Will Damron
@wagonweill
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Postdoc at @DukeSocialEQ . Studying economic history and political economy in the American South. Probably drinking coffee. Davidson ‘17, @yaleeconomics ‘23.
New Haven, CT
Joined June 2018
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I have been keeping a list of books/papers related to the economic history of the US South and decided to share it on my website, in case it is useful to anyone ().
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I went to Acemoglu’s website to see if he had any papers that might be related to a project I’m working on, and now I have 24 papers I have to read
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Is there another series that has included as many absolute bangers as Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions?
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I feel like a cliche of an economist whenever I write something like this
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I still don't know how to say "I'm an economist" without it sounding like I'm apologizing
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Has anyone written the rainfall on visit day as a shock to grad student enrollment paper yet?
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This semester, we’re hosting a grad student economic history conference at Yale and are now open for submissions. Let me know if you have any questions, and share with anyone you think might be interested!
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Why does Yale employ so many people whose only job seems to be sending spam emails to the entire campus?
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What could be a better combination than economic history and a cold beer?
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Fortunately my annual progress report gives me realistic options for when I might finish
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Finally becoming the type of economic historian with old maps on my walls
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Grad school is great because you get to wonder about timeless questions like whether I have a headache because I’m decaffeinated or dehydrated
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One exciting part about collecting data from archives is realizing that it might be something no one else alive knows.
One less exciting part about collecting data from archives is realizing that all you know about is how many mules the Central of Georgia carried in 1857.
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This summer, I'm teaching my first course by myself, Economic History of the American South. I'd really appreciate any comments on the syllabus/suggestions on exams for an online course!
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Coming up with groan-worthy paper titles seems almost as productive as actually working on the paper
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Microeconomics: the study of models of the economics building
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TFW you “accidentally” spend $90 at the history department’s used book sale
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I just found out that RateMyProfessor got rid of the chili pepper, and now I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to aspire to
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I really enjoyed this article (), but I’m still waiting for an article to sum up the common problems with the persistence papers. Too often, the papers rely on deeply flawed data to reach their conclusions. Here’s a few of the cases that most annoy me :)
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This is a great paper, but it would have been a lot funnier if McCloskey had concluded "No, not really"
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I like capitalism as much as the next economist, but the fact that New Haven has four poke places and no Waffle House seems like a clear market failure
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Anytime I draw a supply and demand graph in front of a class, I still worry that I’m going to put price and quantity on the wrong axes
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Spending an afternoon in the archives >>>>> writing up another robustness check
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Oops, I didn’t get anything done today because I spent most of it staring out the window and wondering what it even means for something to “cause” something else
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Taking a break from writing the job market paper to do some beach modeling on the side
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One downside of economic history is that you can’t be that mad at the people who didn’t collect the data you want because they’re all dead now
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Few things make me more unreasonably grumpy than when historians say “we don’t do counterfactuals” after making all sorts of causal claims
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Combining two of my favorite things by collecting data on the economic history of North Carolina barbecue joints
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Duke made me take a quiz on best research practices, and I can't believe they didn't accept "quality journalism and quality research are both rare" as the right answer
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TBD to when the Department of Labor would come to your house and rate your clothes
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Do I have any need for a 10 pound book of Canadian statistics? No.
Could I resist buying it? Also no.
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My current research strategy is coming up with funny paper titles and backing out a research project to go with it, so I’m not sure why it’s not working out for me
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Still not entirely sure what it means, but apparently I’ve advanced to candidacy?
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When your code is so slow you have time to get ice cream while it runs
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I've spent less time on farms than a self-respecting economic historian should, but are sheep normally this rectangular?
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Packing for a research trip to some archives in the Carolinas, and this is the only map I’m planning on needing (thanks
@BitterSouth
)
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Someone just told me I was dressed like a development professor so I think I might have to go burn my entire wardrobe
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I’m convinced New Haven is the city with the highest rate of New Yorker tote bags per capita
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Counties should start changing their borders again just so economists who work with modern data have to deal with the same pain as economic historians
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Even after living in New England for five years, I still get excited about the first snow
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Accidentally airdropped a map of North Carolina power plants to a random person in my building, and I have no idea who
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Currently drinking beer in a gas station and writing a paper. Not sure whether I’m living my best life or my worst life
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I like to write my name in books under their former owner so it’s kind of like endorsing a bill of exchange
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You might be an economic historian if you have to move old maps off of your dining table to eat
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I’m increasingly convinced my calling was to be an emeritus professor.
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It’s probably a good thing that Latex won’t let me add footnotes to my footnotes
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I’m getting dangerously close to becoming the kind of economic historian who looks at diagrams of steam engines for fun
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Calling papers “the literature” is a bit generous given the quality of most writing in economics
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Yale fortunately has a vaccine mandate - what is this realistically supposed to accomplish in a community with a 100% vaccination rate? Vaccines work. Let’s start acting like it.
Yale is reinstituting a requirement that all individuals wear masks in indoor campus spaces
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Overlaying Jeremy Atack's railroad maps on the NHGIS map of places in 1910, it's striking how well these strings of towns map out the railroad network in the west
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I really hope I'm teaching the first economics class to include this map
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Why is Overleaf never down when I actually want to procrastinate from writing?
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One of my students told me I didn’t talk enough about country music in class, and this is the kind of course feedback I can work with
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I like working with two computers because it looks like I’m doing some sort of technical high-powered computing when in reality I just can’t figure out how to download Stata on my new laptop
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Its amazing how these maps (share of population enslaved and share foreign-born in 1860) are almost perfectly inverted
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To celebrate finishing a dissertation on North Carolina economic history and moving to NC, I’m trying to plan a NC economic history-themed road trip. Any suggestions of places I should stop?
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Is Yale the only econ department located in a former frat house? Really brings new meaning to the idea of comps as hazing
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It’s pretty neat finally having my own bookshelf in the office
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I’m normally a big fan of Radiolab, but the economic history in this episode was really bad. The idea that “European industrialization was actually paid for by how lucrative sugar was in the Caribbean“ is simply a fairytale.
At a tree ring conference in the mostly treeless city of Tucson, 3 scientists walk into a bar.
With help from
@latifnasser
, pirates, astronomers & an 80-year-old bartender, this ep will change the way you look at the sun. (PS: don't look at the sun.)
🎧:
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I always thought I’d be the young hip sort of professor, but instead I’m already having to ask students to explain TikTok to me
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I was worried that I was developing an eye twitch, but apparently the causes are just being in grad school
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In retrospect, planning a 45 mile bike ride around stopping for ice cream as many times as possible was a bit over-optimistic
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It’s great that Yale provides student access to the New York Times, but I really wish they’d upgrade for the subscription to include crossword puzzles
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I’m starting to think that naming one variable “migrantshare” and another “sharemigrant” was not the clearest bit of coding I’ve ever done
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I’m starting to realize I drastically underestimated how long it would take to digitize a thousand hand-written property deeds
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Has anyone who teaches econ history (or history in general) had any experience having a class visit archives? It seems like a potentially useful activity for getting students to think about how to actually do economic history, but I'm not sure how to make it work
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Transcribing some data on textile mills, and this is the most times I've written the word "underwear" in an economics context
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Is it weird to tell someone “I think you’re in my data set,” and is it worse when you’re an economic historian?
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Can I apply for grants to support international research if I tell them the past is a foreign country?
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The piles of books on my desk are gradually encroaching on my space to actually work at my desk
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I don’t think you should be allowed to call something a “short history” when it’s over 700 pages
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In South Carolina in 1915, more than 1% of education funding came from a tax on dogs
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I’m slightly worried I’m going to get scurvy because the only fresh fruit or vegetables I used to eat were at department seminars
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I really want to write a paper where I collect data on books so that I can talk about novel novel data
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You know a paper is going to be good when the version online is a typewritten NBER working paper
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If tenured professors get to sign their emails in lowercase, should I sign mine in all-caps to make it clear I'm very far from their level?
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I don’t believe the results of this paper, but it has convinced me to eat more potatoes
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My favorite part of sitting on my porch, other than drinking wine, is watching people try and fail to parallel park
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Probably would not have walked around talking to myself about my job market paper spiel if I had realized I wasn’t the only person on the hiking trail
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All I want is an OCR software that’s easy to use and can handle old tables. Why is this so hard?
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