We have a great job. But as Jason says, COVID-era admin complex has reset student expectations in a really negative way. # of hand-holding requests, late work, skipped classes w/ demand for recordings: so wildly different from pre-2020 and direct result of school policies.

Please apply and spread the word. Postdoctoral positions at the Centre for Sustainable Employment Azim Premji University

Incredible chart. This is economics.

Shedding new light on why people dislike inflation, leveraging two new surveys in the US, from Stefanie Stantcheva nber.org/papers/w32300

Bankrolling Empire by Sudev Sheth; excellent historical book about Gurkani-Jhaveri path dependence. Enjoyed reading a book on Indian history, set in the pre-1800 era, after a long time. If I had time I would review for a journal and rate it must read.

Having seen the eclipse I can see why I - a late Neolithic farmer - would give some of my agricultural surplus to a hereditary class of priests who can predict these things in advance and handle any cosmological complications

Handful responses even attempting to answer the question because reality is everyone knows the answer is no.

The argument Jonathan Morduch and I make on our poverty paper (joshmerfeld.github.io/assets/papers/…) applies here, as well. It sounds like it’s the number of kids who never consume X, but that’s not quite right. With a 24-hour recall, the best you can generalize to is “kid days” of zero consumption.

On the Ethics of Theorizing: Ruminations on the Ironies of Economic Science | Three Lectures by @johnshopkins Professor Ali Khan @nssrnews @thenewschool #Economics Dept: April 11, April 18 & May 2 from 2-4 p.m. Please mark your calendars & please join us!
event.newschool.edu/alikhanslectur…

The India Forum is publishing a series of articles on the latest poverty estimates for India. The first one, by S. Subramanian, one of the foremost experts on the topic came out today. My article with Rishabh Kumar is up next!

The India Forum

theindiaforum.in/economy/househ…

What puzzles me about the social media debate is why our null hypothesis/prior should be that there is no effect.

These platforms are literally A/B tested to maximize user lock-in, addiction, and social comparison. This is pretty well known. 1/5

Can wealth inequality negatively affect economic growth? In this paper, joint with P. Martinelli Lasheras, we investigate the link between land inequality and economic development in Italy during its key period of structural transformation (1951-2001). bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/…

Some beautiful words about the place I work. Want to send this lovely piece out with a big shout out to all my former students who are doing amazing work in Boston, Massachusetts, as well as nationally and internationally! bostonglobe.com/2024/04/02/met… UMass Boston UMass Boston Economics

Everytime this Matt Walker guy comes on a podcast, global hypertension prevalence increases a few percentage points.

Getting energy efficient air conditioning to a billion Indians seems an important engineering challenge of our time. Worth launching a grand challenge.

“Poverty reduction *requires* wealth creation” is not exactly controversial in op-eds, but at its heart, its such a transparently beautiful statement of intent: if you want to eat, then make us rich. No pretense.

Remember those dazzling 'Just Walk Out' Amazon stores where machines magically kept track of what you put in your shopping cart? Turns out over 1,000 people in India watch videos of you to check what you're buying. Now being phased out.

gizmodo.com/amazon-reporte…

preach

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…