Peter Ganong
@p_ganong
Followers
6,420
Following
2,688
Media
348
Statuses
3,162
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Carvajal
• 362021 Tweets
Nairobi CBD
• 115887 Tweets
連休明け
• 90644 Tweets
#Maandamano
• 82294 Tweets
プライムデー
• 79039 Tweets
Tubiana
• 74919 Tweets
#yks2024
• 51644 Tweets
Kakamega
• 46470 Tweets
عمان
• 41710 Tweets
アイカツ
• 29725 Tweets
जवान शहीद
• 29690 Tweets
#Compact
• 26374 Tweets
Big Wiz
• 25129 Tweets
JAM 1STSOLO SINGLE
• 24245 Tweets
Magazin
• 22764 Tweets
高校生15人
• 20975 Tweets
激辛ポテトチップス
• 19938 Tweets
Verbot
• 18328 Tweets
救急搬送
• 17523 Tweets
アルカディア
• 14624 Tweets
Meinungsfreiheit
• 12626 Tweets
#EmekliyeSabırDemeyin
• 10402 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
“Why Do Borrowers Default on Mortgages?” w/
@pascaljnoel
Three theories for why:
1) negative equity alone 6%
2) negative life events alone 70%
3) both (“double trigger”) 24%
🧵
Recently accepted by
#QJE
, “Why Do Borrowers Default on Mortgages?” by Ganong (
@p_ganong
) and Noel (
@pascaljnoel
):
3
17
78
5
51
203
Millions of people have had federal UI benefits cut off
Stated goal: speed the labor market recovery.
Is it working?
Tldr: Nope. Per person losing benefits, net employment changes by -0.14 to + 0.08. Uncertainty remains large.
30
660
2K
I am disgusted with TurboTax. You should be too. Crazy that
@IRSnews
, who they rely on for all their business, doesn't warn them off of practices like this. Seems like a cudgel that
@SenWarren
or
@SenWhitehouse
might take up?
61
139
967
Grateful to mentors and friends who came together today to celebrate some news: I got tenure
@HarrisPolicy
! Now it's time to pay it forward.
92
11
730
I am honored and humbled to have been selected as a 2022
#SloanFellow
A brief thought on economics and then several notes of thanks to my advisers, my coauthors, and my family.
Introducing… the winners of this year’s Sloan Research Fellowship! These extraordinary researchers represent some of the most exciting young minds working today—and we are thrilled to support them. Meet the winners here:
#SloanFellow
14
51
342
41
9
354
I recently learned that Fed research economists routinely meet with business owners as part of their jobs.
Do they also routinely meet with workers? If not, why not?
9
33
311
Since March, my wife has been treating covid patients as a doctor in the intensive care units at
@NorthwesternMed
&
@CookCtyHealth
. Many patients have recovered thanks to the hard work of frontline health workers like her.
Today, she got vaccinated 🎉🍾🥳
Wear your mask!
10
1
285
What advice would you give to someone in the first or second year of their PhD? Asking on behalf of 11 friends.
58
23
261
🚨new results on the effect of UI supplements on job-finding 🚨
2 designs x 2 policy changes yield consistent pattern: small, precisely estimated disincentive effects
Disincentive remains small even after job openings up
7
74
231
Things that never happened in my life until today: being asked if I am Jewish, then threatened, then told it was all a joke on
@cta
. I said it was not funny. Then heard an anti-Semitic rant. I’m fine, just shaken. Other riders clearly didn’t find it funny either
What year is it?
48
11
227
🚨 new paper on labor market & expanded UI benefits 🚨
Tldr: spending ⬆️ more than expected,
job search ⬇️ order of magnitude less than expected
1) rise of repeat unemployment
2) effect of UI on spending
3) effect of UI on job search
4) connections to current policy debate
15
68
210
Someone asked me a great question that I struggled to answer.
What are examples of times where a quantitative prediction of an economic model is
(a) counter-intuitive (at least to non econs, maybe to econs too)
and
(b) correct (and verified with data)
69
27
203
Millions of people have had federal UI benefits cut off
Stated goal: speed the labor market recovery.
Is it working?
Tldr: It’s going to be really hard to use state employment data to do a good job of answering this question.
Looks like a noisy 0
6
48
191
@MrBeast
@MrBeast
This is a great point! There's actually a whole website where economists
@nhendren82
@bsprungkeyser
listed all the policies like this where gov't gets more back in taxes than it pays for them (we call this MVPF of ♾)
3
15
189
Our first look from a *representative* sample at employment effects
Terminating UI benefits did *not* increase employment. Did increase unemployment.
Suggest that the coming UI cliff will hurt a lot of workers but *not* raise employment
Thread by
@JedKolko
A first look at July employment data suggests bigger drops in unemployment in states cutting off federal UI early, but similar increases in employment in cutoff and others states.
I took a simple look at the July CPS microdata, but the story got complicated.
Thread.
4
17
72
7
66
165
My mentor Amy Finkelstein has a nice rule of thumb for referee reports
"Imagine you had to read your referee report out loud in front of the authors"
How would you write your referee report differently
10 years ago today got my 1st paper rejection and first taste of overly negative/aggressive tone of reports
As an editor, I encourage all to write constructive reports even if you advise rejection. Don't perpetuate the destructive tone that is endemic in the prof.
#EconTwitter
12
23
322
2
7
172
Macroeconomists are far more engaged with micro evidence now than when I was in grad school. (This is awesome!)
My question for
#econtwitter
is "Why?"
* Computational advance?
* Need/desire to connect to the credibility revolution?
* Specific failing of the rep agent framework?
19
23
150
.
@JerusalemDemsas
interview with
@ezraklein
is the best rundown of what we know about housing affordability from the urban economics today that I have heard in years. *strongly* recommend listening!
3
9
141
About 9 million people are set to exhaust unemployment benefits at the end of this year. What happens to spending at exhaustion?
tldr:
1) people don’t prepare for exhaustion
2) cut spending a lot at exhaustion
3) including on groceries and medical
🧵
5
58
134
Does anyone else find it weird that econ departments are tweeting out *photos* of JM candidates, rather than say the most important plot or table in their JMP? or even the abstract?
We don't care how you look. We want to hear about your research.
11
2
139
Short advice thread for budding economists applying now for predocs
TLDR: Being a predoc is/should be a major human capital investment that you and your PI will make together.
Look for someone who will invest in you rather than simply someone who is a big name. cc
@econ_ra
1
29
130
in the race between the recession and pandemic relief , data on electricity bills suggest that hardship is winning big time😡
this fall saw record high # of electricity cutoff in Illinois
Important new findings from my former colleague
@SteveCicala
Some new results that highlight the stress that American households and businesses are currently under: Utility disconnections and fees in IL.
Thread:
2
22
79
5
59
128
I gave a public (e.g. not for economists) lecture about unemployment insurance this week
Afterward someone came up to me and said:
"I can't believe that you are an economist at
@UChicago
Are you ostracized? Is Friedman turning over in his grave?"
I said no and I hope not :-)
1
4
129
Proud to announce that my paper "Why Do Borrowers Default on Mortgages?" with
@pascaljnoel
won a best paper award at
#AREUEA
National conference
6
16
132
@IRSnews
@SenWarren
@SenWhitehouse
Why did I even give these people all my information? Because it was cheaper than the other options. But then they make money off all sorts of hidden fees. I know
@WhiteHouse
has been cracking down on hidden fees. Here's a great one to regulate!
5
8
129
If stimulus checks were larger, would people spend more?
Natural starting point: how were the checks that went out in April and May spent?
tldr: we have no idea 😢
estimates all over the place. afaik no reconciliation.
(wonky thread on 3 papers w conflicting results)
8
20
120
One common theme of labor studies today is basically
1) take a well known aspect of inequality (eg gender, race)
2) match on firms, prior wage, other stuff to make workers more similar (gender or race still differ)
3) ask if inequality by gender/race newly reappears
6
8
118
Two of the most important consumption models of the last 25 years are Kaplan Violante (2014) and Laibson (1997).
So why aren’t they taught side by side?
A few arguments in favor of doing so
1
17
104
Today
@MITcfp
and
@MITEcon
honored Stanley Fischer with a well-deserved lifetime achievement award, including stints at
@federalreserve
@WorldBank
@IMFNews
and Bank of Israel. Congrats Stan!
5
11
109
Are you interested in doing economic research as a predoc on
--unemployment benefits
--the safety net
--the racial wealth gap
--financial resilience
apply here to work in the lab I co-run with
@pascaljnoel
:
4
46
101
Mom: "What's dad's job?"
4 yo: "An automatist"
Mom: "What does he do for his job?"
4 yo: "Zoom calls with his friends"😂
2
4
100
A common theme in recent reporting in the labor market is that workers have increased their reservation wage ("become choosier") bc of a preference shock (often described as "reevaluating life priorities").
What quantitative evidence (if any) is consistent w this theory?
13
10
98
Striking plot of white-black per capita wealth ratio from
@EDerenoncourt
@kuhnmo
@MSchularick
@ckim_econ
2
25
94
.
@pascaljnoel
and I are honored to receive this award. More importantly, I'm glad that policy to prevent foreclosures in covid has been so much more successful thanks to its focus on providing liquidity to everyone who needs it
Abstract:
Congratulations to
@UChicago
's Dr. Pascal Noel and Dr. Peter Ganong on winning the 26th annual TIAA Paul A. Samuelson Award, which honors research that helps promote lifelong financial security.
#SamuelsonAward
@TIAAInstitute
1
4
27
10
2
98
First, we plot the change in employment by state, coloring each state by whether they terminated benefits
3
15
84
I have two fantastic graduating
@HarrisPolicy
MPP students who are looking for public policy jobs with a particular interest in affordable housing and community development: Kayla Jones and James Karner.
Both are great coders in R and wonderful human beings.
3
10
90
Dear chicago: nice try getting me to stop biking but I came prepared
3
0
92
Why is UI hard to access?
Most policy discussions (rightly) focus on issues of state capacity.
Amazing paper by Sorkin, Lachowska, and Woodbury focus on *firms* who make it hard to get UI and the seamy underbelly of experience rating.
5
18
82
Non-Jewish colleagues who have proactively reached out in the last two weeks, I *so* appreciate hearing from you. Thank you.
2
4
90
Amid q's about labor market overheating, let's talk about the Great Recession
House prices plummeted
Journalists and economists alike predicted a wave of "strategic defaults", w/borrowers walking away from mortgages they could afford (see google trends)
It was all a mirage. 🧵
3
16
83
Amazing new paper by
@amirrkermani
@francisawong
on the racial gap in housing returns.
Black and Hispanic households see their housing wealth grow less, contributing to the overall racial wealth gap substantially.
2
30
82
A bold claim!
Unfortunately, the article provides no supporting evidence other than quotes from fraud detection companies 🤦♂️
NEW: Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, with the bulk likely ending up in the hands of foreign crime syndicates.
271
680
1K
3
6
80
Isaac Sorkin studies what happens to earnings among two laid off workers from same firm (and a bunch of other stuff the same too) one Black, one white.
Key results: Black workers have larger earnings loss. 5.3 log points larger if i understand the exercise correctly.
3
23
82
Macroeconomists seem to move their hands a lot more when talking than applied micro.
Why?
12
4
83
“Should you coauthor your JMP?”
Motivated by
@RyanReedHill
and
@carolyn_sms
thread,
@pascaljnoel
and I decided to write our own coauthored JMP thread.
The “Hillstein” thread is excellent, but there are three additional *upsides* to doing this which we want to share!
Econ PhD advice thread:
@carolyn_sms
and I co-wrote our job market papers, so we often get asked about the pros and cons of co-authoring with grad school peers. Now that we both have survived the market, I wanted to tweet out a few reflections on our experience.
11
86
667
2
11
82
Survey of 42 economists about UI disincentive now
“The $300 supplement to weekly unemployment benefits available from now through September 6 constitutes a major disincentive to work for lower-wage workers.”
1/2 uncertain, ⅙ disagree, ⅓ agree
A short thread on their views
7
27
74
What makes today special? BLS releases state employment data, so we can compare July employment in states that cut off benefits and states that did not.
The new data capture employment during the payroll period containing July 12.
@pascaljnoel
and
@JoeVavra
and I analyze.
1
7
68
Amazing paper by my colleague
@GallenYana
on the effect of unplanned pregnancy on labor market incomes. Very clever id strategy of IUD failure. Appears to happen 355 times in Sweden in sample period.
1
4
74
5 yo @ bedtime: "Why is housing in Manhattan so expensive?"
Me: "Because they won't build enough of it"
5: "Why don't they just build more?"
Me: "Because American society has become sclerotic and is afraid to innovate"
5: temporarily speechless
7
2
74
So grateful after 1.5 years to see a building again filled with real live
@HarrisPolicy
students!
0
2
74
With all due respect John, this tweet gets it wrong on two counts
1) There is broad consensus that the state-level effect of termination was ~zero. [what serious analysis says otherwise?]
2) We pre-registered our analysis. Link to analysis and to pre-registration below.
The debate on whether enhanced UI benefits affected employment reminds me of a project in which 29 teams of statisticians were given the same database to answer the question of whether darker-skinned soccer players were more likely to get red cards. The results varied markedly.
3
0
15
2
9
70
Montana ends $300 supplement, announces $1200 reemployment bonus
Almost like they read
@mattyglesias
@SorryToBeKurt
@arindube
@mioana
Crucial context: Montana's labor market, unlike rest of US, looks to be close to back to pre-covid patterns.
2
19
72
Tomorrow is jobs day and everyone wants to know how early cut off of pandemic benefits will affect employment
I can tell you the answer tonight... you won't learn anything tomorrow‼️
no state data are released ‼️
🧵 on evidence from 5 other data sources that *are* by state
1
16
68
It was an honor to have
@mattyglesias
guest lecture in my
@HarrisPolicy
class today about why local crime data stinks, why local test score data is relatively good (no child left behind), and
@uscensusbureau
differential privacy procedures wrecking its own data products
1
1
70
What has happened to financial distress during covid, especially after the $600 expired?
Conflicting signals from income poverty & food insecurity
I suggest we focus on a third: high-interest lending
By this measure, deep financial distress is *down* through the end of 2020
6
16
66
New paper on pandemic UI!
TLDR expanded benefits had large spending & small job-finding impacts
Implications
1) Unemployed hhs have high MPCs *even* though also have high liquidity. Inconsistent with rep agent model
2) Temporary benefits promising tool for future recessions
COVID fiscal policy included the largest increase in unemployment benefits in US history, which had large impacts on spending and small impacts on job-finding, from
@p_ganong
,
@FionaGreigDC
,
@pascaljnoel
,
@dan_m_sullivan
, and
@joevavra
0
24
63
2
26
65
Wow, sure looks like UI benefits are the key force driving labor market dynamics 😉
7
0
58
Nope.
This is sort of like the minimum wage that the simplest model predicts one thing (big disemployment effects) and a more realistic model (w/market frictions such as salience) predicts something else.
Research helps figure out which model fits reality.
Smart politics, but bad economics.
Ban baggage fees = higher ticket prices
Ban resort fees = higher room prices
Ban credit card late fees = higher interest rates
These proposals just make some consumers pay more to cover the costs of other consumers.
70
5
61
2
6
63
There's a new, distressing trend in the labor market
job openings ⬆️ (good!)
applications ⬇️ (bad!)
🧵
The evidence at this point is *highly* speculative.
Here's
@DanielBZhao
with google trends of searching for jobs
17
9
60
New debt forgiveness plan: How big? Effect on distributions?
1) $549B
2) Slightly regressive by income
3) Shrinks Black-White wealth gap
My coauthors
@Dan_M_Sullivan
@chrisowheat
have a new brief!
4
15
59
Noah Smith has an excellent round up of the evidence so far on the effects of the $600 supplement to unemployment insurance
1/OK, here's a thread of my latest blog post, in which I debunk an op-ed by Stephen Moore and Casey Mulligan claiming that Pandemic UI killed millions of jobs.
In fact, Pandemic UI didn't kill jobs.
15
63
294
0
9
58
I'm not a lawyer, but SCOTUS seems to say
"I experienced discrimination" allowed criteria
but "I am part of a group that has been systematically discriminated against" not allowed
Put otherwise, only *seen* forces count
Most econs study *unseen* forces (e.g. structural racism)
2
7
53
The point is to say we don't know. The labor market is undergoing a massive readjustment right now. Let's wait for data rather than making policy based on anecdotes
2
3
49
About 7.5 million people will see their benefits end this weekend.
Here's what happens to spending when UI benefits run out in pre-pandemic data.
5
22
47
Newly published paper by
@danascoot
@finamor_lucas
which has I think the best evidence to date on the incentive effects of the $600 weekly supplement (🧵)
2
14
49
Second, although no sharp patterns pop out above, there still could be a small average effect.
So far, 26 governors have announced plans to cut off at least some federal benefits. 21 states are cutting off all benefits by July 5. This is where we might expect to see big fx.
2
3
43
n=1: I have found being faculty much easier in terms of mental health than grad school.
2
1
48
An overarching theme of the pandemic has been to view the supplements as responsible for the biggest problems (slow employment recovery, usually conservatives) and the biggest successes (rising wages at the bottom, usually liberals).
Our results are inconsistent with both views.
1
4
43
Are you interested in better understanding consumption during the pandemic, both theoretically and empirically?
AEA session at 3:45PM eastern today
We have an all-star lineup, please RT
4
18
44
Have you received Pandemic Unemployment Assistance in Florida, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, or Michigan via direct deposit?
I am a researcher studying unemployment insurance and I have a question to ask you via DM
(
#econtwitter
and UI twitter please RT to help me out!)
10
64
45
The JPMorganChase Institute is hiring a research lead for their research on local commerce. This is a fantastic opportunity at a think tank with access to a unique anonymized dataset on millions of consumers and thousands of business. (1/2)
2
21
45
Excited to learn from the Australia economics community this week including e61 (
@GregWKaplan
),
@UniMelb
(
@chrisedmond
) and
@UNSW
(
@profholden
)!
1
2
46
.
@SecYellen
talked about our new book chapter in her speech yesterday! still pinching myself...
@FionaGreigDC
: During covid-19, the clunky UI system faced a tradeoff between speed (approve all the claims now) and accuracy (verify all claims)
It doesn't need to be this way!!!
4
10
45
@IRSnews
@SenWarren
@SenWhitehouse
Addressing a few misconceptions in the comments:
1) this is described as a "poor tax". It is sort of b/c it's a tax on attention. TurboTax costs $120 and there's a $39 fee if you click the wrong payment method button.
2
4
43
Long-term unemployment and repeat unemployment have soared
My biggest concern about the American Rescue Plan is that it lacks funding to help hardest hit from pandemic get back to work
Below, I describe what we know from the research and what we might do this time to help
5
21
41
PSA to
@UChicago
faculty re open enrollment
Increase your comp by $1K or more using this simple trick. Really.
Most commonly chosen plan has
--low deductible
--high premium
It is dominated!
Alternative has
--high deductible
--low enough premium to more than offset
11
3
43
Bottom line: homeowners don’t coldly treat their homes like a financial asset. They act as if defaulting is costly, and for the most part only do so when something bad happens in their financial life that reduces the cash available to make their payments.
3
6
42
What are the best estimates of the *macro* elasticity of duration with respect to the level of (or duration of) UI benefits?
I think answer is probably this paper by
@ProfNoto
and
@KoryKroft
but I am curious what other papers I should know
3
6
40
The think tank that I work with,
#JPMCInstitute
is hiring for several roles. I've been working with them for 7 years now so by revealed preference you can tell I think it's a great place to work. Specific roles in thread, including RA positions
4
13
40
My friend Amy wrote a personal (and terrifying) article about health risks to women post Roe
2
17
38
Instead, it makes sense to think of the effects of pandemic UI primarily as an ambitious anti-poverty policy. I can’t think of a time before when a country gave *full* insurance to earnings losses (examples welcome in the comments)
1
4
34
The idea behind this paper is beautiful and simple.
Spouses *should* allocate $ to retirement accounts with the highest matching rate. Do they actually?
Not much…
Last talk of the day! How do couples make retirement planning decisions? Independently (ignoring other spouse) or in coordination?
1
4
7
6
7
40
There are (at least) two types of uncertainty: (a) sampling uncertainty because BLS uses a survey of firms and (b) counterfactual uncertainty because states that cut off benefits and states that didn’t differ in important ways!
1
3
34
Apropos of the "Great Resignation" meme this week, I keep thinking back to this plot by my coauthor
@FionaGreigDC
4
8
39
Finally, we calculate using the Oct 2020 CPS that 41 percent of people who are unemployed and were laid off from their job (and therefore are most likely getting UI) have kids. So it’s not just the workers who will suffer; it is their kids too.
4
10
36
Feeling very disappointed that fixing unemployment insurance--which is so many workers relied on during the pandemic--is planned *not* to be part of the upcoming "American Families Plan"
from
@JStein_WaPo
2
5
32
Since lots of
#econtwitter
is confidently asserting either that further checks will or will not be spent, re-upping my thread on the fact that actually we don't know since wide range of estimates
If stimulus checks were larger, would people spend more?
Natural starting point: how were the checks that went out in April and May spent?
tldr: we have no idea 😢
estimates all over the place. afaik no reconciliation.
(wonky thread on 3 papers w conflicting results)
8
20
120
1
7
34
As a researcher, nothing beats including axis titles on your plots ;-)
2
0
34