Coming up this Wednesday!
@durlauf.bsky.social of @ucstonecenter.bsky.social will discuss intergenerational mobility in China for two distinct epochs: the last 120 years of the Qing Dynasty and the last 30 years for modern China.
Register here ⬇️
events.ticketleap.com/tickets/iiil...
Join us for a special seminar by @durlauf.bsky.social of @ucstonecenter.bsky.social
He will describe intergenerational mobility in China for two epochs: the last 120 years of the Qing Dynasty and the last 30 years for modern China.
Attend in-person: buff.ly/XSqKGsp
Attend online: buff.ly/9WnHeg7
An extremely valuable synthesis of evidence on the effects of Head Start by @chloergibbs.bsky.social. Recommended!
3/ As such, the authors move beyond debates about the "cause" of the French Revolution to understanding the interplay of proximate and deeper factors. A remarkable achievement.
2/ The paper is a stunning integration of data ranging from spatial tax differences to analysis of the speeches of deputies in the National Assembly. The paper further explores the interplay of economic factors (tax burden) with measures reflecting differences in diffusion of Enlightenment ideas.
1/ Tommaso Giommoni, Gabriel Loumeau, and Marco Tabellini have written a fascinating paper on the forces influencing the dynamics of the French Revolution, ranging from The Great Fear to the decision to execute Louis XVI.
3/ Weiqi Wang is a predoc at the Center, developing great work on college admissions in China in addition to her work on intergenerational mobility. Every Economics PhD program in the world should be competing to attract her when she applies.
2/ Kristina Butaeva is a wonderful postdoc at the UChicago Stone Center, with papers on inequality and mobility that range from the US to Russia to China. She makes any social science department or research center deeper and more interesting.
1/ Delighted that this paper with my coauthors extraordinaire, @gtwodtke.bsky.social, Weiqi Wang, and Kristina Butaeva has been released. I want to highlight two of my coauthors. (Geoff Wodtke is a star sociologist and needs no introduction!)
I am delighted that this great conversation with Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan has posted. Their extraordinary work on intergenerational mobility and immigrants speaks to essential dimensions of the extent of equality of opportunity and of the process of assimilation.
Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan are using economic history to understand immigration. On The Inequality Podcast, they examine patterns of upward mobility and preview new research on the tone of modern political speeches. Listen to their conversation with @durlauf.bsky.social → bit.ly/4txjJsL
7/As for suggestions that this is virtual signalling, an example of cancel culture, my answer is simple. Virtuous conduct matters. Faculty/administrators help define the norms of their institutions. Attitudes and characters affect manifest in their decisions and interactions. Institutions must act.
6/Botstein's actions trivialized the sexual exploitation of women, and is unacceptable, period. Fundraising needs are a risible excuse.
5/As for Leon Botstein, he should resign or be removed. It is unacceptable for him to have continued a relationship with Epstein after his first conviction, assuming the best case scenario that Botstein was ignorant of Epstein's misdeeds prior to then.
4/Consequences do not necessarily require termination. My own view is that University honors, such as named chairs, directorships of research labs/centers should not be held by those engages in post 2008 relationships with Epstein.
3/Obviously, mention in the files does not mean consequences are warranted per se and schools should be clear on this. Individuals holding a meeting to seek money before Epstein's first conviction are completely different from Lawrence Summers, David Gelertner, etc.
2/It is essential that faculty are not only represented, but have the authority to determine consequences for misconduct. Any such body must be completely transparent and explain how consequences were determined to be appropriate. And yes, at least half of the decisionmakers must be women.
1/Universities need to systematically address the findings in the Epstein files. In my opinion, every university in which current or past faculty, administrators, trustees appear in the files, should establish formal bodies to review and assess.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/u...
Tweet of the evening.
And of course Clinton followed George H. W. Bush in failing to provide a Marshall Plan for Russia. Might Russia's political evolution taken a different path? To assign probabilities to this meaningless, but the effort should have been made.
Madness.
The moment to try arrived in 1991. Frankly, I largely blame Bill Clinton. The United States, during his presidency, was so comparatively powerful that it could have spearheaded warhead reductions that were an order of magnitude greater than in fact occurred.
As important as the arms control treaties were, they did not go far enough. George Kennan, the doyen of Cold War thinkers, early on recognized that abolition was the appropriate long run American goal as early as 1982 in
The Nuclear Delusion
The lesson of Jervis, IMO is that arms control should focus on strategic stability. Creating a Golden Dome would do the opposite by exacerbating risks by making second strike capabilities uncertain, as do tactical nuclear weapons, lowering nuclear thresholds and can create cycles of escalation.
The general point is that there no reason to have confidence that a new nuclear arms race will meet the conditions under to have confidence in a stable deterrence regime emerging.
However, such a claim cannot address presupposes types of rationality and cannot address accidents, the presence of ambiguity rather than uncertainty in crises, etc.
Richard Ned Lebow, Nuclear Crisis Management: A Dangerous Illusion
is very persuasive on the limits to rationality.
One might argue, of course that mutual assured destruction is stabilizing. Robert Jervis is, among international relations writers, perhaps the most persuasive (I have read) on this possibility in his two great books
The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy
The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution
Further, repeated risks of accidental nuclear war that occurred in the course of the Cold War are documented in
Bruce Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War
Scott Sagan, The Limits to Safety
I regard Kennedy and Khrushchev as criminally irresponsible in their conduct during the crisis, even if they stepped back from the brink, but that is a separate matter.
Misinformation, imperfections in command and control structures, the capacity of escalation to run out of control due to ambiguity aversion/worst case scenario thinking, give the lie to any interpretation of the resolution of the crisis as a triumph of rational calculation by the various actors.
The danger for the planet is incalculable. Cold War lessons have been forgotten. One set derives from the Cuban Missile Crisis. Two recent histories
Martin Sherwin, Standing at Armageddon
Serhii Plokhy, Nuclear Folly
make clear how much luck was required to avoid an all out nuclear exchange.
