What kind of childhood makes a top scientist? Is it enough to have all the right traits (brilliance, grit, etc) or do you need the right family too? And why should we care? A 🧵 on our paper on the Nobel Laureates. A teaser: the income distribution of the laureates' fathers. 1/N

Following feedback from @aurelienallard.bsky.socialosf.io/preprints/so...

I feel like many people online (including me) do more complaining than fixing, so I've been trying to 'just do the thing'. So I've been writing lots of Community Notes; emailing people to fix factual errors in their articles; writing Wiki pages for important scientists who don't have them

Lots of changes happening in the US labor market (despite headline, I don’t necessarily see this post as being mostly an AI story). open.substack.com/pub/forkligh...

A data-driven case that AI has already changed the U.S. labor market

A painfully cautious economist tries – and fails - to avoid the AI hype

Mathematical theory in social science tends to step on the same few rakes. Take it from ecologists… don’t build an ABM unless you’ve ruled out there isn’t some explicit math you can write out and solve analytically or evaluate computationally. Find a mathematician or engineer!

We’ve just published a new pre-print on ArXiv titled "Inventor Mobility After the Fall of the Berlin Wall" (with Ann Hipp, Bremen & Thünen). Below is a summary of our key findings. We’d greatly appreciate any feedback you may have. doi.org/10.48550/arX...

just popping in to say my Takes now have a Substack: laurenpolicy.substack.com, pls subscribe, I’m cool and thoughtful I swear

Lauren Policy | Lauren Gilbert | Substack

Lauren Gilbert on progress, innovation, growth and development. Click to read Lauren Policy, by Lauren Gilbert, a Substack publication. Launched 2 days ago.

It’s the third anniversary of newthingsunderthesun.com the “living literature review” on social science research about innovation I created! I think more academics should consider writing living literature reviews and grant support is available. Thread!

New Things Under the Sun

My 20 favourite economics blogs (in random order) 1. @voxdev.bsky.socialvoxdev.org

Kevin Gross and I have a new paper out in PLOS Biology about how the ubiquitous incentive structures that motivate hard work also discourage scientists from taking on high-risk, high-return research projects. #metascience#philosophyofscience

Rationalizing risk aversion in science: Why incentives to work hard clash with incentives to take risks

Scientific research requires taking risks, so why does much funded scientific research play it safe? This study uses an economic contracting model to argue that this can be explained in part by the no...