Mike Denly

I'm getting very bored of peer reviewers asking for more and more additions while editors keep demanding you stick to the original word limit. I've just had a journal ask me to cut a manuscript by 500 words, and I'm tempted to just remove all the pointless additions demanded by the peer reviewer.

"Not always towards the null: reconsidering the direction of overadjustment bias" - read our new paper in the @intjepidemiol.bsky.social led by Frerik Smit! Overadjustment for a mediator is often thought to 'bias towards the null', but the bias can be in any direction - as the paper explains!

"Democracy is not an elective kingship — it's a place where people vote for legislators who make laws, and then the government implements them." @frankfukuyama.bsky.social on why executive-order governance is a symptom of weakening democracy. My interview w/ him 👇 tinyurl.com/mtysfe6z

@juanfeliperiano.bsky.social’s bureaucratic nepotism paper is simply an incredible piece of scholarship. If you have not yet read it, you can find it here:

📰🗞️🔺 Una nueva cobertura de la versión más reciente de mi investigación sobre nepotismo burocrático en Colombia, esta vez en el Diario la República. Según mis estimaciones, el nepotismo burocrático le cuesta a los colombianos más de $1,2 billones de pesos al año www.larepublica.co/economia/la-...

Does vote buying even work? Trump offered every American $5,000. But it might not help Republicans in November. Read the latest from @johnsides.bsky.social & Kenneth Greene: goodauthority.org/news/does-vo...

“Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It’s all for sale.”

It really is striking how many authoritarian states have ended up in this exact same place, where the leader seizes control of scientific inquiry. Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, Aryan Physics in the Third Reich, Great Leap Forward (also related to Lysenko) in China.

Unprecedented corruption

CBO analysis: The Iran war has cost the U.S. $38 billion as of August 1. That’s >$246 million per day, on average. CBO says the war has raised inflation and global energy prices, citing reduced traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and says it’ll raise interest rates on treasuries.

Love this so much. Should out to my colleagues at @wm.edu AidData. #Data transparency is good.

Apply to 2 positions on Jobs for Aggies! 1) TAMU Bush School Students: Research Assistant for Lab for Economic Development Research (bush.tamu.edu/research/ins...) ID: 415588 2) TAMU Non-Bush School Students: Grader position for my Quant 1 course: (mikedenly.com/teaching/qua...) ID: 415590

Corruption and perversion of the public trust do not serve any “side”. They harm all Americans. Tolerating this from “your” people poisons future efforts to stop it by “their” people. And that cripples the institutions that nourish sustained prosperity for all Conservatives and all Liberals.

I shared some thoughts on the broader significance of Colombia’s presidential election - voters decide this Sunday

The World Cup starts tomorrow! With WorldCups.ai, you can ask any question about the World Cup — about tournaments, matches, countries, players, managers — in plain English and get a data-backed answer with an intuitive, interactive visualization.

Had fun gaming out w @fgenovese.bsky.social, @lorenzocrippa.bsky.social and @davidrvetter.bsky.social what effect Pope Leo's AI encyclical coming out Monday might have on markets. Have a watch/listen! youtu.be/pTCcM2uEkOI

The word you are looking for is “corruption.”

My new essay, with Rabah Arezki and Rick van der Ploeg, in @foreignaffairs.com. For all the benefits of the energy transition, the world isn't ready to rely on critical minerals

Given the Callais decision, resharing our (w @corymccartan.com) "Individual and Differential Harm in Redistricting" piece which tries to tackle estimating group harm, including separating partisan and racial effects of maps... osf.io/preprints/so... (conditionally accepted at Nature Human Behavior)

Public support has often been treated as a backdrop to global governance. But in a review article with @the-peio.bsky.social, @jonastallberg.bsky.social and I argue that what the public thinks matters for how (well) international organisations operate: link.springer.com/article/10.1... #poliscisky

Second, "Experiments on Taxes, Corruption, and Prejudice." Sat, April 25, 11:40am to 1:10pm CDT. Meta-analyses, lab experiments, field experiments! convention2.allacademic.com/one/mpsa/mps...

I am chairing two supercool panels this year at @mpsa.bsky.social. First, "Machine Learning Applications." Fri, April 24, 3:20 to 4:50pm CDT. Lots of stuff about LLMs. Love them, hate them, don't miss them. convention2.allacademic.com/one/mpsa/mps...

My article on purging & leader survival in rebel groups is now out in @jpeaceresearch.bsky.social! Open access: doi.org/10.1093/jopr... How do rebel leaders stay in power? While we often study "decapitation" by state forces, internal actors (coup plotters, spies) also threaten leader survival.

Cool day of book discussions happening at MPSA, if you're looking for something to attend on Friday:

Thanks, Ingo! Graham Goff and I have put a lot of work into this package. {DAGassist} can estimate a wide range of models and classify covariate roles after you make your DAG either with {ggdag} or {daggitty}. We hope that the package can make DAG-consistent estimation a little easier for everyone!

We're hiring a Research Support Associate at MIT Political Science. Work with me, In Song Kim, Rich Nielsen, and Naoki Egami on methods and political economy. Great opportunity for those considering a PhD in the social sciences. One-year position with possible extension.

Thanks to @rbreich.bsky.social for sharing our article/ interview in @us.theconversation.com 🙏 ... We offer some helpful lenses for making sense of the social movements taking shape in the U.S. theconversation.com/what-america...

If you use #QuartoPub for any PDF documents for teaching and you need to meet impending PDF accessibility rules, upgrade to v1.9, add format: typst: pdf-standard: ua-1 to the YAML front matter, and it'll work!

⏳One month left to nominate papers for APSA's Experimental Research Section’s Best Paper Award! We’re excited to read creative experimental work tackling big political questions. Self-nominations welcome (and discussants, please nominate your panelists)!

Five more days to submit nominations for the Margaret Levi Award for the Advancement of Comparative Methodology! A broad and unusual call. Feel free to self-nominate or to submit a nomination on behalf of work that has inspired you.

🎉I'm excited to share my new article with @cjschneider.bsky.social, now online at International Organization @iojournal.bsky.social: “International Financial Institutions and the Promotion of Autocratic Resilience.” Open access: doi.org/10.1017/S002... ✨🧵thread🧵✨

Excited to share a new piece, co-authored with Eddy Malesky and Lucio Picci, at @foreignaffairs.com! We return to the Trump administration's decision to suspend (and reform) the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. 🧵: "How Washington Is Weaponizing Anticorruption Law." 1/

New Blog for CGD: US Aid Cuts Fueled Conflict in Africa www.cgdev.org/blog/us-aid-...

🚨 I’m hiring a Harvard-based Predoctoral Fellow. If you’re excited about development, political economy, and public finance, apply! ✅ Full-time (July 1 start) 🗓️ Rolling deadline 🎓 Great fit for candidates considering a PhD Apply ➡️ academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/15884

Come work with me! Two postdoc positions open in @erc.europa.eu project PROTECT, examining how local change shapes public support for protectionist policies in areas like trade and finance. @stockholmuni.bsky.social su.varbi.com/en/what:job/... su.varbi.com/en/what:job/... #polisky #academicsky

This is tragic. The World Factbook was a useful resource to make sense of the world as a comparative politics scholar. The dismantling of the US state and its resources will leave a less knowledgeable world.

As President Trump withdraws the US from intl agreements - including the Paris Agreement and WHO - Lotem Bassan-Nygate and I ask how this affects public opinion towards cooperation? We descibe our recent findings in @goodauth.bsky.social : tinyurl.com/goodauth @harvardkennedy.bsky.social 1/4

A reminder that the deadline for the Political Economy of Aid and International Development meeting (at Georgetown U) is next Friday (30 January). Come to hear and discuss some of the best new work on the political economy of aid and international development.

Already some excellent submissions in for #PEADS2026 from May 22-23 at Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. Don't have yours in yet? Don't worry there's still time - deadline January 30th! Please "re-sky" to spread the word!