It was a pleasure to host a great group of trade economists for the second Melbourne Empirical Trade Conference. Thanks to Paola Conconi for a wonderful keynote! Please keep an eye out for future editions of the conference. Laura Puzzello Maria Ptashkina Phil McCalman Tibor Besedes

I did not know that, for any random variable x, | mean(x) - median(x) | <= stdev(x) Direct proof:

The new version of our first year PhD Macroeconomics textbook is out. It is not polished yet but now all chapters are included. We hope it would be useful for the new semester. phdmacrobook.org/downloads/

Why are poor countries so unproductive? One possibility is that resources are misallocated within an industry. Productive firms are kept from growing to their optimal size. Hsieh and Klenow (2009) is the framework in which we think about this. 1/

Recently accepted to #REStud, "Homeownership, Polarization, and Inequality," from Andrii Parkhomenko: restud.com/homeownership-… #EconTwitter

Assistant professors teach courses that are closer to the knowledge frontier than tenured faculty.

Excited to have my first paper appear in REStud - five years in the making! Paul Milgrom and I show how to extend Walrasian mechanisms to nonconvex markets - with only one additional parameter needed to assure existence.

It's fascinating that the effects of cell phone bans on GPA are nearly identical to those estimated in this study from Norway. Norway: 0.08 standard deviations U.S.: 0.09 standard deviations

This webinar will discuss ex-ante assessments of the impact of the new 19% US #tariff on Thai exports & explore key policy responses: free trade agreements with potential partners & market diversification. Sign up here: iseas.edu.sg/mec-events/tru… #Thailand #economy #trade #policies

In Japan, kids can safely walk to school independently

Forthcoming in the AER: "Nonlinear Pricing and Misallocation" by Gideon Bornstein and Alessandra Peter. aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…

How should a seller structure an auction to maximize their surplus? Myerson (1981) is the seminal paper in mechanism design, and answers this and much more. 1/

You know those no-cheating declarations that some professors make students sign? There's some published evidence that these declarations actually increase cheating. "Signing an honesty declaration doubled cheating relative to the control group. Complementary experiments suggest

Suppose a monopolist produce a perfectly durable good. What price will it be sold for? Ronald Coase shows, in a short little paper which (unusually) cites no sources, it will be sold for the competitive price! The monopolist is in competition with his future self. 1/

This looks potentially useful for junior scholars. "The Research Paper Playbook: A PhD Student's Guide to Writing and Presenting"

Could a highly desirable agent accept a partner that a less desirable agent would reject? When matching requires search in time-changing environments, this paper proves this impossible only where more desirable agents are more patient and less risk-averse. econometricsociety.org/publications/e…

Want to find new and interesting research in your field? Google: "Revise and Resubmit, [JOURNAL]" Restrict the search to the previous year. In many fields, scholars will post on their personal websites when they get an R&R. Voila! Cutting edge research at your finger tips.

Optimal Tariffs with Geopolitical Alignment | NBER Our new working paper identifies optimal stick-and-carrot trade policies when large countries care not only about material gains, but also attracting geopolitical allies. nber.org/papers/w34108

Why do I support capitalism? It is easiest to show by example. Feeding America is a network of food banks. In 2005, they switched from central planning to a price system. Sam Altmann (not that one) finds that this is equivalent to increasing donations by 32.7%. 1/

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