I'm teaching microeconomics this quarter & frame the class as policy-relevant by discussing different methods of allocating scarce resources.

The purpose is to stop students from immediately going from mkt failure --> govt intervention. Instead... I want them to compare mkt allocation to non-market methods, incl public ones by first specifying the alternative method & then discussing how it compares to mkts. Trashing mkts is easy, specifying better alternative is hard.

Teaching microeconomics today & explained Friedman point that econ, unlike eg biology, seeks a parsimonious predictive model rather than a descriptively accurate one.

But raises a q: as cost of info & processing power falls, should economics use a more complex base model? The way I explain it is that predictive power (of a model for human behavior) is an increasing, concave function of complexity (eg number of variables k). Cost of complexity is increasing and complexly. Suggests an optimal complexity point where slope of power = slope of cost.

Research involves a *lot* of admin costs that reduce scientific productivity. Here are 8 ways to reduce this (especially in economics), with little cost to journals or grantors. We should pressure organization to make these changes.... But first, this thread is inspired by a @salonium post at @WorksInProgMag. Also H/T @MargRev.

worksinprogress.co/issue/real-pee…

What if you could bid to get quicker ref repts for your submission to the peer review journals? At least for econ journals.

Refs would be chosen by editor (not authors), remain anonymous. But payment for completed repts would increase acceptance of invitation & faster review... Seems like the mechanism economists would like.

Benefits obvious: refs get $$ for time, encourages reviews at a time ppl are complaining abt how hard it is, etc.

Also research is public good w/ inadequate private supply. Why discourage supply w/ 0 or low-price caps on refs?

Two conversations this week got me to think differently. They end w/ requests for recommended reading.

TL;DR:
1/Economics needs to be as empirically rigorous about welfare analysis of politics as markets.
2/Economics must supplement causal ev w/ non-causal ev to be impactful. Convo #1: @APanagariya's wonderful India conference @columbia. There was a discussion of farm & ed reforms. There was some discussion of the politics of the farm reforms, but less on ed.

I've had similar convos about US housing reform w/ @DanielJHemel @ProfSchleich.

How valuable is causal inference?

Economists & statisticians embody high human capital and spend a ton of time showing (policy) X causes Y. What is the rate of return on this effort? TL;DR: The policy & business does not seem to value causation as much as academic economists do. It suggests that economists need to either:

-convince ppl on the value of investing a lot of effort on causation
-work on reducing the costs of inferring causation

Thinking about Uber given recent news about their app hosting taxis and Showtime's super pumped, I had the following question:

What is the optimum level of antitrust scrutiny of startups that seek to displace vested interests? TL;DR: Attacking vested interests is a public good, subject to collective action problems. To get a socially optimal amount of sectoral innovation, we may want to tolerate some collusion or give a period of monopoly rights to new entrants. A useful analogy is Hatch-Waxman.

If you buy this thread, my follow up is what reform/shock would cause us to change the equilibrium? Would any Foundation’s want to support this change? @JohnArnoldFndtn - looking at you!

https://twitter.com/anup_malani/status/1505549306585042946

For example, a credit system for reports. Or a payment to allow dual submissions. Or financial support to revive the Berkeley press forum idea. Or payments to depts for counting quantity more for tenure. Or paying for more slots in/issues of top journals.

@AnthonyLeeZhang

Many journals in economics require exclusive submission: a submitted paper not be under consideration elsewhere.

Given the long review times at econ journals, this delays publication of research. Given fixed tenure clocks, it creates large career risk for junior economists.... The costs are compounded cuz, w few exceptions (AER => AEJ, etc), journals don't consider reviews from previous rejections.

There are fields (law) where authors are allowed to submit to multiple journals at once.

*So, what are the best arguments for this policy?*

If you think declining fertility is a serious problem, age of marriage is a big issue in cultures where marriage precedes childbirth, eg India & China.

Things that delay marriage also reduce fertility. This is a huge headwind for gender equality (which I support).

An example… Dommaraju 2008 looks at India.

In theory, you can offset late marriage by shorter birth interval. And you see shorter interval for first child, but longer for 2nd+ children. Doesn’t have to be that way, but is.

@Alicee_evans @srajagopalan

dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/WP52/…

I've been thinking about the economics of misinformation. Here are a few simple models of misinfo & the solutions they do & do not imply. A thread...

TL;DR: The usual solutions (censoring misinfo) will not work or may backfire.

@cblatts @tylercowen @balajis @slatestarcodex Here is the theory that ppl who want to simply censor misinfo have in mind. I'll call it:

** 1. Null theory: Simpletons **
Ppl seek the truth and trust everything they hear. They cannot judge good from bad info or logic.

There are 2 problems w/ this theory.

It’s that time of year…

We just bottled our 2021 vintage of Cherry Bounce!

@cblatts @sarahcobey Cherry Bounce is our home made sour cherry infused Rittenhouse rye.

Bottling was a long process. Only made possible by being able to eat the loaded cherries that are left over.

What do you think of this crude model of politics to help explain why politicians/twitterati make bad (economic) arguments, eg MMT? Short thread.

TL;DR: 1/They make bad arguments to compete at the margin for ppl who can’t identify good args. 2/Making logical args on @Twitter abt how bad eg MMT is misses the point. Ppl who can judge a good arg aren’t fooled by bad args; they don’t need your logic. Ppl who can’t won’t be convinced by it.

This is why bad args (& policy) persist.

(Extend to COVID policy at your peril.)

I do a lot of interdisciplinary work. Here are 4 hard lessons I've learned. They may help you be more successful (than me) if you want to work across fields. Why listen to me? I'm trained in law & economics. I've written on

-placebo effects with a doctor
-avian flu : biologist
-viral evolution : epidemiologist
-conflict of interest : accountant
-primates : bio anthropologist
-cellular immunity to COVID : immunologist
and more...

I made (at least) 5 research-management mistakes as a young academic. You should avoid these.

1/ You should drop everything possible when you get an R&R and turn that right away. Each week a paper is not published is a week it can't get cited.

Ppl blame slow refs & editors. But as an editor @JLE for >> a decade (& as an author) I know lags before submitting a revision seems almost as long as editorial delays.

Allow me to say something unpopular: the direction of an externality during COVID depends on what ppl's belief about underlying rights are. And we disagree act that.

1 reason COVID policy is challenging is that we're fighting over the wrong question: externalities, not rights.

https://twitter.com/arpitrage/status/1489248031543201794

For ppl who think you have a right to not get an infection from others, COVID is a negative externality.

For ppl who think you have a right to free movement, the restrictions on integrity, lockdowns are the externality.

Adjacent question: what does it say about human altruistic preferences that we have 7000 deaths per day and talk like its is over? @adam_tooze

Chartbook #77: More than 7000 deaths per day ... and we talk as though it is over. , by @adam_tooze adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-77… This is an economic question:

What do we learn about human pro-social preferences?

I am not ask the normative question (should we be more prosocial). The positive question (are we) affects predictions act future behavior & policy response.

Cryptic strains of COVID in NYC wastewater raises 2 questions.

1/If rats (or another animal) are a reservoir for COVID, we need to know if there is zoonotic transmission back to humans.

In New York City Sewage, a Mysterious Coronavirus Signal nytimes.com/2022/02/03/hea… We can make humans vaccinate & mask; rats not so much. Would dramatically change COVID strategy.

@maciekboni @sarahcobey @mlipsitch

2/ If wastewater captures animal strains, it is less useful for tracking human strains.

Worth your attention. 2 reasons.

1/Important social debate in the US.

2/Researchers using poll data need to be wary of what the answers mean.

Short 🧵

Ht @MargRev @cblatts

No, America is not on the brink of a civil war | Musa al-Gharbi theguardian.com/commentisfree/… A long time ago, in a galaxy that seems far away, I used to write* about data markets, some with T Philipson.

The punchline is that researchers are the “demand curve” for data. Survey respondents are the “supply curve”. And…

4 great tips for young academics I've gotten but regret not following enough:

1/Tom Sargent: Take 1 class per year even when ur a prof. Offsets the depreciation of the human capital you accumulated during grad school.

Long term benefits in productivity >> short term time cost. 2/Emir Kamenica: Read at least the abstract (or intro) for every paper in your field's top journals, even if unrelated to your field.

General knowledge will make you appear informed to colleagues & may spark ideas. Cost is v. low.

When I was in grad school @UChi_Economics 20 yrs ago, I didn't learn what it means to be a successful academic. 🧵

I was "taught" the goal is to get a top 5 (or a Nobel
😂).

I didn't learn how to get citations, be an influential academic or production fn for getting a prize. (I certainly didn't learn work-life balance. Tho I would have ignored that cuz I had no life outside academics.)

I wish I had learned these things. Over my time as a prof, I learned some of these things, but they should be taught earlier.

Here are some...

@ProfNoto @cblatts