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Ben Ho

@hoben.bsky.social
1.6K followers 560 following 103 posts

Vassar (oft Columbia) behavioral economist (formerly White House & Cornell) working on trust, inequality, climate change Author of whytrustmatters.com

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Ben Ho @hoben.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Ok it's been over a while since my last keyboard post. My current obsession is pocketable mech keyboards, which paired with my folding pixel phone, is how I spent much of my sabbatical working on two new books in coffee shops.
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 02/08/2025
Rising mistrust in economists and what to do. Great story @amandaaronczyk.bsky.social @planetmoney.bsky.social, featuring interviews with @dianeswonk.bsky.social @nickbloom.bsky.social @hoben.bsky.social & me. #EconSky #NumbersDay www.npr.org/2025/08/01/1...
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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
lol who did this
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Ben Ho @hoben.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
for those in my feed for the #mechanicalkeyboard content, my latest fave: split key corne that fits in my pockets. ordered last two pcbs/cases from aliexpress the day the China tariff fell... cause who knows when Chinese imports will be cut off again.
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Seema Jayachandran @seema.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
When home heating is less affordable, more people die each winter. That's what our analysis found for a period when LIHEAP was in place. Without LIHEAP, the effect would presumably much larger. Ungated copy of the study here: bit.ly/2JrJfxR
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Anna Goeddeke @annagoeddeke.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
#TeachEcon This semester, I thought I’d share a bit about what I do in my microeconomics lectures. I’m not particularly active on LinkedIn, but I started posting about my teaching because I’m quite frustrated with how economics is often perceived at business schools. (1/n)
media.tenor.com
a woman sits at a desk using a laptop with ring the bell written on the bottom
ALT: a woman sits at a desk using a laptop with ring the bell written on the bottom
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Miriam Golden @mgoldenprof.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Are you interested in U.S. legislative history? Newly-available complete dataset on all persons serving as legislators in the 50 state houses between 1900 and 2016: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
dataverse.harvard.edu
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Dr. Jeff Masters @drjeffmasters.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
New UCLA rapid attribution study: “Climate change may be linked to roughly a quarter of the extreme fuel moisture deficit when the fires began. The fires would still have been extreme without climate change, but probably somewhat smaller and less intense.” sustainablela.ucla.edu/2025lawildfi...
sustainablela.ucla.edu
Climate Change A Factor In Unprecedented LA Fires
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
New randomized, controlled trial by the World Bank of students using GPT-4 as a tutor in Nigeria. Six weeks of after-school AI tutoring = 2 years of typical learning gains, outperforming 80% of other educational interventions. And it helped all students, especially girls who were initially behind.
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Andrew Kosenko @andrewkosenko.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
I'm looking for nonfiction books to read. Loved: - (Auto)buographies of Kandel, Oliver Sacks, Oppenheimer, Miles Davis, Feynman, Philip Glass - "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Rhoades Don't say "The Power Broker":) I'm on my umpteenth attempt. What are your favorites?
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Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 13/01/2025
The world has passed “peak child”
This chart titled "The world has passed 'peak child'" shows the historical and projected population of three age groups: young people under 25 years, young people under 15 years, and children under 5 years. Data spans from 1950 to 2100, based on UN estimates and projections.

The blue line represents the population under 25 years, showing steady growth until around 2050 when it starts to slightly decline.
The red line represents those under 15 years, peaking around 2020, and then gradually declining after that point.
The green line shows children under 5 years, which has largely plateaued since the 1990s and is projected to decrease over time.
The chart indicates that the global number of children has reached its peak, and a long-term decline in younger populations is expected.
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 12/01/2025
Scientists developed the first climate models in the late 1960s (for which the Nobel Prize in physics was recently awarded!). How have these models held up against what happened in the real world after they were published? Surprisingly well, it turns out:
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
If you are an academic, it can be instructive to work on a paper with AI. Pretend you are working with a grad student & see what happens. Generally o1 is best for well-defined heavy intellectual tasks, Gemini for synthesizing lots of text, and Claude for writing & theorizing. This varies by field.
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Max Roser @maxroser.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Who would have won the 'Simon-Ehrlich bet' over different decades — and what do long-term prices tell us about resource scarcity? The new Our World in Data article by my colleague Hannah Ritchie. ourworldindata.org/simon-ehrlic...
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Why economists need to review the preregistration!* This is a hot mess; hard to believe it's in the QJE datacolada.org/122 * docs.google.com/document/d/1...
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
We need more research on social media effects on elites, activists, and other subgroups per our recent Nature review www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation - Nature
This Perspective identifies common misperceptions regarding the harms of online misinformation, finding that exposure to false and inflammatory content is rare and concentrated among a small minority ...
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Joshua Mask @joshuafmask.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Well this was intuitive...
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Joshua Gans @joshgans.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
Kenneth Arrow’s Last Theorem: Why do the most patient individuals dictate environmental policy in the long run? Let’s explore this fascinating result about efficiency and time preferences. 🧵 www.mechanism-design.org/arch/v009-1/...
mechanism-design.org
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Florian Ederer @florianederer.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
No.
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Florian Ederer @florianederer.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
Ran Spiegler has a new book out that I found very entertaining. It's a collection of essays offering accessible introductions to modern classics of economic theory: global games, Bayesian persuasion, hold-up problem, competitive screening, ... And it's FREE! direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
direct.mit.edu
The Curious Culture of Economic Theory
An essay collection that insightfully explores the professional culture of contemporary economic theory, highlighting key features of successful economic t
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Daniel Litt @littmath.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
I've recently been talking a bit about how difficult it is to carefully check even well-written mathematics. I want to try to explain something about this by telling the story of some errors in the literature that (in part) led to the two papers below. 1/n
Geometric local systems on very general curves and isomonodromy, JAMSCanonical representations of surface groups, Annals
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Ben Ho @hoben.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
I enjoyed this sophomoric ramble though. Probability is weird and I appreciate scientific American trying to make that weirdness accessible to a broad audience.
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Khoa @khoavuumn.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
We don't download PDFs just "to ignore them forever". It's an irreplaceable ritual. A process represents the imbalance between our desire to know and physical and psychological constraints. It symbolizes constant inner battles & compromises for a future in which we read the papers that never comes.
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Neil Renic @ncrenic.bsky.social · 27/12/2024
You’ve downloaded hundreds of PDFs for research and now it’s finally time to ignore them forever
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Simon Jäger @simonjaeger.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
How do unions and collective bargaining work around the world? And how do they affect the wage structure? A new paper with Suresh Naidu and Benjamin Schoefer @schoefer.bsky.social out NBER WP today and prepared for the Handbook of Labor Economics. Thread below. 👇
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Florian Ederer @florianederer.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
It still boggles my mind that only 66 years separate these photos.
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Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Challenging game of draw the time series on.ft.com/3DpQ8vZ
on.ft.com
Draw your own chart game: how well do you know the jobs market?
Test your knowledge on trends from hybrid schedules to AI hiring
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Peter Hull @instrumenthull.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
We've significantly updated our paper on modeling + measuring systemic discrimination! Check it out: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ab5yx... (cc @aleximas.bsky.social + @aislinnbohren.bsky.social!) A short 🧵 on what's new...
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NBER @nber.org · 17/12/2024
How policymakers and the US population update their beliefs on the use of science and the trust they have in government following a field experiment that demonstrated the ineffectiveness of a policy intervention, from Guglielmo Briscese and John A. List www.nber.org/papers/w33239
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Colin Camerer @cfcamerer.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Great data journalism: people report “best times” is when they were 10-15 yo www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
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Kevin A. Bryan @afinetheorem.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Super excited to publicly launch "All Day TA" (www.alldayta.com), a product @joshgans.bsky.social and I have been working on with our team over the last year. Short version: if you teach in spring, you will want to use this! It's the future of higher education. A short thread: 1/x
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Cameron @cameron.stream · 13/12/2024
I put this on twitter but figured I'd put it here too. I post a lot of AI stuff over there because it's my job and I have a lot of reach there, hopefully I can start doing more here. I read the OpenAI post and had a few observations, a thread. openai.com/index/elon-m...
openai.com
Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit
Elon Musk’s latest legal filing against OpenAI marks his fourth attempt in less than a year to reframe his claims. However, his own words and actions speak for themselves—in 2017, Elon not only wanted...
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Seema Jayachandran @seema.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Wanted: More posts in this genre. What's the one thing you wrote in 2024 that I should read?
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Tatyana Deryugina @tderyugina.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Some tips for preparing for preliminary job market interviews!
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 12/12/2024
The Maritime Approximation xkcd.com/3023
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John Cawley @johncawley.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
From our AEA cttee on the job market, here's the December update on the status of the job mkt for PhD economists of the 2024-25 cycle. A thread with graphs follows... #EconJobMarket #EconSky @aeainformation.bsky.social @aeacswep.bsky.social @joelistings.bsky.social 1/9
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Khoa @khoavuumn.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Real footage of a synthetic control model
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John P de New 🇦🇺🇨🇦🇩🇪🇪🇺 @denewjohn.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Hey All, The amazing John List is on BlueSky. @johnlist.bsky.social #EconSky
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Alex Imas @aleximas.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
This is an insane graph.
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Jennifer Doleac @jenniferdoleac.bsky.social · 07/12/2024
I have an op-ed in the NYT today about how to reduce crime. The key idea, based on decades of strong research evidence: focus on increasing the probability of getting caught, not the punishment. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/o...
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Tatyana Deryugina @tderyugina.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
There are many great organizations to support, but one that's come on my radar recently is the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. They're non-partisan and non-profit. Send me a screenshot of your donation to them, and I'll match it! (up to $1000) www.crfb.org
crfb.org
Home | Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is a nonpartisan, non-profit organization committed to educating the public on issues with significant fiscal policy impact.
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Stefanie Stantcheva @s-stantcheva.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Zero-sum thinking is a key mindset that shapes how we view the world. A little thread to highlight our work on its roots with @sahilchinoy.bsky.social, @nathannunn.bsky.social, Sandra Sequeira.🧵1/23 scholar.harvard.edu/files/stantc...
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Alex Imas @aleximas.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
Totally agree with @shengwuli.bsky.social. The broader point is that I think we need to directly address the elephant in the room: the *huge* impact of context--i.e., seemingly irrelevant factors--on choice and beliefs. 🧵 on the behavioral economics of context, with some new data at the end.
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Shengwu Li @shengwuli.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
I like Ryan’s paper and (obviously) I think complexity matters for behavior. But I think Florian’s updating too much from one experiment. I want to see replications and results from ‘nearby’ designs before saying the lottery anomalies have nothing to do with risk.
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Florian Ederer @florianederer.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Some of the most important lottery anomalies from the behavioral risk literature (e.g., probability weighting and loss aversion) actually have nothing to do with risk. They also arise in perfectly deterministic settings. Lead article in the latest AER issue: www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
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Stephanie Wang @sweiwang.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
This is the extensively updated paper on DOSE. Comments most welcome. @cfcamerer.bsky.social
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Ryan Briggs @ryancbriggs.net · 27/11/2024
I literally showed that child mortality video this in class today. Everyone seems only vaguely impressed until I describe how my first born almost died shortly after birth (www.ryancbriggs.net/blog/2015/10...). It’s wild to me how much we need stories to even start to grasp something numerical.
ryancbriggs.net
Isaac is a lucky boy — Ryan C. Briggs
About two weeks ago, my first child, Isaac was born. We spent a standard two days in the hospital and then went home. After about 5 hours at home, in his third day of life, Isaac developed a fever of ...
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Max Roser @maxroser.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Few people even know about this; when people are asked in surveys how child mortality has changed the majority says it has stagnated or increased. If you consider that many don't know about humanity's biggest achievement, then it's not surprising that many are so pessimistic about our future.
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Peter Hull @instrumenthull.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Contamination Bias in Linear Regressions -- out today in the AER! www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/x4bc1...
dropbox.com
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Florian Ederer @florianederer.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Papers authored by Black, Hispanic or Asian economists receive 5.1% to 9.6% fewer citations than those by White scholars. The citation gap is largely driven by homophily in citation patterns and racial clusters in networks (i.e., cite authors from own racial group). www.nber.org/papers/w33150
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