Matthew Gordon

House Republicans’ proposed tax on remittances spooks financial sector “This came totally out of nowhere,” one cryptocurrency executive told Semafor.

A tax on remittances is basically a tax on global poverty reduction. It must be one of the most regressive policies being considered by the current admin, yet I haven't seen much discussion or analysis

www.semafor.com/article/05/1...

One of my best students just had his funding offer for a PhD in the US withdrawn. Meanwhile we've had a massive surge in applications to our program from really strong US and international students. It feels like a shift is already underway.

Probably better off creating an index if the goal is dimensionality reduction.

Comments welcome! We are currently working on a more econ-audience version of this paper which will replicate a few existing studies that use remotely sensed dependent variables.

We outline several other ways this type of error can occur in the paper, and propose methods for fixing it - described by @lcsanford.bsky.social in his thread above.

Another example - say you are measuring air pollution using satellite data. We know that satellite measures of pollution saturate at higher concentrations. If your treatment only has an effect in highly polluted areas, the satellite data might detect no change, even if there was an effect.

Imagine that you are measuring deforestation and your ML model sometimes confuses forests for irrigated cropland. If your treatment affects cropland, this might mistakenly look like an increase in forest to your model.

But it is really differential measurement error that matters - errors that are correlated with treatment status. How can this happen, even in an RCT?

One thing that sometimes surprises people, is that, even in an experimental setting, treatment effects can be biased if the dependent variable has measurement error. This is clearly the case if the dependent variable is a prediction from a machine learning model.

Check out our new working paper on using techniques from the algorithmic fairness literature to correct machine learning prediction errors in a causal inference setting.

Adversarial Debiasing for Unbiased Parameter Recovery Advances in machine learning and the increasing availability of high-dimensional data have led to the proliferation of social science research that uses the predictions of machine learning models as p...

1/9
We are excited to share our new working paper:
arxiv.org/abs/2502.12323
If you use ML predictions (like remote-sensed data) as outcomes, the resulting regression coefficients can be biased by measurement error. With @megan-ayers.bsky.social @mdgordo.bsky.social @eliana-stone.bsky.social

A recent report showed that the destruction of just one USAID program, the anti-AIDS PEPFAR initiative, would lead to the deaths of one million people *every year* www.vox.com/future-perfe...

This year's Bozeman Applied Micro Conference is June 16-17, 2025

Paper submissions open now through March 7

www.montana.edu/econ/summerc...

Natural Capital The Paris School of Economics is glad to invite you to the "Natural Capital" workshop organized by the Measurement in Economics Chair.

Hosting a workshop on 'Natural Capital' @pse.bsky.social on Feb 7 with a great lineup
@ludogazze.bsky.social @bengroom.bsky.social @floriangrosset.bsky.social and more.

Those interested are welcome to register to attend:
www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/en/events/na...

not that i know of unfortunately but you can try messaging the organizers

PhD students consider submitting to our annual conference run by and focused on doctoral students in economics. April is a nice time to visit Paris

docs.google.com/forms/d/1u7v...

Awesome it looks like I am staying close to there

On my way to Copenhagen for the STEG Agriculture conference. First time in town. What should I do?

In 2015 Pakistan was signing 30 year contracts with coal producers. That was the year solar became cheaper than coal.

Why Pakistan is locked into overpriced and environmentally damaging power sector contracts Annual capacity payments to private power producers are six times higher than Pakistan’s annual healthcare budget, yet nearly half of the power capacity remains unused. What explains this phenomenon?

“Annual capacity payments to private power producers are six times higher than Pakistan’s annual healthcare budget, yet nearly half of the power capacity remains unused.” voxdev.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?...

Nice policy relevant piece from job market candidate Sugandha Srivastav.

Lecture slides for 'Air Pollution and Welfare' this week. I try to use the topic to teach an appreciation for synergies between reduced form and structural methods:
mdgordo.github.io/personalwebs...
Comments welcome!

Carbon Mapper Achieves First Tanager-1 Methane Mitigation Success /PRNewswire/ -- Carbon Mapper released over 300 methane and CO2 plume detections today— its first tranche of emissions data based on observations from the...

Assume this leak would have gone unnoticed for a year. Using EPAs social cost of methane, the value of stopping this one leak was 75% of the cost of developing and launching the satellite.

www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

I'm on the job market! My #EconJMP examines climate adaptation inequality in labor markets (see ⬇️).

This is part of my research on the effects of climate change/plastic pollution on workers & society - often with unique data & an interdisciplinary lens.

Learn more: https://pappanna.github.io/

PSE is hiring for two positions this year - applications due next week: www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/en/job-oppor...

Reupping my thread from last year about why Americans should consider applying.

Me!

One other thing, the hiring committee is sometimes skeptical that Americans would really come here. So if you would, it helps to send some sort of signal (wink wink) or tailor your cover letter a bit to convey your interest.

So come work with me! I’m happy to answer questions, and I hope to see your application in the pile. econjobmarket.org/positions/9954

But there are other surprising benefits too - my personal favorite is the subsidized lunch perk - we get half off of almost any restaurant in the city up to 25 euro. There’s also a tax credit for domestic help - the French govt will subsidize someone to come and clean your house.

Finally, the famous French welfare state. Of course there’s the free healthcare. But if you have a kid or two, forget about the top-line salaries - add $15-20k a year for the value of childcare. And you should see the menu at my son’s school...

Next: the intellectual environment. In many places, you’ll be lucky to have one or two colleagues in your field. At PSE, there are tons of seminars with great speakers coming through constantly. You'll have lots of colleagues you can ask for feedback.
t.co/pi0tamzI9q