Petra Moser

Petra Moser

@pmoser.bsky.social

Economic historian, studying creativity, science, and innovation, mom of 2 boys. Love running in the mountains, climbing, and singing.

3K followers387 following98 posts

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When I got tenure, I decided to use it start a new research agenda, studying US science in the 20th century, how it became dominant, what held it back, and what we can do better. Here's the first pub (with Scott Kim).

Econometrica@ecmaeditors.bsky.social

Analyzing scientists' biographies during the baby boom, we find that mothers have a unique life cycle pattern of productivity. Children reduce the productivity of mothers but not fathers, with important implications for promotions and participation. buff.ly/39WbYRH

A personal anecdote: a Syrian surgeon amputated my step-Dad's leg last Christmas, assisted by a Syrian surgeon. There's an enormous shortage of doctors in our rural town, long wait times, even with life-threatening disease. Zero capacity. And I did not see a single German-born physician.

Eastern & Southern Europeans (ESE) had the same response to the 1920s quotas act. Intended to limit low-skilled immigration to the US the quotas exempted university scientists and students. Still, the US lost an estimated 122 ESE-born professors & 670 scientists who would have come as students 2/n

Dunno what this says about me, but I saw "Moby Dick" at the Met last night and absolutely loved it, down to the "squarely undulating minor-key references to Philip Glass, John Adams and Britten..." Go see it if you can! www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/a...

nytimes.comReview: ‘Moby-Dick,’ the Opera, Cuts the BlubberStreamlining Melville’s sprawling novel, Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s moody, monochromatic 2010 adaptation has come to the Metropolitan Opera.

When German Alexander rammed his car into a group of people in Mannheim on Monday, killing two, wounding 25, he was stopped by Afzal from Pakistan. It's funny how we only hear names and place of birth when they match our fear and prejudice.

Erik Marquardt@erik-marquardt.eu

Gestern hat ein deutscher Alexander ein schreckliches Attentat in Mannheim verübt. Gestoppt wurde er von Afzal aus Pakistan. Dass ihr so wenig davon hört liegt daran, dass Vorname und Herkunft für viele offensichtlich nur interessant sind, wenn man das für rechte Hetze missbrauchen kann.

A plagiarism check did not find evidence of plagiarism, so is publishing accusations of poor citation practices in footnotes (25 years ago, please check mine). And when that's not working they go after the dissertation of @robert-habeck.de wife. Ok....

Robert Habeck@robert-habeck.de

Ich rechne damit, dass heute, Vorwürfe gegen meine Doktorarbeit, die ich vor 25 Jahren geschrieben habe, veröffentlicht werden. Ich habe mich entschieden, das Ganze transparent zu machen. Denn ich kenne die Vorwürfe – und konnte sie vorab prüfen lassen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyA...

Petra Moser reposted

ESA now puts the probability of Earth impact at 1.8%, NASA (miraculously not dismantled yet by Musk and Trump) at 1.9%. NASA data suggest a yield of roughly 8MT TNT equiv. Big, but Tsar Bomba was bigger 🤓 tl;dr: it's very unlikely to hit. And there's zero chance we'll be wiped out as a species.

esa.intESA actively monitoring near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4The European Space Agency (ESA) Planetary Defence Office is closely monitoring the recently discovered asteroid 2024 YR4, which has a very small chance of impacting Earth in 2032. This page was l...
Jonathan O'Callaghan@astrojonny.bsky.social

The chance of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting out planet in 2032 is now 1.5%, or 1 in 67. The OVERWHELMING likelihood is that the asteroid will miss Earth. But for the first time ever, we might have to seriously consider a deflection mission soon. Let me explain. 🧵 (1/x)

Kim is great, really smart and thoughtful. And like @tkehoe.bsky.social I admire Kim for his service and very much hope he succeeds in influencing US economic policy.

Prof. Kim Ruhl (UMN PhD 2004) of University of Wisconsin-Madison has been named as one of 3 members of President Trump's Council of Economic Advisors. I admire Kim for his service to our country, and I hope he is able to have a favorable influence on US economic policy. news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-e...

"The feeling of not being wanted in that country" is an issue not only in Germany but also in the US, historically and today. In "Immigration and Innovation. Lessons from the Quota Act" we find that students, who were exempted, did not come to the US after the quotas if their countries were targeted

Frau Nora@fraunora.bsky.social

Und jetzt mal zu guter und wichtiger journalistischer Arbeit: Das Feature: "Migrationsdebatte – Das Gefühl, in Deutschland nicht gewollt zu sein" zeigt eine Perspektive auf, die aktuell zu kurz kommt. Finde auch gut, das explizit konstruktive Ansätze genannt werden.

I'm shocked by the implied decline in inequality between 1913 and 1958. Did WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII disproportionately destroy top wealth? Using the same measures for 1913 and the rest of the graph, 1913 may look as bad as today. So what happened in the first half of the 20th century?

Gabriel Zucman@gabrielzucman.bsky.social

Longer-term perspective on the rise of US oligarchy

Santos started his 5-year appointment in 2022, and was preparing the 2030 census, which is "set to be used to redistribute political representation and trillions in federal funding across the country over the next decade."

Petra Moser reposted

A great point. Hammering Colombia’s legal exports will pour acid on the work of so many Colombians to overcome the narcoeconomy

Stephen Nuñez@socio-steve.bsky.social

So here is an interesting factoid associated with this. Colombia is the second largest exporter of flowers in the world in part because the flowers were meant to be a legal substitute for farmers growing coca (which is made into cocaine). This started in the 1990s and had US support...

My step-Dad came home from the hospital today, after three surgeries and four harrowing weeks. Not to die, as we had thought on Christmas but to live. And I'll do my darnedest to have it be a good time.

If you are happen to be in Paris, go see Sahar Parsa present at CEPS!

CEPS Seminar | 📅 Jan. 09 | ⏰ 12.15pm On Thursday at the Paris-Saclay Seminar: Sahar Parsa (New York University) will present 'The Reducators: Political Persecution in Academia' w/. Petra Moser (@pmoser.bsky.social). ➡️ www.ceps-paris-saclay.fr/events/event...

Petra Moser reposted

Re-posting this call for applications targeting PhD students and early career researchers (PhDs 2014 or later) doing research on the fiscal and economic effects of three productivity policies: R&D, permitting, and immigration. Applications due at midnight on Thurs January 16.

Heidi L. Williams@heidiwilliams.bsky.social

Attention: PhD students and early-career researchers interested in the fiscal and economic effects of productivity policies -- particularly R&D, immigration, and infrastructure permitting. Consider applying to this Sloan Foundation NBER fellowship: www.nber.org/graduate-fel...

Petra Moser reposted

Here are the first five sets of slides: 01 Introduction: psantanna.com/DiD/01_Intro... 02 Classical 2x2 setup: psantanna.com/DiD/02_two_b... 03 Clustering issues: psantanna.com/DiD/03_Clust... 04 Functional form: psantanna.com/DiD/04_Funct... 05 Covariates: psantanna.com/DiD/05_Covar...

psantanna.compsantanna.com
Pedro Sant’Anna@pedrosantanna.bsky.social

I am thinking of making my DiD materials that I used for teaching in the last 5 years available. I am hoping these would find begineers in need of a step-by-step opinionated walkthrough of several developments Let’s see if I find the energy to do this!

I've had a tough hoilday taking care of step-Dad after two failed surgeries. But now I'm laughing as I try to clean my inbox from 100s of funny and kind emails from NYU faculty who hit reply all. Thank you NYU 🤣https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/28/40000-nyu-students-spammed-in-replyallcalypse/

Brendan Nyhan@brendannyhan.bsky.social

Loving the NYU replyallpocalypse stories

Petra Moser reposted

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 led to a 72 percent relative increase in bilateral exports for affected country pairs and a likely permanent increase in world trade, from David S. Jacks, Christopher M. Meissner, and Nikolaus Wolf https://www.nber.org/papers/w33250

Petra Moser reposted

Economists are not prepared for the impact of the demographic cliff. Enrollments are already down in aggregate, they are going to fall more, and it looks like maybe professor demand is already responding

Arpit Gupta@arpitrage.bsky.social

What accounts for the slowdown in job demand for academic economists?