DJ Thornton

My latest Economic Explained column in @FinancialReview is about "Bad Networks"--based on this recently published paper by my @UNSWEcon colleagues Robert Akerlof and @djthornton97. sciencedirect.com/science/articl… afr.com/policy/economy…

Very excited that my first publication, "Bad Networks"—with amazing coauthors Robby Akerlof and @profholden—is forthcoming at @JPubEcon! 🎉 Check out the thread below 👇🏼

I wrote some thoughts about how ChatGPT Pro is changing mathematical research. When solving problems becomes "easy", what matters more than ever is asking good questions and having a deep intuition for the answers. djthornton.org/blog/2025/proo…

Picking Joe's brain for a couple of hours is one of the most fun and insightful things you could possibly do with your time. Go and apply!!!

@kunzhangte @profholden @grattonecon @yveszenou1 Thanks Kun!

@djthornton97 @profholden @grattonecon @yveszenou1 Congratulations!!🎉

An absolutely wild month—3 R&R's in 33 days 🎉. Huge thanks to my amazing coauthors @profholden @grattonecon @yveszenou1, Robert Akerlof, Arthur Campbell and Chris Teh. Time to get to work! #EconTwitter

@florianederer @profholden @grattonecon @yveszenou1 Thank you! Always nice to hear from the extended coauthor family 🤣

@djthornton97 @profholden @grattonecon @yveszenou1 That's awesome. Congrats! (We're now double co-author cousins.)

🚨 WE @UNSWEcon ARE HIRING! 🚨 JMC: apply and email/DM for any question! A short 🧵 on @UNSWEcon and why you want to apply and join us in Sydney👇 econjobmarket.org/positionGroup/…

Short 🧵 on a new (communication) theory paper with two of our best PhD students at @UNSWEcon 👇

You (well, some of you) asked for more general results. We’ve got you more general results. TARGETED PERSUASION 2.0 IS HERE! gratton.org/papers/Targete…

I'm advertising for 2 full-time pre-docs at the Manos Institute for Cognitive Economics at UNSW. If you've got a strong honors degree in economics or computer science check us out at cognitiveeconomics.com. external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au/cw/en/job/5346…. @cognitiveecon

Friends & followers, lend me your tweets. I’m hoping to invite @scottfarkas onto the pod. Plan would be to discuss data centres & R&D. Think we could have a great chat. If you agree, pls let him know in the comments!

@michael_nielsen Sounds like you might need some @joewalkerpod in your life :)

Realizing what bugs me about most podcasts: from the host's point of view, the guests are usually [ugh] "content" I want a podcast where the conversations are things both host and guest care about an incredible amount More "Hour 50 of Tolkien and CS Lewis discussing Lewis's religion" than "Coming up next: the rise of the labradoodle, good or bad, our experts weigh in"

I'm organizing a two-day summer school on networks (10-11 September) at Monash University where Matt Jackson (@JacksonmMatt ), Sanjeev Goyal, and myself will teach a 12 hours course. It is free and anybody interested can apply here: monash.edu/business/event…

New version available now: gratton.org/papers/Targete…

@JosephNWalker I agree re: other workers but this seems like an answerable empirical qn (I wonder if someone has actually looked at the data on this?) From a theory perspective, I find that for these sorts of questions, the best arguments come from some kind of general equilibrium effects.

@djthornton97 Right! First point was assumed in my tweet (though not clear). I can see increased rents not fully offsetting increased incomes for high-skilled workers. Not obvious for other workers though. And good second point—I shouldn't be so city-centric haha.

A question I haven't been able to answer about the YIMBY agenda: Assume it is basically implemented and we're able to reduce or remove zoning regulations in major cities. The relevant first-order consequence is that supply would increase and house prices and rents would fall, all else being equal. More people can now afford to live where they're going to be most productive. But as a second-order consequence, denser cities become even more productive (due to agglomeration effects), attracting more people and pushing prices and rents back up. This would suggest that zoning deregulation is, at least to an extent, self-defeating for affordability in the long-run. What is the best YIMBY response to this argument? 'Just keep building; supply will outpace price pressures from agglomeration'? 'We ultimately don't care about affordability as much as productivity'? Or am I missing something?

@MatthewGNagler @grattonecon Indeed! He is an excellent adviser (and now, coauthor) :)

@djthornton97 You have a paper with @grattonecon? Excellent!

It's happening!! 😱

@gc_rennie @profholden Look I'm sure there's probably a valid point you want to make here but with all due respect you can't just change the ordinary meaning of words (like GDP, which has a widely understood meaning) and then expect people not to be confused...

@djthornton97 @profholden My original statement remains accurate. Your statement is not -- "wealth" is a both a stock and a flow. GDP is not a flow in that way, it is a direct and highly imperfect measure of the wealth generated in a certain time period.

I don't want to dunk on this guy personally but you can't read this and not laugh @profholden

@gc_rennie @profholden I'm not sure what you mean. GDP is a flow, wealth is a stock. Are you suggesting that we should focus on who benefits directly from the production?

@djthornton97 @profholden In his defence, GDP *is* actually a very poor indicator of national wealth. Take Australian mining: if the local production is x, but the percentage of x that is locally owned is <80%, what's the accuracy of saying that Australian mining is Australian?