mitch

1/ Insane: A single injection into the inner ear reversed deafness in all ten patients. Some started hearing again within weeks. Gene therapy just crossed a threshold we thought was still years away. Lets dig into this breakthrough and how it works 🧵

BREAKING: Donald Trump meets privately with Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth to assure them their jobs are secure, amidst swirling rumors that they may be the next cabinet members to be fired.

Liftoff. The Artemis II mission launched from @NASAKennedy at 6:35pm ET (2235 UTC), propelling four astronauts on a journey around the Moon. Artemis II will pave the way for future Moon landings, as well as the next giant leap — astronauts on Mars.

Oops! "A study provided to elected officials before they approved a special tax district for a 28-block development on Chattanooga's Westside predicted the site would produce more than $9.5 million of new tax revenue last year, but the site produced none."timesfreepress.com/news/2026/mar/…

Folks, there is no known method for projecting reasonably accurate economic impacts of sports stadiums. NONE. It doesn't exist. Anyone who tells you there is is lying or incompetent (perhaps both). These commissioned "studies" are junk science. axios.com/local/tampa-ba…

Can you use synthetic control backwards? In a forthcoming paper in Public Choice, Jamie Pavlik, Yang Zhou say "yes" if one understand the potential pitfalls. And we apply it to the unique and radical policy experiment of hardcore free marketeer John Cowperthwaite when he was Hong Kong's financial In standard Synthetic Control (SCM), you estimate a counterfactual forward in time. You take a unit that becomes treated at some date, use the pre-treatment period to construct a weighted combination of control units that mimics it, and then compare outcomes after treatment. The idea is simple: build a credible "what would have happened otherwise" using untreated data. But there are cases where this forward setup is not ideal. Sometimes a unit is unique for a period—because of a policy, an institutional arrangement, or a particular leader—but later becomes more “normal” and comparable to others. Think of Quebec being the last to recognize women's right to vote or the last to abolish its upper chamber. Being last makes it hard to create a donor pool to test the effect of these changes on, for example, government spending. Hong Kong under Cowperthwaite also fits that. In those cases, the pre-treatment period may be too unique to find good matches, while the post-treatment period offers better comparators. That motivates running SCM in reverse. Instead of using pre-treatment data to build the synthetic and projecting forward, you use post-treatment data to construct a synthetic and then reconstruct the past counterfactual. Conceptually, you are asking: given how this unit looks once it becomes “normal,” what would its past have looked like absent the earlier, unique treatment? In practice, if you have a sequence of years t from 0 to 30, you simply reorder them from 30 to 0. Assuming the treatment arrives in the middle period (15), the "pre-treatment" period is actually from 30 to 16 - -when the treated is like everyone else. The treatment period is from 15 to 0 when it is unique. Boom, done. So what are the pitfalls of this? Mathematically, none. The same usual conditions apply (convex hull, non-negative weights, etc.). The issue is a form of SUTVA violation. Normally, in the "classical SCM", the issue is that the treatment might be anticipated such that the treatment effect is misestimated. Think of a reform like central bank independence -- if anticipated, inflation might moderate ahead of the enactment of independence. This is dealt with thanks to in-time placebos. In the reverse case, the problem is the mirror image. Instead of anticipation, you face what can be called "retrospection or decay effects". If the impact of the treatment does not end sharply but instead fades gradually, then the post-treatment period you are using for matching is still partially “treated.” In other words, the unit has not yet fully converged to the untreated state, and the data you rely on to construct the synthetic are contaminated. The diagnostic flips accordingly. In forward SCM, you test for anticipation by shifting the treatment date earlier. In reverse SCM, you test for lingering effects by shifting it later. If your results change when you push the cutoff forward, that suggests the post-treatment period is still influenced by the treatment and is not a valid basis for constructing the counterfactual. In our forthcoming paper in Public Choice, we elaborate on this reverse synthetic approach and "retrospection" effects.

NASA is preparing to launch the first crewed mission to the Moon in over 53 years. Today, three American astronauts and one Canadian are scheduled to lift off aboard NASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for a 10-day journey that will take them around the Moon and back to Earth. Liftoff is targeted for April 1, with a launch window extending through April 6, depending on Florida weather conditions and any final technical issues with the rocket. You can watch the launch live on the NASA website and NASA’s official social media channels.

Cost of a McDonald's meal from a time-price perspective. wsj.com/opinion/big-ma…

A U.S. citizen.

ISPE is excited to welcome Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith and Etiquette Expert Candace Smith to BSU on Thursday, April 2! More info: tiny.cc/BSU-Smith

@HannahDCox I wonder if the dentist was owned by private equity

In February, I went into a new dentist for a rank and file cleaning. Literally just picked the closest one to me on new insurance. Within 20 minutes of arrival I knew something was up. They started showing me "AI generated images" of my teeth claiming I had periodontal disease - which was going to require a $1500 special "deep cleaning" I'd have to be numbed for. Fortunately for me, I've always had top notch dental care, know my teeth are in great shape, and recognized the scam. I refused the deep cleaning and demanded the general cleaning I came for. They then spent an hour trying to pressure me, fearmonger me, and borderline threaten me before I finally walked out. Once I checked reviews there were at least five other people with the exact same experience recently. I reported them to the GA regulatory body that governs dentists, reported them for insurance fraud with my insurance and the state, and reported them to the BBB. Last week I went to my husband's dentist. Surprise, surprise, no periodontal disease. I've been wary of dentists my whole life, having encountered other scammers in my youth. I've always thought this was why their su*cide rate was so high - the guilt. Now the issue is only going to get worse as PE is rapidly expanding in the industry.

Fascinating FOIA case out of Michigan. Courts are effectively saying agencies can take months (or longer) to produce records—as long as they estimate the delay. At some point, delay is denial. Transparency that arrives a year late isn’t transparency. michiganadvance.com/2026/03/19/lon…

This man escaped slavery by stealing a Confederate warship… Then became its captain.

Celebrating Elinor Ostrom on the anniversary of her birth. Ostrom was the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2009). Read more here: investopedia.com/terms/e/elinor…

Countries that increase their economic freedom get richer. Every single time. The countries stuck at the bottom of economic freedom rankings are poor, and most of them are in Africa. As long as we stay economically unfree, we stay poor.

📢 Ignite@AG Summer Externship 2026 – Analysis Group Analysis Group, one of the world’s leading economic consulting firms, is offering the Ignite@AG Summer Externship for MBA and PhD students interested in exploring a career in economic consulting. This four-day in-person program provides hands-on exposure to the Associate role and the opportunity to learn how economists and consultants solve complex business and litigation challenges. Cost: Travel, lodging, meals, and transportation covered Application Deadline: May 8, 2026 (rolling admissions) Read more here: theeconomicmisfit.com/2026/03/15/ana…

In the dramatic circumstances of war, information must guard against the risk of turning into propaganda. It is every journalist's duty to verify the news, so as not to become a megaphone for power. They must show the suffering that war always brings to populations, which entails showing the face of war and recounting it through the eyes of victims.