Ross Hickey

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🚨 Submit your paper to the Public Economics RIDGE Forum.

When? May 19–20 2026
Location: Barbados(!)

Deadline: Jan 15
🔗 Submission link: ridge.org.uy/ridge-forums/
📝 More details: shorturl.at/pnpLt

“This results in the somewhat unintuitive combination of a technology that can be very useful and impressive, while simultaneously being fundamentally unsatisfying and disappointing - somewhat akin to how one's awe at an amazingly clever magic trick can dissipate”

Progress

The #IIPF2026 Call for Papers is out!
👉 www.iipf.org/papers/Call%...
Submit your public finance paper by Feb. 15, 2026.

Further information on the congress at www.iseg.ulisboa.pt/en/event/iipf/

Organizers at ISEG 👇 and Scientific Chairs Naomi Feldman and @dforemny.bsky.social

#EconConf #EconSky

a cartoon character from south park says " i m gonna need your help " ALT: a cartoon character from south park says " i m gonna need your help "

Calling all 🇨🇦 tax data nerds:

Anyone know of a paper that actually tries to make use of medical expense claims from the LAD, or documents who claims it? (I am searching and failing, and I don't know why. I'm sure I've seen this done.)

Uninsured idiosyncratic risk and aggregate saving
by S. Rao Aiyagari (1993)

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Kate Ho, the John L. Weinberg Professor at Princeton and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Kate was a brilliant IO economist and scholar whose impact on the profession will resonate for many years to come www.econometricsociety.org/publications...

My son:

“Dad, did you know that if you go to sleep in the morning, and stay awake at night, then you have a moustache”

Less than a week to econ PHD application deadlines at UBC! Come be part of a great program with amazing students!! 👇

Deadline for MA and PhD applications for the 2026 intake at VSE is coming up on Monday the 15th!

Please let your promising undergraduate students know...

Why not take a break from marking and submit a paper to the Fifth Annual SaNE Conference in Applied Microeconomics?
5-7 May 26 at Crieff Hydro in Perthshire. Prof Steve Machin will give the keynote.

Submissions are welcome from everywhere, and the deadline is 31 January 2026 (but why wait?)

Coca-Cola did not create Santa Every Christmas the same story goes around social media; Coca-Cola invented Santa or at least gave him a whole new look in the 1930s.They are the reason his suit is red, after all it’s the Co…

To me the sign that Christmas is coming isn't the advertisements, songs on the wireless, or holiday cards...
It's me having to tell people that Coca Cola didn't invent or dress Santa 98342 billion times a day... ;)

More here;
fakehistoryhunter.net/2021/12/03/c...

Kelowna's unemployment rate now higher than peak of the pandemic - Kelowna News Kelowna’s unemployment rate rose again, making it the highest among cities tracked by Statistics Canada.

This article includes some of my thoughts on our local unemployment numbers hitting the double digits:
www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna...

Highlighting the keynote by @nathanlane.bsky.social at the 1st Annual Industrial Policy Lab Conference. He'll examine Europe’s rearmament push, 🇩🇪’s record defence spending in 2026, & how strategic defense investment can drive innovation
@zew.de @vfsecon.bsky.social @delorsberlin.bsky.social

Geneviève Bergeron, 21
Hélène Colgan, 23
Nathalie Croteau, 23
Barbara Daigneault, 22
Anne-Marie Edward, 21
Maud Haviernick, 29
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, 31
Maryse Laganière, 25
Maryse Leclair, 23
Anne-Marie Lemay, 22
Sonia Pelletier, 28
Michèle Richard, 21
Annie St-Arneault, 23
Annie Turcotte, 20

What. A. Line-up!!!

This is going to be such an amazing event, do make sure to submit your work! 🌈❤️

Racial bias in criminal sentencing: Historical evidence from Chinese railway workers in British Columbia Do discriminatory attitudes held in the public influence public institutions? We study this question within the context of the criminal justice system of historical British Columbia (BC). During the ...

Unsurprising that an influx of Chinese immigrant workers to build the Cdn Pacific Ry triggered anti-Chinese sentiment & severe racial bias in criminal sentencing. The surprise is a reduction in racial bias when labor shortage threatened viability of the project. New paper from Blair Long & coauthors

This is a great paper. I used it this week teaching a course on negotiations and my students loved it.

How public education transforms opportunity: Evidence from the 1870 Education Act The 1870 Education Act demonstrates how targeted public investment in education can help narrow the gap in opportunity between rich and poor children.

A @voxdev.bsky.social column on the impact of public education through the lens of economic history, by my (former) student Ben Milner @benjaminlm.bsky.social.

voxdev.org/topic/educat...

ICYMI: New paper for causal effects with panel data, subsuming other approaches. We generate realistic synthetic data based on commonly studied datasets, showing our method substantially outperforms others and providing insight about what in the data-generating process corresponds to gains.

YouTube video by Harris Public Policy UChicago Stone Center | The Origin and Future of Economic Inequality by Samuel Bowles

Honored to introduce Samuel Bowles Public Lecture The Origin and Future of Inequality, part of 3 days organized by
@ucstonecenter.bsky.social.

Sam has been an inspiration, both intellectually and morally to me, as well as to so many in the profession.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV-9...

🇨🇦 I'm looking forward to moderating this webinar, hope to see you there!
The papers:
Tax-Reported Charitable Giving in Canada, 1987–2018
and
Tax Incentives and Older Workers: Evidence from Quebec’s Tax Credit for Career Extension

🚨 POSTDOC POSITION 🚨

Pauline Grosjean, Ieda Matavelli, Ralph De Haas and I are hiring a postdoc for our projects on masculinity in economics.

Position is 2 years, at UNSW In Sydney, Australia. Starting Sept 2026.

Please reach out with any questions.

Apply:
econjobmarket.org/positions/12...

Want to live and work in this beautiful mountain valley in Hawaiʻi? #econsky

The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO) is hiring for 2 TT positions:
-> Public Finance/Tax: aeaweb.org/joe/listing....
-> Macro/tourism/forecasting: aeaweb.org/joe/listing....

More below

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En mémoire #13novembre

1/ I recently wrote a review for @hfrancewebsite.bsky.social on Arnaud Orain’s Le monde confisqué: Essai sur le capitalisme de la finitude. The book has stirred major debate in France. It’s rare (and great) to see a historian of economic thought in the spotlight.

The Cdn Network for Economic History & the Indigenous Economics Study Group invite proposals for a conference Aug 21-23 2026 in Yellowknife NWT: “Historical Persistence & Economic Development: Culture, Institutions & Understudied Economies”
More info darose@wlu.ca or rob.gillezeau@rotman.utoronto.ca

In explaining why to be a truly separate country, Alberta must abolish Aboriginal rights, Bruce Pardy accidentally explains why Alberta can never become its own country. Indigenous rights precede Alberta's existence as a province.

Real genius, that one.