Alex Albright
@AllbriteAllday
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Economist at @OIGInstitute , @MinneapolisFed . Law + econ, policy, CJS, inequality. There’s a graph for that. (she/her)
Minneapolis, MN
Joined June 2011
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TIL
@ossoff
is the first millennial Senator -- he's the one pink rectangle in this "Which Generation Controls the Senate?" chart.
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Went to the Botanical Garden Friday and was told there was a cool bird in the distance. I was deceived about the bird but this was cool too. 🥰
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Hey
#econtwitter
, I sat down and reflected on the job market.
I wanted to make something that was informative for future cohorts, so I put together this write-up ft: resources that helped me, data on my own experience, and advice/tips/intel.
🧵 1/n
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Useful resource for
#econtwitter
folks: Sangmin S. Oh maintains a HUGE list of ~plausibly exogenous variation~ used in empirical economics work.
It's called ✨Plausibly Exogenous Galore✨ and it's also a listserv you can join.
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TIL there is a type of data visualization called an ~UpSet plot~, which is "a more readable alternative to Venn diagrams for when you have more than a few sets" h/t
@flowingdata
UpSet explainer:
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✨ I tweet bearing good news ✨
Starting in Fall 2022, I will be a Research Economist with the
@OIGInstitute
at the
@MinneapolisFed
!
I'm incredibly excited to join the growing
@OIGInstitute
community & I'm so grateful to friends + colleagues for their support during the JM.
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📢Updated online public goods📢
[1] Collection of ~links~ to data/R/economics profession resources:
cc:
#RStats
&
#EconTwitter
people
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A paper all about data visualization is forthcoming at
@QJEHarvard
!!
"Little is known about visual inference for commonly presented graphs in empirical research designs." (WORD)
Eg: RD PLOTS. How do RD graph construction choices impact whether people perceive discontinuities?
Recently accepted by
#QJE
, “Visual Inference and Graphical Representation in Regression Discontinuity Designs,” by Korting, Lieberman, Matsudaira, Pei, and Shen:
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Tell me you’ve never been to an econ seminar without telling me you’ve never been to an econ seminar
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Good morning, I just defended my dissertation! 🥲
Anddd because it’s now 7:30am I am celebrating with sparkling apple cider🍾 (had to pop something!!)
Thank you to my excellent committee
@lkatz42
,
@WinnieVanDijk
+ Ed Glaeser for all the support over the yrs
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Fond memories of graduation 2022 when my mom told me she really liked “the woman with the dog” in my department. 💕
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2023 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Claudia Goldin “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes.”
#NobelPrize
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Where do people make friends?
In the US, the picture looks very different by income.
High-income people make more friends in college, while low-income people make more friends in their neighborhoods.
Sources: NYT () + Nature ()
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What are the time costs of breastfeeding?
@AlyssaRosenberg
tackled this question by tracking every minute she spent nursing or pumping in the first 6 months of her son's life.
On average, it took 📢 2 hours and 40 minutes 📢 each day
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all i want for christmas is to be called "productive" by another economist
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💻 Just updated the "Resources" page on my website! 💻
Need some toy data and/or R code examples? I gotchu.
Also included: links to online resources on finding data, data visualization, using R, and some random econ topics too
#EconTwitter
#Rstats
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1st year, we were allowed to bring 2 pieces of paper into our metrics final.
I just found mine and yea I REALLY MAXd out that allotted paper space.
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✨ Freshly Revised Working Paper Alert ✨
“The Hidden Effects of Algorithmic Recommendations”
Full paper:
Thread below
1/n
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How do risk score policies affect racial disparities? What role does judicial discretion play? Are predictive recommendations followed similarly across racial groups?
I address these Qs in a working paper:
Blog post version here:
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Title slide for a lil talk I’m giving on all the ways empirical projects can fall through 😭😂
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San Francisco implemented a RCT to test the effects of a restorative justice intervention. Restorative justice reduced the probability of rearrest by ~20 percentage points.
Paper by
@juliaalissa
,
@yotamshemtov
, S. Raphael:
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Are the pretrial misconduct effects of money bail large enough to justify its costs?
In my JMP, I show 1 instance of pretrial misconduct needs to be at least ~18 times~ as costly as 1 day in detention for money bail to justify its costs.
Thread below [1/n]
#EconTwitter
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Enjoying the meta-ness of a paper that talks about a "graphical revolution" in applied economics by presenting... well, graphs.
Currie, Kleven, and Zwiers (2020):
PS: all these trends are very cool to see [look at that event-study growth!!]
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After 5 years of working in our department's basement, my officemates and I have officially moved above ground. And it is GLORIOUS.
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Led my first Zoom class yesterday. I called breakout rooms "breakdown rooms" and then "breakup rooms" so... I think I'm old now?
Was very pleased to see someone then refer to them as "breakdance rooms" in our chat. 💃
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After 4 yrs of BOS<>SFO flights + the complications of a global pandemic, Jesse & I called long distance quits + moved in together!! You can now find me in SF *remotely* working on my PhD in our new "study", which even has a whiteboard (dreams do come true).
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Hey hey, anyone have a list of ongoing online economics seminars?
(that are open to outside researchers)
Asking for a few young folks (pre-phd) interested in attending online econ seminars.
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Hey
#econtwitter
, any recent papers [bonus points for JMPs] that use an *instrumented difference-in-differences (DD-IV)* design particularly well?
[Ie, clear/persuasive walk-thru of assumptions + interpretation.]
All links + examples welcome! 🙏
cc:
@instrumenthull
@paulgp
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My mom has called my bluff.
Pretty sure I would have already finished my PhD if I didn’t have to go looking for quarters for laundry every week
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Update: the AEA maintains a list of online economics seminars! ✅
Check it out here:
Hey hey, anyone have a list of ongoing online economics seminars?
(that are open to outside researchers)
Asking for a few young folks (pre-phd) interested in attending online econ seminars.
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A day of many excellent hats and the fanciest Snuggie I’ve ever worn 🍾 🎩
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A not-so-subtle hint that everyone thinks it’s time for me to graduate
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Thinking about better ways to give credit to open source packages in empirical research...
What if we (academics) started including a "Software/Data References" section separate from the usual "References" section?
Anyone do this? Opinions? Norms in other spaces/disciplines?
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Quick 🧵 on my officemates–fantastic people & economists–who are on the job market.
@scarmitage
,
@tianwang_liu
, &
@SteinHillary
always made me excited to go into the office. Stellar research + teaching skills! +I'm struck by how often I experience/see them supporting peers. 1/n
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Olá from 🇧🇷! 👋
Had an awesome time giving seminars at
@EconFGVSP
,
@Insper
, and
@EconomiaPUCRio
this week.
Thanks all for hosting me + for being so welcoming! And to
@PossebomVitor
for the invite!
Grateful to have enjoyed many conversations, meals, and beers on the beach.
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Do women face discrimination when they post questions on Stack Exchange?
If they are novice (low reputation score), yes! They get a smaller reputation bump
If they are advanced (high score), direction of discrimination ~reverses~
Paper by
@aislinnbohren
,
@alexoimas
, Rosenberg
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Someone asked me why I prefer R over Stata today and it made my day. 👩💻😍 I basically just spoke bullets from my previous
@RLadiesBoston
presentation.
#rstats
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Exciting new way to add to your Lit Review: you can use
@ConnectedPapers
to make a graph of, well, *~connected papers~*! E.g., here's what you get when you search
@EDerenoncourt
's JMP "Can you move to opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration":
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Fitbit thinks I’m getting my steps in but I’m actually just excessively gesturing during my job talk
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.........THIS EXISTS!!!?
Other advice for 2nd years: for paper presentations, make sure you use Mathpix Snip. It lets you screenshot equations and then automatically produces the underlying LaTeX code for that equation. This literally saved me dozens of hours in my 2nd year.
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Area Woman Lets Everyone Know She Just Finished Dry January
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Hello, my 2020-21 thesis students have graduated
@Harvard
!!!
Here's a pic of us cheers-ing thesis completion. 🎉[seemingly sponsored by poland spring]
Very proud of each of them individually & as a group that created warm vibes in Zoom-space during an super challenging year.
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Made some ~metaplots~ using NBER ~metadata~
Teaser questions:
- is it just me or do economists rly like using the verb "exploit"?
- is DD or IV bigger rn?
- what are the demos of NBER paper authors?
- how often do people use :'s in titles?
(🧵: 1/n)
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I'm excited + grateful to be a
@HorowitzFdn
2020 grant recipient! Looking forward to learning from the research projects of fellow grantees.
I'm also humbled to have won the Irving Louis Horowitz Award for my ongoing JMP research. 🥲 [...More to come on my JMP this fall...]
Today the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy is pleased to introduce its class of 2020 grant recipients. Our Trustees are glad to be able to support this group of twenty-five young scholars pursuing innovative and urgent policy research. 🎉🎉🎉
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about economics
@AllbriteAllday
If you tweet about economics on Christmas Day I promise to call you productive! :)
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Really proud of this visual I just made with
#rstats
. Turns out you can perfectly identify when my LDR SO and I are in the same city by plotting our daily iMessage frequency. 😍 [R notebook and blog post to come...]
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Thanks for sharing my JMP
@jenniferdoleac
!
+ thx for making this 🧵 each yr -- great to see the work of so many talented women on the JM
Oh hi
#econtwitter
👋, I'm a econ PhD
@Harvard
on the market
I study policy-relevant Qs in labor ec & law+ec:
Alex Albright
JMP: "No Money Bail, No Problems? Evidence from an Automatic Release Program"
Website:
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Pretty sure I would have already finished my PhD if I didn’t have to go looking for quarters for laundry every week
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Respect to
@KathrynBollman
for her ~original data collection work~ in her JMP. Check out section 4.1, people. FOIAs to 157 agencies. One hundred fifty seven.
Katie Bollman
JMP: "Consequences of Body-worn Cameras on the Court System: Evidence from State District and Circuit Court Data"
Website:
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I am working in a library and hearing someone gush about
#rstats
+
#rmarkdown
+
#tidyverse
+
#dplyr
+ more. I turn and smile right at them... I then realize that that is weird to do without context.
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Today was fantastic.
@jenniferdoleac
came to
@Kennedy_School
to present recent research. I then presented in our
@InequalityHKS
seminar + got her comments as well as those of my wonderful/supportive peers. Feeling very excited about research + *research community* at the moment.
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Resources I’ve compiled for undergrad thesis writers:
All based on FAQs from working w/ undergrad writers. Lots sourced from this corner of the internet, so thx
#EconTwitter
[other suggestions from working w/ undergrad thesis writers? *replies welcome*]
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Finished flyouts, which means when I got a text from a friend asking if I wanted to drive down to Palo Alto to look for a rare bird at 7am I said “sure, why not?!”
We spotted a rufus turtle-dove (only been seen twice before in CA). It landed 10 ft away from us + it was awesome.
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Love in the age of zoom interviews is my partner taking his work calls from our apartment building’s roof so I can interview in silence 🙏
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Am I on campus to do my practice job talk or to use the peloton bikes? Honestly, 50/50
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Here's my bi-annual reminder to check out the book "W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America" -- it's full of visualizations his team made *BACK IN 1900*!! The book also gives historical context from
@WBattleBaptiste
&
@brittrusert
.
It blows my mind that these W.E.B. Du Bois et al. "data portraits" are from 1900. Incredible combo of sociology/data/art made by an "interdisciplinary team of black students & alumni across the South." More context: & more images:
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📢 29% of people in the US work for a parent’s employer at least once by age 30 📢
***Updated paper***
How do connections in the labor market shape intergenerational mobility? I shed light on this question by studying one type of connection: jobs obtained at a parent's employer.
🧵
#EconTwitter
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West coast girl on an east coast interview schedule means my partner woke up today and found me eating a pizza like it was no big thing at 9am
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.
@planetmoney
made an episode on Seinfeld + Econ!!
They discuss the ICONIC "sponge" ep, which helped me understand optimal stopping in my econ PhD.
To prep for general exams, I wrote here on "a bellman equation about nothing":
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Exploring Minneapolis this month before starting at
@OIGInstitute
!
Lemme know recs of places/things you love in the city ✌️
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Me: Hello, can I apply for some data?
Them: Yes, fill out this application, get IRB approval, get a letter of support + then once we have your materials we ~might~ approve you.
Me: OK brb! *a few months later* Here you go!
Them: "We no longer have the file you seek."
Me: Perfect.
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Today in air travel:
Me: “Aw your birds are so cute!”
Neighbor: “Thanks. This is their first time flying!”
Me: “well, not really tho right” 😏
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I've adopted 'logical order' naming for project code and 'chronological order' naming for slides/paper PDFs and I will never go back 🥲🥲
h/t
@JennyBryan
+ her "naming things" slides:
Low-tech common sense about filenames. My slides may be homely, but this practical advice holds up well.
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Now that I've taught a Harvard Econ Thesis Course twice, I've put together a proper "Teaching" page on my website:
🧵 with some useful/fun links...
Hello, my 2020-21 thesis students have graduated
@Harvard
!!!
Here's a pic of us cheers-ing thesis completion. 🎉[seemingly sponsored by poland spring]
Very proud of each of them individually & as a group that created warm vibes in Zoom-space during an super challenging year.
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Have latitude + longitude but want US county FIPS codes instead??
Good news:
@andyshi_stats
wrote a nice R solution here:
Here's the gist of it (pun intended):
(Uses sf R pkg + shape files from US census)
#rstats
#EconTwitter
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Luca Braghieri's JMP "Social Media and Mental Health" provides quasi-experimental evidence of the impact of social media on mental health by...
🚨leveraging the staggered introduction of Facebook across U.S. colleges in the mid-2000s🚨
Paper here:
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Let the record show I had the *exact* same idea for proposing to Jesse 🤯
Please see notion screencap for evidence
Happy to have been bested on this one though 😉
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Putting some easter eggs in a paper draft. This is what I should be focusing on, right?
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Some friends + I noticed that only *1/12* student presenters in our dept's "Econ COVID-19 Seminar" were women. We were curious to investigate *why*, so we ran a survey + wrote up results. [1/5]
#EconTwitter
(joint w/
@stephkestelman
, Macdonald, McCormack)
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Super useful tool for simulating how your figure colors look to people with color vision deficiencies: h/t
@ClausWilke
Here's what some ggthemes::canva_palettes() options look like across different cv deficiencies.
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Look ma, I'm on a podcast!🎙️
I talked w/
@jenniferdoleac
about money bail reform.💰
A Kentucky program automatically released people arrested for low-level offenses. What were the effects? How does this compare to other US bail reforms?
Find out here:
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@erindataviz
I love this. I especially like the usage of AK as the legend explainer too. That's a nice way to do it!
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Had a great time visiting
@WilliamsEcon
and the purple valley! 🐄
Highlights include:
🟣 giving a seminar in Griffin (last time I did that was 9 years ago!)
🟣 meeting undergrads
🟣 reconnecting with faculty
🟣 hiking ~~Stone Hill~~ this morning 🥾
We love to welcome alumni back to
@WilliamsEcon
!
@AllbriteAllday
shares work on algorithms in criminal justice. Direct recommendation for action makes judges follow algorithm more, increasing leniency in pretrial detention for medium risk cases - but less so for Black defendents.
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I watched (+re-watched) a few
@juliasilge
screencasts today & it turns out that my learning style is 100% R coding alongside screencasts. 🤩 Especially if they are Julia's.
PS: curious about binary classification w/ {tidymodels} as a newbie? Would rec:
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I often use this color vision deficiency-friendly palette in graphs but I just printed out a paper in B&W and OOF my choices don't work well in B&W.
What's the best option for being CVD-friendly AND gray scale friendly?
Viridis?? 👉 Something else?
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"Within a decade, the share of households refusing to participate in the Current Population Survey (CPS) tripled." 👀👀👀
The steady rise in CPS nonresponse since 2010 is from households refusing the survey. Robert Bernhardt,
@D_Munro_Econ
, and I offer a correction method to adjust labor market indicators for selection:
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At the end of the job market, I would like to go a few years without hearing the word "polished" unless it's referring to ceramics.
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Just finished writing a paper draft in RMarkdown!! Hitting my wildest reproducibility goals over here! 😍🎉 (More info: ) Much love to the
#rstats
&
@RLadiesGlobal
community members who inspire me to keep improving my coding + tech workflows. 👩💻
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How many kids in the US are exposed to the criminal justice system?
Over 1/3 have a household member with a criminal charge
Does this vary across groups?
Yes, rates are ~2/3 for Black kids, American Indian kids + lowest-income kids
[via
@Econ_Mike
@brittanyrstreet
+ Finlay]
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Interested in ec history/race in the US/qual + quant data?
@DrNathanNunn
+
@jamesfeigenbaum
and I are working on a project about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 & we are hiring RA's to help with archival data/maps/etc. Interested? More info here:
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I co-hosted the Harvard Econ holiday party last night! Here’s my favorite clip in which we got to celebrate both a 150% increase in tenured faculty women(!!!) and the new free tampons in Littauer. (S/o to my
@HarvardGWE
friends whose cheers in this vid fill me with joy.)
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I've started using `beepr::beep("coin")` to make a little noise at the end of my
#rstats
code chunks that take a long time to run. (So I can leave screen-world while my laptop chugs away for a while.) Would recommend! Lots of solid sound options too (e.g. "mario").
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My first prof at
@WilliamsEcon
mentioned the possibility of a PhD in office hours when I was a frosh. My reaction was 100% "that's crazy -- only geniuses get PhDs!" But he got it on my radar... and made me feel like maybe it wasn't so crazy.
Thread for aspiring economist college majors, pre-docs and current doctoral students. What actions by faculty and more advanced economists have helped you to develop your acumen as a scholar and encouraged you to persist and feel that you have a place in the profession?
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Why yes I did collect lots of info on my job search so I could eventually make pretty graphs. 🙃
Here is a visual representation of my job market.
(
#econtwitter
x
#rtistry
content)
Each job is a horizontal bar & a color change shows progression to the next step over time.
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.
@WIRED
put together an article on risk assessment scores in theory vs. in practice. Discusses
@MeganTStevenson
's in-depth Kentucky work + my followup Kentucky work + Jennifer Skem, Nicholas Scurich, and John Monahan's judge experiment + more.
How these algorithms change the way justice is administered is largely unknown and the more crucial question of whether they help judges make better decisions is largely unanswered.
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For now, I have added "I use she/her pronouns" to my Harvard webpage. Not many economists do this so on some level I am thinking, "is this a bad signal?" But, no, I just want to be supremely clear: I write about data, I love R, my name is "Alex," and I'm a woman goddamnit. (5/n)
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