I was quoted in the WaPo saying that a new @nberpubs WP by @Jon_Hartley_ , Kevin Hassett, and @joshrauh incorrectly concludes that they find a user cost elasticity "larger than prior estimates." This thread explains. washingtonpost.com/business/2025/…
Here is the paper. They compare investment rates post-TCJA to asset-level changes in user costs. My issue is not with this approach, but with the comparison to prior studies. nber.org/papers/w33914
Oct 10, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Huge congratulations to a much-deserved prize. Work by @benbernanke on the Great Depression was a major motivation to my own research. And I teach Diamond-Dybvig in intermediate macro every year. A short thread on the scientific citation.
One can see why these 3 would be chosen together. D-D (and later work by Diamond) is a model of how banks can get into trouble and, beautifully, why such fragility is inherent to their function, as without maturity transformation or specialization they do not improve on autarky.
May 17, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Some thoughts on crypto. Like many economists, I have struggled to understand the endurance and growth of cryptocurrencies. ft.com/content/db9c3f…
I think there should be agreement that some or much of the value stems from regulatory arbitrage, i.e. the ability to provide services similar to the traditional financial system but without facing the traditional regulatory costs.
Jun 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
As of today 20 states have announced plans to opt out of all enhanced federal UI programs and 5 more have announced they will opt out of the $300+ weekly benefit supplement only. Here they are by April 2021 unemployment rate:
Observations: 1. All R governors except of VT, MA opted out of $300+ supplement. 2. No D governors have (->red/blue coloring). 3. Most states opting out of all programs (14/20) had April UR below 4.5%. If ARP used state-level triggers, these states would have been off early.
