Ben Harrell 🌐

Asst Prof of Economics @Trinity_U | health insurance, health policy, & health disparities. Abundance bro. Past: @vanderbiltecon @LGBTPolicyLabVU and @aysps

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@gynemimesis @StatisticUrban Why is OKCupid data better than census data here?

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@nomadj1s @besttrousers @jessespafford Basically the same insight as the hospital mergers literature. Local markets matter most for effective market power, and are defined by a complex combination of features commute times, ancillary services, and other factors that limit substitutability.

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

Two problems w/ this article from my old Twitter frenemy Unlearning Economics:

1) Price controls in imperfectly competitive markets (eg oligopolistic) can improve welfare.

2) That doesn’t mean rent control as it is currently proposed will do so. Depends on lots of things!

[Nathan J Robinson @NathanJRobinson]

an economist explains how rent control is actually fine and good
https://t.co/ha1VB6M1k0

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@Cutvin @coryfromphilly @jbsteinberg @NathanJRobinson Trying to get tenure 😅

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@coryfromphilly @jbsteinberg @NathanJRobinson Yeah he was and did! EJMR doxxed him at one point, but that’s all been scrubbed now.

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@jbsteinberg @NathanJRobinson He has published in journals that would get both of us tenure. Idk what to tell you.

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@jbsteinberg @NathanJRobinson Can confirm he is an economist at a top university. Or at least was when I went in his podcast a few years ago.

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

A few more spots to fill! If you're interested in being a discussant or chair of a session in health equity at ASHEcon 2026 pls shoot me a DM!

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

Tyler Cowen is to Bryan Caplan as Naomi Klein is to Naomi Wolff. I will not be elaborating further.

[𝔐𝔽𝓩 @mean_field_zane]

You guys should go ask an actual academic economist what they think of Tyler Cowen, who is ostensibly supposed to be an economist. The answer might surprise you.

[matt bernstein @mattxiv]

you’re telling me all the same people who championed the anti trans panic now openly want to overturn gay marriage? you mean gay and trans struggles were inseparable this whole time?

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@wwwojtekk We may never step in the same river (or policy regime) twice, but sometimes they're close enough to motivate good inference. History rhymes!

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@AlexCaswen @tbsama03 I think there’s a strong case to be made for preferential admission of young men into college for this reason. The point of putting your thumb on the scale is to ensure outcomes map onto the population distribution.

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@RuxandraTeslo A genuine question: would course correction from several generations of white male dominance over all other groups not empirically look like a decline in the relative power of white men? Was that not the entire point of improving the prospects of women and minorities?

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@tbsama03 @Noahpinion Yeah. I think we should have priced this kind of stuff into our mental model. Not in a “nothing to see here way,” but in a “this was to be expected” way.

[John Cawley @cawley_john]

One last (sobering) update on the #EconJobMarket before the winter holidays; data as of 2025-12-14. In terms of # of job listings on JOE, this is the worst job mkt in recent yrs for PhD Economists. # jobs down 20% from last yr, even 18.9% lower than during COVID (2020).

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@jamesharrigan @Econ_4_Everyone @instrumenthull I’m sure that was an…error.

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@alz_zyd_

[Ben Harrell 🌐 @elben]

@ole_b_peters @LughSpear Thats certainly an interesting interpretation of Afriat’s theorem.