Nikolaj Harmon's Avatar

Nikolaj Harmon

@nikharmon.bsky.social

Associate Professor of Economics, University of Copenhagen Labor Economics, Econometrics and Political Economics https://web.econ.ku.dk/nharmon/ #econsky

397 Followers  |  252 Following  |  36 Posts  |  Joined: 20.09.2023  |  2.2174

Latest posts by nikharmon.bsky.social on Bluesky

Ah! I like that example!

Itโ€™s effectively pointing out that we might be particularly prone to do implicit meta studies across our own works (inferring V as a particular important control from several papers). Fixed seeds can bias conclusions from those.

23.10.2025 12:20 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I can very much see the practical implication *within* a project. Across projects it feels less clear. Picking a different seed introduces random variation in results (conclusions) across projects which does not seem particularly useful

Maybe an argument is to make projects โ€œmeta-analysis-friendlyโ€

23.10.2025 07:51 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Fighter jets against the backdrop of a sky with the Idaho state flag and a quote that should say โ€œeveryone is an ally until they arenโ€™tโ€ but the spacing makes it look like it says โ€œeveryone is anally until they arenโ€™tโ€

Fighter jets against the backdrop of a sky with the Idaho state flag and a quote that should say โ€œeveryone is an ally until they arenโ€™tโ€ but the spacing makes it look like it says โ€œeveryone is anally until they arenโ€™tโ€

Local legislator displays the importance of kerning

22.10.2025 14:34 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 3661    ๐Ÿ” 727    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 102    ๐Ÿ“Œ 94

Iโ€™m curious: How would you articulate the problem with using the same seed across different projects?

23.10.2025 06:28 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Interesting study but worth noting that โ€œcorrelation is not causalityโ€ applies here. This shows a correlation between political beliefs and conclusions, it does NOT show that political beliefs affect conclusions.

19.08.2025 07:20 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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In Denmark, new mothers are quasi-randomly assigned to mother groups by nurses.

This new paper shows that being assigned to a group with a depressed peer decreases mothers self-reported mental health + increases mental health care uptake.

Fascinating!

05.08.2025 13:47 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 42    ๐Ÿ” 10    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1

Jeg ville jo nok insistere pรฅ at det fรธrste er lidt et definitionsspรธrgsmรฅl :)

Tak for oplysning. Nu er jeg med igen (pรฅ bรฅde substans og sprogbrug)

11.02.2025 08:44 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Ja, mindre samlet trafik ved road pricing, men ogsรฅ en modsatrettet effekt fra af at nye veje nu giver indtรฆgter fra roadpricebetalinger.

Men det sidste du nรฆvner lyder som om den gรฆngse nomenklatur er at se dette som en sรฆnkning af nettoomkostningerne (selvfinansiering) frem for hรธjere afkast?

11.02.2025 08:38 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Hvis man regnede helt rigtig, burde vejprojekter sรฅ ikke se bedre ud med optimal Road pricing? Road pricing lรธser et eksternalitetsoroblem som sikrer optimal udnyttelse af vejnettet = stรธrre samf. afkast

11.02.2025 08:06 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image 11.02.2025 07:02 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 60    ๐Ÿ” 3    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 4    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Yes, nu er jeg med. Sรฅ den overordnet gode policy er congestion pricing plus vejudvidelse indtil omkostning>=gevinst i sparet rejsetid.

11.02.2025 07:06 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Jeg er nysgerrig om jeg er bagud pรฅ min viden her, men jeg troede: 1) udvidelse af transport-infrastruktur lรธser ikke trรฆngselsproblemer (eksternalitetsomkostninger), 2) congestion road pricing gรธr. Er det ikke det der stรฅr i tweetet? (Plus noget tvivlsomt om kollektiv transport)

11.02.2025 06:53 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Hello BlueSky!

27.01.2025 18:10 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 12    ๐Ÿ” 5    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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In economics, editors, referees, and authors often behave as if a published paper should reflect some kind of authoritative consensus.

As a result, valuable debate happens in secret, and the resulting paper is an opaque compromise with anonymous co-authors called referees.

1/

24.12.2024 14:44 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 555    ๐Ÿ” 161    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 28    ๐Ÿ“Œ 33
Post image 19.12.2024 13:28 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 357    ๐Ÿ” 79    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 4    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2
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๐Ÿšจ PUBLICATION ALERT ๐Ÿšจ

How are firms are affected by (longer) parental leave absences?

Paper joint with @mathiashuebener.bsky.social, @danielkuehnle.bsky.social & Michael Oberfichtner is forthcoming at The Economic Journal

doi.org/10.1093/ej/u...

Short thread below ๐Ÿ‘‡

16.12.2024 07:32 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 47    ๐Ÿ” 13    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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Imorgen torsdag har vi ร˜konomisk Eksploratorium om รฅrets nobelpris.

27.11.2024 06:02 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 12    ๐Ÿ” 3    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

TL;DR: The novel data is the universe of human written text. The LLM is just a way to process this data.

25.11.2024 22:51 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I share your skepticism but there is a coherent argument for why this could work:

An LLM is (approx) trained on the universe of text to behave like humans do.

To someone who has read and understood the universe of text; the LLM will never surprise. But none of us have!

25.11.2024 22:50 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Letโ€™s just say my enthusiasm for accepting referee tasks dropped for a while after.

Iโ€™m sure I have lots of bad (subjective) opinions as reviewer. But this was not that.

20.11.2024 10:48 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Later I got the revised version to review. The authors had BEAUTIFULLY addressed 1โ€ฆ

โ€ฆ but also doubled down on the bias claim, STILL without properly defining an estimand. ๐Ÿคฏ

Situation was weird after that. Eventually ended with editor half-agreeing with both of us and accepting then paper. ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ

N/N

20.11.2024 10:44 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

โ€ฆ the paper never defined the estimand! And in fact for a sensible choice of estimand, there is NO bias in the existing method.

I wrote a positive referee report detailing how I would fix 1. Plus suggesting that claim 2. be taken out (the paperโ€™s contribution was easily high enough without it)

2/N

20.11.2024 10:38 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Iโ€™ll keep this vague since I hold no ill will here. But basically:

I refereed a really good paper with only two drawbacks:

1. The exposition/framing was doing the results a disservice (IMO)

2. The paper claimed to fix a bias in an existing method that I have worked on extensively, exceptโ€ฆ

1/N

20.11.2024 10:30 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Man, I have a war story about this one.

20.11.2024 10:11 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Cue that Lucas quote in 3โ€ฆ2โ€ฆ1

20.11.2024 08:08 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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#bluesky has over 20 million users! ๐Ÿฅณ๐Ÿ‘

here's to a quality media environment that promotes information, not misinformation! ๐Ÿซก

(except for @kjhealy.bsky.social posts, those are just bad)
(@timgill924.bsky.social is pretty bad too)

(what is it with sociologists... ๐Ÿค”)

19.11.2024 14:55 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 8    ๐Ÿ” 5    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Assistant Professor (f/m/d) Assistant Professor (f/m/d)

๐ŸŽบ Open Assistant Professor position in Social Data Science at our Department (DNDS). Great research, supportive social atmosphere, willingness to communicate across disciplinary boundaries, and a beautiful city with affordable rents.
For details see: careers.ceu.edu/job/Vienna-A...

20.11.2024 05:27 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 13    ๐Ÿ” 12    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Either I donโ€™t understand your question or Iโ€™ve already answered it above.

19.11.2024 23:00 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

But adding a spline or polynomial makes it much harder to summarize the relationship. If the log model is a good fit, you can summarize it in one number (elasticity blah blah).

(Obviously many cases where you can do better than logging but Iโ€™m happy to defend it as a good norm/first-pass)

19.11.2024 22:11 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Hot take: 80% of the time logging covariates leads to a model that better fits the data.

(and honestly who cares about the units of the covariates?)

19.11.2024 19:32 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

@nikharmon is following 20 prominent accounts