Two minor updates, friends: - As of 1 January 2026, I'm an Associate Professor. - As of today, the first paper I started writing on palm oil, about a decade ago, is in print in the Journal of International Economics. Read, share, cite. Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Export agriculture and rural poverty: Evidence from Indonesian palm oil

This paper measures the impacts of Indonesia’s palm oil export expansion on district poverty and household expenditure from 2002 to 2015. Identificati…

sciencedirect.com

Maybe stuffing university board of directors with businesspeople was not a great idea.

I was one of the USAID officials that the White House called “radical left Marxists who hate America”. These statements are unmitigated trash. My colleagues sacrificed and risked a lot to serve the America they love. Not one of them had one minute for Marxism. Just poisonous logorrhea.

Nikki McCann Ramírez@nikkimcr.bsky.social · last yr.

Stephen Miller: The Department of Education here in Washington, D.C., is overwhelmingly staffed by radical left marxist bureaucrats. Who are in every way hostile to western civilization, hostile to American interests, and hostile to our founding documents and culture.

Happy late 40th to me

In a new @i4replication.bsky.social report we replicate Islam (2019). Main issue: the randomized controlled trial was not randomized. And many other things on top of that. See full report for details. (w/ @carlbonander.bsky.social, @nikljako.bsky.social, @flxhlzmstr.bsky.social, Bensch & Brodeur)

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · last yr.

#GDRI_rep Update 4: We have a new report. We reproduced the paper entitled "Parent–teacher meetings and student outcomes" by Islam @ European Economic Review. See below for links to report and author's response.

This is us. We asked Asad to step aside before we had any results. GDRI was not involved in our data collection (thankfully).

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · last yr.

We contacted authors (Emily A. Beam, Joshua D. Merfeld, Naveen Wickremeratne) of this study "Improving Gender Norms in the Workplace" for a replication package. The paper is R&R/First Stage Pre-Results Review @ the Journal of Development Economics. Beam responded: "A few notes...

Quite a thread. Vivid demonstration that @i4replication.bsky.social and other mechanisms above individual journals are vital for scientific hygiene

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · last yr.

#GDRI_rep Update 3: The paper "Improving Hygiene and Sanitation through Parental Skill Training" by Asadul Islam, Umair Khalil and Tabassum Rahman was conditionally accepted at Economic Development and Cultural Change. We requested a replication package. It has now been withdrawn

#GDRI_rep Update 4: We have a new report. We reproduced the paper entitled "Parent–teacher meetings and student outcomes" by Islam @ European Economic Review. See below for links to report and author's response.

#GDRI_rep Update 2: I4R sent a report to the original authors for the PLOS One article "“Food insecurity and mental health of women during COVID-19: Evidence from a developing country". All authors have now emailed PLOS One to withdraw their names. osf.io/7tzek/

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · last yr.

We completed a full report on “Food insecurity and mental health of women during COVID-19: Evidence from a developing country” PLOS One and shared it with the authors and journal. Two out of three authors have already requested to withdraw their names.

We have a new report out about the #GDRI_rep. The paper has not been retracted but all three authors have withdrawn their names.

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · last yr.

#GDRI_rep Update 2: I4R sent a report to the original authors for the PLOS One article "“Food insecurity and mental health of women during COVID-19: Evidence from a developing country". All authors have now emailed PLOS One to withdraw their names. osf.io/7tzek/

Cool new paper by @eduardomontero.bsky.social and JD Denton-Schneider... Eliminating Chagas disease in Brazil raised income by 11%! Larger gains for non-whites, reducing racial inequality. Public health interventions can address both development and inequality... www.nber.org/papers/w3351...

Disease, Disparities, and Development: Evidence from Chagas Disease Control in Brazil

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

We will provide another update and release two or three reports shortly. See osf.io/23x64/ for more information. And our original thread here: bsky.app/profile/i4re...

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · last yr.

After being alerted about possible misconduct, the I4R are reproducing published papers that use data from a specific NGO (GDRI). This thread releases the first 2 reports and provides more information about the work and responses/statements from authors journals and journals. 🧵

I also personally sent a link to this thread to the university's Research Integrity office the next day, and I later sent links to two replication reports along with I4R contact details. The University processes currently underway are described here: publicpolicydms.monash.edu/Monash/docum...

#GDRI_rep Update 1: I4R are now reproducing all published papers that use data from GDRI, or are closely related in other ways. Here is a first update on our work. 🧵

I can't think of a faster way to undermine the country than simultaneously firing government workers, cutting scientific research, rolling back protections on public health & environment, & cutting essential services. It's like the US was defeated in war and is being occupied by a hostile enemy.

Dean Karlan, Chief Economist at USAID, has resigned www.npr.org/sections/goa...

How to write your abstracts in empirical micro:

David Evans@daveevansphd.bsky.social · last yr.

I was reading draft papers & found that authors omitted the method in the abstract or buried their results summary pages into the intro. There are lots of ways to write abstracts/intros, but here are common structures in econ. www.cgdev.org/blog/how-wri... www.cgdev.org/blog/how-wri...

Wild stuff. How come no one thought of this

Alexandra de Gendre@adegendre.bsky.social · last yr.

Today some of the leading economists released a report on how to improve the publication and peer review process in our profession. It is great! www.econometricsociety.org/uploads/docu...

After a long wait, the working paper for the Many-Economists Project: The Sources of Researcher Variation in Economics. We had 146 teams perform the same research three times, each time with less freedom. What source of freedom leads to different choices and results? papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Said it before but bumping because it took me longer than I hoped it would to find to add to my course page for my students: @pmichaillat.bsky.social 's templates are just beautiful, and a wonderful thing to share on his page pascalmichaillat.org/design/

Design

Minimalist design templates for academic papers, academic presentations, academic websites, and scientific figures. Built with LaTeX, Hugo, and MATLAB.

pascalmichaillat.org

I'm so thrilled to share that I'll be starting as Associate Professor in the Economics department at Macquarie University's Business School in May. Excited for this next step and very much looking forward to getting to know my new colleagues 😊

This makes me very happy. Huge win for both parties

Emilia Tjernstrom@econemilia.bsky.social · last yr.

I'm so thrilled to share that I'll be starting as Associate Professor in the Economics department at Macquarie University's Business School in May. Excited for this next step and very much looking forward to getting to know my new colleagues 😊

We are looking forward to the responses and will make them publicly available as soon as we get them following I4R protocol. See our other thread: bsky.app/profile/i4re... Post by Prof. Asad Islam: x.com/AsadIslamBD/....

After being alerted about possible misconduct, the I4R are reproducing published papers that use data from a specific NGO (GDRI). This thread releases the first 2 reports and provides more information about the work and responses/statements from authors journals and journals. 🧵

Super happy to see this accepted! academic.oup.com/qje/advance-...

What Works and for Whom? Effectiveness and Efficiency of School Capital Investments Across the U.S.*

Abstract. This paper identifies which investments in school facilities help students and which and are valued by homeowners. Using novel data on school dis

academic.oup.com

WFH increases productivity by 12% in the public sector. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Abel: I am writing in my capacity as Chair of I4R. Last year, I was contacted by a researcher that alerted me of potential scientific misconduct in a set of papers all using data from a specific NGO.🧵