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Davide Usula

@davideusula.bsky.social
114 followers 346 following 14 posts

Sardinian. Interested in (macro) labor, income distribution, industry dynamics and sometimes soccer and books. Ph.D. economics student @SantAnnaPisa

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Reposted by Davide Usula
Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Care work is often treated as somehow less "real" than making tangible goods. Nonsense. It's physically demanding, emotionally demanding, and often highly skilled. That's real work, mate.⁣ ⁣ Check out the full analysis here: newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/…
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Reposted by Davide Usula
Arin Dube @arindube.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Very excited to see The Wage Standard in The Next Big Idea Club's Must Read Books list!
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
📄Link to the paper: davideusula.github.io/assets/pdf/d... Comments and thoughts are very welcome! @isabellamweber.bsky.social @mnikiforos.bsky.social @leiladavis1.bsky.social @karstenkohler.bsky.social @fsaraceno.bsky.social @sgechert.bsky.social
davideusula.github.io
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Discussion: ▪️Inflation as an emergent property of the system (in the spirit of K+S, Dosi et al. 2010). ▪️It results from and amplifies distributive tensions (Rowthorn 1977; Lorenzoni & Werning 2023): a self-reinforcing mechanism driving income distribution. (13/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Implications 🏛️ Monetary policy cannot be regime-neutral. Standard tightening is often "blind" to power: it hits labor harder while firms keep passing costs to prices. Stability requires counterbalancing market power & pricing leverage, not just curbing wages. 🎯 (12/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Robustness ⚠️ 1️⃣Alternative measures (CPI, PCE) & detrending (CF filter) 2️⃣Discrete Wavelet Regression showing a coefficient reversal at cyclical frequencies: from wage-led (1970s) to profit-led (post-2008) ✅A shift in the distributive transmission mechanism (11/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
The Mechanics ⚙️ Beyond "Greedflation" narrative (Weber & Wasner 2023), it is power asymmetry: 🥊 Wage-led: Workers fight to protect shares 🏄‍♂️ Profit-led: Firms win as prices hold while wages lag Price spirals effectively shift income shares (labor vs profit). 🌀 (10/14)
The diagram illustrates the mechanics of endogenous inflationary spirals driven by distributive conflict.

In a wage-led regime (S1), inflation is fueled by labor's attempt to recover income shares through bargaining power: rising nominal wages push prices in a catch-up cycle.

Conversely, in the profit-led regime (S2), the mechanism centers on firms' power asymmetry. Rising markups are not strictly necessary to trigger inflation: it is sufficient for firms to maintain stable margins in the face of shocks (or productivity growth) while wages stagnate (wage lag).

In this configuration, inflation acts as a shield for profits: by translating costs into prices while slowing down wage adjustments, the system operates a forced redistribution that compresses the labor share in favor of profit share. The spiral thus becomes the release valve for incompatible income claims.
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Simulation scenarios📽️ Three archetypal regimes to see how the system reacts: ⚖️ S1 (Stable): Balanced claims & full indexation 🏄‍♂️ S2 (Profit-led): Weak indexation & high markup elasticity (Post-2008) 🥊 S3 (Wage-led): Over-indexation & strong labor power (The 1970s) (9/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Model innovation 🏗️ Building on the conflict-inflation revival (Lorenzoni & Werning, 2023), we extend the predator-prey model. How? We integrate 1️⃣cost-plus pricing rule with nominal stickiness 2️⃣endogenous markup expectations 3️⃣price-augmented wage Phillips curve (8/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
🛠️Formalization🛠️ : a nonlinear system where inflation = competing claims (Wage + Profit) ⚖️ 1️⃣Firms: Prices adjust to desired markups 2️⃣Workers: Wages respond to labor tightness 3️⃣Loops: Markups evolve with profits & demand A closed-loop conflict engine. (7/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Theory 💡: we build a 3-dimensional predator-prey model to formalize this tug-of-war between wages & profits. Inflation is an emergent property of these nonlinear feedback loops. Bargaining power determines if the system flips into wage–price or profit–price spirals. 🌀 (6/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Mechanisms ⚙️: a shift of power 🥊 Past (Wage-led): High labor power. Firm price hikes triggered worker "counter-claims". A persistent spiral. 🏄‍♂️ Now (Profit-led): Firms 'surf' shocks & pass costs while wages stay inert. Inflation asymmetrically decides who pays. (5/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Empirical findings 📊 1️⃣ 70s (Wage-led): Strong labor. Wages lead prices. Spirals🥊 2️⃣ Great Moderation: Decoupling. Structural shifts break the link 📉 3️⃣ Today (Profit-led): Profits lead, real wages lag. Squeeze🔄 Same inflation, different distributive engine. (4/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
❓How do we track these shifting power dynamics? 🔍 We use wavelet decomposition on US quarterly data (1960-2023). This lets us detect transient dynamics and structural breaks: who leads, who follows, and how the phase-sync changes across different historical phases. 🌊 (3/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Core idea: inflation is seen as the 'valve' of a struggle over income shares. 🔄 Power is key, not just to trigger shocks, but to surf price phases and steer income distribution. 🥊 It’s about who has the power to adjust their claims and dictate the direction. (2/14)
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Davide Usula @davideusula.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
NEW WP 🚨 "Regimes of distributive conflict and inflation spirals" w/ G. Dosi & M.E. Virgillito How do distribution & prices co-evolve? 📉 Map wage/profit regimes in US Model bargaining & shifts ⚙️ Inflation emerges from income share conflict 🧵 davideusula.github.io/assets/pdf/d... (1/14)
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Anna Stansbury @annastansbury.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
In our research on socioeconomic background in academia, we ran a survey. Over 2,000 faculty members responded (thanks if you were one!) Social & cultural capital showed up time and again as key issues. A few findings you might be interested in...🧵
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Gonçalo Pina @alvespina.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
This is a great article in the latest issue of the JEP for anyone teaching panel methods (any level). Love this history of economic terms and ideas feature. #Econsky pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...
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Econometrica @ecmaeditors.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
We are pleased to announce an experiment intended to stimulate academic discussion and exchange, centered on papers published in Econometrica 1/5
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Yuriy Gorodnichenko @ygorodnichenko.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
10 year ago, Oli Coibion ( @empctmacrotx.bsky.social ) and I had a paper in AEJ Macro about inflation expectations in the U.S. (www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...). We found that oil/gasoline prices strongly predict inflation expectations. This "iron law" continues to hold. #inflation #EconSky
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Peter Hull @instrumenthull.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Our practical guide to shift-share IV is now out in the JEP! www.aeaweb.org/issues/793 (Ungated version: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/el9yn...)
aeaweb.org
Journal of Economic Perspectives
Vol. 39 No. 1 Winter 2025
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Royal Economic Society @resmedia.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
📰Read the latest 'Letter from France’ by Alan Kirman 'In which Alan Kirman says, Adieu!' - RES Quarterly Newsletter, Issue 208 January 2025. Thank you to Alan for his incredible contribution to the newsletter! Read👉 bit.ly/4jqmAPd #EconSky #news #membership
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NEP-ECM: Econometrics @repec-nep-ecm.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
A practical guide to shift-share instruments: Kirill Borusyak; Peter Hull; Xavier Jaravel
d.repec.org
NEP/RePEc link
to paper
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The Quarterly Journal of Economics @qjeharvard.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Recently accepted by #QJE, “The Diffusion of New Technologies,” by Kalyani (@aakashkalyani.bsky.social), Bloom (@nickbloom.bsky.social), Carvalho, Hassan, Lerner, and Tahoun: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...
doi.org
The Diffusion of New Technologies*
Abstract. We identify phrases associated with novel technologies using textual analysis of patents, job postings, and earnings calls, enabling us to identi
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Jakob Schneebacher @jschneebacher.bsky.social · 29/12/2024
Just a reminder that applications for our funded, joint Oxford-CMA PhD are due in less than a month. Please drop me a message if you have any questions! #EconSky
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Luca Fornaro @lucafornaro.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Interesting note by Krugman. But is it true that fast growing economies typically attract capital inflows and run trade deficits? A 🧵 on a recent literature challenging this notion, and on why China's trade surpluses could be a problem for global productivity growth.
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Danial Lashkari @ldaniall.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Jeremy Pearce and I identify a puzzling trend in US manufacturing: productivity growth has been slowing down while the sector's R&D intensity has been rising. libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/01/the-...
libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org
The R&D Puzzle in U.S. Manufacturing Productivity Growth - Liberty Street Economics
A look at whether the observed slowdown in U.S. manufacturing productivity growth since 2010 is due to a decline in research and development.
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Garrett Johnson @garjoh.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Brilliant talk on "Economics in the Age of Algorithms" by @sendhil.bsky.social videosolutions.mediasite.com/Mediasite/Pl...
videosolutions.mediasite.com
AEA Excellence Awards and Distinguished Lecture
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