Andy Garin

📢 5 more days to apply to our AP position in Microeconomics!

The UMaine economics department is hiring an assistant professor with expertise in applied economics. fa-ewca-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

#academicjobs #econjobs

To be useful in my government-shutdown time off, I've worked on public-use analogs to tools that have been useful at work.

jrothbaum.github.io/survey_kit/ - a package for complex survey data, handling nonrespresentative samples in surveys/polls, properly handling missing data, etc.

Our group at Illinois Gies College of Business is hiring! We are especially interested in public or environmental economists. Our group includes myself, @tderyugina.bsky.social, David Molitor, Nolan Miller, Jeff Brown, Riley League, and Mackenzie Alston.

www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing....

A joke scientific paper with the title "Over 90% of children diagnosed with autism consumed breast milk and/or formula mileL a comprehensive cross-sectional analysis of the obvious"

Who did this?!

🙌

Calling all applied microeconomists: we're excited to announce that CMU Heinz is hiring! Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions!

Link to apply: www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing....

Come work with us at CMU Heinz! We have a great applied microeconomics group and we’re looking for an economist to join us. Please reach out if you have any questions!

www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing....

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.

...

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...

🧵...

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