Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump. Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt. Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:

It appears that a socialist, militantly woke youth might not be a baggage. Derk Sauer has grown into a very successful enterpreneur who made a fortune doing really good things. The businesses that he launched were making money and making the world so much better. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/w...

Derk Sauer, Champion of Free Press in a New Russia, Dies at 72

nytimes.com

The NATO summit had one big positive thing going. In the countries' commitment to raise their military spending to 5% of GDP, a 1-1.5% is, explicitly, military aid to Ukraine. No Article 5 protection in the near future, but the commitment institutionalizes NATO cooperation with Ukraine.

Policy-wise, I disagree with Zohran Mamdani about almost everything. He offers the opposite of free-market, personal choice/personal responsibility approach to economic problems that I'd like to see. But it is SO great to see new faces in politics, finally.

In the 17th century, when unhappy soldiers rebelled and marched on the palace, the tsar would emerge, plead for their forgiveness, and offer up a few top ministers to be executed on the spot. If Putin feels like a Russian tsar, he might feed the Medvedev's head to Trump tonight.

The final exam in my Game Theory class at KSE is rescheduled - students had a sleepless night. Again and again the Russian army attacks Kyiv, one of the largest cities in Europe, with missiles and drones. Each of these strikes is a war crime. Help Ukraine to stop this madness!

The new statement by the Russian Ministry of Foreig Affairs is breathtakingly hypocritical. A sane mind would want to interpret this as either a hidden swipe at Putin, or post-post-irony. But the Reverse Cargo Cult theory explains this pretty well: bfi.uchicago.edu/insights/the....

180 degree turn in real time. More seriously, it is probably "framing". War on the Israel side? MAGA is a resounding "no". Bombing someone who cannot respond? Yes!

For economic theorists, this should be familiar. It's a bubbling equilibrium in a sender-receiver game. There is no harm in appointing an incompetent person as an advisor, if you are not listening to their advice.

Another terrible night in Kyiv. 15 people are killed and dozens wounded as a result of the Russian attack on civilian areas.

As a Russian-born American, someone at the US Department of Defense works hard to make me feel home everywhere all the time all at once.

Друзья, близкие и далёкие, коллеги и соавторы в Тель-Авиве и других городах. В эти минуты я думаю только о вас - и молюсь, как может атеист, за каждого и каждую.

ВЫХОД Это пост поддержки организации "Выход", которая помогает ЛГБТК+ людям в России. Можно сделать пожертвование вот здесь: comingoutspb.org/ru/30days/. Там рассказано, что будет сделано за эти деньги. 1/3

30 дней союзничества с квир-людьми в России • ЛГБТК+ группа «Выход»

Покажите ЛГБТК+ людям в России, что они не одни. Что их любят и о них помнят несмотря ни на какие законы и нападки властей. Ведь пока не свободны все, не свободен никто.

comingoutspb.org

It was a sleepless night in Kyiv. @markhamillofficial.bsky.social's comforting voice kept warning about raid alerts. I kept telling myself that this is what my KSE colleagues and students have been going through for three years now.

Mira of Kyiv 🇺🇦@reshetz.bsky.social · last yr.

Kyiv this night

LEFT: The attack on Kyiv, May 24, before the Opetation Spider's Web. RIGHT: The attack on Kharkiv, June 6, after the Operation Spider's Web. Those who call the Kharkiv "retaliation" are lying.

Another night - new attacks on residential quarters in Kyiv (was loud), Chernihiv, Lutsk. No military targets. Civilians and first responders killed. Putin still believes he can terrorize Ukraine into submission. A good article in @politico on what to understand: www.politico.com/news/magazin....

As an academic working on the political economy, this is moving too fast to analyze. Feeling as fascinated as any spectator.

ЧИКАГО ИЮНЬ Помните, что если вас раздражает прайд-символика, то вы - причина того, что её нужно вывешивать.

Ukraine destroyed its nuclear arsenal in 1994-97 because the US, among others, guaranteed its territorial integrity. How does not fulfilling this obligation helps to persuade Iran to abandon their nuclear program?

Congratulations, President Lee Jae-myung! Just remember, Korea's presidency is a dangerous job.

Except for political economists, no one would appreciate this observation, and still. In 2024, President Trump brought in an incredibly ideologically diverse political coalition. It's his "magic" (plus polarization) that keeps it together.

Here is the Putin's response to Ukraine's attack on Russia's military airfields, which resulted in 10+ bombers destroyed with zero civilian casualties. Putin's response is a missile strike on a residential area in Sumy - civilians are killed, including kids. Putin is a monster. He must be stopped.

Back in 1937, famous Czech writer Karel Capek wrote in a parody piece of news: "The enemy treacherously attempted to shoot down our airplanes while we were peacefully dropping bombs on their city." Today, the Russian state news agency RIA repeated the Capek's line in all seriousness.

The propaganda machine immediately dubbed the Ukrainian attack on the Russian strategic bomber fleet a Russian Pearl Harbor. This is a misnomer as the Japan attack on the US base on 12/7/41 was a surprise attack without a declaration of war. The result was that the US entered WWII. (1/2)

This is called "whataboutism" and was famously used by the Soviet propaganda in old times. Merriam-Webster article on "whatboutism" refers to the USSR practice for the origin of the term. In my new paper, I do a formal model of this: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.....

On students' visas ban, a good piece from @politico. Reporting is fixated on Harvard and other top brands, but they lose less. For each foreign student, there is a US would-be student eager to pay as much. For a public school, even a very good one, not always. www.politico.com/news/2025/05...

Rubio’s visa crunch has big consequences for public universities

Public institutions in Arizona, California, Illinois, Michigan and Texas rank among the top destinations for international students.

politico.com

A small new theory paper on how propaganda works: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers..... Contains a personal anecdote, a formal model, and a mathematical definition of a lie. Explains the propaganda effect of Soviet elections, in which there were no option to vote against the sole candidate.

Foreign students pay for themselves and American. Many state schools charge low in-state tuition because foreign students pay much. US universities is an excellent export, the source of soft power, and a scouting mechanism for getting talent from around the world. It's madness.

This. Walter Mead points out that the decline of President Biden, per "Original Sin", had major implications for foreign policy: www.wsj.com/opinion/orig.... Mead focuses on China, but this was true elsewhere: in 2023-24, Ukraine paid a heavy price for the Biden's withdrawal.

Opinion | ‘Original Sin’ and Foreign Policy

America is paying for having had a severely diminished president during a perilous era.

wsj.com

In a bizarre, rambling speech yesterday Putin argued that the government must "strangle" Western producers and force out all Western products from Russia. The isolationist trade policy of the Soviet leadership was one of the primary causes of the USSR eventual economic collapse.