Would love to see an #economics #Nobel that recognizes one of these questions: "Do we really know what we know and how do we deal with related uncertainty?" "What are the drivers of well-being?" Rooting for Chuck Manski, Janet Currie tomorrow.
Atheendar Venkataramani
@atheendar.bsky.social
Physician and health economist at Penn. I study opportunity, hope, and health @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social. Personal website: https://sites.google.com/site/atheendar/
"They use optical sensors to detect blood pulsing through your veins, and machine-learning models to analyze the data to estimate blood pressure. Like sleep staging, it’s an inference, not a direct measurement." www.wsj.com/health/welln...
Can Wearables Really Track Blood Pressure Without the Cuff? I Tested Them.
Health trackers can now alert you to shifts you can’t feel. Doctors warn the data might give you anxiety—or a false sense of security.
wsj.com
The simple truth is that the president's personal obsession with attacking @drlisadcook.bsky.social is a filthy lie. There must be not just protection for her job, but accountability for those perverting and corrupting our justice system. All Americans lose when our institutions are poisoned.
Lisa Cook's bank documents appear to contradict Trump administration's mortgage fraud allegations
President Donald Trump is seeking to remove Cook, a Federal Reserve board member, over claims that she falsified financial forms regarding a secondary home.
nbcnews.com
Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 3d agoBREAKING Politico: Trump has just established a committee of inquiry to investigate whether Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook made "false statements in connection with one or more mortgage instruments" — his latest effort to remove her from the central bank.
The administrations obsession with punishing Lisa Cook is absurd and frightening. It's not even about winning in this case. It's about creating fear and exerting control. Horrible, horrible look for America. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/b...
Trump Announces White House Inquiry Into Fed Governor Lisa Cook
President Trump said the White House would investigate unsubstantiated claims that Lisa D. Cook committed mortgage fraud and hold a hearing next month.
nytimes.com
I believe the updated version of this package covers that case but have not yet used myself: cran.r-project.org/web/packages...
qte: Quantile Treatment Effects
Provides several methods for computing the Quantile Treatment Effect (QTE) and Quantile Treatment Effect on the Treated (QTT). The main cases covered are (i) treatment is randomly assigned, (ii) treat...
cran.r-project.org
#econsky - question for you! Is there a way to estimate quantile treatment effects in a staggered adoption DID? Thanks! @cdechaisemartin.bsky.social @pedrosantanna.bsky.social
Experiments in Uganda reveal that employers and workers prefer to share income through paid work rather than cash, even when the work produces nothing, suggesting that some overstaffing reflects social support rather than inefficiency.
VoxDev@voxdev.bsky.social · 5d ago🆕 Work over cash: Why employers and workers prefer jobs to handouts Today on VoxDev, Elisa Macchi (@brown.edu) & @jeremiastalder.bsky.social (University of St. Gallen) outline evidence on Uganda: voxdev.org/topic/labour...
Summary below with results from 3-year study in Kenya assessing whether savings interventions can strengthen economic prospects for the future and also reduce engagement in behaviors that increase HIV/STI risk. Our results are extremely promising!
Dean Yang@deanyang.bsky.social · 6d agoCan a savings account reduce heavy drinking? In a randomized trial with 1,500 men in western Kenya, a savings program cut hazardous drinking by 26% and intimate partner violence by 15%. New NBER working paper 🧵
Fascinating paper @hthirumurthy.bsky.social and team!!! The possibility of a bright future motivates. The possibility of a dim one does the opposite. Something I see all the time in the clinic and hospital.
Dean Yang@deanyang.bsky.social · 6d agoCan a savings account reduce heavy drinking? In a randomized trial with 1,500 men in western Kenya, a savings program cut hazardous drinking by 26% and intimate partner violence by 15%. New NBER working paper 🧵
"The housing shortage in the United States not only drives up rents, it is also a significant driver of poverty." The New York Times summarizes my collaboration Pew, which quantifies how high housing costs lead to higher poverty rates for 10 U.S. states. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/r...
Where High Rents Drive People Into Poverty
A new study identified 10 locations where higher-than-average housing costs have impacted poverty the most.
nytimes.com
Nice summary of this paper by @kevinmilligan.bsky.social (w/ Baker and Gruber) "Even after their children left preschool, mothers who had access to Quebec’s universal childcare program worked and earned more than mothers who did not." www.nber.org/digest/20261...
Subsidized Childcare and Mothers’ Labor Outcomes in Quebec
nber.org
Guideline and physician performance in atrial fibrillation depend on how bleeding harms vary across patients; robust treatment rules can perform well across plausible harm assumptions, from @jabaluck, @LeilaEcon, and David C. Chan Jr www.nber.org/papers/w35798
It's starting www.nber.org/system/files...
nber.org
Julian Reif@julianreif.bsky.social · 6mo agoI expect that we'll soon see a full replication layer for empirical econ: every paper from the past 20 years systematically re-run, audited, and documented on a public website. Even for papers that used proprietary data, the code and methods will be stress-tested in public.
Proud of @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social lab predoc Ritikaa Khanna and @ncsp-penn.bsky.social fellow Michael Wang for leading this interesting paper. There is a suble hat tip to Heckman-Vytacil in the discussion section :)
JAMA Health Forum@jamahealthforum.com · 2w agoIn Medicaid, covering obesity-labeled #GLP1 receptor agonists was associated with higher obesity-labeled use, while total glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist use increased less, suggesting possible substitution across label indications. ja.ma/4xPkKxn
Proud of @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social lab predoc Ritikaa Khanna and @ncsp-penn.bsky.social fellow Michael Wang for leading this interesting paper. There is a suble hat tip to Heckman-Vytacil in the discussion section :)
JAMA Health Forum@jamahealthforum.com · 2w agoIn Medicaid, covering obesity-labeled #GLP1 receptor agonists was associated with higher obesity-labeled use, while total glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist use increased less, suggesting possible substitution across label indications. ja.ma/4xPkKxn
In Medicaid, covering obesity-labeled #GLP1 receptor agonists was associated with higher obesity-labeled use, while total glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist use increased less, suggesting possible substitution across label indications. ja.ma/4xPkKxn
AI turbocharging something we were already doing!
Retraction Watch@retractionwatch.com · 2w ago"If medical schools and universities don't want the literature to be overwhelmed with garbage," Oransky said, "then they should probably stop giving every applicant ... an incentive to publish a lot of crap."
Roland Fryer's take is the most thoughtful and useful one I've seen. His column in WSJ has been excellent in general. www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...
Opinion | The Education of Nikole Hannah-Jones
School choice is necessary for all children to reach their full potential. But it isn’t sufficient.
wsj.com
I know we’re focused on looming AI-driven extinction now, but can you spare a thought for what’s going on with labor demand? I have a new paper about that doi.org/10.26509/frb...
Roughly one in three women experiences intimate partner violence in their lifetimes. We spoke with Manisha Shah of @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social about the drivers of IPV and policies for reducing it. #econsky www.aeaweb.org/research/int...
Violence against women
Manisha Shah discusses the factors that drive intimate partner violence and the impact of policies aimed at reducing it in low- and middle-income countries.
aeaweb.org
Book revisions in progress. I've gone from "I hope someone reads this and people think its good" to "I hope I think it's good."
Many Americans feel “stuck” in their lives. The PSC's @atheendar.bsky.social and @oppforhealthlab.bsky.social have found it's making them sick. Read more in his @inquirer.com op-ed: https://bit.ly/4xgdef1
Americans feel stuck -- and it's making us sick | Opinion
We've reached our 250th anniversary as a stuck country. It's more than just poverty, loneliness, or a lack of opportunity -- and it is one of the biggest threats to our public health.
inquirer.com
👀 Don’t miss the #IAPHS2026 plenary sessions! 🎤 This year’s plenaries bring together researchers and practitioners to explore trust, influence, public-facing communication, research impact, and how population health science reaches the public. iaphs.org/conference/c...
The plan requires all NIH awards to be directly approved by Vought. No NIH award could be made without his approval.
Politico@politico.com · 3w agoTrump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control
I've been toiling on a book in my spare time for over a year. I wrote it all myself, but worried that my liberal use of em-dashes would make people think my text was AI generated. Luckily, my writing is so idiosyncratic that this happened.
this is outrageous
Bob Herman@bobjherman.bsky.social · 4w agoMedPAC has consistently reported overpayments in Medicare Advantage. Health insurance companies want to kneecap how MedPAC reports these overpayments. Now, insurers have allies in Congress: Republicans, John Wilkerson reports. www.statnews.com/2026/09/16/m...
Pour one out for universities that are still requiring 2 R01s (funded, in hand) for promotion. A great way to lose out on good scientists.
