Stephan Heblich

Thank you for the excellent coverage of our article, @economist.com! You can find the full piece here: nber.org/papers/w33976

Excited to see this paper coming out. We develop a tractable framework for modeling the rich patterns of spatial mobility observed in smartphone data, including travel itineraries and the resulting consumption externalities between locations

Thanks for the fantastic coverage of our work, @alexanderwulfers.com!

Wirtschaftsgeschichte: Was die Kunst über Krisen verrät Je schlechter die Wirtschaft, desto mehr Angst und Trauer sind auf Gemälden zu sehen. Wer genau hinschaut kann den Bildern noch mehr Geschichten entlocken.

Wie war die Stimmung während der ersten Globalisierung, nach der Erfindung des Radios oder während Europas letztem großen Klimawandel? Ökonomen (u.a. @heblich.bsky.social) haben sich dafür etwas Cleveres einfallen lassen: Emotionen in >600.000 Gemälden, ausgewertet mit KI.

Frontline Union Army captains cut desertions and boosted cohesion through leading by example, earning postwar-wage gains and greater recognition, from @andyferrara.bsky.social, Christian Dippel, and Stephan Heblich https://www.nber.org/papers/w34057

Studying why some cities thrive while others decline finds that early industrial specialization lowers long-run productivity—a dynamic trade-off at the heart of place-based policy, from Stephan Heblich, Dávid Krisztián Nagy, Alex Trew, and Yanos Zylberberg https://www.nber.org/papers/w34029

Call for Papers for NBER Economics of Transportation in the 21st Century Virtual Conference, October 24, 2024, organized with Ed Glaeser and Jim Poterba: stephenredding.github.io/Call_for_Pap.... Submission Deadline Weds Sept 3, 11.59 ET. @nber.org @siepr.bsky.social @treballen.bsky.social

Call for submissions for the NBER International Trade and Investment Program Meeting on November 21-22, 2025, at Stanford: conference.nber.org/confsubmit/b.... Submission deadline 11.59pm ET on Monday September 15, 2025.

Open call for papers, Economics of Transportation in the 21st Century. Conference to be held virtually on October 24, 2025. Submit papers by 11:59pm EDT on September 3, 2025. More information: https://www.nber.org/calls-papers-and-proposals/economics-transportation-21st-century

Very excited to share that our journey into art history is taking shape. We are exploring how historical events echo through artistic expression.

Call for papers for @cep-lse.bsky.social LSE / Warwick Junior Trade Seminar: cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/events/.... Deadline 27 July.

🚨 New paper alert: Economists in 🇫🇷 France, 🇨🇦Canada, and 🇬🇧the U.K. just released what looks like a tour-de-force on the economics of artwork. It's big.

Here’s what they did.

🎨📉📈

« Les outils d’évaluation sont sous-utilisés par ceux qui les financent, à savoir les Etats » TRIBUNE. L’évaluation d’impact, qui permet par exemple de tester l’efficacité des politiques publiques, est massivement captée par les géants du numérique, alors que ces outils sont souvent créés par ...

Pleased to share op-ed in Le Monde: "Impact Evaluation: For GAFAM or for Citizens?"

🔗 French version (Le Monde):
www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl...

🔗 English translation (Sciences Po):
www.sciencespo.fr/department-e...

Tech companies routinely use impact evaluation tools to optimize their services...

Analyzing the decline of America's new housing supply, focusing on large sunbelt markets that were once building superstars, from Edward L. Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko https://www.nber.org/papers/w33876

Ten days until the submission deadline for our meeting in Montréal. #econsky

Using Danish data to show IQ and education drive high-impact entrepreneurship, while family ties matter more for average entrepreneurs, from Ufuk Akcigit, Harun Alp, Jeremy Pearce, and Marta Prato https://www.nber.org/papers/w33766

TWFE Event_study plot showing sign reversal

I created a shiny web tool to play around with OL/TWFE so you can teach how this stuff can get so screwy. You can mess with temporal and cohort heterogeneity, treatment timing, whether you have any controls, etc. Share your worst plots! #econsky cannoncloud.shinyapps.io/TWFE_OLS_Pla...

Excellent thread and podcast about the challenges to Britain's free trade policy in 1903....

Call for papers for NBER-Sloan conference on Transport Networks and the Spatial Distribution of Economic Activity: www.princeton.edu/~reddings/Ca... Deadline: June 30, 2025. Organized with Myrto Kalouptsidi. @nber.org @treballen.bsky.social @jintlecon.bsky.social @indorgsociety.bsky.social

Until the late 19th century, states raised most of their government revenues from import tariffs. This column asks whether the practice could work today. A side effect of taxes is that they discourage the economic activity that they are assessed on. Tariffs are taxes on imports and no different: they shrink trade. The authors allow tariff revenues to change an economy’s savings and therefore the trade balance, as the US administration intends. Then the displacement effect of import tariffs is so strong that tariff revenues cannot plausibly fund more than a few weeks of annual US government spending.

Can the historical practice of raising government revenue from import #tariffs work now? S Evenett & M Muendler say no. The displacement effect of import tariffs is so strong that revenues can't plausibly fund more than a few weeks of annual US government spending.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

Map of the rates of salt tax in France on the eve of the French Revolution. Extractive taxation is considered one of the main causes of the French Revolution. This column exploits regional variations in the French salt tax, which accounted for 22% of royal revenues in 1780, to document that areas of France burdened by a higher tax rate experienced more revolts in the years leading up to the Revolution. These effects were amplified by droughts that increased food prices and activated latent discontent. It suggests that when taxation is imposed without representation, it can become a catalyst for popular unrest, especially after negative economic shocks.

In the years leading up to the French Revolution, the areas of #France burdened by a higher #tax rate experienced more revolts. These effects were amplified by droughts that increased food prices and activated latent discontent.
T Giommoni, G Loumeau, M Tabellini
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

Call for papers for our Montreal meetings now live. Submission deadline 30th May.

What gives life meaning?

In a new #VoxTalks #Economics, David Lagakos @bostonu.bsky.social & Hans-Joachim Voth UZH explore what thousands of life stories from 1930s America reveal, using AI to decode meaning in tough times
w/ @talknormal.co.uk
🎧https://cepr.org/multimedia/meaningful-life

#EconSky