iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 29/09/2026

In my paper I analyze scenarios in which the tax is charged to universities, students, or employers. It is expected that the OPT tax proposal announced later this week will be charged to universities. How many might pay? I offer the first estimates.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 29/09/2026

The US Administration will announce later this week its new $100,000 tax on international students who stay to work ('Optional Practical Training') This is not the H-1B visa tax. It's separate and additional. I analyze some likely effects of the new OPT tax here—> www.iza.org/publications...

iza.org

Taxes on International Students: Demand and Supply Response for Post-Graduation Foreign Workers on Optional Practical Training

The US government has proposed various taxes on high-skill immigration. The effects of such taxes hinge on price elasticities of demand and supply tha...

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 29/09/2026

"The Long-Term Effects of Cash Assistance" by David J. Price and Jae Song Just out in @aeajournals.bsky.social —> doi.org/10.1257/app....

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 29/09/2026

"How to Build a Policy School" Santi Ruiz of @ifp.bsky.social interviews our powerhouse dean, a nice summary of what we're building here at @jhu.edu —> www.statecraft.pub/p/how-to-bui...

How to Build a Policy School
“We’re not reading the IKEA instructions.”
Santi Ruiz
9 hours ago
My guest today is Will Howell.

Will is the inaugural dean of the School of Government & Policy at Johns Hopkins, which welcomes its first class in fall 2028. His argument is that the standard policy masters degree is no longer fit for purpose. I happen to agree.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 28/09/2026

That paper is careful and thoughtful. But one of several issues is how the account for the effects of networks (which ~double the gain to +18%). They estimate those network effects from the current, closed world. The network effects in a more open world could be much larger.

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IZA@LISER @iza.org · 28/09/2026

🌍 Restricting international #STEM students would cost the U.S. economy billions 🆕IZA Discussion Paper by @mclem.org, J. Neufeld & A. Nice examines what would happen if policy changes restricted the # of intl. STEM graduates transitioning into the U.S. workforce. 🔗 www.iza.org/publications... 1/2

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 28/09/2026

Corruption of our American institutions harms all of us. In a million ways that we cannot ever fight as individuals, or even trace to their cause. It harms every Conservative and every Liberal American. Condoning or even encouraging corruption does not help anyone’s “side“.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 28/09/2026

Our nonpartisan statistical agencies are not just pillars of our public service, but of democracy itself, because the facts they produce are necessary for citizens to hold their government accountable. This atrocity at our Census Bureau must be understood as a trial balloon.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 27/09/2026

Yes! I’d highlight two IMF studies finding a substantial positive effect of immigration on GDP per capita primarily due to a positive effect on productivity: Summaries here cepr.org/voxeu/column... and www.imf.org/en/blogs/art...

cepr.org

Immigration and economic prosperity

Rapidly ageing populations, the refugee crisis, and growing anti-immigration rhetoric have brought immigration issues to the forefront recently. Using a panel of 18 countries, this column explores the...

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National Foundation for American Policy @nfapresearch.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

If the Trump admin $103,265 H-1B fee rule stands, DHS could, in theory, set application fees of $10 million in every immigration category and block all immigrants & temporary visa holders, nullifying U.S. laws on legal immigration. @mclem.org @douglasrivlin.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...

forbes.com

DHS Overestimated Revenue In H-1B Fee Immigration Rule By $6.1 Billion

A new analysis finds DHS overestimated by $6.1 billion the annual revenue it would receive by imposing a $103,265 fee on H-1B petitions.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 25/09/2026

This statement by a top US official is false: many have a legal status. It is also deceptive: many others lack legal status only because his own Administration removed it. But setting facts aside, this is a deeply shocking statement from a person responsible for decisions with life/death effects.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 25/09/2026

Our American elections are free and secure. The smear campaign against them is an attempt to acquire powers to subvert them.

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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...

So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.

And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026

over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Most people have no idea how much international students are the lifeblood of higher education. But they’re about to learn. Sigh.

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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 19/09/2026

Obsessive focus on the state of your subordinates' genitals is the hallmark of something, and that something is neither effective leadership nor military success.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 23/09/2026

A free press is a central pillar of democracy, as the Framers profoundly understood. This highlights the nature and effects of current attacks on our free press.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 23/09/2026

P.S. When photographed, this machine—located in the US Treasury—was broken.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 23/09/2026

The United States faces enormous productivity losses from its current policy of international student exclusion. These arise from the consequent loss of STEM workers and the innovation they catalyze. Thank you @iza.org for this nice summary of our research —> www.iza.org/en/news/brai...

BRAIN FREEZE: The economic costs of restricting international STEM students
IZA@LISER Network | September 22, 2026
Proposed policy restrictions on foreign STEM graduates could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 23/09/2026

This coin is illegal. The laws of our Congress specifically ban coinage depicting a living president (31 U.S. Code § 5112). What better metaphor could there be for the numb shattering of our constitutional order, than a $1 coin being sold to the American people for $10?

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 23/09/2026

This piece by my brilliant @piie.com colleage @adamposen.bsky.social may be the first time you have seen the United States described accurately as what its ruling regime has quickly made it: a "lesser power".

foreignaffairs.com

China Still Has What America Needs

The Trump-Xi summit gives Washington a chance to buy time.

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David McKenzie @dmckenzie.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Recently out in World Development, my paper on where & how the World Bank spends and lends money on international migration (www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...). Today's blog summarizes some takeaways, & asks also where you can spend your charity dollars (blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...)

sciencedirect.com

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 22/09/2026

Is there a program online? Sorry to take your time with that, but I looked and could not find one

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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 07/09/2026

Registration is open, free, limited, & required. Great set of research presentations lined up on education, health, economy, mutual aid & more. Learn about the frontier evidence and connect with those working to generate it. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 22/09/2026

As a US citizen, I protest this filthy, bloodthirsty policy statement in the strongest possible terms. America’s vast influence abroad and at home has depended on our country meaning something other than slobbering brutality. Shattering that harms all Americans, Conservative and Liberal.

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"Republican who oversees South Dakota’s elections endorses a Democrat in the race to succeed her" apnews.com/article/sout...

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

FUKUYAMA: “.. Accelerationists tend to be very intelligent people, but that intelligence tends to be narrowly mathematical. We know how to do many things like produce electricity or clean water .. the problem is a failure of implementation.” www.persuasion.community/p/why-i-chan...

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 22/09/2026

“Americans must urgently rescue their democratic experiment. Their ability to do so is critical to reversing the illiberal tide that is rising globally. Only if Americans get their own democratic house in order…will they be able to ensure the arc of history again bends toward more freedom.”

nytimes.com

Opinion | The End of American Exceptionalism? (Gift Article)

Liberal democracy is in worldwide retreat, including in its birthplace — the United States.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 20/09/2026

The US President is claiming, and this is real, that the military is demanding he build a massive monument to himself across the river from Washington because they have nowhere else to store ammunition or deploy drones. The site, which I pass often, is just down the road from THE PENTAGON.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 19/09/2026

This miracle is the fruit of generations of enormous and bipartisan investments of public research support for our universities. Future versions of this miracle are what we are currently losing, due to the US Administration’s decision to shatter the public’s partnership with our universities.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 19/09/2026

The US President has proclaimed a new $100,000 tax on H-1B visa workers —> www.whitehouse.gov/presidential... He is renewing a $100K tax he proclaimed last year, *which was ruled illegal* in federal court —> www.fragomen.com/insights/uni...

whitehouse.gov

Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION On September 19, 2025, Proclamation 10973 (Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Every child deserves a safe and nurturing home w...

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Greg Folkers @gregfolkers.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

NEJM: The End of the War on Biomedical Science? by David Blumenthal and James A. Morone @davidblumenthal.bsky.social @nejm.org depending on continued activism, perhaps room for optumism bit.ly/4yNxiWZ 💥

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 19/09/2026

Great to see @soumayakeynes.ft.com and @chadpbown.com ‘s brilliant and timely book in the wild 📚

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Ultimately, this letter from NSF is an announcement that universities will be funded a lot less and politically-connected industry will be funded a lot more. Fancy words around old-fashioned corruption.

nsf.gov

NSF leadership in a new golden age of science

The U.S. National Science Foundation was established in 1950 to keep American discovery at the frontier. That mission has not changed. The science and technology ecosystem around it has...

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 19/09/2026

This humiliation of our military service members is beyond words.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 18/09/2026

It is illegal for the US President to tear down our beloved Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a national treasure created by our Congress, under law. It is sick and poisonous for any Liberal or Conservative US President to openly conspire to spit on the laws he swore to uphold.

nytimes.com

Trump Air Force One Photos Fuel Kennedy Center Demolition Speculation

Images captured through the windows of Air Force One showed President Trump reviewing a poster with the title “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.”

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 18/09/2026

This is illegal. The president is not the CEO of the country nor the owner of the White House, a great institution owned by the American public. Punishing media for dissent excretes on American values and our Constitution. It sullies all of us, every Conservative and every Liberal.

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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 18/09/2026

We scraped through the data and found that 50% of all clinical trials are at risk of being cancelled. 1,026 cancer trials 273 pediatric trials 115 heart disease trials 184 diabetes trials This is unacceptable and inhumane.

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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The funny thing before the birthright citizenship debate I had an encountered Ilan as an originalist administrative law scholar and it sounds like the most useful part of this book is grounded in that work. Legal history is a different game, though, and he made some serious errors in method.

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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Once upon a time, Congress had its own in-house think tank that would research and suggest remedies for technical problems politicians might not have a handle on. Might be a good resource now, ay? Here's @maxmoranhi.bsky.social on the long-lost Office of Technology Assessment:

prospect.org

What Congress Actually Needs to Do About AI: Staff Up - The American Prospect

In 1995, Newt Gingrich lobotomized Congress’s technical brain trust. It should be rebuilt.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 18/09/2026

"Spain's self-inflicted migration crisis" by the brilliant and trenchant Hein de Haas A concise and exposition of why border crises, a product of policy, happen and will continue to happen —>

heindehaas.substack.com

Spain’s self-inflicted migration crisis

What really drives migration from Morocco

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 18/09/2026

The US Congress has the power of the purse under our Constitution. Expenditures mandated by law are not up to the whims of the Executive branch, which has no such power. That is our money. Mandated by our laws. Shattering our Constitution harms all Conservative & Liberal Americans.

apnews.com

Trump administration has cut or frozen $177 billion in grants across every state, analysis shows

An analysis finds that the Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $177 billion in federal grants since the president took office for his second term.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 18/09/2026

Handing over our public health system to incompetent quacks will kill Americans. It will kill Conservative Americans and Liberal Americans.

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