Adam Kapor

ok so now I understand why Shaheen and gang were so desperate to end the shutdown

If they cave, it reinforces my sense that the real problem with the democrats is not “wokeness,” but the fact that they don’t stand for anything and are willing to fight for nothing.

It’s worse than being useless; it is collaboration.

Q: How many applied microeconomists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Exploiting a unique natural experiment in which the Earth’s orbit and rotation induce plausibly exogenous variation across time and place in the availability of a close substitute to light bulbs, we find

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Just a gentle reminder to look on my works at your earliest convenience. Thanks!!

I used to be nonplussed when people did this but now I’m nonplussed

Job market candidate: “Other papers have found high labor-market returns to studying economics, but no one has looked at subfields. My JMP estimates the returns to microeconomic theory.”

Interviewer: “Do you look at mechanisms?”

(With the caveat that I don’t know anything and am making this up) You can’t judge a policy on purely consequentialist grounds; the motivating purpose is morally relevant, and the framing gets at motivation?

I guess it’s fine for a journalist to be strategic in choosing what to write about. But “noble lies” involve moral arrogance and are wrong for this reason

He’s Steve Levitt’s coauthor

Ah, we teach undergrads the quadratic cost version that gets maximum differentiation in equilibrium. This is what I thought the “hotelling model” was until now.

Wait what is the incoherence in Hotelling?

I choose to read it literally. She owned several boats, and before she moved to DC she burned them.

Perhaps people would have asked “how did you afford the boats?”

This is very interesting; it’s new this year?

You found the magic fixed effect that only soaks up the bad variation?

Anyway good thing this situation remained hypothetical

I used to joke that computer science would also catch a lot of “critique” if there were “computer scientists” on cable TV and in government, many of whom were merely undergrad CS majors with business careers, arguing that “the algorithm is efficient” therefore efforts to improve things won’t work

I agree but I’ve lived in Pittsburgh and in a similarly-sized New England city, and while these things are everywhere, “sensitive to sins against presumption of equal standing” and **especially** “on the look out for rule compliance” are distinguishing Pittsburgh features in my experience

This part is a spot on description of Pittsburgh in particular. Way less of this on the east coast

not the main issue here but i'd really appreciate it if democratic politicians spoke out in support of big-city life and culture with the same energy and reverence that all politicians have for small towns

los angeles is "real america" and so are all the other big cities the president hates

This would be a better system but applicants would *hate* it

It would be closer to normal length if an editor had cut the parts about how, according to Pinker, Pinker has been brave and correct.

But this seems spot on

Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.

This is the stuff of authoritarian regimes. There isn't even the pretense that this is anything but persecution, unbound by law.

NumPy the software library rhymes with “lumpy.” SciPy is pronounced “skippy”

Instrumental-variables methods were invented to estimate supply and demand for butter and flaxseed oil (in order to estimate tax incidence) in Appendix B of “The Tariff on Animal and Vegetable Oils”, Philip G. Wright, 1928

Modeling the conclave? You’ll need cardinal utilities

How do you feel about “performative”

What do you mean by populism

How come in academia “no one understands” means “I personally don’t understand” but “I don’t understand” means “you don’t understand”?

“Add three paragraphs about how a positive causal effect of x on y, all equilibrium objects held fixed, doesn’t imply the government should destroy all not-x” ok fine whatever