iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

But fracking itself was a pretty revolutionary change in tech!

The original study linked just doesn't really affect my priors much about the net effect of the new technology on total welfare in the long run.

If your only point is that we should do a better job measuring "meaningfulness in life", I agree! But we should also include not only meaningfulness generated by work, but also everything else (leisure, time with family, ability to have family if you want etc).

People have studied robots making cars, we can observe without any fancy econometrics that way fewer people are now employed in car manufacturing, wages across the income distribution are higher, and there isn't mass unemployment. It's not obvious that everyone has less meaningful jobs.

I'm not saying there are only short run concerns. I'm saying we can't take the partial equilibrium of moving from code writer to code checker as the long run equilibrium. I think this is exactly econ offers- thinking about utility maximization and eqm adjustment.

AI is coming whether we like it or not, so people like us will have ample opportunity to study labor market dynamics as it plays out. But I don't think it's a good prediction to say that everyone will either be unemployed or will simply be doing a less meaningful version of the identical job.

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We're a free society where people can choose to do what they want given the state of the world. We don't centrally plan what jobs people switch to when things change (policies, technology, etc), hence I don't think it's fair to expect us to know exactly how people will optimize in a counterfactual.

I mean... there were a ton of people employed in vehicle manufacturing. Now there aren't. And we don't have mass unemployment. I imagine long run people who otherwise would have chosen the auto industry chose a variety of different things to do.

Yeah, agree. But what you're describing is a short run phenomenon right? There is long run adjustment, too. When robots started assembling cars, people started doing other things that presumably brought them more meaning than simply supervising the robots that were now assembling the cars.

Interesting. I'd much rather my industry reward clear thinking about research questions and research design than coding proficiency, for example. But I also definitely also derive more personal meaning from answering important questions than I do from coding.

I don't think Wisconsin and Illinois hunting areas are terribly different from each other topographically or in terms of population density. So could be a reasonable comparison. But I also think we might be comparing zero with zero

Do we have research on the absolute frequency of hunting rifle bullets meant for deer striking people in states without such laws? I'm guessing the absolute number is tiny, but I could be mistaken.

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Totally (and I think the law is similar in Illinois). Just the logic of banning rifles and allowing handguns in the name of public safety perplexes me.

Brad Shapiro @btshapir.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

You'd much rather Tamar have a deer hunting rifle than a handgun, from a public safety standpoint. It's actually not close.

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Reposted by Brad Shapiro

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Brad Shapiro @btshapir.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

My approach is to focus on question I want to answer first, and when I realize I don't have the tools to answer it, I ask Rachael to co-author with me. Sadly the answer is usually no.

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Brad Shapiro @btshapir.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Always think about the incentives of the ones pushing the narratives and bias adjust.

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Reposted by Brad Shapiro

Tamar Haspel @tamarhaspel.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

The new GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are an existential threat to diet peddlers, so it's not surprising to find them amplifying any risk from the meds. There's mostly silence from them on the ancillary benefits, notably kidney & cardiovascular disease.

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Brad Shapiro @btshapir.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Too busy. Won't get credit. Don't want to be outed as a reviewer.

This has certainly plagued behavioral science, but IMO incentives are better in econ- lots of our work is about measurement as opposed to finding "surprising" effects or biases. Even without the fraud, those papers leave me scratching my head, conceptually. The ideas need to be questioned more.

I think what you are saying is generally true. I have found it very difficult to swim upstream on this issue.

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Yet another story is that the best reviewers are usually junior, and they don't want to make enemies, especially with seniors. Even if the probability of making an enemy from it is small, it's positive.

There's definitely at least some of this. But when I ask, I try to make the cost very close to zero (e.g. just add complete sentences around your conceptual bullet points in the report you already wrote). Still no dice.

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"Who are you to argue with peer reviewed science from the world's leading experts!?!"

My best guess is that public criticism casts a shadow as to whether the public should "trust the experts". We seem to want them to believe us 100% when we tell them something, even if we know it's flawed. So we can safely trash each other in private, but to the public, we're a "United front".

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People happily disagree with papers over coffee with colleagues or in the seminar room. There just seems to be something about publishing a criticism that people don't seem to want to do. Perhaps being labeled as an asshole? I don't know, actually.

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I really dislike this idea that once published, the public should view the paper as unassailable, because it clearly never is. We should be open with the public about the shortcomings of our work.

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The problem is that despite trying several times, I have never gotten a reviewer to agree to write a comment. We are open with our criticisms in seminars, why not in print? People also openly talk behind author backs about what they don't like in their papers. Why not have it in print?

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I've been pretty consistent in my editorial view about this. I want a review process that is one round of referee input, then accepted after revision. If there remain some philosophical/conceptual differences of opinion, I'd rather the reviewers write a comment than iterate behind closed doors.

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And here I wish the housing I desire were available in the rental market. I view my home purchase as an imperfect solution. My housing needs will surely change over time, and purchasing an expensive home adds much friction to re-optimizing.

I regularly try to convince reviewers to submit comments. I have yet to get one to agree.

Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Reposted by Brad Shapiro

One more thing: the current equilibrium favors less innovative, incremental papers getting published in the most selective outlets even more than peer review already does. Those are the ones for which the consensus process works best and tends to converge. A real loss for innovation. 6/6

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Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

It also makes for a bad equilibrium where publicly disagreeing with a paper (except very mildly and boringly) is infrequent and therefore an extreme signal. So people don't do it even when they feel published papers are wrong or misleading. 3/

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Market outlook is much different if you have 8 units for 11 buyers vs. 8 units for 7 buyers.

But that only speaks for mid-range condos, probably. The suuuper high end condos downtown (of which there aren't that many) probably sold way too high originally in bidding wars with the same people. Only so many people can even consider them to begin with. Lots of those people want out now.

Not my specialty, so I could only speculate. But downtown Chicago is not a particularly desirable place to live unless you work downtown in walking distance. Many offices have either moved away from the residential centers (River North, Streeterville) to the West Loop, and others gone remote.

Still not a place to get rich - S&P has done much better over those 10 years than this category of home.