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Owen Davis

@odavis.bsky.social
2.3K followers 829 following 120 posts

Senior economist at the New York City Independent Budget Office. Interests: Aging, work, public policy, technology.

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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Tight labor markets = better jobs (not just higher pay) www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds...
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Mike Madowitz @mikemadowitz.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I think Ethan is the only one I've seen flag this vibes paper. One of the most striking graphs of the decade--all of a sudden spending completely decoupled from sentiment and correlation has stayed at near zero for years
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Unexpected finding: Chatting with LLMs in the midst of classic economic decision tasks (portfolio allocation, dictator game, etc) tended to depolarize people -- they moved *away* from their initial decisions. This despite AI sycophantically echoing users. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 08/05/2026
In sum, 1. Labor market remarkably strong in many ways but signals of change mixed. Job growth & low unemployment positive. Low hiring & decelerating wage growth worrying 2. Lots of uncertainty, Gulf War III energy price spike, policy swings & tech change. Employers still like deer in headlights
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
“.. Quite something. Information sector payrolls have fallen to their lowest since March 2021 ... 16 consecutive months of net job loss.” - Schwab #NFP
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
My wife Dana Lok just published this exquisite interactive project with Triple Canopy. It's about holes but also language and metaphors and knowledge. canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/a-h...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
I'm sure this isn't the final word on the matter. But it would be funny if after all the dueling theories and measurement debates, the declining labor share ended up just being a byproduct of rising material costs www.nber.org/papers/w35114
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John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch.ft.com · 27/04/2026
The FT @financialtimes.com is hiring a new data journalist to join our US data and visuals team in New York. Great job, great team, great place to work. Apply here 👉 job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/financialtim...
job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io
US Data Journalist
New York; Washington DC
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Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Meta will begin keystroke logging US employees at work -- complete with mouse movements and periodic screenshots -- to train better AI agents. This comes after Boz posted about a future in which AI will "primarily do the work" at meta. It's a new era for tech labor. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
reuters.com
Exclusive: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data
Meta is installing new tracking software on U.S.-based employees’ computers to capture ​mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes for use in training its ‌artificial-intelligence models, part of a broad ...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
A happy update: My job market paper is now accepted at the Journal of Labor Economics. Since I never did a proper thread on it, here goes. (Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are solely my own and do not reflect those of my employer, NYC IBO.)
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
startup naming conventions going full Dickens
Then there is my Lord Boodle, of considerable reputation with his party, who has known what office is and who tells Sir Leicester Dedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see to what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate used to be; the House is not what the House used to be; even a Cabinet is not what it formerly was. He perceives with astonishment that supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited choice of the Crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie between Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle--supposing it to be impossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of that affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the leadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exchequer to Koodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle, what are you to do with Noodle? You can't offer him the Presidency of the Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can't put him in the Woods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What follows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces (as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock) because you can't provide for Noodle!
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Guy Berger @econberger.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
6/ The unemployment rate for 20-24 year olds is falling sharply - March it was the lowest it's been since early 2024. Less of an improvement in the unemployment rate for people in their late teens.
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Some wild details in this NYT story on what is kind of sort of the first one-person billion-dollar company -- a middleman for GLP-1s. Purportedly $20k in token costs to get to 9-digit revenue. AI everything, except when you call customer service and get routed to the CEO.
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
excited to read this
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Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
JOLTS release once again confirming that the no-hire, no-fire labor market continues. Also lines up with UI claims, which also show no signs of layoffs picking up.
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
A dispiriting finding in the fascinating new working paper on household ChatGPT use (just written up in the Wall Street Journal): increased chatbot usage is associated with decreased news consumption. arxiv.org/pdf/2603.03144
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Joshua Goodman @joshua-goodman.com · 30/03/2026
🚨New working paper alert! 🚨 The US spends huge $ on special education services for students with disabilities. Is that spending effective? Today we released a working paper suggesting it is. "Special Education Substantially Improves Learning: Evidence from Three States" Let me explain...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
This seems like a big change in a decade, wonder if it's validated elsewhere. Theoretically, information technologies like AI should increase managers' span of control. www.wsj.com/business/how...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
I don't know how tight the historical causality is here, but I do love the idea that Excel was the catalyst of late-20th century financialization davidoks.blog/p/how-the-sp...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
It's briefly noted in today's NYT story on the new Census figures, but the upward revision to NYC domestic migration figures -- and the subsequent drop-off in international migration -- are really quite large. Net intl migration to NYC fell by about 70% in 2025. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/n...
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
You're a rent seeker
It's an economist insult. It's devastating.
You're devastated right now.
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
A new contribution to the mass of working papers examining AI impacts to software coders, this one from two Fed economists. Headline finding: coder employment is *very roughly* 500k below the counterfactual. [Insert a million caveats here] www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
I’m used to hearing about historical junctures as overdetermined. Are they ever underdetermined? Determined just the right amount?
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
TIL Card and Krueger employed an undergrad's grandmother to carry out their survey. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Ah, finally, a clear and unambiguous AI job impact signal. Just what a Senior Economist wants to see.
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Anna Stansbury @annastansbury.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
📢New WP: Minimum Wages and Workplace Injuries Using California state and local minimum wage increases 2000-2019, we find minimum wage hikes increase workplace injury rates for low-wage workers. A plausible mechanism is work intensification 🧵 w/ @rjisungpark.bsky.social & Michael Davies
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Matt Darling @besttrousers.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Wrote this up in a longer format: besttrousers.substack.com/p/the-vibece...
besttrousers.substack.com
The Vibecession Hasn’t Gone Away
And the most comforting explanation of it is wrong
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Nice intervention on the K-shaped economy by @ernietedeschi.bsky.social. Funny the "K" narrative took hold at the same time that high-paying / high-skill sectors eased up so much on hiring (see also the elevated unemployment rate for young college grads) stripeeconomics.substack.com/p/k-shaped-e...
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Ernie Tedeschi @ernietedeschi.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Everyone’s talking about the K-shaped economy—the rich pulling away while everyone else stagnates. In our inaugural Stripe Economics post, I take a look at Stripe + macro data, and I see the K on Wall Street, but not yet on Main Street stripeeconomics.substack.com/p/k-shaped-e...
stripeeconomics.substack.com
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Guy Berger @econberger.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Thanks to @jdlahart.bsky.social at @wsj.com for chatting with me about the tough job market for youngsters. In the end, a lot of the problem is just a big cyclical one: hiring is weak. That hurts people looking for jobs, who tend to be younger than average. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...
wsj.com
Young Graduates Are Facing an Employment Crisis
Slow hiring is especially daunting for those just starting out. “Right now, I’m pretending employment doesn’t exist,” says a recent college graduate.
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
My experience is a reasonable reference. I make correct assessments of the world. I am good. My group is a reasonable reference. My group is good. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Toward Parsimony in Bias Research: A Proposed Common Framework of Belief-Consistent Information Processing for a Set of Biases - Aileen Oeberst, Roland Imhoff, 2023
One of the essential insights from psychological research is that people’s information processing is often biased. By now, a number of different biases have bee...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
not all lines going down
google trends results showing interest in "nikkei" spiking in the past 24 hours
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
My friend tells me the idiom "crossed the Rubicon" is overused. What's are the alternatives?
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Great postdoc opportunity here academicjobsonline.org/ajo/program/... Study the role of worker voice in AI-driven organizational change with the excellent scholars at Cornell's ILR School.
lnkd.in
LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
I appreciated speaking with @talsmith.bsky.social for his excellent analysis on the question of data vs sentiment in the U.S. economy www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/b...
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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
For Equal Pay Day 2025, we looked at Glassdoor ratings & found women rate their employee satisfaction 3.5% lower than men. While this gap is present in satisfaction w/ compensation & benefits (-3.6%), other factors like senior mgmt (-3.4%) and career opportunities (-3%) also show a gap as well.
Graph showing the % difference in Glassdoor ratings for women compared to men. Employee satisfaction is 3.5% lower for women vs. men in 2024, improving from a peak of 4.8% lower in 2022 and slightly better than a 4.1% gap in 2019Screenshot of table showing % difference in Glassdoor ratings for women vs. men across workplace factors in 2024. In ascending order: D&I -3.9%, compensation & benefits -3.6%, senior management -3.4%, career opportunities -3%, culture & values -2.6%, work-life balance -2.5%
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Just heard someone cite this stat as something to the effect of "ChatGPT is wrong 60% of the time" which is wrong and not what the CJR study found. CJR found that AI search tools got *news citations* wrong that often. That's bad, but it's not the same as genAI getting facts wrong generally.
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
I like this addition to the abundance discourse from @dsquareddigest.bsky.social. It's only natural that things take longer to build over time (how much longer is a different question) backofmind.substack.com/p/cybernetic...
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Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) @hansilowang.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
NEW: The Census Bureau hasn't been recruiting and retaining enough interviewers for three key surveys, including the source of the monthly job report, and lacks a plan for building up a field representative staff, the bureau's internal watchdog, Commerce OIG, finds www.oig.doc.gov/wp-content/O...
WHAT WE FOUND

We found that the bureau does not have effective strategies to address staffing gaps and high vacancies in FR positions. Specifically, the bureau did not:

• Meet its staffing goals for ACS, CPS, and NCVS.
• Implement a process to track and assess vacancy information from the regions.

Without a workforce plan, the bureau lacks a comprehensive strategy to ensure it has the necessary FR staff to help accomplish its mission of providing high-quality data. Unaddressed FR staffing gaps increase the risks of lower response rates on surveys and higher attrition of other field staff, who bear the burden of increased workloads. Developing and implementing a workforce plan for FRs will help the bureau address the issues we identify in this report.
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
McDonald's is looking to implement a “generative AI virtual manager” www.wsj.com/articles/mcd...
wsj.com
McDonald’s Gives Its Restaurants an AI Makeover
The fast-food giant’s new initiative uses artificial intelligence to target order accuracy and help restaurants detect equipment issues before they fail.
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 07/03/2025
Last thing. BLS does amazing work to create timely, accurate info about America's working families & employers, a huge public good. They are there for us & we need to show up for them. If you are a labor researcher or care about employment, follow & join Friends of BLS. www.friendsofbls.org/join
friendsofbls.org
Join — The Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Really odd trend over time. Falling pre-GFC but rising into 2020, big COVID dip then back up. Are we just resuming a secular post-2010 trend? Have lending standards gradually shifted over time (and not just with biz cycles)?
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Kevin Zollman @kevinzollman.com · 07/03/2025
Sloan Foundation announced a program to support postdocs in philosophy, sociology, and metascience who want to understand how AI will affect science. Pass it along to anyone who might be interested, the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics might be interested in hosting sloan.org/programs/dig...
sloan.org
Call for submissions: Metascience and AI postdoctoral fellowship | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Our mission is to make the world a better place through the advancement of scientific knowledge.
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Dana Goldstein @danagoldstein.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
40% of students who start college don't finish. Some high schools that once pushed "college for all" are grappling with that reality, and providing teens with more career-focused learning. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/u...
nytimes.com
Some Schools Rethink “College For All”
The idea that every student should aim for a four-year college motivated a bipartisan movement for decades. Now even enthusiastic promoters of the idea are reconsidering it.
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 06/03/2025
Cool new opportunity @equitablegrowth.bsky.social #FundSocSci #EconSky #Sociology #PolicySky #EduSky equitablegrowth.applicantpro.com/jobs/3632377
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Not a good trend. Wonder if this is also showing up in IRS admin data www.wsj.com/personal-fin...
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
List of CDC information that appears to have been taken down so far: 1. CDC Atlas 2. CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System 3. HRSA Target 4. Language removed for LGBT work 5. CDC Social Vulnerability Index
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