Jiajun Han

A Confederacy of Toddlers The Trump administration is a regime of troubled children.

Trump’s voters have become like the members of the administration, delighting in the crassness and obscenity that pours out of the president and his circle whenever they are challenged. But policies suffer and the public is poorly served.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Fascinating paper by @grattonecon.bsky.social, @bartonelee2.bsky.social, and Hasin Yousaf!
The paper addresses a fundamental question: Why do some democracies chronically avoid ambitious, long-term reforms even when they have decent institutions?
They argue that what matters is not only

Remorselessly.

Economics Literature Search Full-text search across 15,000+ papers from top economics journals and NBER working papers. Track how empirical methods have evolved over time.

Dropping a beta version of this page while everyone is up and processing baseball!

This tool lets you search the full text of papers from the American Economic Review, American Economic Journal series, and over 30,000 NBER working papers.

paulgp.com/econlit-pipe...

Europe’s need for green electricity is blowing fuses Grid operators plan to spend hundreds of billions to keep up

I wrote this week about the €800bn challenge of upgrading Europe’s electric grids for the renewable future. Special thanks to the brilliant folks at Delft’s Sustainable Electrical Power Lab, pictured below

Love next week's Free exchange column!

Putin is the cancer of our planet. Europe has to brace itself against russian metastasis.

I read this week's Lexington column thrice. Admire James Bennett's incisiveness. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

LOL😂

Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani are set for a dramatic clash, with New York as its stage and victim. The city may soon become an arena for a fight between two men with bad ideas econ.st/4hAdMpv

Why Novels Matter Journalism and fiction are both essential to a thriving democracy.

Journalism and fiction are both essential to a thriving democracy, George Packer argues. He explores how his experience writing a political novel revealed similarities between imagined worlds and reality:

Wrote about the dominance of "victims" in our political discourse, which included this fab chart @owenwntr.bsky.social www.economist.com/britain/2025...

People ask a lot about whether protests matter. While Trump’s approval rating is driven by many factors, events like the No Kings rallies likely play a role, too. Media coverage and people seeing their neighbors take a stand help convey that disapproval is not just acceptable but widespread.

Donald Trump’s Plan to Subvert the Midterms Is Already Under Way Our election system is reaching a breaking point.

How many ways could Trump try to subvert the 2026 elections? More than you can probably imagine, and many of them might work. My deep dive in @theatlantic.com, posted today: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Donald Trump’s Plan to Subvert the Midterms Is Already Under Way Our election system is reaching a breaking point.

Donald Trumps plan to subvert the midterms is underway
From David Graham, on the cover of the next edition of @theatlantic.com

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

karma😆

Ronald Reagan reads his Thanksgiving radio address, November 26, 1988

"We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends—weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world—all while cynically waving the American flag."

~ Ronald Reagan, in his Thanksgiving Presidential radio address, November 26, 1988

Apparently separation of powers doesn’t work as well when there’s one branch of government.

The obvious economics of preserving the Amazon It provides Brazil’s world-beating farmers with water, and keeps carbon locked up for the rest of us

Last month I took a trip to the Amazon rainforest to better understand the economics behind deforestation and how to preserve the world’s largest forest.
economist.com/the-americas...

The trend is real, but this NYT analysis at the Congressional district level has big ecological bias

Poor *areas* vote Republican, but it's often the richer *individuals* within those poorer areas that are most Republican

And many poor *individuals* rich blue urban *areas* vote Dem

From the nextfuckinglevel community on Reddit: Pirates of the Caribbean themed decorations Explore this post and more from the nextfuckinglevel community

Found @instrumenthull.bsky.social 's lawn: www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckin...

Buckaroo! The British government’s favourite game Heaping burdens on business works. Until business begins to buck

Column on the government’s Buckaroo! strategy - keep piling obligations and charges on certain sectors and hope they don’t kick you in the head. Housing, energy, pharma, immigrants…
economist.com/britain/2025...

Félicitations🎉🎉🎉🎊🎊🎊 Love your Bagehot column!❤️

The 2020 election was free and fair, its result was legitimate, and this person’s conspiracy theories about it were universally thrown out of court because they were fabricated.

Conservative and Liberal Americans treasure our constitutional system, and we reject authoritarian rule.

Now say you expel all the low-paid immigrants who are net beneficiaries of government spending. Who will do their jobs? Street sweepers, fruit pickers, sandwich shop tellers? You'll have to find natives. Wages must rise, but employers can't afford that. Some go bankrupt until the market clears. 6/10

Washington Post: White House begins destroying East wing facade to build Trump’s ballroom

It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.

Photos: More ‘No Kings’ Protests Across the U.S. Organizers expected millions of Americans to attend rallies in cities and towns across America, protesting the policies and actions of President Trump and his administration.

Organizers estimated that millions of Americans attended rallies in cities and towns across America, protesting the policies and actions of President Trump and his administration. Photos via The Atlantic photo:

Looks like people showed up in DC

Great chart here from @resfoundation.bsky.social on housing costs by square metre by age. Britain's problems with Nimbyism and the planning system in a nutshell.