Maximilian Kasy

📢New Working Paper!
"Cash Transfers, Mental Health and Agency: Evidence from an RCT in Germany"
✍️ Sandra Bohmann, Susann Fiedler @maxkasy.bsky.social @jpschupp.bsky.social Frederik Schwerte

For further information, read the full paper: www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/pu...

thoughtful assessment of the era of discourse about wokeness:

Are you on the economics job market this year?
Consider applying for the Nuffield postdoc at Oxford:
econjobmarket.org/positions/11...

It's an excellent opportunity for some extra research time in a great environment!
(Econometrics and econ/ML applications particularly encouraged!)

Check out new empirical paper on impact of basic income on employment outcomes: "Basic Income and Labor Supply: Evidence from an RCT in Germany". By Sarah Bernhard, Sandra Bohmann, Susann Fiedler, Maximilian Kasy, Jürgen Schupp, Frederik Schwerter. @maxkasy.bsky.social @stone-lis.bsky.social
👇👇👇

Expert Comment: What is the future of the British welfare system? | A heated debate is under way about the future of the British welfare system. Should the UK cut welfare benefits for the people with disabilities and for those out of work, thereby increasing poverty,

@oxfordecondept.bsky.social's Prof Maximilian Kasy explains why the political focus should be on creating a truly comprehensive safety net for all, rather than undermining the existing system in the name of austerity.

Read more ⬇️

Oops, attached the wrong abstract. Here is the correct one!

🧨 New draft dropped:🧨
"Cash Transfers,
Mental Health and Agency:
Evidence from an RCT in Germany"
maxkasy.github.io/home/files/p...

Companion paper to our paper on basic income and labor supply.
Corresponding author Freddie Schwerter (@freddieschwerter.bsky.social).
#basicincome #UBI

4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system.

The exponential growth of solar power - some good news for a change:

The Sun Has Its Moment www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...

New Op-ed:
"Welfare for the 21st century"
www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-07...

I discuss British welfare reform, what we have learned from #basicincome and #jobguarantee experiments, and argue that we should create a truly comprehensive safety net for all.

cc @oxfordecondept.bsky.social @INETOxford

New Op-ed:
"Welfare for the 21st century"
www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-07...

I discuss British welfare reform, what we have learned from #basicincome and #jobguarantee experiments, and argue that we should create a truly comprehensive safety net for all.

cc @oxfordecondept.bsky.social @INETOxford

📚Reading rec:Learning Theory from First Principles📚
by @bachfrancis.bsky.social:
www.di.ens.fr/~fbach/ltfp_...

A rigorous review of state-of-the-art machine learning theory, covering both foundations and recent developments. Self-contained - though at times mathematically daunting.

Empire of AI by Karen Hao: 9780593657508 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books An Instant New York Times Bestseller “Excellent and deeply reported.” —Tim Wu, The New York Times “Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI...

Reading rec:
📖Empire of AI 📖
by Karen Hao (@karenhao.bsky.social)
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743569...

Great reportage on the AI industry, from relentless pursuit of scaling, shutting down alternative paths, to the brutality of click-work, to the confluence of cult-like beliefs & big money.

What can we learn from the #Marienthal #JobGuarantee pilot for designing effective labor market and social policy?

@maxkasy.bsky.social and I have a new @inetoxford.bsky.social policy brief that summarises the results of the #Marienthal #JobGuarantee.

oms-inet.files.svdcdn.com/production/f...

Would a basic income reduce tax revenue by decreasing labor supply - or put pressure on wages by increasing labor supply? A field experiment by Stone Center Affiliated Scholar @maxkasy.bsky.social‬ & his coauthors concludes: Neither.

stonecenter.gc.cuny.edu/research/bas...

Not Even Nice Work If You Can Get It; A Longitudinal Study of Uber's Algorithmic Pay and Pricing Ride-sharing platforms like Uber market themselves as enabling `flexibility' for their workforce, meaning that drivers are expected to anticipate when and where the algorithm will allocate them jobs, ...

New paper out today, accepted at #FAccT2025, led by Jake Stein and me: "Not Even Nice Work If You Can Get It; A Longitudinal Study of Uber's Algorithmic Pay and Pricing" arxiv.org/abs/2506.15278

Over the last 3 years, we've been working with @workerinfox.bsky.social to audit Uber's algorithms. 1/

🔥New #basicincome paper just posted:🔥

"Basic income and labor supply: Evidence from an RCT in Germany"
(maybe not the wittiest title, but descriptive...)

maxkasy.github.io/home/files/p...

Feedback welcome, this is still subject to revisions!

How Life Works “Bold and intriguing.”—Wall Street Journal • “Penetrating. . . . Provocative and profound.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) • “Offers plenty of food for thought.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)…

Reading rec: “How Life Works”
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Fascinating (if dense) survey of modern biology by a former editor of Nature.

And a convincing polemic against the genetic reductionism of the “modern synthesis” of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian inheritance,

1/n

🔥New #basicincome paper just posted:🔥

"Basic income and labor supply: Evidence from an RCT in Germany"
(maybe not the wittiest title, but descriptive...)

maxkasy.github.io/home/files/p...

Feedback welcome, this is still subject to revisions!

- Key causal patterns are better understood at higher levels - the regulation of gene expression, networks of RNA, protein interactions, the dynamics of cells and tissues and organs.

4/4

- Most traits depend on a complex interaction between many genes and environmental factors.

- Many traits are determined by higher level equilibria that are stable to the alteration of component genes or proteins.

3/n

and the idea of a "genetic blueprint":

- There is rarely a direct correspondence between genes and (even narrowly biological) traits.

- Many genes are involved in multiple different biological pathways and mechanisms.

2/n

How Life Works “Bold and intriguing.”—Wall Street Journal • “Penetrating. . . . Provocative and profound.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) • “Offers plenty of food for thought.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)…

Reading rec: “How Life Works”
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Fascinating (if dense) survey of modern biology by a former editor of Nature.

And a convincing polemic against the genetic reductionism of the “modern synthesis” of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian inheritance,

1/n

The Means of Prediction An eye-opening examination of how power—not technology—will define life with AI. AI is inescapable, from its mundane uses online to its increasingly consequential decision-making in courtrooms,…

In case somebody missed this yesterday, while watching a political car-crash unfold:

"The Means of Prediction - How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits)"
is now in the UChicago Press catalog, and available for pre-order online!

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

The Means of Prediction An eye-opening examination of how power—not technology—will define life with AI. AI is inescapable, from its mundane uses online to its increasingly consequential decision-making in courtrooms,…

In case somebody missed this yesterday, while watching a political car-crash unfold:

"The Means of Prediction - How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits)"
is now in the UChicago Press catalog, and available for pre-order online!

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Merci!

The Means of Prediction An eye-opening examination of how power—not technology—will define life with AI. AI is inescapable, from its mundane uses online to its increasingly consequential decision-making in courtrooms,…

💥 📚 Next step on the book journey:📚💥

"The Means of Prediction - How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits)"

is now in the UChicago Press catalog, and available for pre-order online!!!

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

oh thanks 😉

Useful computational ressources Research on machine learning, experimental design, economic inequality, and optimal policy

Updated my "computational resources" page:
maxkasy.github.io/home/computa...

Added resources for Python:
- Polars for data wrangling & large data sets
- Vega-Altair for data visualization
- GreatTables for table formatting and exporting
- Scikit-Learn for supervised learning

“Adaptive maximization of social welfare” - out now in the current issue of Econometrica: www.econometricsociety.org/publications...
@ecmaeditors.bsky.social

Polars DataFrames for the new era

🤖 Software discovery of the week 🤖

I just started using Polars for datawrangling in Python, and am really impressed how fast it is when handling large datasets (orders of magnitude faster than Pandas).
Also, the syntax feels very natural, coming from dplyr in R:

pola.rs