Peter John Lambert

@mattzieger This website is awesome, and certainly a much better way to make the point than my sassy tweet.

@pj_lambert Trying! Jobsdata.ai

I've collected all the credible empirical research on how AI will impact the labor market, especially as it relates to what will happen in the future. Specifically, I list papers with good external validity that move beyond noisy exposure measures and O*NET task structures. 🧵 1/N

@mean_field_zane So my point is, this argument is silly, as it's almost definitionally true that macro uses less applied techniques.

The subfields in economics are more about methodology, and less about topics. It's pretty rare that someone who makes a well identified, empirical contribution to the way we think about the macro-economy would actually end up claiming "macro" as the field (it's usually finance, innovation, trade, labor, or public). Main exception to this rule is monetary economics, where even applied research remains in the macro subfield.

What’s incredible to me is that this article insinuates macroeconomics is lagging scientifically because they’re not shoving everything into cookbook PO techniques, despite the fact that such simply do not work for macroeconomics. otoh, Credibility Revolutionaries have long ignored the deep problems in IV (see Torgovitsky’s work addressing this) and of autocovariance in panels. See Sims: pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10…

@Smita_DigiMarke @Plusnet It's definitely down: downdetector.co.uk/status/plusnet/

@Plusnet Is your internet service down today? 16.00 (05th Jan 2026) any updates on what's going on?

Our thoughts are with everyone affected by Hurricane Melissa. We’re crediting back charges for landline calls from the UK to Jamaica, between 29 October and 31 October (inclusive).

Really valuable bridge for those who want to bring in frontier workflows with familiarity of Stata, great job Tom!

built a lightweight mcp server for stata. run commands, check variables, and debug code through claude/codex/antigravity/windsurf without copy-pasting stata output into the chat. ~700 lines of python github.com/tmonk/mcp-stata

Anatomy of automation: CNC machines and industrial robots in UK manufacturing, 2005-2023 By @aniketbaksy, @dan_chandler and @pj_lambert Read at: ow.ly/44sZ50XhEQm

Very happy to have had my paper on bank failures (joint with @pj_lambert) selected for this year’s Fed/FDIC Community Banking Research Conference at the St. Louis Fed! Looking forward to it! Full list of papers here: communitybanking.org/news/2025-rese…

There is evidence that golf-course utilisation is way up during the work week! More granular time-use survey data is terrible for measuring what I would call micro-shirking. Same reason students say they don't use ChatGPT but also say all their peers do! Cost structure is important here too. Historically, big innovations have had high fixed cost. Whereas most AI tools have zero fixed cost. My hot take is that this means they are diffusing to individual workers much faster than organizations, which is a pretty weird thing by historical standards.

@pj_lambert Do we see it in leisure activities data?

AI is quietly giving white-collar workers more leisure time. Programmers face cuts because their managers grasp AI's power and expect productivity gains. But most workers at smaller firms fly under the radar - those using Claude/Gemini either work less or appear to be crushing it.

Final call! Join me and Guy Michaels in exploring the impact of ethnic integration in schools. The application deadline is fast approaching!

Recently accepted to #REStud, "Demand Shocks as Technology Shocks," from Bai, Ríos-Rull and Storesletten: restud.com/demand-shocks-… #econtwitter

@arpitrage Something I haven't ever seen mainstreamed is subsidies to SELL property. Cash-payment of $XX,000 if you reduce your square footage and/or move further away from the city centre. You would know best, but would be great, no?

I’m more positive than many about this demand subsidy Ultimately the incidence depends on how elastic housing markets are. The intuition for infill in built up areas (very inelastic) doesn’t apply to single home dwellings in general, for which relevant elasticities are moderate

@Noahpinion You win best word in a short tweet in my feed today, for "filial".

Anti-Boomer rhetoric shows a lack of filial piety.

I think "motivation" is a weird object in research. In a nutshell, I think it needs to be (a) intrinsic, and (b) marketable. But when these are worlds apart, it usually means a person just hasn't learnt the right way to frame what they finds intrinsically interesting. The chances that something a smart person finds interesting isn't marketable is almost zero.

The motivation paragraph in econ/finance papers is very important, can be strategically used, and is often underused. PhD students often ignore it: if the paper is about X, they're like "X is a billion dollar market..." and then just jump into their paper. Not good!

@alz_zyd_ Replace "Motivation paragraph" with "motivation" and I agree. The paragraph (or three) is how you communicate succinctly why it's worth caring about anything said afterwards.

Ofcourse, it raises questions: how selected is our historical read of the literature, which ideas are persistent, and why?, how does media-tech shape idea-persistence. But mostly, this was just a bit of fun!

The point of this post was to have fun with AI (we all need to use this tech more for fun).

"The Field of Labor Economics: A Review" Author: Carroll R. Daugherty This paper reviews the Millis-Montgomery trilogy "The Economics of Labor" and assesses labor economics education in American universities. While praising the volumes' mature scholarship, the author identifies significant omissions: inadequate treatment of economically weak groups like Negro workers, insufficient employer perspectives, and lack of substantive collective bargaining discussion. Post-war expansion justifies dedicating four to six semesters to labor courses covering labor problems, unionism, employerism, collective bargaining, government relations, and social insurance. The author warns against threats including proliferation of potentially compromised "industrial relations schools," insufficient economic theory integration, and inadequate research emphasis. Maintaining professional integrity requires avoiding these pitfalls while balancing specialized labor content with broader economic analysis.