Jason Fletcher
@jasonmfletcher.bsky.social
Professor of Public Affairs at University of Wisconsin. Health Economics, Social Genomics, Networks. Views my own. https://fletcher.lafollette.wisc.edu https://substack.com/@jasonmfletcher
Placing bets: Statistical power is a key impediment to longevity research open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
Placing bets: Statistical power is a key impediment to longevity research
Andrew Gelman of course has a great blog/substack and has been talking about statistical power issues in the social sciences for a long time.
open.substack.com
Another AI use case: listening to useless presentations so you don't have to open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
Another AI use case: listening to useless presentations so you don't have to
I’m a good way through sketching out a book length treatment of the work I’ve been doing on longevity (esp with Hamid Noghanibehambari).
open.substack.com
How often do NBER Summer Institute organizers put their own papers on the program? open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
How often do NBER Summer Institute organizers put their own papers on the program?
Peter Hull asked, so...
open.substack.com
Time to update our timeline of projects at americanmortalityproject.lafollette.wisc.edu Work on county health departments with @hamidnb.bsky.social Free access here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Now there is no excuse not to take advantage of one of the best public good elements of @nber.org, which is circulating so much free, great and timely economics research throughout the year. This webpage makes it even easier to locate work related to your interests. gideon-bornstein.com/si2026.html
NBER Summer Institute 2026 — Video Library
A searchable library of the NBER Summer Institute 2026 recordings: jump straight to any talk's video and paper.
gideon-bornstein.com
Very happy to work with @nber.org to outline our research program (with @hamidnb.bsky.social), summarizing what we are learning about the impacts of early life circumstances on old age mortality and next steps.
The Long Shadow of Early Life: Life Cycle Exposures and Old-Age Mortality
nber.org
AI-assisted research obliges us to be a new type of "Senior Author" open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
AI-assisted research obliges us to be a new type of "Senior Author"
This is a new role for many of us. We have some of the tools to do it, but must develop others
open.substack.com
Somewhat more constructively, and in lieu of me saying something rude.
Making Slides
I was asked to give a short talk in my Departmental Proseminar yesterday on the topic of giving presentations, and specifically about making slides effective. There is more than one way to give a good...
kieranhealy.org
Mentoring Session Notes (Part 4): Tenure in unit vs. Tenure in profession, and Local vs. Global Maxima open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
Mentoring Session Notes (Part 4): Tenure in unit vs. Tenure in profession, and Local vs. Global Maxima
ASHEcon 2026 wrapped up in Minneapolis a couple weeks ago, and I thought I’d post a few of the main questions I heard in the early scholars mentoring sessions on Sunday.
open.substack.com
PhD student training in the age of AI: "Coach" vs "Lab" models open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
PhD student training in the age of AI: "Coach" vs "Lab" models
To the extent my views on AI assistance in research are distinctive among economists, one reason is that I have a history of running something closer to a lab of PhD students.
open.substack.com
Interesting stylized fact--the median US household gives < 2% of income to charity. I would have guessed closer to 10%. from: www.census.gov/content/dam/... But ChatGPT confirms: chatgpt.com/s/t_6a3af0e8...
Mentoring Session Notes (Part 3): What Cover Letters Are Actually For open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
Mentoring Session Notes (Part 3): What Cover Letters Are Actually For
ASHEcon 2026 wrapped up in Minneapolis last week, and I thought I’d post a few of the main questions I heard in the early scholars mentoring sessions on Sunday.
open.substack.com
The First Domino: when should we blame AI for misleading us? open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
The First Domino: when should we blame AI for misleading us?
I’ve outlined an idea in the past about “blaming AI” for what really are “user errors”.
open.substack.com
Sherry Glied and I have critiqued the recent analysis on the impact of Medicaid work requirements on poverty. It is linked here: : www.healthaffairs.org/content/fore... Unfortunately, Professors Mulligan and Bai who appear to have led the work get a failing grade on this one.
AI agents are not (yet) your Coauthor. They are a Fleet of Weird RAs. open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
AI agents are not (yet) your Coauthor. They are a Fleet of Weird RAs.
The promise is cheap, fast, and many. The danger is a fire hose of plausible output that no one actually owns.
open.substack.com
Mentoring Session Notes (Part 2): Managing Research "Lanes" open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
Mentoring Session Notes (Part 2): Managing Research "Lanes"
TLDR: Don’t Let Mature Papers Sit on Your Desk and Rely on Mentors
open.substack.com
Mentoring Session Notes (Part 1): Planning for tenure letters open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
Mentoring Session Notes (Part 1): Planning for tenure letters
ASHEcon 2026 is wrapping up today in Minneapolis, and I thought I’d post a few of the main questions I heard in the early scholars mentoring sessions on Sunday.
open.substack.com
In Print! Can clean water in early life shape longevity decades later? Using water filtration programs in 25 cities, @hamidnb.bsky.social & @jasonmfletcher.bsky.social find that childhood exposure to filtered water increased male longevity by 3 months. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/734081
1/ New #paper by Chuck Manski, @johnmullahy.bsky.social, and me in the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics (@amstatnews.bsky.social).
Academic Talks: StoryTime or Instructional Video open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
Academic Talks: StoryTime or Instructional Video
Pick your poison
open.substack.com
Are disciplinary norms strong enough to constrain paper factories? open.substack.com/pub/jasonmfl...
Are disciplinary norms strong enough to constrain paper factories?
Lots of thoughts on AI-automation and AI assistance in research, especially whether it will lead to paper factories and autonomous policy evaluation.
open.substack.com