I’ve been trying to stay off social media while trying to finish a batch of article/book revisions, but I really have to say: having rooted for Brazil in every World Cup since 1990, this is, by far, the worst squad I’ve ever seen. It has, what, 1/4 of the talent that the team used to have in 2002?!

I’d say something about public international law dying, but the truth of the matter is that it’s been dead for many years by now, and what we’re now seeing is just a public display of the shriveled corpse. It could also be that it was never alive in the first place.

Just sent the full draft of a new book (on “Legality in China” or “the authoritarian functions of law”) to my editor for peer review and subsequent processing—hopefully in time for the book to come out in a little over a year.

New paper on “Legal Internalism” posted. Co-authored with Shyam Balganesh. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The desire to make the RMB internationally attractive partially explains the Chinese government’s continued hesitation to significantly increase the money supply (which then feeds directly into current waves of deflation). I’m not sure that’s worth it. www.economist.com/china/2025/0...

China is ditching the dollar, fast

Officials believe that the yuan has finally come of age

economist.com

Just a reminder that, since 2009, China has held a military parade in Tiananmen Square roughly once every 5 years to commemorate major anniversaries, and yet in that span it has invaded, bombed, or otherwise militarily attacked exactly 0 countries.

It seems like, well, an opportune time to push this paper again. We find qualitative similarities in how the Chinese and American governments produce economic statistics, but even we couldn’t anticipate how quickly those similarities would strengthen…

This paper Is finally out! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Does Legality Produce Political Legitimacy? An Experimental Approach | The Journal of Legal Studies: Vol 54, No 2

Abstract This article studies whether pure legality, stripped of normative components that are central to the rule of law, can convey perceived legitimacy to governmental institutions and activity. Th...

journals.uchicago.edu

First draft completed! The writing took six months, but the substantive research took about 7 years, spanning multiple article and essay projects (none of which will supply actual text for this book, given Harvard UP’s publishing preferences). Should be out at some point in late 2026.

Just one of many reasons why we never use student edited journal placements as a proxy for quality when making hiring decisions (and if you’re a school that considers yourself intellectually serious but does use these proxies—shame on you)… freebeacon.com/campus/exclu...

Exclusive: Harvard Law Review Axes 85 Percent of Submissions Using Race-Conscious Rubric, Documents Show

When the Washington Free Beacon published documents showing how the Harvard Law Review selects articles based on race, the law review insisted those documents had been taken out of context.

freebeacon.com

For a decade, I’ve been arguing with economists over whether ideology can override economic rationality in large enough doses to fundamentally alter the course of human history (I argue yes, most economists I know are skeptical). As of today, I believe I’ve won the argument.

Some data on the Chinese judicial cases database that so many social scientists now use. Quantitative empirical studies of Chinese courts are probably going to be stuck in 2017-2020 for the next decade or two…

At this rate I’m not sure DOGE is really going to achieve its stated goal of reducing total federal government employee count, simply because there will soon be so many lawsuits and so many restraining orders that they might have to double the staff count at DOJ…

An EO (e.g., Trump’s EO seeking to “end” birthright citizenship) that delays its own implementation for 30 days from the date of issuance is obviously anticipating being quickly sued (which has already happened tonight) and stayed (which will happen within a few days) in court.

Credible (or rather, formerly credible) commitments, once broken, are incredibly difficult to restore. This will take years of policy-based and institutional therapy, if there is indeed the political will for it. www.ft.com/content/de2c...

Beijing seeks to curb ‘shakedown’ detentions of Chinese executives

Senior figures at more than 80 listed companies were held by local authorities in 2024, FT analysis finds

ft.com

Final SSRN upload of 2024: a symposium essay forthcoming in YJLH that muses about why some forms of social hierarchies, however morally dubious, tend to be more historically prevalent and stickier than others. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Second SSRN post of the week, this one on how governments produce information—and what the law can do to optimize that process. Perhaps surprisingly, core political incentives and institutional mechanisms are broadly similar across the U.S. and China. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

New paper posted to SSRN, a few more to come later this week. The primary claim in this one is that legality and authoritarianism can be politically and administratively synergistic. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Pretty good research on the (lack of) relevance of the USNews rankings for essentially the only thing they should theoretically influence: student matriculation decisions. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Rosalind Picard incident from yesterday’s NeurIPS conference keynote would normally be grounds for a Title 6 complaint and investigation.

Whatever stimulus effect emerges from these rate cuts, it’s likely to flow more to debt refinancing by local governments and SOEs than to consumption or new investment. That said, devaluing the RMB is necessary, and frankly should have already happened. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/b...

China Pledges More Stimulus to Shore Up Flagging Economy

At a meeting to set the party’s economic policy agenda, China’s leadership said it would borrow more and cut interest rates in a bid to bolster growth.

nytimes.com

When I left to drop my kids off at school, I thought for sure that the final Ding-Gukesh game was headed for a draw. Came back, and within minutes Ding had committed an irreparable blunder. It’s a brutal game sometimes, but congratulations to the new king. Quite the series.

Judging from the amount of posts here on the SK martial law declaration, it’ll be a while before this site can really compare to the other place in terms of political information…

If true, this would be… unbelievably embarrassing (third one in a row). If it triggers a more systemic anti-corruption campaign in the armed forces to clear the rot, that would probably set back near-term battle-readiness by quite a lot. www.ft.com/content/6414...

China’s defence minister placed under investigation for corruption

US officials say probe is part of wider operation to uncover graft in People’s Liberation Army

ft.com

It’s now the 20th Anniversary of this episode, and it’s still the greatest college prank of all time. This also happened to be the only time I went to a Y-H Game in Cambridge. So worth it, even if the game itself was utterly forgettable. youtu.be/T4kai4FL0MQ?...

Harvard Says "WE SUCK"

YouTube video by cinematikwoo

youtu.be

One of the most interesting articles I’ve seen in quite some time: www.cambridge.org/core/journal....

Doesn’t it feel like academic twitter/X has basically just moved here, whereas the rest of the social/political world has not? So… going forward, this app is basically going to be a networking club for scholars?

Giving this app a test run…