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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

This supports my overarching thesis: QSMs are most compelling when paired with credible research design. Ignoring parameter identification is often unnecessary; potential moments abound. Read more, along with much additional synthesis, at cseveren.github.io/files/Evalua...

cseveren.github.io

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Among other things, I connect hedonics, sorting, and travel demand methods within a QSM, showing the objects they inform. Tho this is targeted at transportation, this general approach is broadly transferable.

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Curious about using QSMs for policy evaluation? My new draft for an RSUE SI targets QSMs for evaluating transportation infrastructure, but (hopefully) contains insights broadly useful for policy evaluation with QSMs.

Abstract for paper titled "Evaluating Transportation Improvements Within Cities Using Quantitative Spatial Models", August 2006:

Quantitative spatial models (QSMs) offer an economically and geographically realistic framework to evaluate the effects of transportation infrastructure within cities. In this survey, I argue that QSMs are most compelling when complemented by credible research design. To do so, I review alternative economic valuation methods and develop a simple urban QSM to interpret changes accessibility. The model maps the estimands of the alternative approaches into a consistent framework, demonstrating that standard empirical research designs can be conformable with QSM estimation. This exercise reveals several shortcomings common in applications of QSMs. These shortcomings, along with model enrichments, inform the future agenda of this literature.

Epigraph: “Beware of certainty where none exists,” by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

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Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 07/05/2026

More than a million people die from road injuries every year— Around 1.3 million people die from road injuries across the world every year. That includes the deaths of drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. That’s around 2.4% of deaths from all causes.

Stacked area chart of annual global deaths from road injuries by road-user type from 1980 to 2023, where total deaths exceed one million per year and the composition changes over time. Pedestrians and vehicle drivers/passengers make up the largest shares, with motorcyclists, cyclists, and other road injuries also contributing. Data source: IHME, Global Burden of Disease (2025). License: CC BY.

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

This is applied micro now: Editor gives you path to publication (Rej & Resub). You spend 9mo revising paper. 2 refs say accept, 1 says R&R. But, there's a new editor. They find a new ref that says reject. So, paper rejected. Everyone's time wasted.

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Urban and Trade juniors 🚨 @foxecon.bsky.social and I are organizing a few thematic sessions at the SEAs in November this year. If you've finished your PhD in the last 1-2 years, send submissions us; we'll let you if it themes. Deadline: 🗓️ Friday May 27 ❗️ southerneconomic.org/conference/c...

southerneconomic.org

2026 Call for Papers and Session Proposals

2026 Call for Papers Southern Economic Association®96th Annual Meeting November 21-23, 2026Marriott Marquis HoustonHouston, TX Call for Papers and Session Proposals The Call for Papers and Ses…

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

If you have transportation related papers and would like to join in organizing a session, DM/email me!

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

As an end of the year wrap up, I thought I'd look at my research in terms of "days between starting a project and acceptance"... here's the list: 1916 2771 1522 2009 1492 929 941 2616 I've decided this was stupid exercise lolol

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Urban Economics Association @urbaneconomics.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

📣 Call for papers 📣 15th European Meeting of the Urban Economics Association May 8 - 9, 2026 CREI, Barcelona Keynotes by Edward Glaeser and Monika Piazzesi. Please submit your paper by January 9. urbaneconomics.org/meetings/emu...

urbaneconomics.org

UEA 2026 Barcelona

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

is quoting macbeth in an econ paper a good idea or a bad idea? i mean, it's october...

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Urban Economics Association @urbaneconomics.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

The program for our upcoming annual North American meeting is up: urbaneconomics.org/meetings/uea.... #UEA2025, hosted by Université du Québec à Montréal, features keynotes by Cecile Gaubert & Keith Head and 60+ paper sessions. To register, visit editorialexpress.com/conference/nauea2025/

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Prof Dynarski @dynarski.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

Statement from the largest economics association about the BLS firing As context: AEA approximately never makes such public statements This is a big deal

August 1, 2025
AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
Committee on Economic Statistics and Committee on Government Relations

Statement from the American Economic Association on the
Dismissal of the BLS Commissioner

Leaders of the American Economic Association express their grave concern over the dismissal of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) earlier today.
The independence of the federal statistical agencies is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy. Accurate, timely, and impartial statistics are the foundation upon which households, businesses, and policymakers make critical decisions. Undermining the independence or credibility of these agencies threatens the integrity of the information that markets, institutions, and the public rely on every day.
Measuring the vast and dynamic U.S. economy in real time is inherently challenging. It is standard practice for statistical estimates to be revised as more complete and higher-quality data become available. These revisions reflect the commitment of statistical agencies to accuracy, transparency, and methodological rigor-not failure or bias.
The BLS has long had a well-deserved reputation for professional excellence and nonpartisan integrity.
Safeguarding this tradition is vital for the continued health of the U.S. economy and public trust in our institutions.
We call upon elected officials to respect and preserve the independence of the nation's statistical infrastructure.

Lawrence Katz
President, American Economic Association
Katharine Abraham
President-Elect, American Economic Association
Karen Dynan
Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Economic Statistics
Kenneth Troske
Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Government Relations

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Michael R Strain @michaelrstrain.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Dr. Erika McEntarfer has devoted her career to public service. She has conducted herself as BLS Commissioner with great integrity. There is no evidence whatsoever that BLS data are politically biased. #econsky

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

welp there goes the credibility of US labor statistics... as soon as you fire the head of a stats agency for not producing stats that you like, you inject bias into how all future numbers are interpreted (and reported).

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

i love doing research, but... currently on a 13 strike rejection streak. it's sometimes not a very rewarding or validating profession.

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Allison Shertzer @econhist-allday.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

I am looking for a research assistant to work with me on the development of U.S. housing markets. Experience with ArcGIS, Stata useful. We build datasets that allow us to understand housing affordability, the impacts of transit and zoning, and more: rb.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FRS/jo...

rb.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com

Research Assistant/Sr. Research Assistant

Company Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Job Description Summary Research assistants (RAs) at the Philadelphia Fed play a key role in the Economic Research Department. Whether they are helping eco...

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

spent some time calling ☎️ PA state house / senate members over proposed ✂️ to SEPTA transit 🚅 funding, and I have to say, it was cool to speak to actual ppl in the those offices

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

The Philadelphia Fed's Grad Student mentoring program deadline is coming up: 6/20 ⏰ We prioritize nearby universities but have accepted applicants from all over the country. Apply! www.philadelphiafed.org/the-economy/...

philadelphiafed.org

Philadelphia Fed Mentoring & Advancing PhDs (PFMAP) Program

Now Accepting Applications: PFMAP is a program intended to introduce Ph.D. candidates to the vibrant research life at the Philadelphia Fed and provide additional mentorship opportunities for participa...

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

yeah... in general, i skeptical of claims that the (or even an) issue with transit (in the US) is that fares are unaffordable

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

This project is joint with the excellent Verónica Bäcker-Peral and Vitaly Meursault.

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Curious how accurate multimodal LLMs are at digitizing diversely formatted historical tables? ➡️ pretty accurate! ➡️ helps a lot with harmonization ➡️ far cheaper than manual digitization ➡️ but iterative, disciplined prompt training is important! Check out our new WP - arxiv.org/abs/2505.11599

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

... but will prob still do it anyway <sigh>

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Well, NBER, in fact **I WILL BE** discouraged from submitting other papers for consideration at future meetings. 😎

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

yeah, it's really tricky bc no is *explicit* about what the bar is at, say, journal X, so we're all just guessing based on ... vibes ...

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

(of course i'll continue to be a thoughtful and objective referee. but i don't see people express this sentiment often and i think it's common. it's important to call out a feeling rather than to pretend it away only to see it leak out in worse ways)

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

refereeing can be hard: a journal rejects you 1, 5, times... and then asks for your objective opinion about another paper, especially when your own research has not always received objective review or careful editorship it's important to not perpetuate the jackassery, but it's not always easy

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

lol yeah that order, but different editors 🤷

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

new achievement unlocked: rejection and referee request from the same journal w/in a 10 minute window ☑️

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Jay Jinsing Falk @jjinsing.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

My NSF PRFB on the genetics of female polymorphism in hummingbirds was terminated yesterday. I don't have much to say, I'm just sad. We've discovered so much, and could have gone so much further. If anyone else is in the same boat, esp postdocs, please reach out, it would be good to connect.

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ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪʟʟɪᴍᴇᴛ ✡️☮️❤️ @dlmillimet.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

##EconSky Our seminar speaker for tmr was coming from U Toronto. He was apparently detained (politely) for several hrs by US customs in CA. He was then cleared to travel to the US after his flight had left. Needless to say, no seminar tmr.

media.tenor.com

a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a snl logo

ALT: a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a snl logo

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Nature @nature.com · 27/03/2025

The massive changes in US research brought about by the new administration of President Donald Trump are causing many scientists in the country to rethink their lives and careers go.nature.com/41OhAgK

go.nature.com

75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving

More than 1,600 readers answered our poll; many said they were looking for jobs in Europe and Canada.

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

hearing from folks who are worried about their devices being inspected for critical speech at the border... this is some un-American BS, unacceptable

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Patrick Baylis @patrickbaylis.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

New dataset alert: daily average online sentiment by county These are averages of online sentiment from geo-located tweets between 2014 and 2022. I'm glad to make them available more broadly now. Let me know if they're helpful! www.patrickbaylis.com/posts/2025-0...

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Here are some sources for relevant data saving / rescue efforts: - @datarescueproject.org www.datarescueproject.org - Data Lumos www.datalumos.org

datarescueproject.org

Data Rescue Project

Preserving public data

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

a funny thing about using LLMs for surveying academic literature: the hallucinations are actually pretty good suggestions of what to work on and who to coauthor with...

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Applications due 2/1 ⏰ for AEA Summer Economics Fellows at the Philly Fed and many other Reserve Banks and gov agencies, run by @aeacswep.bsky.social and @aeacsmgep.bsky.social. This is a great program! Please apply! www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/co...

aeaweb.org

Summer Economics Fellows Program

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

very cool paper, but also the first line of abstract "We provide the first evidence on how workers invest in human capital after losing ability" cannot possibly be true. editors would provide valuable service by being more circumspect of these claims prior to publication.

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

i agree with the diversity-of-methods point of view; the more, the better. a solid finding is one that emerges from a variety of methods.

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

why so much antipathy toward DD? sure, there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of DD (and especially TWFEs), but it is still a major heuristic in the toolbox... should it not be? (I totally agree with the sentiment that we should be much more careful in how we use DD)

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Chris Severen @chrisseveren.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

5⃣ Finally, how reasonable is assumption ii? It's ok, but the CPS does appear to undersample younger recent immigrants and female recent immigrants. However, these differences don't seem extreme.

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