It is weird switching from "how do you keep a market from unraveling" to thinking about "how to make sure one unravels"
It is weird switching from "how do you keep a market from unraveling" to thinking about "how to make sure one unravels"
Ever thought to yourself "I love pushing people in front of trains, if only there was an easy way to do it for a living?" ... Well, now it just takes one click!
Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is Gunes Asik @METU_ODTU who works on topics including gender and labor, particularly in Turkey
#CALDER2026 really interesting work on school principals
Very much enjoying this new paper showing that:
1) Massachusetts high schools differ dramatically in their impacts on students' earnings
2) More effective high schools are those that tend to raise test scores the most
www.nber.org/papers/w34913
๐ Iโm excited to share that Iโm on the #EconSky job market this year! In my #EconJMP, I study how teachers in Finnish upper secondary schools impact studentsโ socio-emotional skills โ and the labor market returns of these effects! (๐งต, 1/N)
Check out our new paper investigating teacher retention effects of a statewide minimum salary increase. ๐จSpoiler alert ๐จ: paying teachers more increased retention๐
How Early Morning Classes Change Academic Trajectories: Evidence From a Natural Experiment onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Excited to share a new manuscript and policy brief, published in TESE!! This is one of my dissertation papers, co-authored with @roddy-theobald.bsky.social, in which we study turnover patterns among paraeducators in WA state. When do paras leave the workforce and what are risk factors for exiting?
Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @ashaniamar who works on topics related to institutions, political economy, and development
More Hours, More Work: Head Start Expansions Boost Maternal Employment by Chloe Gibbs, Esra Kose, and Maria Rosales-Rueda Abstract: Womenโs employment remains highly sensitive to childcare constraints, making childcare availability a critical lever for supporting mothersโ labor force attachment. We study the effects of expanded full-day programming in Head Start, using the 2016 federal funding initiative that targeted grantees with low full-day enrollment. Linking administrative program data, geo-coded center locations, and household data on employment, we estimate a difference-in-differences design by comparing mothers of young children in treated and untreated areas. The policy increased full-day enrollment by 19 percent and raised single mothersโ employment (1.9%), hours (2.5%), and earnings (6.5%). Results show that extending program duration meaningfully improves maternal labor market outcomes.
๐จ๐จ It's new research week for me on the socials! ๐จ๐จ
First up, just released today as an NBER working paper:
"More Hours, More Work: Head Start Expansions Boost Maternal Employment" with fantastic coauthors Esra Kose and Maria Rosales-Rueda
www.nber.org/papers/w34831
VERSION 2.0 of the Segregation Tracking Project is here!
New data on racial and economic segregation between neighborhoods and schools over the last 30+ years for every school district, metro area, state, county, congressional district (new!), and more!
edopportunity.org/segregation/
"these high-performing teachersโ prior value added is only moderately predictive of effectiveness in low-achieving schools....dropped by 0.12 student SDs....driven by lower match quality, negative indirect school effects, and the loss of student-specific human capital" www.nber.org/papers/w34845
me and @cmulhern.bsky.social's paper on school counselors is out in econ of ed review
We find more funding for counselors in California in the 2000s increased grad rates, college enrollment & school climate
in short: counselors improve student outcomes and we should invest more in them!
Iโm really glad to see that our paper is now out at Ed Researcher! We examine turnover among the half of school employees who are not teachers to understand how their turnover compares. Using Oregon data (2007-23) for all public school employees, there are 3 new patterns that we document:
A ๐งต
It must be very hard to publish null results Publication practices in the social sciences act as a filter that favors statistically significant results over null findings. While the problem of selection on significance (SoS) is well-known in theory, it has been difficult to measure its scope empirically, and it has been challenging to determine how selection varies across contexts. In this article, we use large language models to extract granular and validated data on about 100,000 articles published in over 150 political science journals from 2010 to 2024. We show that fewer than 2% of articles that rely on statistical methods report null-only findings in their abstracts, while over 90% of papers highlight significant results. To put these findings in perspective, we develop and calibrate a simple model of publication bias. Across a range of plausible assumptions, we find that statistically significant results are estimated to be one to two orders of magnitude more likely to enter the published record than null results. Leveraging metadata extracted from individual articles, we show that the pattern of strong SoS holds across subfields, journals, methods, and time periods. However, a few factors such as pre-registration and randomized experiments correlate with greater acceptance of null results. We conclude by discussing implications for the field and the potential of our new dataset for investigating other questions about political science.
I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.
๐จ๐ฐNew WP ๐จ๐ฐ
How does social housing design affect neighborhoods decades later? We study London gangs to show that postwar urban planningโspecifically high-rise public housing constructionโhad lasting effects on gang formation
@cep-lse.bsky.social
๐งต New version of our paper (@bcegerod.bsky.social) is finally online: "How Many is Enough? Sample Size in Staggered Difference-in-Differences Designs"
We show that even well-identified DiD studies are often underpowered; sample sizes needed are surprisingly large
Paper: osf.io/preprints/os... 1/6
Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @karansinghal93 @uni_lu @liserinlux who works on topics related to gender, labor + social protection
New JOE Listings were posted today (02-01-2026).
๐ฃHi #EconSky! I am on the job market! ๐ฃ
My JMP builds a 20-year panel showing an after-school care reform increased university grad. rates. ๐
The key: moving children from home ๐ to care centers ๐งโ๐งโ๐ง, where peer interactions shaped preferences and beliefs โ not skills๐งฎ.
For more: sevinkaytan.com
Could you use the IRB at one institution and then test at other IRBs?
I was delighted to have the opportunity to present my Job Market Paper, 'The Price of Parenthood: Childcare Costs and Fertility' at the ASSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia #ASSA2026 in a great session on fertility. Draft available on my website: abigaildow.com
I know today's news is heavy.
If you're at #ASSA2026 and looking to engage with research this morning, I'm presenting in the Peer Effects in Education session at 10:15 AM, Philadelphia Convention Center, 107-AB.
www.aeaweb.org/conference/2...
Putting together the list of papers and posters that I want to see at the ASSA Annual Meeting, and this poster session project (by @michaelbriskin.bsky.social) looks interesting
Paper is here: mbbriskin.github.io/files/Briski...
Joining the throng of economists taking a delayed Amtrak to PHL today to present my JMP at #ASSA2026!
๐ Philadelphia Convention Center, 204-A (Elementary & Secondary Education)
โฐ Sunday, 1/4, 10:15-12:15
#EconConf
ICYMI: Do workers actually learn from collaboration, or just benefit from the help?
New paper uses teacher co-teaching to answer this question. Spoiler: genuine skill transfer is real, but partner experience matters a lot.
john-fallon-econ.com/Files/LBDT.pdf
#ASSA2026 #EconSky
Implications beyond education: Any workplace where workers can transfer knowledge may benefit from similar programs.
Collaboration's value isn't just immediate productivityโit's lasting skill development.
Full paper: john-fallon-econ.com
Feedback welcome! See you at #ASSA2026! #EconSky
Graph showing difference-in-differences estimates by partner experience bins from 0-5 years through 20+ years. The bars show near-zero effects for less experienced partners, peaking at approximately 0.05-0.06 standard deviations for partners with 15-20 years experience, then declining slightly.
Something about highly experienced teachers seems to help more. Maybe accumulated tacit knowledge transfers through close interaction?
Effects peak around 15-20 years of partner experience, then decline slightly.
Heatmap showing pairing frequency by experience levels of both teachers. Yellow indicates most frequent pairings, blue indicates less common. The brightest yellow cell shows inexperienced teachers (0-5 years) paired together most frequently, with cooler blue tones for pairings involving more experienced teachers.
But here's the problem: Schools most commonly pair two inexperienced teachers together.
Only highly experienced partners (16+ years) produce lasting benefits. Organizations are missing opportunities to accelerate skill development through strategic pairing.