Economist @ANU_CBE. Dad. Husband. Research in Public & Labor economics. Opinions mine.
Canberra, ACT
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We learned a lot from writing this paper. We provide a way of integrating non-utilitarian concerns like rights and responsibilities into economics.
On tax transparency, my intuition was that it would conflict with efficiency. Turns out the robust conflict is with equality.
New paper with @ash_craig
Higher taxes promote equality but reduce efficiency. Making taxes less salient, so people respond less, eases this tension. But deliberately obscuring taxes may be viewed as dishonest.
We study the tradeoff between utilitarian welfare and honesty.
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Ashley Craig retweeted
Come join us! Great school in a great university in a great city. I moved here 18 months ago and am happy to answer any questions!
📢 We're hiring!
The School of Economics at the University of Queensland (UQ) is hiring two Lecturer / Senior Lecturer positions (Assistant / Associate Prof equiv).
✅ Any field in #Economics
📍 Brisbane, Australia
📅 Deadline: 1 Nov 2026
Apply here: aeaweb.org/joe/listing.php?J…
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JM candidates apply! Canberra / ANU is an amazing place and we have multiple positions.
The ANU Research School of Economics is seeking highly qualified candidates for the position of Lecturer or Senior Lecturer in Economics specialising in econometrics or empirical economic research, however any field of specialisation will be considered. econjobmarket.org/positions/…
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Your country might be great but does it follow Australia’s lead by colour-coordinating its currency with the nation’s favourite snack foods?
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Imagine this logic applied to public debt.
California defaults on its debt, just this once, and promises never to do it again. Proponents say it will keep borrowing at the same rate as before.
Rauh would say: "No. Lenders won't believe you, so you'll pay a higher rate on everything you borrow from now on. That will cost us dearly in the long run."
Zucman would reply: "Fallacy. Why would lenders charge more unless you default again? And if you default again, you save money again... by virtue of, well, defaulting."
The key problem is this:
Why would billionaires permanently leave California in response to a one-time tax owed if they lived there on January 1, 2026?
It would only make sense for them to leave if the tax becomes annual.
But if the tax becomes annual, it would also generate revenue annually — by virtue of, well, being annual.
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He is so close to getting how the mere threat of bad policy can cause permanent damage
Hence their result:
Because billionaires leave forever, the state of California loses an infinite stream of income tax revenue.
But because the dreaded annual wealth tax never materializes, the state gains nothing in revenue (beyond the one-time tax).
This is what delivers their net loss of nearly $40 billion.
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An underrated feature of any service provider is not having a call centre. That way they can’t make you call them to get things done.
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4yo learned hard lessons today:
1. If you use money to buy X you can’t use it to buy Y.
2. If you spend money, you no longer have the money.
Not happy. 😢
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Codex's new ability to predict my prompts is amazing @thsottiaux. How does it get it right every time? It must really know me to understand that I always just say "great, now proceed as far as you can without me".
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Had a dream about how economics finally gets finished off by AI. A truly terrifying dream where one of the labs just quietly posts ~400 cutting-edge DiD papers.
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I get the point but at least in isolation I find this too simplistic. In fact, medicine *currently* doesn't satisfy the suggested standard; many common medicines (Tylenol!) lack well-understood method of action.
The problem with human/AI decoupling are long-term.
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Truly incredibile trolling. She got so many of you!
Coffee shops boost innovation. 10% more Starbucks in an area --> 3-4% more inventions.
People gather over a cuppa. They share ideas, discuss how to untangle a knotty problem, help see an issue from another perspective. These conversations lead to breakthroughs and inventions.
A very fun paper finds that when Starbucks rolled out to a new county, it fueled a coffee-shop culture, urging more and more people to “grab a coffee” together. The authors compare the counties where Starbucks had rolled out to those where it had not yet arrived. And they find that the number of patents in caffeinated counties is meaningfully higher.
This paper underscores how essential the face-to-face encounter is. Starbucks isn’t that old. People Could have picked up the phone and chatted at any time. People Could have dropped an email. Probably they did. But those connections didn’t yield the same insights and creativity.
Turns out that a Cup of Joe really does help the knowledge flow. We talk about how much in-person connection boosts creativity in In Person. It’s out in just few days, so now is a great time to pre-order.
To see the full research use the link in the comments.
#Innovation #InPerson #FutureOfWork #CoffeeCulture #NewBook
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Ashley Craig retweeted
Btw, Arnold Harberger could still win this year. And he should. At one, we should honor the guy whose point is included in all textbooks. Everyone. Of. Them. To quote Gary Oldman in Leon the Professional
The man who drew a triangle that revolutionized economics in many ways is now 100 and still hasnt received his Nobel
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Ashley Craig retweeted
Coles and Woolworths make something like 3% profit on total sales. So naturally the Greens think a govt run store can reduce prices by 22%.
Somehow the ideologues who think private companies are ruthless and greedy also think they leave most potential profits on the table.
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New: Security researchers are questioning whether an OpenAI agent needed to hack an Australian government health portal to access it, after a review of the website’s archived code found it explicitly directed visitors to an unauthenticated endpoint. therecord.media/openai-austr…
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The Australian Government claims that this constitutes a unique risk. It does not.
The same portal that OpenAI is alleged to have scraped has been publicly accessible and independently scraped by members of the public for more than a year.
This script was also posted on LinkedIn but it has been subsequently taken down.
It fits the bill exactly.
github.com/bfiripis/Web-Scra…
Breaking: Anthony Albanese rings up Sam Altman to express "severe concern" after finding out an AI agent hacked into an Australian Medicare data portal in June. Richard Marles says while the impact was "minor" it is a "warning in terms of what can happen"
abc.net.au/news/2026-09-24/a…
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