David N Lang

I would say PFAS or absestos but this is pretty closely aligned with my assessment.

Why substitution matters: focusing only on declines at regulated sites can overstate the policy’s net effect if demand shifts to unregulated alternatives.

Main result (3 months post-law): searches for the major compliant platform fell by ~51%. At the same time, searches rose for a major non-compliant platform (+48.1%) and VPN services (+23.6%).

“Four-panel synthetic control figure using state-level Google Trends. After age-verification laws take effect, searches for the compliant platform drop sharply relative to the synthetic control, while searches for the non-compliant platform rise. Searches for VPNs also increase, and generic adult-content searches increase modestly. Pre-treatment trends are closely matched.”

Design (pre-registered): synthetic control using state-level Google Trends. Outcomes track searches for a compliant platform, a non-compliant platform, VPNs, and generic adult-content search intent.

Context: starting in Jan 2023, Louisiana and 20+ states passed age-verification rules. The legal dispute is about constitutionality. Our question is behavioral: what happens after implementation?

Age Verification and Public Adaptation: A Pre-Registered Synthetic Control Multiverse - David Lang, Benjamin Listyg, Brennah V. Ross, Anna V. Musquera, Zeve Sanderson, 2026 Starting in January 2023, Louisiana and more than 20 other states passed laws requiring age verification for websites with substantial adult content. Using Goog...

Paper ( Journal of Law & Empirical Analysis): journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

This study is pre-registered, and it evaluates how search behavior changes when states impose age verification for adult-content sites.

yes please

Thank you. RSS Feeds may have been the apex of the internet before enshittification took hold.

I remember the pain of having to continually raise y axes during the great recession. I remember how much code broke when the log of oil prices broke because it went negative. This is another failure of imagination that my code would not anticipate. I am sorry in advance.

Come check out my talk tomorrow and learn about the impact of age verification laws on user search behavior
@stanfordcyber.bsky.social #TSRconf

osf.io/4cjpw_v2/dow...

C2C graphic image promoting the Student Pathways Dataset

We’re taking the first step towards our Query Builder project📊 🗣️After launching in April, users shared interest in accessing the data powering Student Pathways beyond the preset visualizations. We’re meeting your needs by providing an accessible format to dive into the data now! bit.ly/C2C-datasets

what’s the topic? i had one that was pending before the supreme court.

You've heard of the many analysts projects, right?

Scholars give the same dataset/question to a bunch of researchers & they still get different answers.

Why is that?

Data cleaning!

This is consistent with Gelman's "garden of forking paths." Small coding decisions often drive results.

If you are a macroeconomist, I would say lock in your estimates of the output gap now and potential gdp now. I believe this is going to be the most important question in macroeconomic policy for next 12 months.

Trump's tariffs are a massive tax that YOU will pay.

That means higher prices and serious pain for families and small businesses across our country.

Repost if you agree Republicans need to join Democrats and vote to END the chaos & REVERSE these reckless tariffs.

I am OOO but one of the things I have been thinking about is how this pairs with the notion of overalignment ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Doc...

I admire your courage and sacrifice. I nuked mine and only had 1k followers.

Murray, DeLauro, Baldwin Demand Detailed Answers on Trump Admin’s Sweeping Mass Firings at Department of Education | United States Senate Committee on Appropriations United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

If you or your students are affected by the recent guidance on NCES data usage, please review www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/minorit... this link and share your experience with the committee and your congressional representatives.

Very useful thread. This also a helpful reminder for folks who are working with coarse statistical tables and historical documents as well.

If you have research dependent on these data here is my suggestion
1/N

Big picture:

Create a dataset of cell means (cells must be big enough to pass disclosure)

- load these cell means into many, many tables & put through review

-These cell means can then be used in OLS - which runs on means

AERA has just learned that all restricted-use NCES data licenses will be cancelled, possibly as early as March 20. We urgently request that all AERA members and others in the research community with restricted-use licenses take these two actions: www.aera.net/Research-Pol...

Simulation studies are common in psychometrics. We are trying to make them more relevant to practice by increasing their connection to empirical data. Feedback welcome!
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Thanks for helpful comments from @robbwiller.bsky.social @jrothst.bsky.social @nickhuntington12.bsky.social and many others

Description: Despite the growing national conversation around student loan debt, there is a notable lack of qualitative research exploring its personal and emotional impacts on borrowers. Most studies focus on quantitative data, such as default rates, repayment trends, and economic effects, overlooking the nuanced experiences and perspectives of individuals grappling with debt. The lived realities of borrowers—how they manage the stress of repayment, navigate complex forgiveness programs, or make life decisions around their debt—remain underexplored. This gap in the literature presents an urgent need for qualitative studies that can provide deeper insights into the psychological, social, and financial burdens of student debt. We call for proposals that prioritize borrower narratives to better inform policy changes and humanize the debt crisis. Number of Inclusions: We are seeking up to eight (8) high-quality qualitative articles for inclusion in the special issue. We welcome submissions that utilize mixed or multiple methods, but the qualitative component must be equally emphasized or more prominent. Our goal is to strengthen the representation of qualitative research in the literature. Timeline: Calls for proposal will occur in October 2024 and will be open until March 31st, 2025. Proposals will be up to 700 words and should include: introduction, short lit review/study purpose, methods, and if applicable initial findings. Proposal decisions are expected to occur in July 2025. For accepted proposals, full papers will be due August 2025 and will be subjected to peer-review. We expect peer-review to last no longer than 60 days (November 2025) and will provide authors another 30 days (December 2025 - January 2026) to make revisions. Once all final revisions are completed the special issue will go to press.

Hey, I am guest-editing an issue on student loans.

RE: collapse of Academic Twitter, we're extending the call for abstracts til March 31st.

If you have #Qualitative work on #studentloans, submit!

Requote and share widely.

#AcademicSky #EduSky #HigherEd

ojed.org/hepe/announc...

*Link works now

Very excited to be a part of this and cautiously optimistic I might be the first person to cite it.

Do you need educational and psychological item response data to do your research? The IRW has 600 item response datasets (more coming!), distributed in a standardized format and ready for analysis.