Trade Diversion (Jonathan Dingel)

The American Economic Association's Committee on the Job Market surveyed Economics Departments in the U.S. regarding their plans to hire assistant professors this cycle (2025-26). 29.7% said that their department was under a hiring freeze.
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#EconSky #EconJobMarket

It's annoying that OUP produces invalid BibTeX data. People cite @qjeharvard.bsky.social & @reveconstudies.bsky.social articles with wrong years because the BibTeX files are bad. I often see Caliendo Parro (2015), Dingel (2017), Fajgelbaum Goldberg Kennedy Khandelwal (2020) cited as '14, '16, '19.

Literally zero replies on BlueSky to my request for trade JMPs and spatial JMPs. Dozens on Twitter. The candidates aren't on this platform.

Trade JMPs (2025-2026) For the 16th year running, I’ve gathered a list of trade-related job-market papers. If I’ve missed someone, please contribute to the list in the comments. Here’s a cloud of the words that appear in…

Trade JMPs (2025-2026)
tradediversion.net/2025/11/27/t...

Spatial economics JMPs (2025-2026) Here’s a list of job-market candidates whose job-market papers fall within spatial economics, as defined by me quickly skimming webpages and two dozen candidates who responded on Twitter. I’m sure …

Spatial economics JMPs (2025-2026)
tradediversion.net/2025/11/27/s...

Update on the state of the job market courtesy of a nudge by @gottliebecon.bsky.social

It's bad!

paulgp.com/2025/11/24/j...

Duties for thee, not me: “Winland, the complainant, is owned by private-equity company Investindustrial, which… owns two Italy-based pasta producers, La Doria and gourmet food chain Eataly, and has a partnership with a further Italian pasta maker, Pastificio Di Martino.”

Almost makes one cynical…

I appreciate the WSJ following up on this story, which is already in danger of being one of many forgotten scandals in elite academia.

Interested in a PhD program that offers students the opportunity to do interdisciplinary research at the nexus of natural science and economics? Please join us for a SustDev information session December 4 from 10:15-12 ET.

Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The White House thinks the decline in US exports of education services is good and is celebrating it. 🙄

@jordanrk.bsky.social

New in RSUE: How local is local development? Evidence from casinos, by Ari Anisfeld, Jordan Rosenthal-Kay. #econsky #urbanecon

Graph of the evolution of EU15 integration in four datasets. All 4 datasets agree that the impact of borders has gone down over time. A recent paper which has gathered significant attention estimates a 45% tariff equivalent of intra-EU border costs. This column argues that this estimate is likely too high and depends on the particular dataset used and specific estimation choices. Therefore, it also vastly overstates the barriers that are akin to tariffs and could be lowered as a result of European Commission policy decisions. Instead, it argues that there are more urgent reforms with larger potential benefits, such as boosting EU innovation capacity and R&D spending.

@ckhead.bsky.social & @thierry-mayer.bsky.social‬ argue that the recent estimate of an equivalent 45% tariff in intra-EU costs is likely too high & vastly overstates the barriers which could be lowered due to Commission policy decisions.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

15 percent of American homes lacked indoor plumbing in 1960.

The idea that everyone in 1955 America lived in a split-level suburban home with two cars and three kids and one income is, quite simply, a fantasy borne of media consumption.

‘A new service called Objector is offering “policy-backed objections in minutes” to people who are upset about planning applications near their homes.’

Another reminder that AI can be used for things you don’t like as well as things you like…

Trade JMCs: Each year, I compile a list of international-trade job-market papers. To make sure you're on my list (& save me some work), please reply with your info in the following format:

Firstname Surname (School) - JMP title - homepageURL

[Spatial JMCs: reply to other post]

Spatial JMCs: Each year, I compile a list of spatial-economics job-market papers. To make sure you're on my list (& save me some work), please reply with your info in the following format:

Firstname Surname (School) - JMP title - homepageURL

[Trade JMCs: reply to other tweet]

I enjoy this week's class in my PhD course because it's important and I'm still figuring things out.

github.com/jdingel/econ...

Some authors have contacted AEA editors about an unexpected loss of data access that affects their ability to respond to an R&R. If this affects you, please explain the circumstances in your cover letter. Or reach out to the coeditor if you need guidance before resubmitting. @aeajournals.bsky.social

Ed Luce watching democracy die in the United States of America

Trump: "I don't think we're necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war, I think we're just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We're going to kill them. They're going to be, like dead."

will there be any followup to this fascinating story by the president of the united states that a friend of his sent him a check for $130 million dollars and the president is going to give the money to the military because i for one am fascinated about the details tbh

I so appreciate the colleges that report the median grade for the course on transcripts. I wish that practice was universal.

Uh oh; "A fire at Novelis’s Oswego, N.Y., plant, which supplies about 40% of U.S. auto industry aluminum, will disrupt automakers for months"
www.wsj.com/business/aut...

Fortunately, imported aluminum can fill the void and mitigate this massive domestic supply chain disrupti-

Oh.

The president just gathered the highest ranking officers in the military to tell them that he may order them to kill American citizens -- and that they better follow his orders. All in response to a series of crises that have no basis in reality.

I don't know how to yell any louder.

PhD students underestimate the value (and difficulty) of writing well.

Hiring faculty skim dozens of JMPs in a short time. If your contribution is unclear, you will get fewer interviews.

Editing improves economics papers (RCT): doi.org/10.1016/j.je...

I am happy to recommend www.amyedits.net

Join this @budgetlab.bsky.social webinar on Tuesday at noon on “Tariffs in an Uncertain Legal Environment,” ft. @scottlincicome.bsky.social @anaswanson.bsky.social @natasharsarin.bsky.social

Higher costs from the new tariffs will be felt across sectors of the economy, from housing and health care to logistics. The president also said the United States would begin imposing a 50 percent tariff on imported kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and associated products, along with a 30 percent tariff on imported furniture and a 25 percent tariff on foreign trucks. The tariffs will be issued under a national security related law, known as Section 232, that Mr. Trump has used to issue tariffs on steel, aluminum, cars and copper. On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced that it was beginning new investigations under the law into imports of robotics, industrial machinery and medical devices, which could result in tariffs.

NYT simply failing to ask if kitchen cabinets are a national security emergency here, well done www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/b...

New to me: Chipman (1965): "it would seem fair to say that both Torrens and Ricardo contributed in essential ways to the development of the law of comparative advantage; and that credit for the principal discovery should go to Torrens." doi.org/10.2307/1911...

How Do Restrictions on High-Skilled Immigration Affect Offshoring? Evidence from the H-1B Program Britta Glennon WORKING PAPER 27538 DOI 10.3386/w27538 ISSUE DATE July 2020 REVISION DATE February 2023 Highly-skilled workers are not only a crucial and relatively scarce inputs into firms' productive and innovative processes, but are also a critical resource determining competitive advantage. An increasingly high proportion of these workers in the US were born abroad and permitted to work on skilled worker visas. How do multinational firms respond when artificial constraints, namely policies restricting skilled immigration, are placed on their ability to hire scarce human capital? This paper combines visa microdata and comprehensive data on US multinational firm activity to demonstrate that firms respond to restrictions on H-1B immigration by increasing foreign affiliate employment at the intensive and extensive margins, particularly in China, India, and Canada. The most impacted jobs were R&D-intensive ones, but there is some evidence that non-R&D employment was also affected. The paper highlights a means by which firms can circumvent constraining policies and mitigate country-level risk, but it also suggests that, for the average MNC, this means is imperfect; for every visa rejection, they hire 0.4 employees abroad. The most globalized MNCs are the most likely to respond to these restrictions by offshoring, highlighting that firm capabilities—in the form of prior internationalization-shape the decision and ability to offshore in response to skilled immigration restrictions; indeed, these firms hire 0.9 employees abroad for every visa rejection. More broadly, the paper provides evidence of a push factor for internationalizing knowledge activity: artificial constraints on resources result in firms circumventing restrictive policies in ways that may not be anticipated by policy makers.

Restricting visas doesn’t lead to hiring non-immigrants—it leads to hiring foreigners. For every H-1B visa rejection, multinationals add ~0.4–0.9 foreign employees, especially in R&D hubs like India, China, and Canada.

via @florianederer.bsky.social