iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Ben Golub

Econometrica @ecmaeditors.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Why are the wealthiest so wealthy? 27-year panel: top 0.1% wealth gap reflects higher saving (36%), inheritances (31%), returns (28%). Calibrated to cross-sections alone, models miss "New Money" or "Old Money"; our dynamic facts pin down the mechanism. buff.ly/1Z1N36N

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The Erdős–Sós conjecture is a shockingly simple statement about graphs that we did not know was true: a (simple) graph with average degree > t−2 contains every tree on t vertices. A few days ago, OpenAI's Astra proved it as part of an Epoch AI project. Here's a simple exposition. 1/

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I'm interested in the views of social scientists who made arguments that standardized tests did not provide a valuable incremental signal of preparedenss in college admissions over HS record. What do they think now? Would love to see some discussion.

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Erzo F.P. Luttmer @erzoluttmer.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

1/5 AEA journals have run a pilot using Refine, and author reactions were overwhelmingly positive: >90% favored incorporating Refine into the editorial process. Think of Refine not as a referee, but as a detailed technical proofreader. @aeajournals.bsky.social #EconSky

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Henry Yuen @henryyuen.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Some initial thoughts, and a complicated mix of feelings. Wow. I mean, Erdos problems are cool (I genuinely mean that), I didn't know about the Jacobian conjecture before it got disproved. But this newest batch from OpenAI hits home in a way the previous announcements did not.

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Alex Falcone @alexfalcone.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The place I donate blood gives points that you can exchange for gas cards which means I actually know the current exchange rate of blood for oil. Blood is going for 20.618 times an equivalent amount of oil.

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

To me (someone w/ no dog in this fight) your reply shows you are not a good scholar: rather than publicly confronting the clear evidence of your misrepresenting your sources, you turn to (perhaps correct) personal criticism of Magness. This is the behavior of (bad) politician, not a scholar.

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Wojtek Kopczuk @wwwojtekk.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Unsurprisingly, it's mostly a shrug here except for a few people who pretend it is ok. I'll add another one in this genre that made my jaw drop.

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Manasvini Singh @vinisingh.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

New WP, just in time for #ASHEcon26! What started off as a project to learn LLM use for text analysis turned accidentally into a paper about stigma. [1/n]

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Joseph Shapiro @joseph-s-shapiro.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

💧New Paper Water Works: Causes and Consequences of Safe Drinking Water in America 📉US drinking water pollution fell by HALF in 2003-2019 💰Safe Drinking Water Act $ helped ❤️Investments reduce mortality, benefit/cost ratio >20 www.nber.org/papers/w35288 👇

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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Immigrants have founded or cofounded 59% (455 of 775) of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more, according to a new National Foundation for American Policy analysis nfap.com/research/new...

nfap.com

New NFAP Policy Brief: Immigrants and U.S. Billion-Dollar Companies - NFAP

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Some very interesting discussion, reposted from X, about standards of accuracy in some research areas -- those who follow/read Slobodian might be interested. My take is that the intellectual hygiene in some areas is terrible, and there is very limited interest in any self-correction.

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

It seems this news hasn't reached this platform yet, but Phil Magness has some striking notes on how @quinnslobodian.com quotes sources, which I'll simply reproduce here 1/

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Matt Notowidigdo @profnoto.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Huge thanks to refine.ink for alerting us to the mistake (and thanks to @bengolub.bsky.social and team for creating such a useful tool) Bottom line: refine.ink is great!

refine.ink

Refine - AI-Powered Research Assistant

Refine helps researchers analyze papers, collaborate with teams, and streamline their research workflow with AI-powered tools.

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Matt Notowidigdo @profnoto.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I posted a short note correcting a mistake in an approximation formula in a recent publication of mine Publication: academic.oup.com/qje/article/... Corrigendum: users.nber.org/~notom/resea...

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Jason Hartline @jasonhartline.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

I joined the #nokings protest in Chicago. With the war between the USA, Iran, and Israel and grave human rights violations by the regimes of all three, the good people of these countries must not allow the acts of their leaders to be normalized. March 28, 2026.

At #nokings protest in front of Trump Tower in Chicago. Holding sign: "good guys" don't bomb girls' schools.

At #nokings protest in Chicago, holding sign: Bad regimes. Good people. USA, Iran, Israel.

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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 21/03/2026

🧵A thread on "AI one-shot papers". This has not been a focus on Bluesky, but on Twitter/X and LinkedIn, there has been a large discussion of the ability to "one-shot" policy evaluation, which David Yanagizawa-Drott has been pursuing in an interesting way: ape.socialcatalystlab.org

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Great piece by @soumayakeynes.ft.com on AI in economics in today’s FT (link at end) featuring Refine.ink. Indeed, Refine regularly catches issues that need correcting but are missed by even the most rigorous current review processes. a short 🧵 1/

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Jason Hartline @jasonhartline.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

SocialCal #socialcal will read your @bsky.app feed and turn event posts into an ICS calendar feed that you can install in your calendar app. See the documentation here: socialcal.org It is open source. Suggestions or improvements are welcome.

socialcal.org

SocialCal User Manual (v1)

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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 24/01/2026

Everyone freezing on the East Coast or in the Midwest remember: Kyiv has the same weather, except that hundreds of thousands of people don't have electricity, heating or running water

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Pedro Magalhães @pcmagalhaes.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Tried refine.ink by @bengolub.bsky.social to get feedback about a paper and it's quite remarkable. Worth giving it a try. And if you use this link — www.refine.ink?ref=cGVkcm9t... — we can both get a free review.

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Andreas Peichl @apeichl.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

I have just used refine.ink by @bengolub.bsky.social to proof-check 3 papers, and it is amazing! It checks for internal consistency, checks proofs and finds typos that I would not have seen! Sign up using my link so we both can get extra reviews when: www.refine.ink?ref=YS5wZWlj...

refine.ink

refine

AI feedback for research.

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

This is a common question - Refine seems about equally useful for theory and empirical work. It thinks about, e.g., whether - the numbers in a paper make sense taken together - the econometric equations match up with the verbal claims - whether signs of effects make sense.

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Joshua Goodman @joshua-goodman.com · 11/11/2025

I just used refine.ink to proofread a paper that's nearly ready for circulation. It had 23 comments. The first caught us using "reduces" instead of "increases" when describing our main treatment effect in the abstract. I highly endorse this tool for preventing such embarassing errors!

refine.ink

refine

AI feedback for research.

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Konstantin Bogatyrev @bogatyrev.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

If you sign up for Refine to proofread your papers, please use my referral link to create an account: www.refine.ink?ref=ay5ib2dh... That way we both can receive one free technical review!

refine.ink

refine

AI feedback for research.

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Zeta Of 1 @zetaof1.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

A meme I created for a presentation I gave today Best wishes to @bengolub.bsky.social and all other Eigenvalue appreciators

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Victoria Baranov @vicbar.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

🚨 We are hiring! ‼️‼️ tenured track assistant or associate prof in economics at university of Melbourne @unimelb.bsky.social welcome applications from all fields (but especially from econometrics) econjobmarket.org/positions?sh...

econjobmarket.org

EJM - Econ Job Market

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Neil Shephard @neilshephard.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

This seems very interesting. I would be keen to hear about experiences with Refine.

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Check out refine.ink for AI technical referee reports on your papers if you haven't tried it yet DM me or reply if you want preview credits to see how it performs on papers of various kinds

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Jessica Leight @leightjessica.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

#econtwitter #econsky: recently used Refine.ink (developed by @ben_golub) as a AI assessment tool for papers + it is amazing, so wanted to share some examples of what it can do if you are curious. (It's much, much better than other free tools I've used)

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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 09/10/2025

Added Finance job decomposition, and Federal Reserve Bank/Board jobs (zero so far this year...)

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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 08/10/2025

Posted a short blog post with updated data (and public repo with data) of current state of Econ job market: paulgp.com/2025/10/08/j...

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Julian Reif @julianreif.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

I tried this on a manuscript—I’m impressed! It flagged: - A missing variable in a first-order condition - An outdated manual calc (“drop from X to Y is not Z%”) - Inconsistent notation - Miscellaneous typos (“and and”, “+ +”) - Missing subscripts - Several unclear passages

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Florian Hollenbach @fhollenbach.org · 05/09/2025

I have just used it for the first time and let me tell you, it is well worth the money. Highly recommended for a last check before submission. Great stuff 👏

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Alex Engler @alexengler.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

This @beijingpalmer.bsky.social post reminded me I have been meaning to update @pewresearch.org's estimate of total newspaper newsroom jobs - which was 30,820 as of 2020 Using BLS OEWS data (w/ same methodology as Pew) the 2024 number is 29,260 - down another 5% www.pewresearch.org/chart/sotnm-...

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Survivorship bias maybe. There were other chesses.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Peter Temin, economic historian at MIT, has passed away. He worked both on problems of understanding the past (e.g. "Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression?") and how how the past shapes the present (e.g. "The Vanishing Middle Class.") Terrific scholar and mentor, generous critic.

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Charlie Cheever @ccheever.com · 04/08/2025

A 16 y o running a 1:42.27 800m is maybe the most impressive and amazing and shocking athletic feat I have ever seen. Hard to explain how truly extraordinary it is.

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

I wonder how LLM literature reviews will change "rich-get-richer" effects in academic citations.

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Eva Vivalt @evavivalt.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Okay, now that I've used it for some work on forecasting, I have to say this is a fantastic tool! We will be changing some things in our paper as a result. Highly recommended!

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Marciano Siniscalchi @marciano.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Belatedly doing my best to amplify this. Refine works, and I can totally see it becoming part of my pre-submission routine.

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Jessica Leight @leightjessica.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Refine is at a completely different level from the other LLM-based review tools I have tried. It not only identified a large number of small errors in my paper, it also correctly identified what I think is the biggest conceptual weakness. Definitely worth trying.

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Ryan Briggs @ryancbriggs.net · 29/07/2025

fwiw I used refine & while it misread my paper & made mistakes in 2 places, they were pretty "good" mistakes & I'm going to change the text to be clearer because I think a human could make the same mistake. The other comments were also helpful. It's the best "LLM peer review" experience I've found.

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Max Reith @maxreith.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Pretty impressive! It caught things that o3 and Gemini didn't. Wish I had had this before my submission...

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Economists for Ukraine @econ4ua.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

👩‍🏫The war in Ukraine has devastated the education system, so the AI for Good Foundation and Econ4UA created education centers in four frontline cities. Located in air raid shelters with reliable Internet, they offer free classes and a safe space for children to learn. Support our centers:

ai4good.org

Donate: Support Ukraine's Education - AI for Good Foundation

Ukrainian Education: Supporting Ukraine’s Children in Conflict Zones—From Safe Learning Spaces to Essential Life Skills. Ongoing Campaign. Learn More

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Seema Jayachandran @seema.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

I just tried out Refine on a paper of mine and found the comments very helpful.

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