Even if wealth inequality hasn't changed, the relative importance of income and wealth has. Fab column from @JBurnMurdoch.ft.com www.ft.com/content/6a35...

I’m presenting this paper Tuesday 1:40pm at the NBER SI and live on YouTube. Tune in! www.nber.org/conferences/...

SI 2026 Macroeconomics and Productivity

nber.org

Jeffrey Lin@jeffrlin.bsky.social · last mo.

On February 14, 1876, Bell & Gray each filed for a telephone patent. Such collisions were once routine — up to 1 in 20 patents triggered an "patent interference." Over the next 150 years, that rate fell by more than 98%. In a new paper, we explain why — and what it might cost.

Most states seem to have no plan for how to avert this (and, as Chandler said, they don't even have a "pla"). But this is one of the federal funding streams that #prop40 -- the California Billionaire Tax -- would replace.

Lauren Bauer@laurenhlb.bsky.social · last mo.

Millions of people are losing access to food benefits right now for literally no good reason and I wish more people were aware and talking about it. www.cbpp.org/research/foo... (As opposed to or at least in addition to the other stuff.)

Couldn’t attend this year, but anyone in the DC area should go (and everyone else should follow Dan)! Always a very cool conference with great tie in to the issues that municipalities actually face

Dan Garrett@danggarret.bsky.social · 2w ago

It's almost Brookings Muni Finance Conference time again!! I'm planning to do another live tweeting for the next two days of as much as I can handle, but there is a livestream for those who'd like to observe the conversation directly: www.brookings.edu/events/15th-...

Found the next top general interest econ journal (yes, I'm browsing the CFC for fun this morning, as one does)

Come for the amusing article, stay for the enraged comment section. Also, clearly has never been to a tax econ party (ok, fine, maybe it's not as fun as other people's)

Soumaya Keynes@soumayakeynes.ft.com · 4w ago

Who wants to tax a billionaire? My attempt to anger *everyone* in a fraught debate www.ft.com/content/bf18...

Fun fact: USPTO patent data has no restrictions on usage by non-citizens. However, USPTO's Open Data Portal was moved to the ID.me system. The catch: ID.me requires permanent residency or citizenship, shadow banning non-citizens from accessing "open" patent data

“.. The Florida for-sale market is flashing warning signs: 45% of listings have taken a price cut (6.6 pts above the national rate) “.. 1 in 10 homes are selling for less than the original owner paid.” - Parcl Labs

As a new Fed Chair casts doubt on offical statistics after the Aministration drastically cut their funding, it is worth remembering how and why we created federal statistics agencies in the first place...they reduce scope for gaslighting the public www.aeaweb.org/articles/pdf...

The great American state fair being stupid Trump bullshit does legit make me sad, if I’m being honest. A lot of the 250 stuff does. This could have been a really cool and special thing and literally any normal president would have pulled it off.

In Pung vs. Isabella Cty today, the Supreme Court held that the proper valuation method for determining "just compensation" in a foreclosure of property to make up tax debt does not have to be its "fair market value" (what a "willing buyer" and "willing seller" would achieve).

The most first world of academia problems I've discovered: Sometimes you're writing a paper with obvious limitations, & most of the work is aimed at a clean execution to a lower tier. And then your effect size is 10x what prior literature suggests and now implications are oozing out everywhere

Excellent, in-depth story from Penn State describing the damage to Pennsylvania fruit farms brought by this spring's temperature swings. Abnormal heat pushed the trees to bloom early, followed by a devastating frost. www.psu.edu/news/agricul...

Pennsylvania fruit growers face catastrophic losses after historic spring freeze | Penn State University

Across Pennsylvania, fruit growers are facing catastrophic losses after repeated swings between warm spring temperatures and hard freezes damaged crops already pushed into bloom. As growers assess the...

psu.edu

Me reading the abstract: Well, 'coding error' is a bit strong, isn't it, they just disagreed on some variable coding. Me getting to p. 3: Oh, OOOHHH, OH NO!!!!

Michael Clemens@mclem.org · 2mo ago

Remember that recent paper claiming to show that "ideological bias" determined the results obtained by immigration policy research teams? A careful, open-code reanalysis by @kauspurg.bsky.social & Josef Brüderl finds that the result arises from a coding error. —> doi.org/10.31222/osf...

It seems we are now entering a new phase of the rise of inequality in the US. It's not just wealth and billionaires — it's a broader acceleration. Here's who benefited from economic growth in 2025, according to the latest estimates available on realtimeinequality.org

Siiigh, another freaking "I wrote this rule, don't freaking break it, you corrupt hacks" comment letter for me (and Renee), I guess.

Anyone in or near higher ed needs to read this thread, stat. This post (and other posts) by Akridge and Hummels is consistent with a lot of it: findingequilibriumfuturehighered.substack.com/p/whats-behi...

Matt Barnum@mattbarnum.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The gloomy headlines about the future of American higher ed been seemingly relentless. But the discourse is missing some basic(and surprising) facts about what’s actually happening right now. Here are 10....

📢 Tomorrow! @brankomilan.bsky.social and @marcoranaldi.bsky.social map the global distribution of capital income across the 21st century, highlighting its implications for inequality analysis. Register now ⬇️

Capitalization of the world: global distribution of income from property

This talk provides new global evidence on the evolution, distribution, and measurement of capital income.

eventbrite.co.uk

I have two new papers up in this week's NBER working papers (www.nber.org/papers/w35204 and www.nber.org/papers/w35219). Here's a couple of things I learned in pulling these papers together.

Flood Risk, Insurance, and Housing in the United States

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

nber.org

Firefighters and nurses don’t get to hide their money in a trust fund and skip out on paying their taxes—billionaires shouldn’t get to either. My new bill would close tax loopholes for billionaires with more than $50 million in dynasty trusts.

With wealth inequality in spotlight, Patty Murray targets tax-dodging trusts over $50 million with new bill

WASHINGTON – New legislation from Sen. Patty Murray targets a legal loophole that lets the wealthiest Americans avoid paying taxes on money they pass down to their heirs, at a time when wealth inequal...

spokesman.com

Not surprising given the admin refusing to implement the law in the first place

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project@occrp.org · 4mo ago

US Congressional Committee Chips Away at Corporate Transparency Act www.occrp.org/en/news/us-c...

The point of the university as a concept is that it's been here for a thousand years and meant to be here another thousand. Turning education over to producing what the market needed five years ago is never going to work well.

Ted McCormick@tedmccormick.bsky.social · 4mo ago

In general, (re)orienting education wholly or chiefly to specific perceived market needs is always going to produce disaster once the near term passes. It also eviscerates institutions that might otherwise help people weather change, intellectually and in other ways

Looks like a great conference, but really they could should have worked harder to squeeze most of the sessions into the first day

Gonçalo Pina@alvespina.bsky.social · 4mo ago

This conference on bunching methods om April 17-18th seems really nice, starting with tutorials and then applications: www.carolinacaetano.net/resources/Bu... I am not sure the organizers want randos to attend but there is a zoom link and I am working on a paper using these tests so I hope they do

In my latest post on Through Data Darkly, I argue the fight against financial crime, money laundering and illicit finance needs more red team thinking, and more experiments aimed at exposing the weak points in the system datadarkly.substack.com/p/bring-on-t...

Bring on the Red Team

The benefits of subsidizing subterfuge

datadarkly.substack.com

🏘️ A data architecture built by ACDC was the starting point for a series of investigations into Nigerian PEP's U.S. real estate holdings by @pplaaf.bsky.social. 🎯 The stories keep coming, and they're making an impact.

Today! 9am ET!! Live and 📺 Streaming from @piie.com!!! Join as Ana Fernandes & Tristan Reed present that brand new World Bank 📚 report you've now heard about: INDUSTRIAL POLICY FOR DEVELOPMENT ...followed by Mary Lovely & my attempts at digging in for more.

Industrial policy for development

The Peterson Institute for International Economics hosts a timely briefing on industrial policy for development in the 21st century, drawing on a new World Bank report that examines the resurgence of ...

piie.com

That's @szakonyi.bsky.social @fhollenbach.org and @mattcollin.bsky.social 's GTO paper getting a *second* area-specific shock

taxgirl@taxgirl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

A federal judge ruled FinCEN overstepped its authority when it required reporting for cash residential real estate transactions. www.forbes.com/sites/kellyp...

I have a new article in National Affairs on Industrial Policy for Housing Construction! With Steve Teles, we outline an agenda for deregulation and government support to grow factory built housing: piece: nationalaffairs.com/publications... substack: arpitrage.substack.com/p/industrial...

Industrial Policy for Housing Construction

Since the 1970s, productivity in the housing sector has steadily declined. The way forward requires combining continued land-use reform with a light-touch industrial policy for factory-built housing. ...

nationalaffairs.com

Finally, the followup to @wwwojtekk.bsky.social and Slemrod (2003) we've all been *breathlessly* waiting for. (Not to slander either paper, just here for the joke)

International Tax Observatory@taxobservatory.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Next up at the #LunchSeminar: Jeanne Bomare (LSE) “Death and Taxes: Inheritance Tax Planning and Unexpected Mortality” 🗓️ April 3 | 12:00 📍 @pse.bsky.social or via Zoom More info about the seminar ⤵️ taxobservatory.eu/event/eu-tax...