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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I trust you more on this. My opinion is based mostly on personal anecdotes and experience and some light reading on the subject. Do you recommend any books on these topics?

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In Montreal, there were "legionary" churches and the "communist" churches. My honest opinion is that the post-89 waves completely shattered that. My reading of some lit about Romanian expats pre-89 is that they were largely irrelevant and ironically communist were scared of them for little reason.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

As most of these Romanian "professors", he published like one article and was never actually a professor from what I can tell. And people in Romania (by and large, and present company of course excluded - I'm sure you did not spend time researching him as I just did) can't tell the difference.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

He did not, though that would have been funny. Well, adults today born in North America could still be children of the post-'89 wave. And, they could also be LARP-ing as interwar groups. My point is that by and large these ppl cannot trace a lineage to a 1940s exodus.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

3/n And even if it is diaspora-influenced, I would argue that it's mostly a modern phenomenon influenced by EU migration waves and their frustrations (both at the circumstances that made them leave and at their status in the countries they ended up in).

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

2/n My take is that Romanian far-right movements today are mostly a symptom of the very deep conservatism of most Romanians (once you see Romania as deeply influenced by peasant culture, it's impossible to unsee it, in my opinion).

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

1/n Arguably the post-1989 migration is far more important imo. I don't think the Romanian expat communities of the "old" immigration waves had any vitality left to exert much influence by the end of communism (these communities were also quite small).

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Happy to share that our paper was accepted at AEJ: Applied! We show that Roma self-identification in Romania drops sharply with education, from 80% to 40%. Official data may undercount Roma post-secondary graduates by a factor of 3 to 6. andrei-munteanu-econ.github.io/assets/pdf/r...

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Um, depends where? In North America it was basic cable + HBO + sports + movies package + etc etc etc. So pretty much the same as now.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Isn't that the whole point? They gutted cable to reinvent it and force you to get subscriptions to all the services. So, cable, but more expensive. #productdifferentiation

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Best Anno game in your opinion?

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

This is very interesting. But I noticed that the econ studies start in 1967 whereas those in other fields in the 2000s. I wonder if this matters. Also: the acceptance rates for articles in econ are notoriously low. I'm wondering if that contributes in any way.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

You mean... with a time machine and no other adjustements? 2026 beats 1987 between 6 and 10 to 0. One only needs to watch an old game: incredibly slow (both because of differences in conditioning, but also skating technique), little regard for puck possession, overall skill level much lower.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

One other thing I will add is that I am not claiming this is some universal rule of tracking. It might depend on who the teachers target and how other resources are allocated.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

You're right, one does not necessarily imply the other; was running out of characters. Here'a link to my JMP, which I framed as being about school choice and sorting, but is also about tracking (across schools). We don't have a WP for the classroom tracking yet. Link to my JMP (accepted at ReStat):

andrei-munteanu.com

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Shameless plug: I studied tracking across schools in Romania in my jmp and now across classes with my coauthors (no WP yet, but soonish hopefully). At least in that context, the takeaway seems to be: no or modest effect on means, large increases on variance. So, low-achievers lose out.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Sure. I'm just saying it would be nice to have a meaningful debate about these things. The level of the debate is so low. On a separate note, I think journalists are partially to blame. Reporting on "the cost of living crisis", "labor shortages", etc. tends to be so incredibly lazy.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

My point is this is a transfer from new homeowners to existing homeowners and/or developers.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Don't forget that the equity of current homeowners also increased, so I don't see why you would want to compensate homebuyers by taxing int'l students.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

But in any case, it would have been nice to see this kind of debate instead of the complete populist slop we've been exposed to over the last few years from both sides of the political spectrum.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

The benefits are also much larger than the direct effects. They help cross-subsidize local students and so allow us to have a more educated workforce at lower costs, with productivity and tax revenue increases from earnings during the entire working lives of these people.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Youth unemployment is about the same level it's always been. Also, int'l students are down A LOT and rents continue to increase in Montreal, for example.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

There are other papers that look at general population shocks on rents. Saiz 2007 finds that a 1% increase in pop. due to immigration tends to increase housing costs by 1%. I just don't see how a student's impact on prices can be in the same ballpark as what they pay into the education system.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

For example: "The Impact of International Students on Housing Markets" in the Canadian Journal of Economics. They find that the int'l student boom in US college towns increased rents by about 1%-2%.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Sorry, this is not the way to measure this. The areas you are talking about also tend to be downtown areas of cities. Papers who seriously try to estimate the effects on rents due to int'l students by using different kind of exogenous shocks find modest effects.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

I don't think this is true. If you look at Stats Can's numbers, temp work permit holders only increased from 600k to 1.5M during 2020-2024. Study permits increased from 400k to just under 700k. (There is a smaller number of work and study permit holders that increased a lot in % terms.)

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Let me put it another way. Each int'l student is paying tens of thousand of dollars per year into our education system. Each student also increases avg. rents in a very specific area by an average of what, a few dollars? There seems to be a pretty low-hanging taxation fruit to pick here without caps

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

For example, a tax charged to int'l students that gets paid back to renters in some areas, or to create affordable housing. There was no attempt to find a solution in my opinion. Let's be honest, int'l students got swept up in the anti-immigration outrage caused by the increases in temp migration.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

I think this is nothing compared to how generally dumb the entire policy is Canada-wide. Let's throw out the baby with the bathwater because *checks notes*: 1) students become PRs, 2) students increase living costs for others, and 3) of some bad actors, instead of fixing those particular issues.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

As a Montrealer, where this has been tried before: this doesn't work, for free rider problem reasons.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

In short, our results identify a strategy to promote STEM higher education and careers while also highlighting potential trade-offs.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

4/ Assignment to STEM is risky for low-achieving kids: STEM classes require more time and are graded more harshly. Hence, doing STEM reduces low-achieving kids’ chances of passing a high school exit exam and enrolling in college.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

3/ Curricula affect political preferences: STEM makes boys more conservative, while shifting some of girls' views to the left. Humanities foster kids’ inclination to read, to have female friends, and to be empathetic.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

2/ Assignment changes beliefs/preferences: Students who study STEM come to believe they are good at STEM; those who study Humanities come to feel they are strong in Humanities. Preferences for coursework follow similarly. This holds regardless of gender or initial achievement.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

1/ Assignment to STEM vs. humanities affects what students do: for example, students who study STEM in high school are 25 percentage points more likely to also do it in college (with symmetrical effects for Humanities).

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

What is the impact of studying STEM vs. Humanities? We consider this in Romanian high schools, where otherwise identical kids can be assigned to STEM-focused or Humanities-focused curricula. Our key finding is that kids are malleable to what they study. This happens on 4 fronts:

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Check out our new NBER working paper on the link between ethnic self-identification in official records and education - and what this implies for official statistics, policy, and stereotype formation.

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Reposted by Andrei Munteanu

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

In Moldova, a pro-EU and pro-NATO party has taken an outright majority of the seats in parliament, allowing them to consolidate their control over the country. Russia's sustained campaign to influence the elections was a failure. www.lemonde.fr/internationa...

lemonde.fr

En Moldavie, le parti pro-européen de la présidente Maia Sandu en tête des législatives

Le Parti Action et Vérité, au pouvoir depuis 2021, arrive en tête avec 47,6 % des voix contre 25,9 % au Bloc patriotique prorusse, selon un décompte presque définitif de la commission électorale. La c...

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

cont'd from before (kulaks): I think viewing exam success as meritocratic is embedded in the mentality and will be difficult to dislodge. Whenever I talk to Romanians, they find the current system "fair".

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

A thought: a really nice book I read "Peasants under siege" made the case that the Romanian peasant mentality (and let's be honest, we were a country of peasants until recently) is that hard work = success. Outrage at kulaks didn't really work in Romania.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

That's a very good and tough question. I am leaning towards "by chance", because this system has been in place in times when studying abroad was either 1. impossible, or 2. was not as difficult as today.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I had to look up the "Magurele laser", I have to admit. The name is so good, it sounds made up. It almost sounds like "Falansterul de la Scăieni", or something like that.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying the current system, if you buy my argument, does maximize something. Namely, admissions to top schools abroad. There are reasons why this may be desirable. I'm not arguing that it's socially optimal, of course. I'm just saying there is a logic to it.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Sure, but Romania is a country of 20 million people with very low educational attainment by most standards. I'm not sure that in expectation, if you randomly draw Fields medal winners, you would expect Romania to have one.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

In fact conditional on Western unis existing and being very selective, it does seem like it could be a good strategy to just max out on signaling high ability via Olympiads in order to insure that a lot of HS students get admitted. Then, they egt the best possible education.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I agree. Counterfactuals are very hard... Especially when the two comparison groups (Western countries vs Romania) are different on so many dimensions... But when you have resources that are very rationed, like in Romania, if your goal is to produce elites, it might actually be quite efficient.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I am also in early talks about writing an article about this. :) Yes, I agree, empirical evidence is needed.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Oh, and I agree in principle that there's too much overspecialization and too early. The interesting thing is that humanities is actually more overspecialized, in the sense that science students have a lot of language classes, but humanities students have almost no science training.

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Andrei Munteanu @andrei-econ.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

As for Romania's performance in the Olympiads: it really is a lot like sports in communism. You have quasi-professionalism in some countries like Romania competing with what essentially amount to a hobby in the West. Of course the former system will have good results.

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