Navodhya Samarakoon

Super excited to share my first WP! Using US admin tax data, I study the changing tax planning architecture of firms that utilized the Double Irish, one of the largest tax loopholes used by US multinational companies, before and after it’s closure. A 🧵! 1/13

Egalitarianism should begin at home. I link to this article by @bencasselman in light of the communications between Larry Summers and Jeffrey Epstein that have just been released. The continuing treatment of Summers as some sort of Peer of the Realm (to use a phrase I think I take from @samhaselby) is unacceptable by the economics profession if it serious about addressing the problems documented at the time Casselman wrote. (These were of course were an open secret. I felt the obligation to discuss sexism in the profession with every female graduate student I have had starting as an Assistant Professor to this day). Summer is welcome to publish papers via peer review like anyone else. He should not be a leader of the profession, given plums such as invited publications, lectures. (And please do not suggest that there is any sense in which Summers contributions are unique or essential, that is simply nonsense; it is not how social science works, with exceptions too rare to be relevant.) To those who call my position political correctness, being woke, an example of cancel culture, I say the following. A profession's decisions on how to allocate opportunities has dimensions that define its professional ethos and culture. There are spillover effects that matter. If one thinks that the behaviors documented in the forthcoming American Economic Review paper "Gender Differences in Economics Seminars" function independently from the way prominent sexists are treated, that is simply naive. And make no mistake: these remarks apply a fortiori to Summers' position as a commentator on the state of American universities. His amorality/immorality end any credibility to his posturing on the failures of Harvard or other universities. The same is true with respect to his moral posturing about the Trump administration. nytimes.com/2021/02/23/bus…

#econjobmarket #econtwitter Is anyone cataloguing how bad the econ job market is for the current season and what are some of the more realistic job search options for PhDs who don't belong to the IVY leagues?

I'm even more jealous of Canada now.

🚨PhD alert! In light of everything happening in the world, the Econ Department at @ImperialBiz is conducting a second lightning round of admissions for fall 2025! Applications due April 30, offers in mid-May. Please spread the word! More details: dropbox.com/scl/fi/55wkl2q…

Donate to support people suffering from homelessness AND so we can see @JustinWolfers talk about tariffs while eating spicy wings :)

You do good, we get to grill, I mean interview, faculty. It's a win, win!

UMich Econ social chairs have invited faculty (incl. Chris House & @JustinWolfers ) to eat spicy wings while interviewed Hot Ones style for charity. Every $50 donated to Washtenaw Shelter Assoc. translates to one spicy wing. Donate & send me ur receipts! annarborshelter.org/impact

For the journalists out there, those numbers are not tariffs. The European Union, e.g., has weighted average tariff rates of ~ 3% and arguably lower on US goods. So they are clearly including VATs and who knows what else?? This false reciprocity is nonsense. For more, see:

(1/3) As Trump ushers in the largest tax increase in at least a generation, remember that this tax increase, unlike most, comes with profound economic distortions, a deterioration in our competitiveness, and loss of goodwill with our closest partners. nytimes.com/2025/03/04/bus…

First paper acceptance!! 🥂Feels very appropriate to tweet my happiness b/c I got a LOT out of sharing my research with the world on here. Ty to everyone who wrote about my work, sent me detailed thoughts, hyped me up ❤️❤️

@nominalthoughts Yup yup it’s the rare PF Trade combo (I’ll tell you if I recommend it in 2-3 years)

@NavSamarakoon TRADE? YOU'RE DOING TRADE?

I feel like trade as a field wants me to have the math skills of a theorist, the econometrics skills of a labor economist, and the modeling skills of a macroeconomist I wish they'd just PICK ONE 🥲

@ash_craig How could I forget specialization (I really do suck at trade !)

@NavSamarakoon Specialise in one... trade for the others via coauthorship

The funniest part of the new tariffs is they’ve removed the de minimis exemption for small packages, even from Canada. If a mom sends a birthday gift from Windsor to Detroit they’ve gotta pay 25% tariffs on it lol. Just unimaginable stupidity.

@_AlvinChristian Oooh this is a galaxy mind idea

@NavSamarakoon I like to put the pdf on one screen and the editor on the other. That helps some.

Question for #econtwitter: Finding it difficult to edit a paper with significant writing additions on Overleaf (latex). Does anyone have solutions for how they edit when latest version of paper only on latex? Is there a better visual editor than Overleaf?

@J2dubyas It's probably small potatoes. Just curious if there's a better editing interface

@J2dubyas TCs work fine; it's more how hard it is to write new chunks of text using visual editor without having to rely on code for spacing, ability to see refs/tables (show up as code in visual editor), and easily bullet/number w/o relying on latex code.

I tweeted about Econ before starting grad school and now will exclusively post pics of the fun things I bake when not consumed by school First Paris-Brest for NYE