📢🎉The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, @sarahkunz.bsky.social and I coordinated a letter signed by 103 academics calling for universal anti-SLAPP provisions in the next King's Speech to protect academic freedoms. More info below:
Eradicating child stunting was a central feature of the modern health transition. A new paper reviews 923 child growth studies in 122 countries 1814-2016 to show massive decline in child stunting in the 20th century even in hi income countries & surprising heterogeneity in the regional trajectories.
Problem about the loneliness epidemic is, it's everywhere except in representative survey data. Let's look at where the claim comes from. 1/
📢 In this Social Forces article, I introduce occupational elitism as a novel measure of social closure: the share of upper-class background workers within an occupation.
Its consequences for earnings stratification can be examined using a social closure theory lens.
🔓 doi.org/10.1093/sf/s...
Excited to share a new #OA study with @dariatisch.bsky.social and @schechtlm.bsky.social🎉We show that while most people prefer equal inheritance, wealthy individuals are more willing to support unequal transfers when they help preserve wealth across generations ➡️ academic.oup.com/sf/advance-a...
Our latest piece in Commercially Determined breaks down 10 common tropes used by industry to sway policy. www.commerciallydetermined.com/p/narrative-.... Curious which you hear most in your policy space.
❤️
The paper on the class politics of Reform UK, which I've been working on with @aaronreeves.bsky.social for the last year and a half, is now available as a pre-print on SSRN. These are our main findings. Any feedback is more than welcome.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
A typically great post, but one with particular resonance right now.
This is a great opportunity to do truly world-leading research!
about the book? sure, i can do my best to answer
Lots to like, although I wonder whether 'variable geometry' does run the risk of accentuating the kind of cross-cutting conflicts that have pulled the middle powers in different directions over the last few decades.
7 year after becoming Professor… it’s my inaugural lecture!
Improving the life chances of disadvantaged young people: how do we break down barriers to opportunity?
Thursday 12 March, 5.15pm
Room G06, Roberts Building
Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE
Book your place here:
bit.ly/life_chances
To celebrate my appointment as the Ralph Miliband Professor of Politics & Philosophy at LSE Law School & the School of Public Policy, I'll give an inaugural lecture entitled “Are Revolutions Justified?”. Registration required - look forward to seeing many of you! ❤️
lselaw.events/event/are-re...
Who's Afraid of the Minimum Wage? Measuring the Impacts on Independent Businesses Using Matched U.S. Tax Returns* Nirupama L Rao, Max Risch The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 141, Issue 1, February 2026, Pages 373-427, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaf053 Published: 10 December 2025 Article history V PDF • Split View 66 Cite P Permissions < Share V Abstract A common concern surrounding minimum wage policies is their impact on independent businesses, which are often feared to be less able to bear or pass on cost increases. We examine how these typically small and medium-size firms accommodate minimum wage increases along product and labor market margins using a matched owner-firm-worker panel data set drawn from the universe of U.S. tax records over a 10-year period, and using state minimum wage changes as identifying variation. We find that on average, firms in highly exposed industries do not substantially reduce employment-they do not lay off workers but moderately reduce part-time hiring. Instead, these firms are able to fully finance the new labor costs with new revenues, leaving average owner profits unchanged. Higher wage floors, however, forestall entry, particularly for less productive firms, reducing the number of independent firms operating in these industries by roughly 2%. Yet these industries do not shrink; instead, incumbent responses and strong positive selection among entrants reshape industries that rely heavily on low-wage workers, yielding fewer but more productive firms after the cost shock. We also take a worker-level perspective to examine how potentially vulnerable individuals are affected by minimum wage increases. Using panels of low-earning and young workers, we find that their average earnings rise substantially with the minimum wage, while they are no less likely to be employed. Worker transitions indicate that minimum wage increases boost retention and that worker reallocation from independent firms toward corporations buffers dis…
New QJE for the minimum wage literature uses IRS data to study effects on small and medium size businesses. The effects seem…very good
academic.oup.com/qje/article/...
Looks like a fascinating new paper on cultural tastes, likes, and elite distinction
this is the same reason that we created an ongoing special issue with the BJS on 'Scholarship as Struggle' to address some of these same issues. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...
How do you measure the domestic mental load? 🧐
And how does your experience stack up against our research of 3,000 US parents?
I created a quiz using the same approach we use in peer-reviewed sociological research so you can find out!
Hope this sparks some conversations 💡
tally.so/r/447Xxk
What do people in England think about their local area? In this short report I take a look at surveys we conducted with @yougov.co.uk in 2022, 2024 and 2025 to gain some insights...
Some key findings...
"I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato."
surreal times
dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...
E-mail Addresses That Would Be Really Annoying to Give Out Over the Phone by Michael Ward MikeUnderscore2004@yahoo.com MikeAtYahooDotCom@hotmail.com Mike_WardAllOneWord@yahoo.com AAAAAThatsSixAs@yahoo.com One1TheFirstJustTheNumberTheSecondSpelledOut@hotmail.com
pound for pound this might be the funniest thing ever written
More concretely, she tracks how Chinese Canadians became less likely to support the Conservative party after Covid. This was not true of others who are racialized within Asian panethnic identity.
New paper by @vxltan.bsky.social: She finds that racist but group-specific political discourse (i.e., towards Chinese Canadians during Covid) undermines a sense of linked fate among those who share a panethnic identity (e.g., as Asian). link.springer.com/article/10.1...
This, from @piercepenniless.bsky.social, @dannyhinduk.bsky.social and @lewisgoodall.com is very good indeed.
It's official: 400 redundancies and a campus closure. At-risk staff will get a letter next week. Absolutely no serious consideration of any of the union's counterproposals.
Please share widely.
About a year ago, I remember talking with @kittyjstewart.bsky.social and @ruthpatrick0.bsky.social about the child poverty strategy. Back then, I was more optimistic that parental employment could play a role in reducing child poverty. Over the coming months they convinced me I was wrong.
Let’s hope the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap is a watershed moment, spurring on sustained, ambitious action to end the scourge of child poverty, writes @ruthpatrick0.bsky.social.
Our first Special Issue is out now! It's on Reproductive Vulnerabilities: A Critical Perspective - Guest editors: Laura Sochas, Kaveri Qureshi, and Philip Kreager
journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/jc...
We found that if you talk about scrapping the 2 child limit right (emphasising poverty's role in poor life chances) it's not even unpopular!
Scrapping the two-child limit will be transformational for children.
This is a much-needed fresh start in our country’s efforts to eradicate child poverty and while there is more to do it gives us strong foundations to build on.
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