Caterina Alacevich

Why I Can’t Stand the Hype The Pitt, Severance, Sinners, you name it: For some reason, the more popular something is, the more averse I am to consuming it.

Anna Holmes hasn’t watched “The Pitt” or “Sinners” or probably anything else people are talking about—a tendency she calls “hype aversion.” Her avoidance, she writes, may have less to do with knee-jerk resistance than with something deeper:

Interesting correlations! Hoping to see some rigorous causal evidence soon

🔍 What happens when participants drop out of a study?

A new #CEGAWorkingPaper examines attrition in field experiments, finding that the most common test of attrition bias is not a test of internal validity in general.

📖 Learn more: go.cega.org/WPS-113

Mario Draghi Awarded 2026 SIEPR Prize for Global Policy Leadership | The Economic Misfit Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank and former prime minister of Italy, has been named the 2026 recipient of the SIEPR Prize, an honor recognizing individuals whose work has si...

Mario Draghi Awarded 2026 SIEPR Prize for Global Policy Leadership | The Economic Misfit theeconomicmisfit.com/2026/02/28/m...

On immigration: "I often am asked to speak as an economist. And what we should never lose sight of is that each of us is a moral being. And you, as I, have to decide how we feel about this form of rhetoric."

Interviewer: "What's your take on how he's framing the economy?"
Me: "It's that he's lying."

🌾 How can machine learning predict agricultural yields?

CEGA researchers find that imagery-based monitoring effectively predicts maize yields in Zambia, offering governments a low-cost way to better target agricultural interventions.

Learn more: go.cega.org/cropyieldprediction

📢 #CallForPapers for the 11th Monash-Paris-Warwick-Zurich-CEPR Text-As-Data #Workshop!

Papers using text, audio, images, or other unstructured data are welcome.

Organisers: @elliottash.bsky.social @essobecker.bsky.social & Philine Widmer
Deadline: 13 March
cepr.org/events/11th-...
#EconSky

📢 New free virtual course (PEDL x STEG)

Private Enterprises, Productivity, and Economic Growth - starting 6 Feb 2026

When: Fridays, 15:30–17:00 (London time)
Format: Virtual + recordings available

🔗 More info: grp.cepr.org/node/231
📝 Register here: cepr.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?...

Trump Administration Live Updates: F.B.I. Search in Georgia Tied to Criminal Investigation Over 2020 Election

Again, this is not about the 2020 election: it's about creating the conditions to try and overturn defeat in 2026 and 2028. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...

Julia Cage, @gallon.bsky.social, Emeric Henry, & @yuchenhuang.bsky.social provide evidence that fact-checking significantly reduced engagement with posts on Facebook rated as false and also decreases users' subsequent activity.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

The Weiss Fund has a great new initiative for development economists on the PhD job market to support those taking up research positions in LMICs, offering supplementary income + research funds. Please share!

Is anyone interested in forming a session for #ASHEcon on bargaining, managed competition, emergency care billing, congestion, or any similar topics?

📣We are pleased to share the report “Improving the Publication Process in Economics” by an ad-hoc joint AEA-EEA-ES-RES committee - Joseph Altonji, Kevin Lang, Erzo Luttmer, Imran Rasul, Stefanie Stantcheva, Romain Wacziarg and Guido Imbens.

Read and share your views👉 buff.ly/4bg6xQi

#EconSky

"We recommend that journals ask reviewers to separate their comments into essential
and optional comments [...]" 👍🏼

2 iconic coral species are now functionally extinct off Florida, study finds – we witnessed the reef’s bleaching and devastation The crucial reef-building corals were decimated by a marine heat wave in the Florida Keys. Can advances in restoration help them recover?

Two of Florida’s most iconic coral species are now functionally extinct. The 2023–2024 marine heat wave wiped out 97.8% to 100% of staghorn and elkhorn corals across nearly 400 surveyed reefs, according to marine scientists. buff.ly/IjWGm0D

Open call for applications, Graduate and Early-Career Fellowships, Fiscal and Economic Effects of Innovation and Productivity Policies. Submit applications by 5 pm EST on January 4, 2026. More information: www.nber.org/calls-papers...

Nursing home value-added for black patients is 30 percent lower than for white patients, with most of the gap reflecting differences within, rather than across, nursing homes, from Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, @nealemahoney.bsky.social, and James C. Okun www.nber.org/papers/w34324

(I highly recommend John's writing tips for PhD students: www.johnhcochrane.com/research-all...)

Online course certificates (from MOOCs) are booming (40M+ learners in 2024). But do these credentials actually help people get jobs? Our team investigated this in a new study by @susanathey.bsky.social & Emil Palikot 👇.

🆕 RFBerlin Discussion Paper: Peter Fredriksson, @dgulumser.bsky.social, and @lenahensvik.bsky.social study whether and why differential wage responsiveness to outside offers contributes to the gender wage gap within job. 🧵

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.”

Global Mental Health Convening This gathering will explore cutting-edge research and chart new directions for understanding and improving mental health in LMICs.

Save the Date! 📅

Join CEGA on November 7 for the Global Mental Health Convening, gathering experts to explore mental health in low- and middle-income countries. Speakers include: @johanneshaushofer.com, @saraevans-lacko.bsky.social, Judith Bass, Matt Lowe, and more.

🔗 : go.cega.org/GMHC2025

Do students respond differently to feedback depending on the evaluator’s perceived gender? We find that they push back more when the randomly assigned name of the evaluator is female-sounding --implications for women’s authority and credibility in educational and professional contexts!

Personal power v. socialized power: What Machiavelli and St. Francis can tell us about modern CEOs The kind of power that motivates a leader shapes their behavior, two management scholars write.

People chasing power for themselves often burn bridges. Those who lead by serving others build trust, stronger relationships and successful organizations.

Lessons for CEOs and the rest of us: buff.ly/GIv1jQW

Why Walking Helps Us Think Since at least the time of Greek philosophers, many writers have discovered a deep, intuitive connection between walking, thinking, and writing.

Since at least the time of Greek philosophers, many writers have discovered a deep, intuitive connection between walking, thinking, and writing.

Why Are Kids So Funny? The emergence of humor so early in life suggests something important about human nature.

Babies begin making jokes before they can use words. Why do we develop a sense of humor so early?

What Many Parents Miss About the Phones-in-Schools Debate Some focus on reaching their children in an emergency—and overlook the devices’ everyday threats.

Phones in schools hinder growth for kids and create more work for adults, Gail Cornwall argues.

Cornwall, a parent and former teacher, makes the case for banning them:

Mary Had Schizophrenia—Then Suddenly She Didn’t Some psychiatric patients may actually have treatable autoimmune conditions. But what happens to the newly sane?

A woman with a 20-year psychiatric history began taking an immunosuppressant. Suddenly, her seeming schizophrenia vanished.

@cmavian.bsky.social