At #ASSA2023, attending the great @AEACSMGEP dissertation session! First, Ariel Gomez (Harvard) shows the historical rollout of rural schools in Mexico homogenize language (increase Spanish & reduce indigenous langs) & make communities more likely to petition for land reform. 1/n
Next Bethel Cole-Smith (Howard U) studies how imports from China affect labor in the US. Import exposure reduces employment for non-unionized people overall in manufacturing in right to work states, but reduces Black *union* non-manufacturing employment. 2/n
Next, Cesia Sanchez (UCB) studies long term impacts on "adulting" behaviors of the unemployment rate you see at 18 years old. The higher the unemp rate was the more likely right now you are to be living with your parents, be married, attend school, or migrate thru ur late 30s.3/n
Finally, David Criss (Wayne State U) studies ESG (environmental, social, and governance). How do ESG scores and firm valuation / profit relate to each other? What about actual environmental performance? 4/n
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At #ASSA2023, an important @AEACSWEP and @LGBTQ_Econ panel on strategies for diversity, equity, and inclusion in econ. Marionette Holmes kicks us off with sobering stats showing mixed progress in econ diversity in recent years. 1/n
With @anusha_chari chairing & Kitt Carpenter, Reena Aggarwal, & B Douglas Bernheim participating, so much to learn! Kitt says: we have very little data on how LGBTQ folks are doing in econ because we have so little data! We have blind spots re many minoritized statuses. 2/n
Kitt notes institutional hiring offices can help all stages of recruitment and hiring can be respectful and inclusive, everything from using the right pronouns to connecting folks to resources on campus that can help them navigate. 3/n
Now, the @AEACSMGEP#ASSA2023 session on environmental justice! First, Lala Ma shares work on equity in FEMA flood buyouts. Hispanic and especially Black families get worse buyout prices vs White families, and as a result lose wealth. 1/n
Next @belindaarch looks at epidemics & human capital. Meningitis epidemics (likely to happen more w climate change) harm human capital, notably child health. But if WHO declares an epidemic emergency, these outcomes actually improve - apparently bc of international health aid.2/n
And @danaehernandezc! Using California data, they find that racial pollution exposure and disparities decline but do not disappear, health disparities have worsened. Imposing strict pollution control policy (non attainment) even INCREASES health disparities (asthma)! 3/n
On econ PhD & how hard it is, & #EconTwitter. I've debated whether to post this because I respect & honor others' feelings & experiences. But I think there's a fine line between authentically sharing difficult experiences, and creating an echo chamber of competitive misery. 1/N
I do think we need to be authentic and real about the challenges. But I think it's bullshit to say or imply that you can't do an econ PhD without not only x, y, and z math and having already taken the econ PhD core, and being superhuman in ability to suffer. Not true. 2/N
It's harder to get into "top" econ PhD programs, and those programs do have high math requirements as well a hard first-year curriculum. Perhaps unreasonably high/hard. But do we have to play along with that? 3/N
Right now, create an account for the AEA online system. Set up a spreadsheet to keep track of jobs. You can share this w other JM candidates in your dept! Set up a website where people can access your materials - be careful about access issues (e.g. Google, Dropbox) for docs.
Keep track of who you know at each school so you can reach out to them when you apply.
Thread of advice on econ job market CV's! Friends, please chime in to correct, augment, modify, etc. I'll use my CV (from when I was coming out of grad school) for examples. I got a ton of advice on it before I went on the market. Long thread - whew! 1/30
The general idea is to keep it clean and compact, to include all necessary stuff and get rid of unnecessary stuff, and to order it so the most important stuff is at the top. There is no page limit, but concision is nice. I don’t think anyone cares if it's Word or LaTeX. 2/30
My order: contact info; research & teaching interests; education; disseration; pubs; WPs & research in progress; grants; awards; research experience; teaching experience; presentations; workshops; service; prfsnl activities; coursework; other work exp; rfrncs; diss abstracts 3/30
The paper existed in other forms in the past but the last year has seen such intense work on it that it's really a new paper, and I'm really happy about where it's gotten. It was an applied theory paper; we rewrote the theory and added experiments.
The idea is: if you're born not knowing your preferences but have to learn them through experience, do things always work themselves out? And of course the answer is: no. Even if we're rational and forward-looking, there will be things that we never try but would really like.