Tilman Graff
@TilmanGraff
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Econ PhD student at Harvard. Interested in macro, development, and avocados.
Cambridge, MA
Joined March 2009
🆕 How low demand constrains productivity & economic development Michael Walker @CEGA_UC, Nachiket Shah @UCBerkeley, @tedmiguel @berkeleyecon, @EggerDennis @OxfordEconDept, @soliman_felix @econ_uzh & @TilmanGraff @HarvardEcon explore the role of 'slack':
voxdev.org
Evidence from Kenya shows that small firms have a lot of ‘slack’, i.e. they could produce substantially more output without having to hire additional workers, buy additional machines, or raise...
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🆕 Do cash transfers cause inflation? 🇰🇪 Michael Walker @CEGA_UC, Nachiket Shah @UCBerkeley, @tedmiguel @berkeleyecon, @EggerDennis @OxfordEconDept, @soliman_felix @econ_uzh & @TilmanGraff @HarvardEcon explore the macroeconomic effects of cash transfers:
voxdev.org
Evidence from cash transfers at scale in Kenya suggests that demand-side policies or stimulus may be very effective at raising output without creating inflationary pressure when there is a lot of...
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@TilmanGraff presenting the now famous and enormously interesting work on Slack and economic development! 📈
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Why do firms in LMICs under-use their productive resources (labor, machines, etc.) relative to rich countries? @TilmanGraff presents evidence from Kenyan markets showing how small firms invest in production capacity despite inconsistent demand for their products/services. (1/2)
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The utilization of labor and capital in Kenya is increasing in firm size, market access, and economic activity, from @mwwalkerecon, Nachiket Shah, @tedmiguel, @EggerDennis, @solimanfelix, and @TilmanGraff
https://t.co/1b4F1EBYGJ
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Super excited to release our new working paper on slack and economic development! We measure, characterise, and think through macroeconomic implications of capacity underutilisation in Kenyan firms. Feedback and suggestions welcome!
** New WP alert ** Slack and Economic Development, with @mwwalkerecon, @nachi_365, @tedmiguel, @soliman_felix, @TilmanGraff We study the causes and macroeconomic consequences of slack in small firms. https://t.co/UE4pkh7bg2
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My paper on the causes and consequences of spatial inefficiencies in African trade networks is now published at the JDE! This was the first paper I ever wrote -- really happy to see it in print! 🙂 https://t.co/6ptjLtrE5y
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Harvard Econ celebrating Professor Goldin‘s incredibly well deserved Nobel Prize! “Keep asking the difficult questions” she tells us students!
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New paper! We study how people move through Jakarta’s massive bus system and what this means for optimal network design 🚌 🚎
How should urban public transport networks be designed? Evidence from Jakarta's public bus system expansion, and a quantitative framework for characterizing optimal networks, from @thetahat, @abgaduh, @TilmanGraff, @rema_nadeem, and @ben_olken
https://t.co/BCZN8p6yN4
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Just out here scraping some roads data. Office mate looks at my screen, mumbles "oh no, Tilman's doing neuroscience again"
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While my research on optimal networks has not yet made it into a journal, it has now made it onto a CAKE?! Does this count as peer review??
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@stadio Also let me know if you find a mistake in my computed equilibrium! My email has NOT BEEN PEER REVIEWED! 😃
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I somehow made it onto my favourite football podcast with some questionable penalty shootout game theory! Come for the mixed strategy Panenka equilibrium (starting around the 3min mark), stay for @stadio's brilliant coverage of the beautiful game!
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Could not agree more 👇🏼
My two cents FWIW: Having a field called "development economics" makes no sense. It is essentially all fields of economics related to the 84% of people in the world who don't live in high-income countries. It is good to see it gradually absorbed into the other fields of econ.
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After a year of zoom school, excited to have finally made it to campus to properly start this PhD!
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My* first publication! 🙃 (*as a small 1/26th of a global team of truly inspiring scientists who went to work as the world was changing)
🚨 Important new paper just out in Science Advances: What were the effects of 2020 COVID lockdowns and disruptions on households in lower income countries? (From 26 co-authors on 3 continents!) Summary/brief: https://t.co/pJlWUDHm9g Full Paper: https://t.co/UyrfMaPaje
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Watching my algorithm trying to come up with designs for an optimal transport network.
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Very excited to share: after two great years in Kenya, I'll be joining the economics department at @Harvard to start my PhD this fall. Thanks to everybody who supported me along the way, especially @jhaushofer and @tedmiguel. Now bring it on, PhD, this will be fun!
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This is what I've been RA-ing on the last 15 months! The paper studies aggregate, macro-level effects of a major cash transfer program in Western Kenya and offers insights into the nature of fiscal multipliers. Trust me, there's a *lot* of data involved. Excited to see this out!
new: we study experimentally the effects of dropping ~15% of GDP on a poor rural economy. w/ @tedmiguel @jhaushofer Dennis Egger and Michael Walker https://t.co/MFxL3nCZGJ
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