I was in Ghent last month. The place was obviously very rich once, and I wanted to know what happened to it. It turns out Ghent lost its industry to what may be the oldest export restriction on record: an English one, from 1275. (1/12)
Adrien Matray
@adrien-matray.bsky.social
Economist. How government intervention and financing frictions shape who gets capital: export credit agencies, industrial policy, trade, misallocation. https://sites.google.com/view/adrienmatray/home
"Periods of rapid tech expansion attract skilled workers precisely when skills are most likely to become obsolete." Lessons from the dot-com era for navigating the AI boom. tinyurl.com/bde9fw5t
Adrien Matray Explores the Human Algorithm: Navigating Economic Risks in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Dollar Thinking is your go-to blog for business and financial insights, providing the latest news on investments, savings, and financial wellness.
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Research on the dot-com boom reveals a troubling pattern for AI's gold rush: workers who joined tech in the late '90s earned 7% less 15 years on—not from bad picks, but rapid skill obsolescence. A warning for those chasing the hottest satisfies. tinyurl.com/269bp7n5
Adrien Matray and Johan Hombert on the Hidden Cost of AI's Gold Rush: What the Dot-Com Boom Taught Us About Human Capital | America Daily Post
The numbers are staggering. Tech giants are pouring tens of billions into artificial intelligence, while AI startups command valuations that would have seemed...
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Call for paper: Industrial Policies in a Globalized and Financialized World 🏛️ Hosted by @AtlantaFed 📍 Atlanta, GA 📅 May 7–8, 2026 ⏰ Submission deadline: Feb 15, 2026 Exploring how industrial policies interact with international finance, capital flows & global supply chains.
On January 5, the GDPNow model nowcast of real GDP growth in Q4 2025 is 2.7%: bit.ly/32EYojR. Download our EconomyNow app or go to our website for the latest GDPNow nowcast: bit.ly/2TPeYLT.
Greater broadband access increased youth internet use and suicide ideation. Girls reported being cyberbullied and altering their body image, and boys reported getting less sleep, from Brandyn F. Churchill and Kathryn R. Johnson www.nber.org/papers/w34614
Welfare economics with multiple generations is fundamentally different. This paper shows why demographics create scope for intervention even when equilibria are Pareto efficient, from Sergi Barcons, Eduardo Dávila, and Andreas Schaab www.nber.org/papers/w34616
Measuring benefits to households from Mumbai’s new Metro rail system, from Palak Suri and Maureen L. Cropper www.nber.org/papers/w34613
Production networks help explain why Sudden Stops hit emerging markets harder. An input-output structure amplifies collateral constraints and global risk, even with same shocks, from Jorge Miranda-Pinto, Eugenio I. Rojas, Felipe Saffie, and Alvaro Silva www.nber.org/papers/w34604
![Comic. [Instructions on package] High Altitude Cooking Instructions: 3,500-6,500 ft: Add ½ cup water, increase cook time to 12 minutes. 6,500-9,500 ft: Add ¼ cups water, increase cook time to 18 minutes. 250,000-450,000 ft: Orient reentry vehicle for aerodynamic stability. Deploy parachutes at 10,000 ft. Descend, keeping crew capsule tightly covered, for 3-4 minutes. After splashdown, follow sea level cooking instructions.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreibv5te47jncpebx4vihxhudiyzveoxffo5234lpanhsp2aq3lrb5a)
Human capital is central to growth, and the elimination of poverty. Discussing obstacles to human capital accumulation and evidence on policies that can promote it, from Philippe Aghion, Ingvild Almås, and Costas Meghir www.nber.org/papers/w34602
![Comic. [Diagram of electrical outlet with lines indicating normal shape of holes while shapes have been changed to accommodate more shapes, with parts labeled IEC Types A-O.] [caption] Wiring tip: To make your building friendly to international visitors, cut holes in your outlet plates to make them compatible with all fifteen IEC plug types.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreiczldjarvauep2idqetgsxdiz5wgbvhj2subz2z6672bhsi6njwgm)
We show that the existence of an equilibrium in the classic private value first price auction model hinges on a single statistic of the joint distribution of the players’ values, namely the lowest value in the support of the high-value distribution. buff.ly/qik5070
Top CEPR Discussion Paper of 2025 - DP19943 Do Temporary Cash Transfers Stimulate the #Macroeconomy? Evidence from Four Case Studies Valerie Ramey https://ow.ly/pRhM50XLr81 #CEPR_MG #EconSky #2025inReview
![Comic. [Top panel: Long-necked dinosaur with red X over it.] [Bottom panel: two smaller dinosaurs the same shape except their neck isn’t long, while in the background there’s an extremely long neck criss-crossing the frame like a snake. Green check mark in center.] [caption] Thanks to modern paleontological reconstructions, we now know that most sauropods had short necks, and all those extra vertebrae belonged to the sauropod colony’s queen.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreigjcepbb3hjlvpjzmj6msuydmem6gdakkl5svr4kh4q7qi3c4m2fu)
Discussing the rebuilding of Ukrainian cities and presenting a theoretical framework for maximizing the benefits of Ukraine’s rebuilding effort to highlight the welfare effects of different allocations of post-war infrastructure, from Glaeser, Kirchberger, and Parkhomenko www.nber.org/papers/w34598
Examining how measures of well-being differ by survey mode, from David G. Blanchflower, Alex Bryson, and Alan J. Cui www.nber.org/papers/w34599
Top CEPR Publications of 2025: Geneva 28: Geopolitical Tensions and International Fragmentation: Evidence and Implications Anusha Chari, Nathan Converse, Arnaud Mehl, Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, Isabel Vansteenkiste, Maurice Obstfeld, David Wessel https://ow.ly/ELZl50XM9TP #2025inReview #EconSky
Firms differ widely in their use of new, specialized financial products, and these differences are closely linked to variation in external funding across firms, from Ana Babus, Matias Marzani, and Sara Moreira www.nber.org/papers/w34594
School boards matter as members' policy priorities—but not their demographic and professional identities—drive major shifts in spending, leadership, and student achievement, from Barbara Biasi, Minseon Park, John D. Singleton, and Seth D. Zimmerman www.nber.org/papers/w34590
Characterizing how technology shocks affect wages and job assignment when workers have multiple skills, separating earnings pass-through from reallocation, from Job Boerma, Andrea Ottolini, and Aleh Tsyvinski www.nber.org/papers/w34591
The Atlanta Fed has announced the launch of its search for its next president. Board chair Gregory Haile states that the committee is seeking a leader who will advance the Atlanta Fed’s values of integrity, excellence, and respect Stay up to date: atlfed.org/4pcPkwp.
The extreme behavior of the stock market—heavy tails, skewness, time-varying volatility, and long memory—is explained by how investors learn about fundamentals, from Ian Dew-Becker, Stefano Giglio, and @pooyamolavi.bsky.social www.nber.org/papers/w34584
Top CEPR Discussion Paper of 2025 - DP19923 Disentangling Monetary Policy, Central Bank Information, and Fed Response to News Shocks Marek Jarocinski, Peter Karadi https://ow.ly/ta7M50XLqSF #CEPR_MEF #EconSky #2025inReview
Exploiting a French teacher salary reform, Desislava Tartova (@pse.bsky.social) shows that uniformly increasing salaries improves workforce quality by disproportionately retaining better teachers. cepr.org/voxeu/column... #EconSky
📢 #CallforPapers - European Summer Symposium in Financial Markets 2026 - Banking and Corporate Finance ESSFM 2026 will take place in Gerzensee from 27-31 July and is organised by Zhiguo He. Submit a paper or express interest in attending by 15 February. cepr.org/events/europ... #EconSky
![Comic. [Two people in front of projected satellite image. A small portion of the image is pixelated squares.] PERSON 1: Wait, when was this imagery taken? Is this censorship the work of the contractor? One of our people? *Foreign actors!?* PERSON 2 with ponytail: Do we know who’s operating a facility at that location? PERSON 1: We can’t find *anything*. [caption] My hobby: Setting up big colored panels in the middle of nowhere as a prank on remote sensing people](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreib6md2yc7x32taznh2u4feo27rltazabjco4fer3c6mni3soe5tfa)
Studying how the spatial distribution of income and commuting patterns within cities vary across the development spectrum, from Peter Deffebach, David Lagakos, Yuhei Miyauchi, and Eiji Yamada www.nber.org/papers/w34505
