David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Elaborate gender reveal parties…but for journal decisions. 291
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026There’s always a chance that you won’t make it to your destination. So when someone asks for your ETA, you should tell them that it’s undefined. 040
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 24/09/2026This paper’s main contribution is that it does not claim to make any contributions, opening the door to all types of new publications which also don’t make contributions. 020
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 21/09/2026I am a one issue voter — stop letting indoor playgrounds require you to purchase their “special” 4-dollar socks. 160
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 17/09/2026A Jeopardy spinoff in which everyone must answer in the form of an exclamation. 120
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 16/09/2026People are worried about the water usage required for AI data centers, but economists see an opportunity to use a rainfall instrument. 000
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026A true Labor Day would be randomized across people so we could identify the causal effects. 030
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 02/09/2026People use abbreviations without even knowing what they stand for. Few people can tell you what i.e. is short for. The “i” is short for “i didn’t” and the “e” is short for “explain that well enough the first time so here’s my second attempt.” 0153
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Everyone knows that if you have young kids, you end up going to a lot of birthday parties. But they don’t tell you that you’ll end up talking to parents there that don’t even know their ORCID. 030
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 20/08/2026My advice would be to write a paper about sample selection bias. Looking at papers about sample selection bias published in top-5 journals, they get a lot of cites. 050
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Academic hack: Be such a notoriously awful reviewer that everyone adds you as a coauthor. 040
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 17/08/2026Imagine how much money we’d save on signage if everyone’s default assumption was that surfaces are slippery when wet. 030
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Is anyone currently studying the biggest public health concern of our times? (How my kids like to touch all my food before washing their hands) 030
Reposted by David PowellPennLDI @pennldi.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Can raising the minimum wage help curb “deaths of despair?” LDI Fellow @davidpowell.bsky.social found that minimum wage increases had, at most, modest effects on overdose deaths and suicides—suggesting more targeted health policies may be needed. Read more: bit.ly/4g79GVkldi.upenn.eduMinimum Wage and Deaths of DespairAlarming rises in suicide and overdose rates are a public health crisis. Researchers seek to measure the health effects of social and economic policies. 111
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 09/08/2026I’m glad that the defibrillator at this playground is labeled an “Emergency Defibrillator” so I know not to use it recreationally. 2120
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 07/08/2026This paper has several limitations. First, not all researchers will appreciate it. Only the smartest and best looking will believe it should be immediately accepted at a top journal. 030
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 05/08/2026It’s so cool that we have all these AI tools now to free up time to talk about AI tools. 031
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 03/08/2026They’re called standard errors because everyone gets them wrong. 000
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Probabilities can be unintuitive. Take this example: when I drive one kid, there’s a 70% chance that they will need to go to the bathroom within the first 10 minutes of the drive. But if i drive both of them, there’s a 180% chance we will need to stop in the first 10 minutes. 000
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 31/07/2026Just read a paper that said “Data is…” when it clearly should say “Data am…” 041
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 28/07/2026I wanted to share some notes from spending the day not at NBER: 1) I was a comfortable temperature. 2) I had decent chicken for lunch. 3) I made a casual remark about something and didn’t receive a response using the phrase “diminishing marginal utility” or “reverse causation” 062
Reposted by David PowellStacie Dusetzina @dusetzinas.bsky.social · 24/07/2026Good reminder of how hard it is to access health insurance for people who are disabled by their conditions but in the waiting period for coverage for SSDI/Medicare. The mortality during the wait period for people with cancer (neoplasms) is nearly 40%. www.healthaffairs.org/doi/epdf/10.... 311357
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 10/07/2026YOU are producing the evidence. End every paper title with “: Evidence from Me” 070
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 09/07/2026“It’s like trying to put sunscreen on a three year old” seems like it would be a useful expression. 093
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 07/07/2026If you need beta-carotene, just regress on carotene. 170
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 06/07/2026I invented a shift-non-share instrument but I’m not letting anyone else use it. 010
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 03/07/2026To give you a sense of just how long 250 years is…if you had started working on three economics papers on July 4, 1776, you would probably already have two published. 0112
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 30/06/2026What was the meat version of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem? 000
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 26/06/2026If you review a paper and the authors thank you for the comments and say that they improved the paper, then you can add “influencer” to your bio. 150
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 25/06/2026The most underappreciated people in our profession are the ones that select the “best referee” winners and I hope we can find a way to recognize them. 000
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 25/06/2026I do worry that economists might use AI to begin writing papers outside of their field. 110
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 24/06/2026I have decided to accept a recent compliment of my artwork as “pretty good” though it was given under the impression that our six year old drew them. 040
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 23/06/2026Trying to work outside more to improve the external validity of my results. 0101
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 16/06/2026Your paper shows a clear positive effect. Please add a model which shows that the effect is ambiguous. 030
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 10/06/2026This paper tries to do much. Please split it into three papers so we can reject each one individually. 1162
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 29/05/2026Change the default. Make everyone not thinking about submitting a proposal send a Letter of No Intent. 010
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 29/05/2026This playground says that my kids play at their own risk but little does it know that I have mitigated some of that risk through something called a high deductible plan. 030
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 27/05/2026If you’re facing a word limit, one way to cut down on words is to delete the limitations section of your paper and then just not have any limitations in your paper. 100
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 27/05/2026Do people also hallucinate fake papers? Is that the point of psychedelics? 010
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 25/05/2026People don’t seem to realize that diff-n-diff is actually short for “dif and only dif-n-dif and only dif” 010
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 22/05/2026Shoutout to eggs for just having lots of protein and not bragging about it everywhere. 030
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 21/05/2026Every sentence of your paper should begin with “As discussed below” or “As discussed above” 080
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 20/05/2026I wish there were some kind of pancreas for autocorrect fails. 020
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 20/05/2026Learn the ecological fallacy — average wages are higher in areas where more people have learned about the ecological fallacy. 0234
Reposted by David PowellPennLDI @pennldi.bsky.social · 19/05/2026Were state “pill mill” laws effective in reducing inappropriate prescribing of opioids? A new study from LDI Fellow @davidpowell.bsky.social finds that such laws were effective in reducing overprescribing and deaths, without turning people to the illicit market. bit.ly/4eWvtQO ldi.upenn.edu‘Pill Mill’ Laws Cut Opioid Overprescribing and DeathsAuthors of a Penn-RAND study find that such laws can target high-risk prescribing with less effect on legitimate pain management access. 131
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 19/05/2026I’m confused how the loneliness epidemic spreads. 0103
David Powell @davidpowell.bsky.social · 19/05/2026Ugh, I somehow have to get rid of all my self-imposed deadlines by Friday. 020
