Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #NBERDAY
Most recents (8)
There's an #NBERday paper out today arguing that because COVID interrupted access to contraception and abortion, low-income women's fertility may have actually RISEN in 2021.
I... am skeptical. Let us discuss. nber.org/papers/w29722
I... am skeptical. Let us discuss. nber.org/papers/w29722
So first off, this is not a study of, say, vital statistics by education, or something like it proxying for social class or income. We have that data for 2020, and we have it for 2021 for a few states, so we'll get to it momentarily.
Rather, this study uses data from Planned Parenthood centers in Michigan + a longitudinal study of contraceptive usage by low income women in Michigan to directly look at how contraceptive usage changed during COVID.
Some fun new #NBERday papers today!
First up, a paper with very strong @Noahpinion energy:
Q) Does discrimination make it harder to recruit an army?
A) Yes! Very cool evidence from US WWII volunteer data. nber.org/papers/w29482
First up, a paper with very strong @Noahpinion energy:
Q) Does discrimination make it harder to recruit an army?
A) Yes! Very cool evidence from US WWII volunteer data. nber.org/papers/w29482
So first the theory. The argument is that wars are a major test of "state capacity," i.e. the ability of the state to marshal resources to achieve large tasks. A key component of the wartime test of state capacity is the ability to recruit manpower for the army. #NBERday
One possible threat to state capacity is a populace which is deeply divided and regards one another with hostility, such that state-based projects like "the nation needs to win the war against some other nation" may have a hard time motivating pro-state behavior. #NBERday
It's #NBERday! And we've got some good ones!
First off, I want to do something I don't usually do and mention that I just HAD to break my own rules and see who wrote something. As a rule, I try not to read who the authors of papers are and definitely not to click on their bio. #NBERday
But there has just been a spate of very cool and even-handed papers about welfare reform the last couple years and especially inter-generational effects, and I had previously noticed they shared authors, and today's does too, and kudos to that team! #NBERday
It's #NBERday and we've got some goodies!
First up:
Q: Do work requirements help welfare recipients get into jobs?
A: Probably not.
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28877
Q: Do work requirements help welfare recipients get into jobs?
A: Probably not.
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28877
The big problem we have in studying welfare programs is that surveys do a crap job of identifying welfare recipients, and so we end up exploiting spatial variation in rollout and looking at "plausibly eligible" groups. #NBERday
Just gonna do a couple #NBERday papers today.
We'll start with one I'm shocked has not absolutely blown up:
Q: Do non-white drivers get pulled over excessively?
A: Maybe.... but maybe not?
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28789
We'll start with one I'm shocked has not absolutely blown up:
Q: Do non-white drivers get pulled over excessively?
A: Maybe.... but maybe not?
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28789
This paper is responding to a growing literature which uses one key instrument: sunset. Basically, in daylight, cops can see a driver's race. At night, they can't. #NBErday
So if the non-white share of stops falls a lot after sunset, that's proof a lot of daylight stops were racially biased. #NBERday
It's #NBERday and I am gonna start with some extremely bad news.
Q: Would pricing groundwater in California yield water sustainability?
A: Errr.... depends on your model.
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28706
Q: Would pricing groundwater in California yield water sustainability?
A: Errr.... depends on your model.
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28706
The authors exploit changes in electricity costs in California AND variation in difficulty of pumping water to guess at the price elasticity of water. Cool! #NBERday
They find that a $10-acre-foot water tax would allow California to hit its water use sustainability targets and also cause the reallocation of 3.9 percent of California's total agricultural acreage. #NBERday
The only #NBERday paper I'll cover today:
Q: What is college for?
A: Getting married.
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28688
Q: What is college for?
A: Getting married.
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28688
This is a cool paper. They use Norwegian data to track people before, during, and after college attendance. And they exploit a quirk of Norway's admission system: there's a lot of hard cutoffs and quasi-random variation in admission. #NBERday
There's even hard cutoffs and quasi-random variation in what *field of study* a person can enroll in. Everybody applies to a centralized system and is allocated out to schools. You apply to a field and a school simultaneously. #NBERday
Lots of cool #NBERday papers today!
We'll focus on two papers tackling a big question:
Q: Does the US have a politically neutral civil service?
A: No.
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28673 nber.org/papers/w28665
We'll focus on two papers tackling a big question:
Q: Does the US have a politically neutral civil service?
A: No.
#NBERday
nber.org/papers/w28673 nber.org/papers/w28665
The first paper digitized personnel records of staff at U.S. Customs offices before and after the 1885 Pendleton Act. The Pendleton Act reformed the US Civil Service system to reduce its use for political patronage. It imposed a civil service exam for some posts. #NBERday
In the conventional story of US civil service history, the Pendleton Act is lionized. There had been decades of ever-worsening corruption in the US civil service, and finally Rutherford B Hayes made a determined effort to tackle the issue. #NBERday
