James Bailey

I have lots of ideas for economics papers I'd like to write but not so much time to write them. So I decided to just post many of them publicly to see if anyone else wants to write them: economistwritingeveryday.com/2023/01/26/ste…

Paper by @MichaelKotrous

Starting your program right at the end of a recession will make it look great (until someone thinks to test it with a control group 15 years later): economistwritingeveryday.com/2026/03/19/doe…

“I think he is the best coach in the history of college sport; and I will always dislike him.” - @mungowitz on Coach K econtalk.org/the-economics-…

@DustinGouker Sign me up

Will Kalshi rip this idea off by giving away 40s on the sidewalk? Stay tuned!

I want to share a bit more about my vision for the Economic Research team at Anthropic in the coming years. This is a forward-looking vision. Some pieces we’ve yet to develop. Aspects of this work will surely change. Consider joining the effort. 1/6 #heading=h.j1ij8p6h22u5" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">docs.google.com/document/d/1OM…

The Southwest plane getting me out of there was beautiful, in its own way

At Midway today, leftover river dye for deicing

@holliemaea @TheStalwart Total ban would back up way too much oil. There may be a smart way to get prices down with just the right export taxes and quotas on just the right types of oil products, but I doubt that's what we'd get

@jbailey @TheStalwart You seem to be suggesting that this is a decent plan?

I’m really concerned that when people take this one step further and learn that the US is actually selling oil to other countries that the public’s demand for an export ban will become overwhelming.

Nicely cleaned up data on OPT here:

My ancestors buried half their children. All mine are alive. My ancestors' house had a dirt floor. Mine is wood. I have indoor plumbing, I have hot water, I have never in my life hauled a full bucket half a mile and I probably never will. Do you know how rare it is, in human history, for small children to wear shoes? Mine have multiple pairs. I can speak to my relatives who live thousands of miles away, for free, at any time. Video, if we want video. With machine translation, if we speak different languages. The original Library of Congress had 740 books in it. I have more than that. If I run out of books in my home my local public library has 350,000. If I want to take a hundred books with me on vacation, they all fit on a device that fits in my purse. I have heat in the winter and AC in the summer and a washing machine and I have never, ever, ever had to scrub a dress clean by hand in the stream. I can look up recipes from more than a hundred different countries and I've tried dozens of them. I ride a clean and modern train across my city for $4, or take a robot taxi if I'm out too late for the train. I donate $40,000 every year to the cause of getting healthcare to the world's poorest people and even after the donations I never have to think about whether I can afford a book, or a pair of shoes, or a cup of coffee. There is a great deal more to fight for, of course. I hope that our descendants will look back on our lives and list a thousand ways they're richer. Maybe we ourselves will do that, if some of the crazier stuff comes true. But the abundance is all around you and to a significant degree you aren't feeling it only because fish don't notice water.

"The US produces more than enough oil for its own needs. Why does the Strait of Hormuz being closed mean higher gas prices here? Only because US oil companies can sell to global markets" economistwritingeveryday.com/2026/03/12/is-…

I have a blog post about this scheduled for tomorrow, now thinking about all the ways it could be overtaken by events in the next 12 hours:

Some AI+econ opportunities coming up: 1. Schmidt Sciences grants up to $200k schmidtsciences.org/ai-at-work/ 2. Microsoft AI economy grants $75k microsoft.com/en-us/research… 3. UChicago AI in social science conference bfi.uchicago.edu/events/event/2…

Starbucks bringing back real mugs, and they come in 20oz. This is a place I can work now

for a decade, identification was presented to young people as the supreme ideal of economics

@cwjones89 It’s good that there won’t be a shortage of physical oil, but prices will still spike here so long as we’re still exporting to a global market with high prices

To everyone who hasn't updated their priors since 2003: It's 2026. The United States is the world's #1 oil producer and #2 oil exporter. Imports from the Persian Gulf states account for only 4.8% of US oil consumption. ~75% of US oil imports come from North & South America.

If the Iran war lasts much longer, US gas prices could rise to levels that make Americans demand a quick end to it. But the US produces more than enough oil for gas be sub $3/gallon here; prices only rise because of the global market. Expect to hear calls for an export ban soon

Good thread. For family reasons I limit myself to 3 conferences per year plus maybe 3 invited talks. I’ve assumed that if I were just optimizing for career I’d do 2-3x that- but at some point it crowds out the time and mental space for original writing and thought

@ShortSightedCap Creditor on creditor violence

I'm surprised by the survival of some terms in the bond market. A Dim Sum bond just *sounds* offensive. Sushi bonds. Panda Bonds. Maple bonds. I'm not sure a human being ever has been offended by bond market terminology. But there have been dumber controversies.