Raúl Duarte González

I gave ChatGPT Codex an article about a famous, lost Maxis simulation, SimRefinery, and asked it to create it for me.

It built a prototype for me while I did other stuff, never touching any code once, instead just occasionally poking Codex for small changes.

Pla: emollick.github.io/simrefine_re...

Algorithms and Bureaucrats: Evidence from Tax Audit Selection in Senegal: Bachas, Pierre; Brockmeyer, Anne; Ferreira, Alipio; Sarr, Bassirou

The Corrupt Incentives Behind Grade Inflation “We give them all A’s, and they give us all fives.”

“American colleges, especially the most selective ones, are confronting the dual problems of rampant grade inflation and declining rigor,” @rosehorowitch.bsky.social writes. “Teacher evaluations are a big part of how higher education got to this point.”

Kids need messy, authentic human friendships to hone their social intelligence. If they opt instead for AI companions, Russell Shaw writes, they risk losing opportunities to grow. https://theatln.tc/qqyOq8Ci

Greg Hill @greg-hill.bsky.social • 14h you laugh at the suffering this will cause ??? Sky Marchini@sky.skymarchini.net • 11h I know this might come as a shock but I'm not actually laughing here Greg Hill @greg-hill.bsky.social • 3h so what does 'haha' mean ?

This, to me, is Blueskyism

We at @stanforddoerr.bsky.social are excited to announce a new PhD program in Global Environmental Policy, accepting applications this fall for Sept 2026 start. We're looking for folks with interest in social sciences, data science, and enviro science and who have strong quant training 1/

Thank you Pia!! Yes, I’m on the academic job market this year and glad to connect with anyone to discuss potential opportunities

Exciting new work by @rduartegonzalez.bsky.social (who is on the market!) & Co

Me when a paper uses network theory

"Political brokers use social networks to identify & target reciprocal non-copartisans for vote buying. Parties recruit brokers central in networks to sway persuadable voters."

From @rduartegonzalez.bsky.social, Finan, @hlarreguy.bsky.social and Schechter:

www.restud.com/brokering-vo...

#Econsky

Graph showing the effect of PACE on admissions and on enrolment or graduation over time. Preferential college admission is gaining traction worldwide as a means to address inequality in higher education, drawing greater attention to the design of such policies. This column analyses a programme for disadvantaged high schools in Chile that offers guaranteed college admission to top-performing students. The programme increased enrolment in selective colleges but reduced pre-college academic effort and test scores as students incorrectly believed college admission was guaranteed. Addressing students’ misunderstandings could mitigate the negative incentive effects while preserving the policy’s enrolment benefits.

A preferential college admission programme in #Chile increased enrolment in selective colleges but reduced pre-college academic effort and test scores due to student misunderstanding.
@michelatincani.bsky.social‬ @fabiankosse.bsky.social & Enrico Miglino
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

POTUS chose him cuz of his record of falsely accusing BLS of politically manipulating stats

It's his schtick & only qualification. No other PhD economist does it cuz it's a damaging lie

On management experience, expertise in labor or stats, & every other legit criteria, others are more qualified.

CRISPR as a microbial immune system In 2003, Mojica wrote the first paper suggesting that CRISPR was an innate microbial immune system. The paper was rejected by a series of high-profile journals, including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Microbiology and Nucleic Acids Research, before finally being accepted by Journal of Molecular Evolution in February, 2005.[3][4]

TIL the original paper describing CRISPR, by Francisco Mojica, was rejected by 4 journals and took 2 years to be published

I’m starting to think everyone needs a basic primer in what machine learning is, just like they need to know algebra/the basics of calculus. It’s just as accessible and I think important for critical thinking about the tools everyone will increasingly be using, including government

Relative Bias Under Imperfect Identification in Observational Causal Inference To conduct causal inference in observational settings, researchers must rely on certain identifying assumptions. In practice, these assumptions are unlikely to hold exactly. This paper considers the bias of selection-on-observables, instrumental variables, and proximal inference estimates under violations of their identifying assumptions. We develop bias expressions for IV and proximal inference that show how violations of their respective assumptions are amplified by any unmeasured confounding in the outcome variable. We propose a set of sensitivity tools that quantify the sensitivity of different identification strategies, and an augmented bias contour plot visualizes the relationship between these strategies. We argue that the act of choosing an identification strategy implicitly expresses a belief about the degree of violations that must be present in alternative identification strategies. Even when researchers intend to conduct an IV or proximal analysis, a sensitivity analysis comparing different identification strategies can help to better understand the implications of each set of assumptions. Throughout, we compare the different approaches on a re-analysis of the impact of state surveillance on the incidence of protest in Communist Poland.

New working paper with @corymccartan.com on comparing the relative bias of different identification approaches! We compare the bias of selection-on-observables, instrumental variables, and proximal inference estimates under violations of their identifying assumptions.
arxiv.org/abs/2507.23743

Ok that time may have just arrived

Old money: Campaign finance and gerontocracy in the United States Politicians in the United States rank among the oldest globally. This study examines how money in politics contributes to age inequality in political …

@adambonica.bsky.social and I are economists now (economist salary coming soon, I imagine)

Ungated until the end of September: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Analysis | The Fact Checker rose in an era of false claims. Falsehoods are now winning. Longtime Fact Checker Glenn Kessler takes stock as he departs The Washington Post.

My final #FactChecker --> The Fact Checker rose in an era of false claims. Falsehoods are now winning. wapo.st/41kFq2G

After Backlash, Ukraine Is Set to Vote on Restoring Watchdogs’ Powers President Volodymyr Zelensky’s move last week to neuter two anticorruption agencies drew the country’s first street protests since Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine’s Parliament is set to vote on Thursday on legislation to restore the powers of the country’s anticorruption agencies. The vote comes one week after a move by President Volodymyr Zelensky to undermine the independence of the agencies set off a ferocious domestic and international backlash.

CRAN is updating their cross-package references for #rstats packages. Be sure to check your spam, as this went straight to mine!

Venezuela’s Authoritarian Government Has a New Target: Economists

Venezuela’s Authoritarian Government Has a New Target: Economists www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/w...

“Descended from Immigrants and Revolutionists”: How Family History Shapes Immigration Policy Making

doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

Look, I did my undergrad in Brazil, and there were very, very few essays, and take-home assessments in general, and lots of in-class exams. And do you know why? Because cheating was rampant! And instructors knew it!

That is: AI didn’t invent cheating, so we know how ppl adapt to rampant cheating.

Gemini can create applications that use Gemini.

Gemini: "Make a working text adventure starship bridge simulator. there should be different stations to control & each should use AI in different ways to advance an overall story."

"Make it better" (I cut out the loading screens in the video)

Judge Blocks a Trump Effort to Prevent International Students at Harvard

“Judge Blocks a Trump Effort to Prevent International Students at Harvard.” This decision was inevitable. What does Trump do now? www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/u...

We're hiring - come work with me! www.openphilanthropy.org/careers/

Looking to work at the intersection of research and policy in development?

Friends of VoxDev are hiring for 4 important roles in the evidence-to-policy ecosystem.

Check them out below 🧵1/5

Lots going on lately here, but I wanted to take a moment to congratulate our incredible Harvard Government PhD graduates! 🎓🫶

Scoop: CBS News pulled a "60 Minutes" segment that focused on job losses at the Internal Revenue Service hours before it was scheduled to air, replacing it with a feature story on Cajun music.

Story: www.msn.com/en-us/news/o...