Betsey Stevenson
@BetseyStevenson
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Former Member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers & Chief Economist at Labor. Current academic economist at Michigan. Always an economist at home.
Ann Arbor
Joined September 2011
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We are failing all of our children. The selfishness of American adults is stupefying.
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When I was 5, I ran a high fever on Halloween & stayed home. A neighbor gave me half her candy, teaching me the value of compassion & generosity.
I’m going to take half of Chloe’s candy tonight & give it to some kid who sat at home. It’s never to early to teach her about socialism.
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Drop everything and read this paper:
The bottom line: Managers with MBAs are the best at taking money from workers and not much else.
The findings are damning of business schools, business education, & business "optimizing" practices.
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I’m starting to think that the US is divided into those on Twitter who can see what is happening in other countries and are terrified. And those not of Twitter who are confused why the rest of us are terrified.
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Alan Krueger taught me a lot about pain. That people are in a lot of pain when they are unemployed, and searching for a job was their most painful part of the day. That men w/out work reported a lot of pain & took a lot of pain relievers. [1/3]
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Yesterday I called my doctor and said I was testing negative for covid and thought I might have the flu and she said there is no flu in August, test again for covid tomorrow.
Guess what? I have covid.
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For all journalists interviewing businesses that say they can't find workers please ask them if they have tried raising their wages.
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The truth is that we all have more pain than the world typically knows, so do something nice for someone today for no reason and be more forgiving than you want to be. [4/3]
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I did a recorded interview today about working with a lack of childcare and at 12:15pm my child burst into the room in tears saying "I couldn't find you and I'm so hungry and why were you hiding and when is lunch" And cut. That's work and childcare during COVID.
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By the way, now we know that it is possible to reduce inflation without having unemployment jump to 7%.
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No mother is a perfect mother, but a poor mother is just as good of a mother as a rich mother. I am sick of public policy trying to encourage rich mothers to quit working while forcing low-income mothers to work.
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850,000 new jobs, more than a third of which were in leisure and hospitality. Wages are up.
So it turns out that you can find workers, you just have to pay a better wage than in the past because wages of low-wage workers are going up.
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A student yesterday asked me if I could recommend a book that talked about economics AND ethics/moral and political philosophy. Recommendations?
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Tonight I said to my kid “we missed our chance to get your hair cut, so I may have to cut it myself”
She said “No! You’re an economist & will give me an economist’s haircut.”
Me: “what’s that?”
Her: “whatever haircut is good for society”
She may have a biased sense of economics.
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Childcare in the first five years of life costs as much as college.
But w/ childcare, parents don't have time to save for it. Young children can't agree to pay back investments in them.
Early childhood education & high quality childcare should be a priority over free college.
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I used to think the phrase "on steroids" was hyperbole.
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You cannot interpret this jobs report without thinking about the virus situation on June 12, the reference week of the survey. Cases were coming down, people were beginning to feel optimistic. That's not where we are now, we now face new closures and increasing fear.
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It absolutely infuriated me when I biked to work in DC that my colleagues got expensive parking for free and I got nothing. I wanted free bagels and coffee. Either everyone is on board with the non-wage compensation or you ended up compensating some workers more than others.
I pay $857/year for parking.
Faculty should have free parking at their place of employment.
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The prize going to Claudia Goldin alone, the first woman to receive the Nobel solo, means so much for the evolution of economics. Claudia marched in to document the changing roles of women in society at a time when many male economists just didn't care. [1/x]
Heckuva quote from
@BetseyStevenson
in a lovely piece by
@abhabhattarai
:
“The men before her studied work and rarely gave a thought to how the actual food got on the table, clothes on the backs and the children raised.”
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I’ve been called a fucking bitch so many times that I had forgotten that its really not okay.
@AOC
’s calm, reasoned response was one of the best things I’ve ever seen and I hope that women of all ages heard it and stand a little firmer against that behavior.
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I just heard a man say that he took the number of people who quit jobs recently as a good sign.
In a normal economy a rising quit rate is a good sign. When quits reflect women who can't juggle work without childcare and in-person school it's a terrible sign.
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My dad—a strong Democrat—said “Hmm Harris is a bit abrasive” and I said “I think you mean assertive, strong, and wicked smart”
Let it begin. Women are ready this time. (Love ya dad)
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Our ability to discuss policy is so broken that saying you're going to raise the top tax rate is the only way progressives will believe you're going to tax the rich more. In reality, eliminating stepped up basis & reducing exemptions/deductions would increase progressivity more.
ex-Obama economist
@BetseyStevenson
: Dems need to find new tax revenue, but big hike in top rate “would not be the first thing I’d do, it would be the last thing”
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I have never learned more economics than when I was trying to teach "remedial" economics to students who really struggled with it. They made me a better economist. Not just a better communicator, but more of an expert in my own field.
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I have a small story to tell about abortion. When I was 16 I cleaned the house of a woman who seemed a million years old to me but was probably 70. Her two adult children lived in other states. I couldn't afford piano lessons and she couldn't afford a cleaner so we swapped. [1/x]
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There is a big question about who he privately leaks data to and that should be investigated.
Privately leaking this information makes money for those who get it. Where does the money they “make” come from? People who don’t have the information.
If *any* other federal employee had tweeted in a way that gave the *appearance* of hinting at confidential information, they would be fired on the spot.
Plus there would be an investigation checking their emails and phone logs to make sure they hadn't leaked to others, too.
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For God’s sake, not only is this a lie, but it is a lie designed specifically to enrich a powerful tax preparation software company at the expense of American taxpayers.
The IRS is bullying Americans into accepting them as the tax preparer, filer, and auditor.
The entire forced e-file scheme lacks support from taxpayers, who were misled to believe it would be a one-stop shop for federal and state taxes & undersold its costs.
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The decline in international students coming to the US is bad for American universities, bad for American research competitiveness, and ultimately will be bad for America's role in the world.
"The number of new international students enrolling at American institutions fell by 6.6% during the 2017-18 academic year, on top of a 3.3% decline the year before."
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I completely agree--those laid off in June are much less likely to go back to their original jobs compared to those laid off in March or April. We are entering the permanent job loss phase of the pandemic.
As
@marthagimbel
told me: “What you’re seeing right now is economic scarring starting to happen... Layoffs that happened at the beginning of this likely were intended as temporary. But if you’re laying off people now, that’s probably a long-term business decision.”
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The end of Roe isn't about babies. (See my many other threads on things that are good for babies!).
The end of Roe isn't even about abortion.
The end of Roe is about returning to a world in which pregnancy is a vulnerability that women have and men can exploit. [9/x]
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His thinking on pain always connected labor market issues to real people. These were things that could hurt people. And good public policy could help.
But now I know that he was also in pain, perhaps channeling his own pain into thinking about the pain of others. [3/3]
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In 2016, dads change diapers, take their kids to the park, read stories before bed, and help make lunches. They also want paid leave.
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Sexual harassment rattles women's confidence and makes them feel like they an outsider in the profession with everyone they interact-not just the harasser. And this kind of "innocent query" sums up why economics is a more hostile profession for women than many others.
A powerful man offers to help a woman's career in trade for sex. Is this okay of him if a) she likes deal & accepts, b) he only ever asks once, she declines, c) deal is indirect, giving her plausible deniability? Pick 1st answer you agree with:
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Ugh, she needs an economic adviser.
Instead of that nonsense she should say:
Wages are largely stagnant despite the strong economy & rising profits.
Too many people have to add a side-hustle to their main job to cover the rising costs of childcare, healthcare, and education.
Socialist Ocasio-Cortez confronted with booming economy & low unemployment numbers.
She says "Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs” and "Capitalism has not always existed in the world and will not always exist in the world.”
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I was trying to explain economics to someone and his response to my explanation was “oh so you are more of a mathematical psychologist than an accountant” Exactly.
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When will we admit that the US healthcare system simply doesn't work?
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If the 16.8 million people who have filed for unemployment in the past three weeks are the ONLY newly unemployed people then the unemployment rate is 15%.
In reality at least a third haven't applied, meaning that the unemployment rate is closer to 20%.
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An important point: 6-7 million unemployment insurance initial claims per week might be telling us the system's maximum capacity to process claims per week, not how many people are trying.
@BetseyStevenson
I get the same number. Assume 6.6-6.9 million is the unemployment insurance system's capacity, not newly
#unemployedworkers
. So, 7.1 million unemployed as of mid-March + 16.8 million UI claims as of last week + about 6 million this week = 19-20% unemployment. That's conservative.
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What's actually terrifying to a suburban mom? Being stuck at home for months on end trying to manage no childcare, virtual teachers, remote aging parents, all while juggling their remote job.
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Supply-side economics hurt a lot of working and middle class people.
MMT has the power to hurt a lot of working and middle class people.
There is no left and right here. There is only magical thinking with regular folks paying the price when the spell breaks.
Modern monetary theory is the "voodoo economics" of our time.
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Overheard: "Yeah it was rejected. The editor loved it and is a big fan of my work, he just thought that my paper would reach the right audience if it was in a more specialized journal."
How do I get a male ego?
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Some people are saying that slowing the pandemic isn't worth it. I'm going to do some crude math for those who need it.
Let's start with a reasonable statistical value of a life of $7 million. That's a low estimate--some suggestion $9 million.
[1/x]
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I underestimated how emotional I would be watching the return of decency.
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My son just asked me:
Have you ever wondered why cookies are called cookies and bacon is called bacon when you cook bacon and bake cookies?
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Her story didn't begin or end with an abortion. She didn't even choose an abortion. She got an illegal abortion because the people who had control over her body chose an abortion for her. And then depised her for needing it.
That's what has stuck with me all these years. [10/x]
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What happened in 2016?
2.157 million jobs were added
Unemployment fell from 5.0 to 4.7
Wages rose 2.9%
We threw this govt out.
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Today my 9 year old told me he had been doing some calculations and by his math I had spent $1,440 on coffee in 2021. He then asked me for $20.
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He taught me the importance of low-cost pain relievers in the quality of lives around the world. Talking a tylenol when you have a headache is now easy in the US. It wasn't always that way and it still isn't in many places. [2/3]
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I will never understand why we want to tax some rich surgeon who works 14 hours a day more than some trust-fund man-child shuffling their inheritance around.
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Why the last? Because rich people NEVER having to pay capital gains tax is absurd & unfair: ending that practice would be the first thing I'd do. Then I'd get rid of exemptions & deductions that lower the taxes the rich pay. And if we still need more revenue I'd raise their rates
ex-Obama economist
@BetseyStevenson
: Dems need to find new tax revenue, but big hike in top rate “would not be the first thing I’d do, it would be the last thing”
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I'm not a White House ethics person, but here's a small story to show how governing & campaigning is supposed to be separate. When I was a Member of CEA, I accompanied Obama to an event on working families. Participating in a round-table event w/ POTUS was exciting! [1/x]
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The President of the United States is wondering whether finders keepers is current law in the United States.
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This is not the economy versus our health. We are the economy. GDP is only useful as a measure of the standard of living, which is not in opposition to our health.
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I'm teaching fiscal policy tomorrow and I am so excited to have found this awesome visualization of discretionary spending over time.
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Really useful research on the important question of whether the $600 UI boost is having a meaningful disincentive effect on employment. The short answer is: no.
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This is a terrible idea.
(1) If we want to tax corporations, do it!
(2) Don't create a group of rich people who have an incentive to cut the food stamp program!
(3) Eligibility is at the household level-don't create a disincentive for hiring low-income workers w. children!
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Stop and listen to this. You won't regret it. It's amazing.
When
@JoeBiden
joked that
@JanetYellen
should have her own
@HamiltonMusical
... it got us thinking, what would that sound like?
As it happens, we know an artist on The Hamilton Mixtape. We'll let
@dessadarling
take it from here.
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Even when the pandemic is over, parents are going to need extra support.
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The United States is the developed country least willing to invest in and care for children and the most willing to force women to birth children they are unable to care for.
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I’m not a witch, I’m your wife.
What witches can teach us about capitalism, from my favorite w̸i̸t̸c̸h̸ economist,
@BetseyStevenson
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Do those who chanted lock her up care that House Republicans ended independent ethics oversight? Or have they stopped paying attention?
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This article is absolutely terrifying.
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I am so tired of name-calling, hate, rudeness, self-serving lying, and divisiveness. Just exhausted of it. Deeply exhausted, down to my bones. Aren't you?
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Obama's first pick for Energy Sectetary was Physics Nobel Laureate Stephen Chu. Trump's is Rick Perry.
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Janet Yellen kicked the shit out of the job. That's what I'm going to remember about her time as Fed Chair.
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My kid just asked why employers provide health insurance but not car insurance especially when people drive to work.
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At dinner we discussed running a family experiment in being vegan. My dairy loving 7-year old immediately said "I'll be in the comparison"
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Last night my 5-year old woke up from a bad dream, crying and calling for his parents. I ran to him, quickly smoothing him back to sleep.
The rest of the night I kept thinking about the kids we are removing from their parents. How many called out last night? Who answered them?
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The unvaccinated will have higher healthcare costs and drive up costs for everyone. Should they pay more for insurance? What about medicare?
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One thing that has me puzzled is that people who think that giving people stimulus money caused higher inflation, but don't seem to believe that taking money away through higher taxes would lower inflation.
Demand works both ways.
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Stop & ponder the magnitude of this: Half of 25-54 yr old men not in the labor force take daily pain medication
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Let's discuss GDP numbers. First, there's the tricky thing about percentage changes is that percentage changes on the way down are always smaller than on the way up because on the way up you have a smaller base. [1/x]
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It's not radical, it's just stupid. Punishing businesses for hiring low-wage workers with children is dumb.
You want a radical idea? Provide free high-quality child-care to anyone earning below median wages. And raise corporate taxes for ALL companies to pay for it.
It's not radical to demand the Walton family of Walmart and Jeff Bezos of Amazon get off of welfare & pay their workers a living wage. It's not surprising an otherwise friendly think tank that gets at least $2 million from the Walmart Foundation disagrees.
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Claudia Goldin is the most dispassionate research yet passionate and kind person I have ever encountered. This picture of her holding my son at an economics conference says so much about her as an adviser.
One of these people turns eleven tomorrow and the other just won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
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I’m not sure that this would have the outcome he thinks. I bet most would describe what is actually capitalism but with strong safety nets and worker protection and then they’d spend a month in Australia.
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Someone asked me just yesterday if we were in a recession. We added 187k jobs in July and the unemployment rate was 3.5%.
There continues to be a disconnect between reality and perceptions.
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First grade through Zoom is bananas. God bless the elementary school teachers for trying to manage virtual classrooms.
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Trump doesn't seem to understand that bringing back people who were temporarily laid off was the easy part, the hard part is creating new jobs to replace the ones that were permanently destroyed. There's a rough road ahead and the first step is seeing the pavement.
Former
@USDOL
's chief economist
@BetseyStevenson
on Trump's lack of acumen to tackle the devastating
#economy
in the 21st century:
"We haven't seen any evidence he knows how to rebuild an economy. We've seen no evidence Trump even understands how much damage has been done"
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Title IX's big impact was NOT college sports. It was mass participation at the high school level. Nearly 50% of boys played sports during high school prior to Title IX, while 3% of girls did. After Title IX: 50% of boys and nearly 40% of girls played, Today it's nearly equal.
Which is what the billions spent on universities is really all about ..
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So what is interesting about this jobs report? Women have now become the majority of payroll job holders.
Let's take a look at what this means [1/6]
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On this jobs day, let's appreciate the hard-working, honest, non-political, career BLS & Census employees who give us the employment report.
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Women lost more jobs at the start of the pandemic, are continuing to lose more jobs due to Congress’s failure to help prevent the layoffs of state and local govt workers, & are dropping out of the labor force to care for kids.
Women are the shock absorbers.
Trump's pitch to women on coronavirus recovery: "We're getting your husbands back to work"
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Economics can be a really useful discipline, but it's failure is its obsession with people behaving badly. People do optimize, they do react to incentives, but they also have values, work ethics, and identities.
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Economics PhD programs need to rethink what they really need from candidates. We are erecting more barriers to entry--pre-docs, math backgrounds--at a time when the field needs to be diversifying.
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To the dude who told me to "educate myself" because "lot's of really smart people with economics training think MMT and it's historical antecedents have some really valuable insights"
Read the poll buddy:
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To be clear: EVERYONE should read Marx. How can you know what you agree and disagree with if you aren't doing the reading?
@florianederer
To be fair, I was assigned Marx to read in about half my classes at Harvard, and several of my professors actually were proud Marxists—mostly in the government department, though, not economics
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Universities are in an impossible bind: foreign students can't stay unless there are in-person classes, young people don't seem to have the self-control to engage in safe practices, faculty skew older and many are in high risk groups.
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Australians keep telling me that if Mexico & Canada agree to build walls, Australia will chip in for a lid. That's our foreign image folks
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There are now alternatives to lock downs that we could potentially execute, but could not have in March. A cheap daily saliva test, a nationwide mask mandate, and banning large groups including closing bars, theaters, and keeping restaurants at low capacity is the alternative.
“The evidence suggests lockdowns were an overly blunt and economically costly tool...The evidence also points to alternative strategies that could slow the spread of the epidemic at much less cost.”
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It's time for economists to grow up and deal with the cultural problem that allows sexual harassment, sexism, and racism to persist in our field.
I had some things to say in the article, so if you've read it you know what I think. But let's go through it.
[1/x]
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The coronovirus is exposing the weak safety net for working age Americans—no guarantee of paid sick leave, no short-term paid disability leave, copays to test for contagious diseases or no insurance at all.
Congress could change all this tomorrow.
That’s the stimulus I want now.
Before I hear any more ideas of a payroll tax, bail out, or any other economic stimulus policy in response to COVID-19, I want to see a paid sick leave policy.
It's insane not to do it.
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Nice thread explaining my research with
@JustinWolfers
The short summary: Women being able to say no-in the case of our research, saying no, I won't stay married to you, saved women's lives. Lots of them.
What needs to be enforced is the right to say no.
What is meant by “enforced monogamy”? It’s worth reading a lot of the literature on the determinants of female violence in the marriage market when thinking about that. I’d start with Stevenson and Wolfers paper on unilateral divorce laws.
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Economists seem to not understand this important point: The acceptance of assholes in our profession contributes to the lack of diversity in economics.
@causalinf
There also can be disparate impact even if you are equally an asshole to everyone
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Terrifying, accurate, and the primary reason I feared a Trump presidency from the start. Unfortunately he has over-delivered on this aspect.
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It's 2021 and the United States is one of the last countries in the world to guaranty paid family leave. The time has come [1/x]
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I ate cake on Air Force One with one of the Air Force officers whose birthday it was and waited to go home.
We all had ethics. No federal taxpayer dollars were used inappropriately. Those boundaries sometimes seemed silly. I now understand how incredibly important they are.
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Permanent job loss rose in May by 295,000 to a total of 2.3million. It's time to start focusing on permanent job loss.
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The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job remains nearly 20% higher than pre-pandemic levels. Nearly 6 million people--wanting a job, but not actively searching in this tight labor market. Why? Childcare? Health? Not sure what to do? Mental health?
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The thing that confuses me every jobs day is that this is the economy that Trump campaigned against.
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The fact that someone can release a beautiful new game into the world, let people try it for free to discover its value, and then still be fairly compensated for their work is a wonderful success of capitalism.
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I’m sensing that I need to gently remind people in their late 40s and older that a quarter century ago was the mid-1990s not the mid-1970s. Time passes fast when you’re over 40.
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