Robert Metcalfe

iolent, lawless, broken Britain? The facts tell a different story The populist narrative of a migrant-driven crimewave is catnip on social media and oil to the wheels of Reform. But it is so far from the truth that we’re in danger of losing sight of the country we live in

Once again, another excellent article from Fraser Nelson - who, as Editor of the Spectator, did more than anyone else in the UK media class to normalise the far-right conspiracist catastrophism he now so rightly decries.

archive.ph/AFWfc#select...

NOMO: No Missing Out - Scroll Less, Do More Join challenges to scroll less. Unlock rewards to do more.

www.yesnomo.com

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social:

"The impact of economic opportunity on criminal behavior: Evidence from the fracking boom"

By @brittanystreet.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#econsky #publiceconomics

Takeaway:

Different welfare measures tell different stories—and lead to different policy conclusions depending on temperature.

The findings might sound intuitive, but they challenge some widely held views that heat pumps and heat flexibility become less useful in cold snaps.

3️⃣ Consumers save more on their bills in warmer periods (resource cost per tonne of CO₂ becomes negative), but subsidies have larger welfare impacts when it's colder (larger MVPF), as heat pumps displace more carbon-intensive heating sources.

3 key insights:

1️⃣ The Coefficient of Performance (COP) averages around 3.5, but drops below 2 during the coldest winter weeks.

2️⃣ This temperature gradient is steeper than predicted by engineering models—read the paper to explore all the reasons why.

Impact of switching to heat pumps and smart tariff on demand Our team highlight some recent revisions we've made to our heat pump working paper, which investigates impacts on energy demand using customer data, at scale.

How well do heat pumps perform in homes under different temperatures—& what does that mean for households and the grid?

Our updated paper @centrefornetzero.bsky.social reveals that heat pump efficiency varies sharply with outdoor temperature.

www.centrefornetzero.org/news/what-ha...

Nuffield Postdoctoral Research Fellowships Deadline: Tuesday, 30 September 2025

The @nytimes.com says: "The Bull Market for Economists Is Over." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/b....

But Oxford Econ Dept & Nuffield College continue to offer their prestigious 3-year postdoc in economics! 👏 🎯

Deadline 🚨 30 September 🚨 to get offer by Xmas 🎄: economics.web.ox.ac.uk/nuffield-pos...

🤔 What happens when homes switch to heat pumps?

🌡️ Check out NEW updates to our HP paper - ft additional temperature analysis: www.centrefornetzero.org/news/what-ha...

🔗 Working paper: www.centrefornetzero.org/papers/decar...

@rmetcalfe.bsky.social @lbernard.bsky.social @the-scheining.bsky.social

YouTube video by MIT Sloan Management Review Nobel Laureate Busts the AI Hype

In this video, Nobel laureate Daron Acemoğlu offers rich and provocative skepticism of the most drastic claims that AI will quickly automate much of the economy

The paper he's summarizing: doi.org/10.1093/epol...

Call for papers, 4th UK Workshop on Digital Economics, London 28 November 2025: competitionpolicy.ac.uk/events/4th-w... This is always a great event

Hi Blue Sky! 👋

We are the Environmental Markets Lab (emLab), a team of scientists @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social that advances economic research to deliver practical solutions for people and the planet.

Read the thread to learn more about us! 🧵

Very cool and topical call for papers at Management Science:

“Business and Its Interrelationship with Democratic Resilience, Geopolitics, and Society in a Time of Change.”

October 1, 2025 deadline for 5-page detailed paper proposals.

pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10....

The NABE @nabe-econ.bsky.social ky.social will be holding a webinar on the private sector job mkt for PhD economists on July 29

nabe.com/NABE/Events/Ev…

Everyone needs to be able to plug into the electric vehicle revolution Electric vehicle charging has a pricing problem. While at-home charging can cost as little as 7p per kilowatt hour (kWh) in the UK, drivers reliant on the public charging network face rates up to 10 times higher, a factor that could undermine the UK’s ambition for 100% of new vehicles for sale to be electric or hybrid by 2035.

🚗 Everyone deserves access to affordable EV charging – not just those with a driveway

📣 Our CEO Lucy Yu is in @reuters.com this week promoting our trial with @octopus.energy Electroverse which proved that EV drivers respond to dynamic pricing outside their own home 👇

🚨 Call for papers:

Environment week at LSE will be Sept 22-25th.

Submissions are due soon (July 14)!

www.lse-environment-week.com/environment-...

🚨Free data alert!! 🚨 Please share.

Large new dataset of Amazon product reviews, including full text and photos and product characteristics, with individual *reviews labeled as fake reviews*.

I believe this is the first publicly available data of this kind.

github.com/bretthollenb...

What’s hot in public econ?

Here are some of the most popular @jpube.bsky.social papers from the past 90 days.

Free to read: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/jour...

Walking on campus, I was just thinking how hard it is to be a grad student. It was by far the hardest thing I have done professionally, and there were many days (and nights!) when I was certain I would never come up with a job market paper (or, any paper, really). Grad students, hang in there!🤗

The authors report that black individuals in the US are 30% less likely to receive UI and receive 46% fewer benefits than White individuals.

Gaps not driven by differences in UI eligibility. Black workers' lower earnings and location in the South explain a large share (but not all) of the gaps.

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social:

"Uniform brand-variant pricing and heterogeneous firm responses to excise taxes: Evidence from six U.S. cities"

By Danna Thomas (University of South Carolina)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#econsky #publiceconomics #publicfinance #healtheconomics

This is a slap in the face of all public finance economists out there

With rent control in the news, it’s a good moment to recall the research of @rebeccadiamond.bsky.social and co-authors.

They show that strict rent control in San Francisco reduced the availability of rental housing, eventually *raising* rental costs.
doi.org/10.1257/aer....

This is very inconsistent with the evidence from top public finance papers.

Their mobility elasticity is high, and is higher for state/local taxes.

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social:

"Landmines: The local effects of demining"

By Mouno Prem, Miguel E. Purroy, & @jvargas.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#econsky

JPE logo

The JPE is happy to announce that Florian Oswald is joining the journal as data editor in July. Details on JPE's updated data policy can be found at www.journals.uchicag....
@floswald.bsky.social
#EconSky

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social

"Social networks and organizational helping behavior: Experimental evidence from the helping game"

By @ereuben.bsky.social & @herkut.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#econsky

The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life [Gneezy, Uri, List, John, Levitt, Steven D.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life

The deep value of field experiments lies in uncovering the reasons behind a phenomenon—not just observing what happens, but understanding why it happens.

This is the reason for titling our book “The Why Axis.” www.amazon.com/Why-Axis-Und...

Anybody else is experiencing a rapid increase in submissions in the last few months? Are we just that popular or is it AI that making people produce more output?

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social:

"Present bias in politics and self-committing treaties"

By @bardharstad.bsky.social & Anke Kessler

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#econsky