I want to make you aware: the anti-harassment training at my university includes a scenario where an overheard discussion of whether “DEI has gone too far” is the first sign of prejudice and on-the-job discrimination.
Fauci in NYT deflecting blame: "I'm not an economist... we looked at it from a purely public-health standpoint." So where were the economists in 2020? Most were agreeing with lockdowns. This is a spectacular failure.
Add me to the list. When I was an MIT doctoral student, I was delighted to teach an evening class on Money and Financial Institutions at Harvard Summer School for a couple summers (2002-3), and many of my students were from the Extension School.
@realchrisrufo
I taught at the Extension School for five years, when I was an Assistant/Associate Prof at Harvard, and it was a privilege to do so. The students there, mostly adult, years or even decades older than the regular Harvard undergrad were exceptionally committed, diligent and
I agree with
@EricBoehm87
@reason
, Fauci can't exonerate himself so easily. He pushed hard for lockdowns, denounced Great Barrington, and said "I represent science." But many people were complicit in supporting and implementing these destructive policies.
@AlexEpstein
@OpenAI
@sama
At least there, it just comes right out and says that request goes against its programming. Ask it factual questions like what % of people in US polls want less reliance on natural gas in domestic energy (answer: 19%) and it subtly redirects you.
1/8 It's official. The US gvt in analysis of the costs and benefits of any new regulation will now use long-run discount rates as low as 1.1%. All proposed regulation the Administration says has high costs today but high benefits in the future just got a BIG, unjusified boost.
85% of this 2020-21 Faculty Senate of Stanford voted to condemn Dr. Atlas: . It is one of the most shameful and outrageous episodes in the history of Stanford University.
@ScottAtlas_IT
Second, in Nov. '20, Dean Pizzo organized a campaign to excommunicate Dr. Atlas, culminating in a faculty senate vote to condemn him.
By chilling academic freedom, it made it near impossible for dissidents to speak, harming the nation's health.
3/5
Great op-ed by
@AllysiaFinley
predicting a bailout of states and cities. The Fed and federal Covid aid delayed the day of reckoning, but encouraged even more recklessness, so now the problems are even bigger.
1/ Many reports on people leaving California for TX, FL, etc. My recent working paper using administrative tax data takes a deep dive on California's loss of high earners, who actually left during Covid, and what the economic costs are. [THREAD]
We have been teaching first-year Stanford MBAs about interest rate risk for years -- and for the past 5 years with a simple spreadsheet in which we ask students to shock the balance sheet of a sample bank with a 1% and then 2% increase in interest rates.
"An incentive structure where academics benefit from producing research that caters to the political beliefs of the mainstream media undermines the true and ideal mission of the university." From out latest in
@WSJopinion
Isn't NYT admission that official COVID deaths include "people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause" also an admission that spike in total deaths was in part due to lockdowns/NPIs? 1/2
@DrJBhattacharya
@VPrasadMDMPH
Stunning comparison of international highway costs: "The interstates built in the US in the 80s and 90s were more expensive than any ... we could find anywhere." Dr. Zach Liscow
@ZLiscow
@StanfordGSB
.
@StanfordReview
“She helped engineer chaos with her email before the event”. With most people focused on the video, this is an important and under-appreciated point.
CALLING job market candidates, post docs, and early-career PhD's. Want to work at
@HooverInst
doing research? Check out:
1.) The Hoover Fellows Program. 5 year appointment. Process follows the job market cycle for '23-'24 with offers in 2024Q1.
2.)
Hey finance professors, check this out. I asked ChatGPT, "Are aggregate stock returns predictable?" and followed up with a request for it to name some papers. It's mostly making up papers that don't exist. What is going on here?
I'm very excited to be starting a new role as Director of Research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, focused on cultivating our amazing human capital, the Hoover Fellowship.
@HooverInst
@Stanford
How is this for backward incentives. US government via new regs as of 5/1 will explicitly tax mortgage borrowers with high credit scores and bigger downpayments, in the name of equality.
Job openings! I'm hiring multiple postdoc RFs into Hoover's State & Local team. 2yr position at Stanford with potential for renewal. Especially focused on public finance/pensions, taxation, economic development, workforce training, electricity markets, and social
Re-issuing this THREAD with a couple typos fixed and to highlight the important point: The claim in
@WashingtonPost
that cooking with natural gas "causes 12.7% of childhood asthma" is totally flawed. 🔥
1/I l Looked at the study that
@maxinejoselow
@washingtonpost
&others say "causes 12.7% of childhood asthma". It's a meta-analysis. Starts with a meta-analysis from 2013. Looks at 27 "potentially pertinent" new studies, finds NO new associations. [THREAD]
Earlier this year I co-founded the Global Liberty Institute with Dr. Scott Atlas. We're a new international organization in favor of restoring liberty and the free exchange of ideas. Now finally on Twitter. Follow us at
@_GlobalLiberty
and we'll get you caught up.
Hello economists and aspiring economists, positions still open at several levels to work with me and my team
@HooverInst
, but will close soon!
1.) Postdoctoral Research Fellow for graduating/recent PhD:
2.) Predoctoral Research Analyst:
Ok econ folks, what can I learn from this experience? Let's get a policy (or household finance) discussion going here. If I learn something then my time spent on it will not have been in vain.
A couple months ago, I noticed that my
@Xfinity
home internet service bill had
8/8 Bottom line? Get ready for a LOT more US government regulations that have large near-term costs, but whose designers have made fanciful projections of very uncertain long-term benefits.
4/8 Here's a great
@wsjopinion
op-ed by
@JamesBroughel
explaining that the new approach makes regulation look a lot cheaper than it really is by ignoring opportunity cost.
@illinoispolicy
Interesting. The methodology of assigning real estate taxes based on a median national house price of $244,900 leads to big underestimate of California real estate taxes. Adjust for that and CA will give IL a run for their money.
@cremieuxrecueil
Maybe effects are nonlinear and heavily in the tails? Many brilliant people around this university where I work seems to be somewhat neurotic, anxious, and withdrawn. But not excessively so. Self-esteem does seem abundant.
Congrats to Josh Rauh
@joshrauh
on being appointed as an Associate Chair of the SFS Cavalcade, the conference of the Society for Financial Studies
@SFSjournals
. Welcome to the team Josh!
#EconTwitter
Actually this paper is really problematic
@florianederer
and whatever you think personally of those criticizing it, they are serious criticisms. Here is my detailed take:
6/8 A critical letter here as well from
@MIT
@MITSloan
colleagues Deborah Lucas, Paul Joskow, Leonid Kogan, Andrew Lo, Robert Merton (Nobel Laureate), Gilbert Metcalf, Robert Pindyck, John Parsons, Antoinette Schoar, and Richard Schmalensee.
7/8 From
@JohnHCochrane
:"The average real return on stocks is something like 5%, at least. The average pre-tax marginal product of capital is higher ... in the range of 10% not 1%. The right discount rate is the rate of return on alternative uses of money"
@KevinKileyCA
By income group, using CA tax data, from this paper . Net loss of people from the base year to the following year. Hoping for more data to update this soon.
Calling all finance economists! Deadline for the
#SFSCavalcade
North America (May 19-22, 2024) is Dec 11. Please submit your best work! It's a pleasure to co-organize this conf
@GeorgiaStateU
in Atlanta with Chair Jules van Binsbergen and Vice Chair
@laura_veldkamp
This is a great example of why many broader theories of stakeholder capitalism inevitably run into conflicts and ESG becomes a demand to “serve MY interests” whatever those might be. So the commentator believes that the family who owns In-N-Out should lose money to serve Oakland
Remember, In-N-Out isn't some benevolent institution. It’s a fast food chain driven by profit goals. If In-N-Out’s primary concern is the well-being of the communities it serves, it wouldn’t be leaving.
Congratulations
@JohnHCochrane
!! The Bradley Foundation Announces Esteemed Economist John Cochrane As A 2023 Bradley Prize Winner | Hoover Institution
Guest commentary: There is no reason that the federal government should spend upward of $50 billion to bail out airlines when these companies continue to have access to the same financial restructuring procedures that they have used time and time again.
Imagine what this could look like in 10-20 years if these opinion trends continue, and keep in mind that this is the US electorate. There needs to be a serious and workable strategy to get off this path before it is too late.
In the new Harvard/Harris poll, 67% of respondents aged 18-24 agree that "Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors."
Consistent with other polls that have found relatively high anti-Jewish sentiment among young American adults.
Federal Reserve statistics now put state and local unfunded pension liabilities at $4.1 trillion. For pension aficionados following along, they're now reporting a PBO discounted with a 4.0% rate, based on BEA analysis that revises the state and local governments own disclosures.
Thanks to
@Jon_Hartley_
for having me on his excellent Capitalism and Freedom podcast. Some inside stories of my experiences at
@MITEcon
in the early 2000s, at
@WhiteHouseCEA45
in early 2020, and more.
6/ This is really poor science that would never hold up to serious statistical scrutiny. The public is receiving a distorted picture in such headlines about gas cooking and asthma. [END]
4/ Figure says it all. This out-migration net of new arrivals. Note: x-axis shows base year, so the spike at 2019 are people who were CA residents in 2019 and departed in 2020.
Prof. Berk told me not to give away the assignment, but by popular demand, here is a partial screenshot as a teaser. It's more highly levered than the overall US banking system, and the result depends on the duration numbers you use, but often a 2% increase sinks it.
uh oh,
@elonmusk
at Stanford our anti-harrassment training tells us that if someone questions DEI, that is the first sign of prejudice and discrimination.
5/8 My own comment on why it's wrong: . In brief, the lack of risk-adjustment is unjustified, and the prior technique at least used rates that were closer to those reflecting risky cash flow streams.
10/ If we keep losing income at close to this rate, then we are in deep trouble. Combined with the intensive margin (labor supply/avoidance) margin and with the SALT deduction capped, California is over the top of the Laffer Curve on the Personal Income Tax. [END]
I appreciate your reaching out
@Xfinity
@XfinitySupport
. When I got home I noticed that you had disconnected my service entirely. So… before I was paying you on double accounts for one single residential service. Now I am paying you for zero service. I look forward to working
Biden Admin has proposed revisions to cost-benefit calcs for all regulatory impact analyses by federal agencies. Proposal would discount all future value streams at 1.7%. My comment on why this is wrong:
Will
#ASSA2024
show a recovery? Doubt it. Trajectory looks like the price of a meme stock when it tanks. Few schools are returning to in-person job interviews for graduating PhDs. Covid shock led to people questioning point of a mass conference without that.
Appreciate the
@StanfordGSB
retweet of my LIBERTY LENS substack post about the fact that inequality is not exploding. . But far as I can tell, they deleted the retweet. Too bad. Maybe they decided this truth isn't consistent with their marketing strategy.
The whole premise of the Biden Admin tax deal with OECD should really be rejected by both parties in Congress. Under the Constitution, only Congress has federal tax authority. Does Congress really want to let the executive branch circumvent it via deals with int’l organizations?
9/ It seems unlikely that many are coming back. Out-migration for this study means becoming a non-resident for tax purposes. California doesn't make that easy. It's not a temporary thing.
3/ New paper shows steady increases in out-migration in the late 2010s, another spike for the highest earners in 2018 when SALT cap was lifted, and a massive spike around Covid.
More opportunities
@HooverInst
. CALLING ☎️ researchers on Small Business Regulation who want to work on a project and spend a few weeks here
@Stanford
. This new research program funds Visiting Fellows on this theme w a generous stipend. Apply here:
"The fact the Biden administration feels it necessary to craft a formal agreement with the rest of the world to impose minimum-tax rates proves that not all countries prefer higher taxes." From my latest in
@NRO
with
@76redwhiteblue
6/ This is really poor science that would never hold up to serious statistical scrutiny. The public is receiving a totally distorted picture in such headlines about gas cooking and asthma. [END]
My team is looking for a part time (remote) RA with some experience analyzing electricity price data for a project on state retail electricity prices. Best fit would be a doctoral student working on energy economics with electricity market interest. DM me if interested.
Unfunded pension liabilities continue to represent a colossal fiscal burden for both the state government and local governments within
#California
. And it’s getting worse: by
@joshrauh
#StateoftheState
New webinar I hosted at
@StanfordGSB
on City Infrastructure Policies: Lessons from Research via
@YouTube
, featuring Ed Glaeser, Zachary Liscow, and Megan Ryerson. Some great practical insights from research here!
"Cities [could] say: 'We would [be] better off if we produced data, made it available to each other [and] to the public so we could analyze it, understand how much things actually cost & where we [might] make improvements' " Dr. Zach Liscow
@StanfordGSB
2/8 Why? The WH announcement explains why the Biden team is tilting the scales in this way. It comes down to the "regulations [that] are beneficial for [productive] investments: for example, regulations that incentivize investment in clean energy sources or semiconductors."
Carol Swain grew up in a shack without running water with 11 brothers and sisters. She was much feted in academia upon her emergence but quickly engaged in heterodoxies that got her blackballed and went on to become an evangelical Christian and a Trump supporter. That's why her
Honored to have the chance to present my work today in Stockholm at the annual macroprudential conference, with truly excellent discussion. Looking forward to Day 2.
With
@stanford
Pres. Tessier-Lavigne stepping down now is a good time for the faculty senate to apologize to Dr. Scott Atlas for its scandalous vote to condemn him for providing accurate anti-lockdown advice to policymakers.
Until it does, academic freedom is dead
@stanford
.
1/2
@DisgracedProp
@WSJ
Want shareholder value? Invest in funds of Vanguard & Fidelity. Want ESG, even when funds aren’t branded as such? BlackRock & Charles Schwab may be for you. No choice bc your employer chooses your 401k provider? Tough luck. Hope you like what they give you
California's UI default is a majorly underreported story. Hits CA business big time. CA borrowed $18.6B from fed gvt for UI in Covid, only 4 states still not paid up. Newsom canceled payback, so now UI tax rate of 0.6% will increase by 0.3% per year.
Top 25 word count analysis of American Economics Association programs. Crisis, trade, international, model, experiment, rate, tax, and capital are out. Gender, race, data, child, and inequality are in.
#ASSA2024
7/ And at the margin during Covid they increased rates of departure to states where schools remained open, especially FL and TX but even to some states that aren't low-tax (e.g. Colorado).
“If top 1 percent incomes can be lowered by a policy that makes everyone, including the poor, worse off, it would reduce inequality even though it is clearly not something desirable,” writes
@Jon_Hartley_
. In the immortal words of Margaret Thatcher, apparently some “would rather
After a 2012 increase in marginal tax rates of up to 3% for high-income California households 0.8% of the impacted tax base left the state in 2013 and other restructured income, erodeding 61% of "windfall revenues" within the first 2 years.
@joshrauh
In response to this Bloomberg piece on California's ultra rich "flourishing and sticking around"
@business
@eli_kamisher
@bizcarson
, I'd like to offer a few facts, all from this paper 1/6