Melissa S. Kearney
@kearney_melissa
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Economics Professor at U. of Maryland; Director of @AspenEcon; Mom of 3; from NJ; author of “The Two-Parent Privilege”
DC/MD
Joined September 2011
Twitter got out ahead of me on this one…. Confirming that I have a book coming out this fall!. The Two-Parent Privilege will be available on September 18. You can pre-order now from @uchicagopress:.
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Whatever one thinks of Vance, his commentary, or his policy positions, for those of us who love a good upward mobility story & were raised to believe in the promise of America, the fact that the kid in this book will soon be sworn in as US Vice President really is incredible.
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Are the economists in the administration all hanging their heads in defeat?. The inequity…inefficiency…level of spending…perverse incentives going forward…subsidies to a higher ed market that already has terribly screwed up pricing…. What an astoundingly bad policy move.
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Somewhere along the way “correlation is not causation” morphed into “until the causal link is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, ideally with a large scale RCT with global external validity, than the correlation likely reflects the impact of some unobserved factor I can’t name.”.
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An especially thoughtful student defended his dissertation this morning. In add to usual acknowledgment of advisors, he thanked the admin staff by name. I showed the staff, one woman cried she was so touched. I always learn from my students. This one has reminded me to be kind.
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Sounds like this Harvard professor is suggesting that the Harvard extension school is meaningfully diverse and inclusive, and hence less prestigious than the “real” Harvard. Wow. (And by wow, I mean, gross.).
@evelkniefall not flaws--your word, not mine. Extension school students are mostly smart, ambitious, hard working, thoughtful, sometimes very accomplished--but mostly striving for upward mobility without background that would get them admitted to what is usually understood as Hvd. grad school.
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Econ professors have our work cut out for us this fall! .- Tariffs don’t lead to lower prices.- Price controls lead to less supply.- Eliminating some type of income from taxes is distortionary.- & so much more!.As my sister who is a personal trainer always says, LFG! 💪🏻.
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My kid’s high school just announced a sweeping new cell phone policy for the coming year: “Cell phones and smart watches must be powered off and stored away between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 3:15 p.m.”. Thank you @JonHaidt for kickstarting this national movement!! 🙏🏻.
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5th grader: "Mom, the economic recession is one of the topics we can research for social studies/science!". Me: 😀👏"That's so awesome! What do you have to do?". Her: "Oh I didn't pick that. I'm doing the phases of the moon. Nobody picked the economics one. That's so boring.". 😧.
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As a researcher who has been studying the economics of families and kids’ well-being for 20+ years, . I am here to tell you that you can’t just write off the two-parent privilege as “Republican propaganda.”.
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Am I the only one who hates that now essentially every outdoor public space downtown reeks of weed?.
Legalized marijuana keeps expanding across the map, with no signs of slowing down. Nightly reports 👇.
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This year really underscored for me why it’s important for economics to have more women and moms….When the pandemic started, economists everywhere were like “We need to support businesses!” .And all the mom economists were like “Yes, and also kids and working parents!”….
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7yr old: “Mommy, you bring up economics in every conversation. You act like Economics is about everything.”.Yep. Essentially it is.👍🏻.
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Ludicrous statement. 1. At this time ppl should be & are being discouraged from going to work.2. Income benefits now will maintain some consumption/spending floor, for households & the economy. 3. Evidence shows that welfare pgms (SNAP,Mcaid) have very small neg work effects.
Joint statement by conservatives Stephen Moore, Art Laffer, Steve Forbes: "Don’t expand welfare and other income redistribution benefits like paid leave and unemployment benefits that will inhibit growth and discourage work".
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I’m seeing lots of ads from faculty in top/rich Econ departments this week hiring full-time pre-docs. You sure you all can’t just admit these talented students into your PHD programs, let them train and coauthor with you, and get on with their adult/professional lives? 🤷♀️.
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W/ all the econ & Econ PHD bashing on twitter these days, I’m just going to say it, & hope maybe some young person on the margin feels encouraged:. Yes the PhD is hard. Really hard. But Econ is freaking awesome and if you love it, you should seriously consider pursuing it. .
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Woah! Less than 2% of Harvard faculty identify as conservative…?!. Seems not great for diversity of intellectual perspective or viewpoint on campus. Does campus leadership see this as a problem?.Are other elite institutions this skewed?
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I am often asked what it might take to bring about an increase in birth rates…. Sure, there’s the usual policy stuff (tax credits, child subsidies, etc). But probably also more commercials (& social messaging) like this 👶🏼 -.
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Just read multiple NYT articles in a row & each labeled ideas “Republican talking points” v what “Dems believe” before even naming the idea. Geez, with all the priming of in/out group signaling, no wonder it’s so hard to have actual policy debates these days….
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You guys, @MattBruenig totally owned me — . My suggestion that two parent families might benefit kids is based on my out of touch marriage to a Yale Law School guy. (He found it on Google!). But here’s the thing - . Unlike Bruenig, I think many 2-parent families could be.
This is so very good:. ". what upper class people practice is not 'marriage.' It’s 'marriage to upper class people.'".
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Was with my teen girls on spring break - every time they picked up their phones and scrolled, it was photo after photo of their teen girl friends posing in tiny bikinis on their spring breaks. I don’t need an RCT to tell me that can’t be good for anyone, on multiple levels. Oh.
What puzzles me about the social media debate is why our null hypothesis/prior should be that there is no effect. These platforms are literally A/B tested to maximize user lock-in, addiction, and social comparison. This is pretty well known. 1/5.
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I do not resent the people who got a huge break today. Good for them!. I do resent the lazy policy making that didn’t pair this debt forgiveness with a serious plan to FIX THE SYSTEM going forward….
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This study provides evidence of a negative causal effect of divorce on children's outcomes, w/ different consequences for girls & boys. - My reaction as an applied microeconomist:.Clever identification, the LATE is important: these are divorces likely driven by infidelity (if.
Just published in @JPubEcon:. "How does parental divorce affect children’s long-term outcomes?". By @WFrimmel (@jku_econ), @HallaMartin (@WU_econ), @EbmerWinter (@IHS_Vienna).
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I don’t understand why Dems are pouncing on this after pushing for an expanded child tax credit. We all realize that a tax credit to people with kids means childless people with the same income pay more in taxes, right?.
BREAKING: In a stunning new leaked video, JD Vance claims that childless adults should pay more in taxes. It’s clear JD Vance wants to wage war against Americans. Retweet so all Americans see this devastating clip.
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Sure, I expected pushback to the observation that the decline in 2-parent families outside the college educated class is exacerbating inequality in childhood experiences & perpetuating class gaps. But I really was hoping for a higher level of discourse than this. Let me address.
@KayHymowitz @AnnieLowrey @kearney_melissa I find it *bewildering* that the solution to “how can we optimize for kids” can’t be better than “force two people to live together for 18 years whether or not they want to.”.
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Seeing what’s happening with post-docs on the econ job market & pre-docs among grad school applicants truly leaves me sad for our profession. We are screening out people who can’t/won’t spend 10 years preparing for a job as a PhD economist!.
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I would say something about how crazy it would be to prioritize redistribution to homeowners over low-income renters - akin to my comments about how indefensible it is to prioritize redistribution to those who attended college - but then the political economists would tell me.
My dad always used to say that the way you build wealth is by building equity in your home. My housing plan would help Americans achieve homeownership by giving households $400 a month for two years when they buy their first home.
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Contrarian take:. It is not a terrible, horrible, unforgivable sin for a student to ask for a regrade or a new grade. Sometimes graders make mistakes!. And lots of students are super stressed out over grades. Why so much anger over this from professors on twitter?.Geez.
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As if being a PhD student isn't lonely & emotionally draining enough, omg how hard for all these students still doing it remotely. Almost every zoom mtg I have with a grad student breaks my heart. So many living alone, far from home. Can't wait for us all to back on campus! 😥.
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It happened again this am -- I keep encountering not-very-competent workers at retail establishments and it makes me very happy and I want to say to the other (impatient) customers "guys! this is great! it's a sign of a tight labor market!" Good stuff.
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Super interesting new economics paper suggests that the rising college gap between men and women won’t necessarily lead to less marriage among college-educated women. Why? Short answer: Because college-educated women are okay marrying economically stable men without a college
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Bruenig seems wed to the idea that non-college educated dads are worth no more - and many worth much less - to their kids than what a government check could provide. That strikes me as a terribly elitist and incorrect position.
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Re: the comments -- I'm beginning to think there are a bunch of people in the pro-upward mobility camp who would be in favor of conditioning Pell Grant or GI Bill receipt on a promise to not grow up to be a political conservative. .
Whatever one thinks of Vance, his commentary, or his policy positions, for those of us who love a good upward mobility story & were raised to believe in the promise of America, the fact that the kid in this book will soon be sworn in as US Vice President really is incredible.
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Husband and I chatting ab our work days (econ, law), 8 yr old interrupts: . “Guys, that’s boring! Today I learned that in Rwanda they use drones to deliver medicine to places where they need it. The drones have medicine and text the ppl when they are close.”. Um, that is cooler.
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As I reflect on the criticisms I'm getting for my @nytimes & @TheAtlantic pieces, one common thread reflects the view that if there isn't an obvious or immediate solution, it's irresponsible of me to call attention to the problem. I think that's wrong.
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When your college-age son texts asking for expansionary fiscal policy to get thru spring break? 🙄
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In office hrs this week: .A female undergrad shyly tells me she’s intimidated by “all the math” & “all the guys,” adding “I didn’t realize econ was a guys’ major.”. I could barely contain myself - .“ECON IS NOT JUST FOR GUYS! IT IS WAY TOO COOL TO JUST LET THE BOYS DO IT!”.
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America has spoken. I really hope the chattering, professorial class doesn’t lead with the conclusion that America must be stupid, sexist, and racist to vote this way. Our country deserves a better conversation and path forward than that .God bless America. 🇺🇸.
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Is there any better feeling as an economist mom than when your kid texts you a photo from his college econ class showing a lecture slide citing one of your papers. 🥰☺️.
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The problem with my Twitter feed being mostly left leaning academic types is that it is pretty upset with me right now…. Anyone have a right leaning Twitter feed I could lurk on for a little bit? Maybe I’m less loathed over there this week… 😳.
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The Social Security actuaries are still bullish on the idea that US women are going to start having more babies than they've been having:. "Birth rates are assumed to increase from recent very low levels to an ultimate level of 1.9 children per woman for 2040 and thereafter.".
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Attn students: .The word for passing statutory taxes onto other parties is called “tax incidence.”. Not absurd. Perhaps unfortunate. Definitely happens (hint: elasticities matter.). Understanding potential unintended consequences of a policy is key to good policy making.
Jen Psaki: It’s “unfair and absurd” that companies would increase costs for consumers in response to us taxing them more. 😳
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Having been viciously maligned & objectified on this site, I assure you, there is nothing misleading ab this! Respectfully, your PhD advisor
Nearly EVERY Internet comment section is horrible, calling this evidence of broader toxic environment in "economics" is at best misleading.
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Also, can someone explain how the 5% cap going forward on payments means something other than these loans now essentially being monopoly money - printed by Treasury, authorized by the Dept of Ed, paid for by taxpayers - subsidizing ever rising higher ed tuition?.
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One of my MIT profs asked me to RA for him that summer. I chose to kick around Costa Rica w/ my boyfriend instead. I recall that Amy Finkelstein went to work for him. I mean, sure, she’s a John Bates Clark winner & MacArthur genius, but has she ever been to Arenal Volcano?.
i couldnt possibly cosign this any harder. have fun the summer before grad school! I think i mostly hung out with my friends, watched the olympics, ate pizza and drank wine in melbourne laneways (in my defense it was winter there).
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Would not have expected only 19% of Biden supporters to say society benefits when people prioritize marriage & having kids. A huge partisan divide on an issue that shouldn’t be partisan. Nobody should be coerced into marriage/having kids, but saying society benefits isn’t that.
New @pewresearch: Staggering 40 percentage point gap between Biden & Trump backers in. % who say society should prioritize marriage & kids:. ✔️59% of Trump supporters prioritize marriage/kids. ✔️19% of Biden supporters prioritize marriage/kids .
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“Trapped in the care burden”??. Wow. That is some harsh normative framing. Why do economists insist on assigning a negative normative label to any shift away from market work to parenting?
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Anyone who has actually given birth pre-tenure will not be surprised by this. While I was puking/nursing, male peers were using their extra time to write more papers. Turns out, childbirth is physically & mentally harder on women. Go figure.
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Anyone else beside me fill out their Census questionnaire and think "shoot, that's it? it's over already? surely there are more questions you want to ask me! I didn't even tell you how these kids are related to the other adult in the house." Sigh.
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Just in case it makes any aspiring economist feel better, my own curiosity led me to take a bunch of undergrad courses in history, sociology, politics, literature, even - gasp - music and the history of art, but not real analysis.
I don’t care if it’s real analysis in particular. But one has to be deeply incurious not to take a proof-based math course before starting an econ PhD.
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It’s a beautiful night for baseball, and an exciting night for the Econ profession - Nobel prize winner @PikaGoldin threw a perfect pitch at @fenwaypark!
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An important new RCT study finds that unconditional cash transfers to very low-income new mothers in the U.S. affects the brain functioning of their babies. In other words, poverty affects brain development in babies! . Via The New York Times
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Econ students: intrigued by Econ Nobel prize but haven’t taken advanced micro theory yet? This is an accessible intro to auction theory by Milgrom .(h/t @MargRev)-
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This dismissive reaction to my book from @ezraklein, who notes that I don't have an obvious solution to the problems I highlight, is a common reaction from progressives. I find it curious that so many progressives are inclined to write off the idea of strengthening families as a.
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Again, it’s objectively important to document the father/mother gap in earnings post child -. But I really wish economists would drop the “penalty” label, which has a normative framing. Maybe dads are penalized by not having as much choice to cut back on work and be with kids.
Really striking charts: for women, having children implies a massive penalty to earnings. It doesn't for men.
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🤦♀️.I’m guessing the economists weren’t consulted on this one.
Let me be clear to any corporation that hasn’t brought their prices back down even as inflation has come down: It’s time to stop the price gouging. Give American consumers a break.
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When you have a weeknight event and your wise guy daughter texts “mom, can you come home so I can have the two parent privilege.” 🙃.
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Having to assert allegiance to a viewpoint and describe how you have advanced it and will continue to do so really is insulting to the whole enterprise of higher ed. Not to mention the performative aspect of the required essays….
MIT's decision to drop the mandatory DEI statement shows leadership. Ditto with requiring standardized tests again. There should be conscious efforts to recruit diverse faculty and students, but the mandatory statement went too far.
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I didn’t think I talked about the need for job training or prisoner reentry pgms that often around the dinner table, but I must say enough about related ideas that my 10 year old knew I would love this gift. My favorite Xmas gift this year. ❤️🎄
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A plea to journalists: . PLEASE do not refer to targeted cash transfers as UBI, or argue that a UBI is a good idea because giving cash to poor people is helpful. Giving cash to poor people is a means-tested cash transfer, not a Universal Basic Income, and it is not novel.
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10-yr old comes in, reads what's on my laptop screen, puts hands on her hips & with irritation asks, "Well, are we, Mom? Are kids inferior goods?" Me: "No, baby, you are a normal good." And we hug. #econparenting.
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“Not only is the world coming apart, is it is really falling apart for people without a BA” .- Angus Deaton. @BrookingsInst #BPEA. Adult life expectancy by BA status -
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A Valentine's Day tribute to my 3 beloved children: .You kids are totally worth the associated earnings penalty. I wouldn't trade you for all the earnings in the world, nor a CV with twice as many papers. XOXO.(figure from Kleven et al, NBER wp Feb 2019)
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Grade inflation makes it harder for the best students to distinguish themselves. And it disincentives deep learning. So it bums me out that departments that have meaningful grades (say, Econ) lose majors to departments where 70% of students get As (I won't name names), the.
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We economists also need to keep beating the drum that kids are not only our moral responsibility, but our economic future. Our nation’s strength depends on their human capital development. (See I can put it in boring words if I must. I can even write it in math. 🙄).
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It's true, I am downright giddy that our nation might finally take bold steps to fight child poverty & improve the lives of children in this country. (One day I might use more serious econ-y terms to talk about this stuff; today is not that day.) Thx to @NewsHour for having me!
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All the people on here accusing me of having a profit motive for writing my U Chicago Press book - .😂😂😂😂. Guys, if my goal was to make $ as an economist, there are way better ways to do that than write a book with an academic press. 😉.
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Why are progressives Iike Bruenig so opposed to making strengthening families a policy priority? Why not support programs aimed at helping low-income parents achieve healthy relationships and productive coparenting?.
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@chris_will17 The upward mobility is the path from the childhood home we read about in that book to a position of working for a billionaire VC. (The subsequent move into politics is a different story.).
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FWIW, when I was debating writing The Two Parent Privilege, an encouraging colleague remarked to me "What's the point of tenure if not to write a book like that?" I decided he was right. I would not have written the book without tenure.
Tenure's nice for old academics, but the process of getting it selects against the bold truth-telling that is its ostensible rationale. It should be abolished, and if we must pay academics more to compensate for the loss of a valuable fringe benefit, that would be a good trade.
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I often get push back from academics & journalists when I say this, but now the notion is going mainstream —. If you care about econ & social well-being of kids, you can’t pretend that family structure doesn’t matter. It’s showing up in these Atlases too -
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100%. This line of argument from the WH is unbelievably disingenuous. The WH knows PPP "loans" were essentially grants, written as loans w/ an explicit expectation of forgiveness, w/ the expressed purpose of maintaining pay for workers. This level of discourse is depressing.
These tweets are BS. PPP paid *workers* during COVID. PPP funds could have gone straight to workers but were structured as "loans" to employers to simplify administration.
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Oh come on with this headline; how about “Economists, a majority of whom are male, are freaking out over…”. I’m not a macro economist & this isn’t my fight AND…. “Male economists are freaking out over a NYT profile of Stephanie Kelton and MMT - Axios”
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Note: earnings <$125k, is up to **3x** median earnings.
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I don’t have a dog in the fight about whether anyone from Harvard or MIT plagiarized, but why so many of my fellow academics are now making jokes about plagiarism or suggesting “oh hey just a little bit is no biggie” is beyond me! . Guys - America is already turning away from.
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I love econ Nobel laureates. I care what they think. But I am quite certain my guy friends from high school couldn’t care less what they think. If I went over to Facebook to tell them, they’d be like “huh? Who? WTF did any of them ever do for me?”.Just saying, bc lots of my Econ.
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The costs are visible and obvious ex ante. The “benefits” are impossible to grasp until you have a child. That word doesn’t even make sense in the context once you have a child. Personally, I was working all the time as a grad student/asst professor until I had my first and.
I think a lot of cost-benefit calculations around becoming a parent are kind of silly because for many people it's a transformative experience and your pre-kid self is not well equipped to understand the preferences of your post-kid self.
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Sometimes I wonder if DC is a bit of strange place to raise kids and then my young daughter asks me "Mom, I saw a guy today wearing a t-shirt that says r>g. What does that mean?" And I am sure yes, yes it is.
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With all due respect, this is a blind spot of academic economics that makes it easy to dismiss us in policy debates. The conclusion that social welfare is increased relies on the assumption that work is “bad.” That proposition would strike most people as obviously flawed.
We don’t torture undergrads with income and substitution effects for fun. One of the key reasons is that only the substitution effect of a policy change matters for welfare. If someone takes their UBI and chooses to work less, then social welfare goes UP. That’s a policy success.
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This has been bothering me, so I'm putting it out there -. The shift to 6 yrs for an Econ PhD is a TERRIBLE trend for female PhD students - & also some men, obviously - but especially for women. This issue warrants much more attention. #econtwitter @AEACSWEP.
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Actually, that’s just part of it. A 2nd parent is more than just a source of $ for their kids. How many parents are going to spend this Sunday w/ their kids - talking w/ them, taking them to sports games, helping them with homework, & so much more?.
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I do really like the headline the Atlantic put on my essay:. A Driver of Inequality That Not Enough People Are Talking About.Two-parent households should be a policy goal.
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I understand the claim that the most politically reliable way to get help to those who need it is to give benefits to everyone, but there is something very wrong with us as a society if the only way to generate political support for helping the disadvantaged is to bribe everyone.
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…I have had *plenty* of misogynist crap thrown at me in the profession…. But male economists criticizing the work of a female economist is not necessarily a gender issue & it doesn’t help us be taken seriously as women in economics to always pit things that way.
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I feel like I owe Fortnite an apology. It used to be the bane of my parenting existing. I hated it, bad mouthed it, fought with my son about it. These days I am so grateful Fortnite gives him and his friends a way to "hang out" & experience some form of 14-yr old boy socializing.
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She also infers from my position that two parent households tend to be better for kids that I must be biased in my thinking, but I’m not sure there was any amount of data I could bring to the issue that would lead her to conclude otherwise. This is a common reaction and has me.
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Do @MattBruenig and @rtraister disagree with my suggestion that we need to improve the economic position of non-college educated men so they are in a better position to be financially reliable as marriage partners and fathers?. Or is the goal to give up on the dads altogether?.
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A large scale detailed RCT study of an unconditional guaranteed income program -. Bottom line: recipients of the $ worked less & spent the extra time in leisure. Not necessarily the findings proponents of guaranteed income would like, but kudos to these scholars for doing.
We are happy to release the first results of a RCT of a US program that provided $1,000/month unconditionally for 3 years to 1,000 individuals in the treatment group, with a group of 2,000 people receiving $50/month serving as the control. These are sizable transfers. 1/ 🧵
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This @washingtonpost critic says I’m too conventional lamenting the decline of the 2-parent household, asking.“why should we “work to restore and foster” the nuclear family…instead of working to foster a new norm of communal child-rearing?
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My fellow academics will understand. "Whatchya working on, Mel? I thought you finished up your teaching last month. You still have work to do?" - asks my Dad, year ~20 of my academic research career 😉.
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@DLeonhardt nails it-. “For the past 2 years, many communities in the U.S…have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults, often without acknowledging the dilemma or assessing which decisions lead to less overall harm.”.
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I love when people ask if they can be in touch with my assistant about something. I always debate which kid I should put them in touch with. Probably the middle one. 🤔.
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Sorry to say something so obvious, but it is so depressing how many guys tapped for top positions in government turn out to be cheaters or sexual predators. Why is that?! Is it cause, effect, selection, or are just that many guys creeps?!.
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These things can all be true:. 1. Working moms are exhausted. 2. The US should invest much more $ in child care. 3. Child care issues are not what's currently holding back aggregate jobs recovery. via @politico.
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We're starting to get to the crux of some of the disagreement - . I see these trends as something that should concern all of us worried about inequality, threats to social mobility, & the well-being of children/parents -- not progress.
Folks are working overtime to undo 50 years of progress. Reactionaries gonna reactionary.
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There were roughly 16.9 MILLION undergrads in the US last year. There were < 10,000 at Harvard. With no disrespect to all the fine Crimsons, it would probably be socially productive to spread media attention and philanthropic.$$$ around much more widely. Just sayin’.
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So a labor economist walks into a PA ski resort, & this place is WAY understaffed!! Tons of guests, not nearly enough people to staff the hotel, restaurants, etc. So she can’t help but ask around - young guy at the front desk tells me they need 1000 workers, they have <500. .
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It came in the mail! . A real hard copy book!. Thanks to all of you who helped make this happen!!! So so many people to thank for working with me on this. 🙏🏻🥰
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