Andy Garin

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics Vol. 17 No. 4 October 2025

The October 2025 issue of AEJ: Applied Economics (17, 4) is now available online at aeaweb.org/issues/820.

Not quite sure how to put it all in words, but I just spent an extraordinary day celebrating my dissertation adviser, Larry Katz. Feeling grateful, proud, and (re-) inspired.

Larry has raised so many extraordinary economists that being in the same room as them was overwhelming.

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Technically speaking, blackmail is not regulation

Quoting from Justice Roberts in a recent decision

Chief Justice Roberts (2007): “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Justice Kavanaugh (2025): ethnicity “can be a 'relevant factor' when considered along with other salient factors” in immigration stops.

The larger-than-usual downward revision last month was in large part driven by a negative skew in the job growth distribution among late reporting firms. That’s unusual, but it’s happened before when the pace of job growth slows rapidly. This print is more evidence that was the case

Newsroom ASB Notice NASS discontinues select data collection programs and reports Issued August 28, 2025, by the Agricultural Statistics Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service. For more information, contact Lance Honig at Lance.Honig@usda.gov or (202) 690-8141. USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is discontinuing the Mink Survey (OMB Control Number 0535-0212) and the Agricultural Labor Survey (OMB Control Number 0535-0109), as these collections are deemed duplicative and/or no longer necessary. This action is taken under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) as part of the government’s efforts to improve efficiency and eliminate unnecessary burdens. The Notice of Discontinuance of Information Collections submitted to the Federal Register can be found here. ### NASS is the federal statistical agency responsible for producing official data about U.S. agriculture and is committed to providing timely, accurate and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture.

USDA quietly said Friday it will, after a century, end the Farm Labor Survey (FLS), the only wage survey of ag employers.

FLS is a critical input to setting local minimum wages for H-2A visa workers to try to avoid harm to U.S. workers' wages.
#LaborDay #EconSky
www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/Not...

Synthetic Control Method be like

A key challenge for BLS is adequate funding for data collection and modernization. During my tenure I tried to identify the causes. One person told me, ‘your problem is that while BLS has no enemies you also have no friends’ meaning no powerful interest groups advocating for economic data.

Hey, congrats!!

Why the B.L.S. Regularly Revises Jobs Data

Data revisions are a normal, necessary part of trying to measure a $30 trillion economy in real time. They can also be jarring, especially for people who don't obsessively scrutinize every jobs report.
So I dug into the how and why of revisions. A few big takeaways:
#EconSky

During the latest PSG Consulting webinar, @geoffgarin.bsky.social and the @hartresearch.bsky.social team highlighted new research on how younger voters are more likely to see Trump as divisive and to disapprove of his othering tactics.

A few key findings from the research on young voters:

AEA Statement on Dismissal of BLS Comm.

"The independence of the federal statistical agencies is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy. Accurate, timely, and impartial statistics are the foundation upon which households, businesses, and policymakers make critical decisions."

Trump, Claiming Weak Jobs Numbers Were ‘Rigged,’ Fires Labor Official

For months, people have been asking me whether I still trusted gov’t data. My answer was always the same: The stats agencies faced longstanding challenges, some of which Trump was making worse. But there was no sign of political meddling.
I can’t say that anymore.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/b...

Thank you for your dedicated service!!

For six months, I've said that threats to economic data have been more collateral damage than intentional harm.

No longer.

Firing the head of the BLS is five-alarm intentional harm to the integrity of US economic data and the entire statistical system.

3743990008647846 - Senior Research Program Manager | LEO Make a difference at Notre Dame! Contribute to groundbreaking research, shape young minds, and create a supportive campus. Your work matters.

Our friends at the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities are hiring a senior research program manager. They're seeking someone with a Master’s or PhD in economics, public policy, or a related field, and solid experience managing applied research projects. careers.nd.edu/search-caree...

Cool!

1/ New working paper with Trevor Bakker, @stefanie-deluca.bsky.social, Eric English, Jamie Fogel, and Nathan Hendren: We use newly linked Census, IRS, and credit bureau data to explore differences in credit access by race, class, and hometown.

djh1202.github.io/website/cre...

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People value workplace safety more than traditionally believed - LSE Business Review During COVID some workers chose to forgo earnings to protect themselves, avoiding exposure to the virus. People value workplace safety highly. .

How much would you need to be paid to stay in a job that became more risky? @koenig-felix.bsky.social and @massimo-anelli.bsky.social

#economics

blogs.lse.ac.uk/busi...

I've been teaching at Princeton over the same period and the drop-off in reading stamina has been staggering.

I'm not sure of the cause -- some blame K-12 shifts to "chunk reading" while others pin it on COVID -- but it's undeniable.

New research from the NEWS project on income and poverty from 2016-2021
Using survey, census, admin and commercial data, we show that survey estimates understate income and overstate poverty.

Release at www.census.gov/data/experim..., interactive plots at jrothbaum.github.io/news.html

We asked co-director @davidautor.bsky.social if he thinks US tariffs and trade policy signal the end of the globalization era.

He explains: "I don't think globalization is over, but I think the US leadership of globalization may be over."

Arguably the only reason we got double fantasy was because JL couldn’t stand the idea of McCartney writing a good song

YouTube video by John Lennon - Topic How Do You Sleep? (Remastered 2010)

Like, these disses are… questionable www.youtube.com/watch?v=teD9...

Almost *all* of Lennon’s retrospective takes on PM’s Beatles work that I’m aware of are petty…

John was clearly jealous that Paul wrote the best old school rock and roll banger on abbey road, which threatened his self image as the “gritty rock one,” no way one can take that as an objective assessment, right?

If this is substantiated every single justice department attorney who touched the filings denying jurisdiction should be disbarred unless they're individually willing to put in a sworn statement declaring that they were told something different and identifying who lied to them about it

I taught your JMP in my PhD labor class at UIUC in my personnel unit!

A screenshot of the National Archives website that reads it will no longer be open to the general public starting July 7

So the National Archives will no longer be open… to the nation? “Legitimate business needs” only. That’s a whole lot of US history that is now ripe for being rewritten.

www.archives.gov/college-park