasting “I ran this through ChatGPT”?

Will you join us in Vancouver? 🇨🇦

This summer, we’re partnering with UBC's @stone-centre-ubc.bsky.social to host the Summer School on Socioeconomic Opportunity and Inequality.

Applications are now open – we’re excited to meet you.

Learn more: bit.ly/4lWx0ro
Apply here: bit.ly/4t8Lff6

And sure, this study cannot disentangle whether the long-term drop in life expectancy is due to COVID itself or to any knock-on effects. Be that as it may, the "life expectancy will return to where it was" mantra was short-sighted regardless.

Many believed that reductions in life expectancy brought about by COVID would be temporary. This struck me as naive. COVID was a new, poorly understood disease with unknown long-term consequences. Six years later, all the data suggest that such optimism was unjustified.

Sunrise and sunset are different things than it being light and dark. They used to teach that in school.

Your statement was that kids go home in the dark at present. They don't.

Goalpost shifting aside, I don't see how your response changes things for the better. Under standard time, at 8 am in December, there is already natural light. When that becomes the equivalent of 7 am, there won't be.

I suspect that a good half of the support for permanent DST comes from people that do not understand how the distribution of daylight will actually change. That 90% approval (from a question in which permanent standard time was not an option) will tank hard in the winter of 2027.

And a darker morning commute is exactly what will now happen for a good four months of the year.

In Western BC, Permanent Daylight Savings Time means that kids will now go to school in the dark in winter.

The issue is that they don't go home from school in the dark with Standard Time. School is 9-3, so under Standard Time there's daylight at both ends. Under Daylight Time there isn't, and the morning walk in the dark will take place at the same time of the morning commute. Dangerous all around.

A Capital’s Capital: Two Hundred Years of Wealth and Inequality in Paris by Gilles Postel-Vinay and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

In A Capital’s Capital, Gilles Postel-Vinay and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal map the fluctuations in wealth and its distribution in Paris between 1807 and 1977.

Now available (31 March UK pub).

Check out a free preview: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

#Economics #History

Would anybody like to read one of my long threads about a 2.5bn year old rock, bacteria that could produce oxygen but not consume it, and tank production in wwii

I am delighted that this great conversation with Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan has posted. Their extraordinary work on intergenerational mobility and immigrants speaks to essential dimensions of the extent of equality of opportunity and of the process of assimilation.

Everyone working in development economics should read this chapter.

They provide evidence that what works in development is less about finding universally good levers and more about designing interventions compatible with locally embedded social structures.

www.nber.org/papers/w3481...

Fond memories! They have the entire Doria family archive at the university. It was donated by Giorgio Doria, noted economic historian and descendant of the famous Dorias of old.

University of British Columbia crowned National Champion of The Governor’s Challenge The Bank of Canada is pleased to announce that the University of British Columbia has won the eleventh annual Governor’s Challenge, a national student competition in which teams simulate the role of a...

Congrats! www.bankofcanada.ca/2026/02/univ...

Were you planning to get any actual work done today? I'm here to save you from such a dreary fate.

That distinction goes to Boston Pizza and their signature “drywall” crust.

Nah. Pretty big downgrade from its first incarnation in the old SUB.

Gary Becker feels you, guys

We’re proud to congratulate Dr. Raffaele Saggio, and coauthors, on his recent receipt of the 2025 Aigner Award from the Journal of Econometrics.

Read about the award: economics.ubc.ca/news/ubc-pro...

How is that an effective barrier?

Es que es correcto sin tilde…

Is this meant to be funny? Because it isn’t.

<em>The Economic History Review</em> | EHS Journal | Wiley Online Library Click on the title to browse this issue

The Economic History Review has published a virtual issue collecting the contributions of 2025 Nobel Laureate Joel Mokyr in the journal. I had the privilege of writing the introductory essay. You can read it here, together with Joel's articles and reviews.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

Congratulations, Jared!

How public education transforms opportunity: Evidence from the 1870 Education Act The 1870 Education Act demonstrates how targeted public investment in education can help narrow the gap in opportunity between rich and poor children.

A @voxdev.bsky.social column on the impact of public education through the lens of economic history, by my (former) student Ben Milner @benjaminlm.bsky.social.

voxdev.org/topic/educat...