Nemat Shafik - @Columbia Prez only has 1 well-cited publication in her life, in Oxford Econ Papers 1994.
This paper is lifted almost entirely from a 1992 report coauthored with consultant not credited in the publication.
This is wholesale intellectual theft, not subtle plagiarism
This is not a close call. Table 1s are the same. Fig 1s are the same. Massive overlap in text.
She stole the junior author's intellectual property and simply removed his name from published version.
If he contributed enough to be an author in 1992, how can she delete him in 94?
I'm an academic, and this is NOT okay to do. You cannot remove an author and claim intellectual property for yourself.
When a grad student tried this, we referred him to Dean for disciplinary hearings.
And this is worse because of power imbalance - she removed a *junior* person
The stolen paper has been cited 2395 times.
Her next most cited paper: 115 cites - not very presidential.
This is the *only* publication of note in her portfolio.
The journal should investigate this. here are the names of the editorial board members. Would appreciate it if folks can tag or email them this thread:
The other author is thanked in a footnote in OEP for their "research assistance" This in some ways is even worse. You are now undermining them even further in their authorship contribution to the earlier policy report - a background paper for the WDR.
Mask research is in the news again with headlines like "mask mandates don't work".
I'll write my views here on how we should think about mask-wearing based on the research summarized in #CochraneReview
[Only minimum statistical literacy required to follow the argument]
Different studies are designed to answer 3 related but *different* questions 1. Do masks work when people actually wear them?
vs 2. Do mask mandates work?
vs 3. Does softly encouraging mask-wearing work?
We have good evidence that #1 works (RCTs in hospitals, lab studies,...]
To study the effect of mask-wearing in the real world, you have to first get people to wear masks.
The treatment can be a mandate or some encouragement.
That experiment can only answer 2. What is the effect of imposing a mandate?
or 3. What is the effect of encouragement?
My twitter feed is full of Ph.D. admissions decisions. Let me instead share with applicants and letter-writers what I learned after reading ~250 files this year, and then spending 18 hours in meetings with my colleagues on the Ph.D. admissions committee discussing those files.
Ph.D. admissions decisions are very important, and we take them extremely seriously at @YaleEconomics. The 18 hours of meetings *after* files read by multiple faculty easily exceed the meeting time allocated to either junior or senior faculty recruiting!
Despite that, we will certainly make mistakes. There are 150-200 applicants who check most boxes and would likely succeed, but our class size is ~20. I would NOT bet my house on
{Applicant we ranked 33 will prove to be more successful as an economist than Applicant we ranked 66}
Some misinterpretation of our #Bangladesh Mask RCT by those who don’t read research, which I’ll ignore, but also some parochial/racist reactions, which I must respond to nbcnews.com/science/scienc…
1."Americans experimenting on Bangladeshis to inform Americans”. Sorry, not all work is done to service Westerners. I [co-lead (clearly signaled as last) author], am Bangladeshi. We conducted study to primarily benefit LMICs. Study sites included districts where my family resides
We did NOT withhold masks from control group for research. Even while data collection was being completed, we personally secured donations of 100 million+ masks to distribute for free in 🇧🇩🇮🇳🇵🇰🇳🇵because the research showed positive effects.
Educated, skilled workers are more likely to emigrate away from polluted cities. This affects aggregate productivity and welfare, and also explains ~14% of an enduring macro-development puzzle:
Why do people remain in low-productivity areas when big cities offer higher wages?
Greater out-migration of the college-educated from polluted areas is clearly evident even in the raw data in China (see maps), but we use multiple data sources and empirical techniques to uncover the causal effect of pollution on emigration
Implication for aggregative productivity and pollution policy?
Emigration response of the skilled means that the unskilled left behind become less productive. Skilled and unskilled workers are complements in production in China. Asymmetric migration creates a spatial mismatch
A thread on my sense of the immediate #policypriorities for @JoeBiden & @KamalaHarris administration, to undo the most consequential damages wrought by the last 4 years. A journalist’s question forced me to think about #economicpolicy, so I thought I'd get your reactions. [1/9]
First, bring #COVID under control. There’s no lives vs livelihoods tradeoff. Economy will move only when the virus is contained. Rich people need to feel comfortable to go out, to spend money. They hold back due to fear of contracting COVID, not due to any #lockdown [2/9]
The strategies are simple: Lead by example to instill a sense of civic duty. Inspire citizens to wear masks and make small sacrifices to protect each other. Put the amazing US #publichealth talent in charge to develop robust testing, tracing [3/9] cnn.com/2020/11/03/afr…
#COVID spreads through human-to-human transmission, so #migrants are an important vector. In the absence of adequate covid tests in LMICs, can we predict sub-national COVID spread, or identify likely hotspots using data on migration?
Data on airport returnees predict subsequent quarantines & #COVID19 distress calls across districts in #Bangladesh. Data on migration permits predict confirmed cases in #Philippines municipalities and Bangladeshi sub-districts.
Beyond the validation using public health data, our recent phone surveys across Bangladesh helps to ground-truth this approach:
Living in communities with recent #migrant returnees triples the odds (!) of reporting #COVID symptoms. This is the single largest risk factor.