Treb Allen

Announcing: @PlatypusEcon — a Substack, YouTube channel, and podcast built around one idea: Economics is one of the most useful, surprising, and weirdly beautiful subjects in the world. It belongs to everyone — not just the people who happened to take it in college. 🧵

@TrebAllen I assume your rhetorical point is that every good MBA should more efficiently include "In which Hogwarts house does the applicant belong?"

A prominent business school asks recommenders to complete an 8 question personality test for the person they're recommending for their MBA. The questions seem just as applicable to determine which Harry Potter character you are. So I made a quiz: treballen.github.io

One of the best things you can do during grad school

PhD students interested in trade (broadly construed): Come visit Dartmouth for a term next year! Applications for the '26-27 Globalization PhD Fellowship are now open. Apply here: globalization.dartmouth.edu/programs/globa… @DartmouthEcon @dartmouth

Dartmouth's Social Science Data Lab is hiring! The is a resident position for a person with a Masters / a couple years experience to support faculty and students on empirical social science projects. This is a great job! App link in next tweet, please share!

This is the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see. His FCC refused to air my interview with Stephen Colbert. Trump is worried we’re about to flip Texas.

I have recently received several DMs from both first year grad students and first year assistant professors. The link is not surprising because there is a specific kind of vertigo that comes with Year 1 of grad school and Year 1 of a professorship. It's the gap between who you think you should be and who you feel like you are in the moment, where two worlds collide: The Imposter Syndrome: "They're going to realize I'm just guessing." The Uncertainty: "There is no map for this, and I'm the one driving." For all of those out there, please hear me: the first year isn't a test of your intelligence; it's a test of your endurance through the "I don't know" phase. But I want to go further than just reassurance, because reassurance alone doesn't build anything. That discomfort you're feeling? It's actually diagnostic information. It means you're operating at the frontier of what you know, which is exactly where you're supposed to be in a research career. The people who never feel that discomfort are often the ones playing it too safe with their questions. And the fog doesn't just clear on its own. It clears because you do specific things: you read papers you don't fully understand and struggle through them anyway. You sit in seminars feeling lost and eventually start recognizing the shape of arguments. You write terrible first drafts and revise them into less terrible drafts. The endurance isn't just emotional, it's the endurance to keep doing the work when the feedback loop is painfully delayed. One more thing: there actually are maps. Advisors, reading lists, established literatures, methodological frameworks. The real challenge is that nobody hands you the map. You have to go find it and figure out which one applies to your particular problem. That's a learnable skill, not a character trait. So yes, you are not broken. But pair that knowledge with this: start building the thing you're missing. Find the map. Do the next hard read. Write the next bad draft. The fog clears for the people who keep walking through it. I'm rooting for you.

$38,300,000,000 of your tax dollars. Not for healthcare. Not for education. Not for small businesses. But for mass-detention camps. It’s flat out UNAMERICAN. Nobody can sit on the sidelines — it will take all of us fighting back together to stop this.

ICE out! It has been painful. There has been a lot of suffering, human and economic. There has been unwarranted violence and criminal activity by federal agents. But the people of Minnesota won! yahoo.com/news/articles/…

Every American needs to watch this:

It is so very scary to see them testing these waters. Whatever they can get away with in 2026, they will escalate in 2028. We're at a real tipping point here.

This is in violation of so many laws, not to mention any human decency. No wonder ICE wear masks, their families and friends would despise and disown them if they knew.

Our Global Economic Networks Workshop will return to New York City for its fifth edition! May 14-15 at Baruch College (CUNY) Keynotes: Natalia Ramondo, Andrew Bernard Submit your paper on networks in international economics (in a broad sense) by Feb. 4: tinyurl.com/GEN5WS

One week left to submit your paper for the 5th Global Economic Networks Workshop in NYC! Please RT! @GFelbermayr @ClaudiaSteinwen @anna_gumpert @pol_antras @FedericoHuneeus @GlennMagerman @TradeDiversion @YotovG @SimonFuchs4 @nityanayar @TrebAllen @Aaronflaaen @christianvolpem

The situation in Minneapolis is bad. There is a lot of criminal activity, almost all of it perpetrated by federal agents. We are depressed, but at the same time we are proud of our community. The community's will to resist Trump and his goons is stronger than ever!

What is happening in the Twin Cities and the Great North Star State is heartbreaking to witness. These events have cost lives and shaken families — and we must call for accountability, transparency, and protections for all people. This moment demands that we reflect honestly on what our values truly are. My thoughts, prayers, and deepest condolences are with the families of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. I stand with the people of Minnesota.

A witness to Alex Pretti's murder: "I don't feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don't know what the agents will do when they find me." Right now. In America. There is nothing subtle or complicated or hard to understand about what is happening.

Federal agents killing Americans in the streets. Stephen Miller branding citizens "terrorists" and "assassins" without evidence. A President who incited insurrection now weaponizing the word against those who dare object. We either defend the Constitution now. Or we lose it.