Aaron Schwartz

@aschwartz.bsky.social

MD-PhD professing at the University of Pennsylvania. Health, economics, and health economics.

@nber.orgReposted by @aschwartz.bsky.social

More physicians and higher physician quality, measured by licensing exam scores, reduce patient mortality in Chilean public hospitals, from Juan Pablo Atal, Tomás Larroucau, Pablo Muñoz, and Cristóbal Otero www.nber.org/papers/w35855

@nber.orgReposted by @aschwartz.bsky.social

Denmark quasi-randomly assigned 12,000+ refugee children across towns. Those placed where social mobility is higher earned more as adults and had fewer convictions and teen births, from Daysal, Doyle Jr., Samandari, Simonsen, and Trandafir www.nber.org/papers/w35853

@annabower.bsky.socialReposted by @aschwartz.bsky.social

clawed frog embryo case update!!

Roger Parloff@rparloff.bsky.social

Judge Sorokin orders vindictive-selective prosecution discovery & disclosure of grand jury minutes for Ksenia Petrova, the frog embryo researcher. "Credible showing [she] was prosecuted due to her status as Harvard-affiliated researcher & J1 visa holder." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

They, in turn, reproduce under-oath statements made by a longtime customs attorney in Petrova's federal habeas proceedings, which also concerned the events at issue in this case. Doc. No. 45 at 13. The attorney had provided a sworn declaration attesting that, during his thirty-five-year career, he was not aware of any person having been prosecuted for smuggling without having been processed by customs officers for a "failure to declare" violation, nor could he recall ever seeing smuggling charges brought for failing to declare a research sample regardless of the traveler's willfulness. Id.; Doc. No. 67 at 22 (quoting same declaration). In the circumstances presented, the foregoing suffices to satisfy Petrova's burden of supplying "some evidence" of discriminatory effect as the relevant caselaw requires. The cited declaration comprises a credible showing that Petrova was prosecuted due to her status as a Harvard-affiliated researcher and J-1 visa holder- facts which "some evidence" before the Court also shows placed her in the crosshairs of those presently controlling the Executive Branch. E.g., Doc. No. 67-2 (referencing visa and "educated individuals with a pedigree"); Doc. No. 67-4 at 5 (responding to "fake news" and mentioning Petrova's affiliation with Harvard); see also Doc. No. 67 at 9-10 (describing context in which Petrova's case arose and actions targeting Harvard and higher-education-related visa holders). The same declaration also credibly shows that other travelers who have willfully failed to declare research samples or similar items but were not Harvard-affiliated visa holders were not treated the same way.
@bextraordinary.bsky.socialReposted by @aschwartz.bsky.social

Watching people in salaried, benefitted jobs try to figure out alternative health insurance options because even their employer-subsidized plans are now too expensive... feels real bad, man. Things are bad.

@statnews.comReposted by @aschwartz.bsky.social

U.S. health spending is on pace to cost almost $16,500 per person this year.

And the biggest portion of an employer’s health spending — even for the largest corporations in the country — has remained the same since the 1980s: https://bit.ly/4edjsFi

Bar chart illustrating the increase in average per-person healthcare spending from 2021 to 2026. Categories include hospital outpatient, physician care, prescription drugs, hospital inpatient, and other. The total rises from $6,107 in 2021 to $8,460 in 2026. Chart by J. Emory Parker/STAT, source Milliman.
@bakerdphd.bsky.socialReposted by @aschwartz.bsky.social

Finally a proper working paper for this study that produced one of the most astounding figures I've ever seen. Basically economics is different from every other field, empirically. This paper looks at the concentration of university affiliations for award winners.

www.nber.org/papers/w35875

Figure 2 from the paper: institutional concentration of university affiliation at time of award correlated with institutional concentration of phd granting university. Economics is the most concentrated of any field. Figure 2 from the paper: institutional concentration of university affiliation at time of award correlated with institutional concentration of lifetime employment. Economics is the most concentrated of any field.
@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.comReposted by @aschwartz.bsky.social

i'm actually going to take this goofy post somewhat seriously: much as going to the gym requires discipline, so too does going to the mental gym require discipline. and discipline is harder than it looks: it is about *your* ability to discipline *yourself*

@o.simardcasanova.netReposted by @aschwartz.bsky.social

The US is, or was, the world’s leading scientific power in economics. The Trump administration is inflicting extraordinary damage on what was once an infrastructure of excellence. The open question is how much of that damage will prove permanent.

Older posts