Elisabeth Curtis

senior lecturer at Dartmouth College, mom of two great kids, teaching interests include monetary policy, personal finance and transition economies

[Maria Avdeeva @maria_avdv]

A young woman was killed on a beach in Odesa by debris from a Russian drone.

The war doesn’t stay at the front line. It follows people home. Into courtyards, playgrounds, beaches.

There is no safe place. Not until Russia is stopped.

[volodymyr dubovyk @VolodymDubovyk]

A few years ago the Paris Notre Dame burned. We were terrified. It was an accident. Last night Ukraine’s Lavra, around a hundred years older than Notre Dame, burned. It was not an accident. It was a Russian military strike. Where is a proper outrage? This is an attack on our common heritage. How is this ok?

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

I just watched priests trying to save crucifixes from a burning monastery.

This is what russia is destroying.

The Kyiv Lavra is one of the holiest Orthodox sites on earth. A UNESCO World Heritage site.

Moscow calls itself “Christian civilisation.”

It’s literally barbarism.

[Christopher Miller @ChristopherJM]

The next time Putin claims he’s defending Christian values and only attacking military targets, recall the attack tonight on one of the holiest religious sites of historic Kyivan Rus.

[Olena Tregub @OTregub]

Article about my impressions from recent conferences and meetings across Europe.

Europeans increasingly talk about the lessons they can learn from Ukraine. They speak about Ukraine as Europe’s shield and as the main security provider.

Yet many seem to forget one crucial fact:

Ukraine is still fighting a hot war.

While discussions focus on future security architecture, Ukrainians are being killed today. Civilians are being murdered in their beds. Cities are being bombed every night.

Ukraine is not only a lesson for Europe. Ukraine is an ally in urgent need of help right now. https://t.co/gjdRfFLwNh

[FellaFanatic @FellaFanatic]

@OTregub

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

Last night Russia attacked seventy-seven places in Ukraine with more than six hundred drones and missiles. You can help protect Ukrainian life by donating here.
https://t.co/rLC9C3ZpP3

[Andrew Samwick @asamwick]

@jasonfurman The professionalism of the faculty member should prevent grade inflation. Absent that, simple monitoring from the academic unit should correct it. Absent that, you get policies like these. Positive steps. Not big and brave. Try this one over a decade ago: https://t.co/mgJWlVfXgJ

[Jason Furman @jasonfurman]

I wouldn't have written this headline but I'm secretly happy the editor did.

Harvard just capped A grades. David Laibson & I make the case that:

1. We need to use it to improve our education

2. Other universities should follow

3. Employers & grad admissions should take not.

[Olena Tregub @OTregub]

24 people in Kyiv were killed in seconds while sleeping in their beds after a Russian missile hit their apartment building on May 14.
That missile was built in 2026 and still contains Western components.
Every sanctions loophole is paid for with human lives. It is a supply chain of death. https://t.co/qufJywShL8

[Paul Novosad @paulnovosad]

An Econ PhD student at the 20th ranked program who is working on stuff they are passionate about will have a better job market than one at MIT who's been doing nothing but phd-app-maxxing since undergrad.

People get confused by this because they don't observe *how* successful people came about their insane knowledge bases. It wasn't by relentlessly grinding away at stuff because they had to.

They look at Scott Kominers and say "if i grind and learn as much math as he did, i will be successful." You can't! *You* can't learn as much math as Kominers because he gets energized by configuration results for type ii lattices. You will burn out if you try to do it this way.

You cannot, through grind alone, learn more about the economics of cities than Glaeser, or about how to maximize a value function than Acemoglu.

Research careers are long. Most people give up and stop working on research (graph is share of elite PhD graduates with at least one publication in year X after graduation).

If you're starting a PhD, you're presumably doing it to have a successful 40-year research career. The number one factor in whether that happens is not which program you get into, it's whether you find a research angle that energizes you enough to push through the endless barriers an academic career throws in your path.

This is why a lot of the received wisdom around PhD applications is wrong. If you're 100% consumed by the predoc rat race already, it's going to be a long, hard road ahead.

Obv you still have to do admissions, you should study a lot for the GRE, sigh it seems like taking real analysis is probably worth it.

But spending time on the things that energize you about economics is a no-brainer, whether it's policy, or blogging, or whatever, you gotta do the things that light your fire and make you want to be on this road.

[KyivPost @KyivPost]

2022: Russia launched a full-scale invasion believing Kyiv would fall in 3 days.

2026: Zelensky is warning European diplomats not to go to Moscow for Putin’s May 9 parade.

The country Russia planned to erase is now forcing the Kremlin to worry about security in its own capital.

[Annamaria Lusardi @Dr_AnnaLusardi]

Four days left to apply for the Financial Literacy Research Boot Camp at @Stanford. If you're an early-career researcher in economics, finance, personal finance or a related field, I hope you'll consider it. And please share it with interested parties. For more info, visit: https://t.co/52JzshWSgU

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

🇲🇩 Maia Sandu: Moldova is safe today thanks to the bravery of Ukrainian people. We owe them our peace.

War is also affecting Moldova. We've seen many drones violating our air space. We're counting on support from Ukraine and developing our own air surveillance and air defense.

Russian war goes beyond Ukraine and becoming dangerous for all of us. Russia wants to threaten and scare people. Russia is the only country to be blamed. Russia is the aggressor.

I don’t believe Putin wants to sign peace agreement. Russia can be forced to sign one only when its economic situation is bad enough. For that, sanctions should continue.

[Rev. Benjamin Cremer @Brcremer]

The single greatest threat to religion in the world isn’t secularism or atheism.

It is religious people contradicting their religion by justifying evil, moral depravity, greed, selfishness, arrogance, hatred, and even the use of violence to preserve their religion.

[Bridget Brink @AmbBridgetBrink]

Trump lifting sanctions on Russian oil won't ease sky rocking gas prices in Michigan and across the country. It will, however, help fund Putin's war machine in Ukraine.

As Sen. Chris Coons said this week, the only clear winner in this war with Iran is Russia.