Panu Pelkonen

Education and labour economist. Tweet mostly education/skills/labour/demography/political econ. Lived in 🇫🇮🇺🇲🇳🇱🇬🇧.

[Jacob Schaal @FutureEconJacob]

Has AI hit the labor market yet? @alexolegimas and my verdict after ~20 papers: not yet in aggregate. Unemployment and layoffs show almost nothing. But AI may already be cutting junior hiring in exposed white-collar jobs. Remote work may explain part of that decline.
A 🧵

[Lee Crawfurd @leecrawfurd]

In most OECD countries teaching has got more selective, Finland stands out as the country with the big reversal

https://t.co/APW23Mfu7g

[Jon Fiva @JFiva]

Some crazy stats from this new JEL paper:

- IV est. average 3–10x OLS (meta analysis)
- Sign. results 30x more likely to be published in experimental econ (Andrews & Kasy)
- <2% of empirical polisci report null-only findings in abstracts (Briggs et al.)

https://t.co/rbpoQctWxU

[Justin Sandefur @JustinSandefur]

since high-stakes exams are in the news:

not the main point of what's rocking India right now, but worth noting how hard it is for developing countries to get this kind of exam right, even without malfeasance.

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

This was interesting, and my reading of this is that nearly all work already appears to be 'messy', and isn't going to be easily displaced by AI.

[Peter McCrory @PeterMcCrory]

https://t.co/udfcEF04vx

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

Nice case study. The 'colonial origins' IV was always suspicious, and all this is consistent with what we now know about the sensitivity of IV as a tool in general.

[joseph francis @joefrancis505]

AJR showed that it is possible to win a Nobel Prize using Mickey Mouse Numbers. In my new blog post, I show how their results depend on choice made in data construction, in both "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development" (2001) and "Reversal of Fortune" (2002). 1/9

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

One thing we can do for free to give a leg-up for Dev Econ: Cite relevant and good papers that use data from smaller & poorer countries.

[Dina D. Pomeranz 🟣 @DinaPomeranz]

Lots of discussion on here currently about what specifically the focus should be within the research on "development economics". My main priority if I could choose one: we need much *more* of all types of good economics research on low- and middle-income countries.
1/n

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

'[AI chats] validated grandiose spiritual identities. Persecution narratives. Mathematical "discoveries" that didn't exist.'

[Elliott Ash @ellliottt]

Can AI agents read a social science paper and write the code from scratch to reproduce its results?

No access to original code. Just text + data.

New paper with Ben Kohler, @david_rzs, @__jae_1, and @miserlis_

👇

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

Deserved award, and ppl should be aware of it. Read the abstract at least!
It's been in the readings of my MSc Replication Workshop since the DP came out.

[Wiley Economics, Business, and Finance @WileyEconBiz]

We are thrilled to share the @InquiryWEAI 2025 Best Article Award winner! Discover this year’s standout research from @jrgptrs, Nathan Fiala & Florian Neubauer!

Read the award-winning open access article: https://t.co/2HbnKDnmhJ

[Anand Sanwal @asanwal]

Wharton researchers gave nearly 1,000 high school math students access to ChatGPT during practice problems

Result: chatGPT is the perfect trap.

Look at the red bars.

Students with ChatGPT crushed their practice sessions.

The basic ChatGPT group solved more problems and those on the "tutor" version did even more.

Now look at the gray bars. That's the exam.

No AI allowed.

The ChatGPT group scored 17% worse than kids who practiced with zero technology.

And the fancy tutor version?
No better than working alone.

The researchers called AI a "crutch."

When they analyzed what students actually typed into ChatGPT, most of them just wrote - “What’s the answer?”

The kicker: students who used ChatGPT believed it hadn't hurt their learning.

They were confidently wrong.

This is the AI trap in education.

Outsourcing your thinking.

Of course, lots of half-baked AI literacy curricula being rolled out in schools now

Let’s of course ignore that basic literacy (the ability to read) is possible for <50% of 8th graders

Source: Bastani et al. (2025), "Generative AI Can Harm Learning," PNAS

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

@paulnovosad Average != median, and if these trends persist, average drifts even further away from the median by 2055.

[Mika Kortelainen @mikakorte]

Causal evidence (RDD): Elite STEM admission in Finland improves peer quality and triples elite graduation, but does not raise early-career earnings. Returns are positive for students from low-educated families.

Our new paper in Journal of Human Capital:
https://t.co/8DM9NtVymv

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

Interesting chart. Job postings for software engineers have picked up since vibe coding became a thing:

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

@Robert_Palgrave @grok What is the source for this graph and its analysis?

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

@KevinDenny Probably doesn't sit with the 'official definition', but 40 year repayment of 6% of earnings above the threshold surely feels like an extra tax for the duration of the career. While you might pay it back, you don't really know when since earnings can't be foreseen.

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

This is a good point. We are doing everyone a disservice by calling the UK student finance system 'debt' when 'graduate tax' is more appropriate.
https://t.co/Yg0dqEiem2

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

IZA@LISER Summer School in Labor Economics.
Deadline 5th March:
https://t.co/xPKZ2IWxOh

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

Discussing education in Peru at a @marginalbabble podcast. Covering improvement of public school results over 2010-16 and lessons for middle &amp; lower income countries in general. Based on work at @SussexUBusiness, funded by @BritishAcademy_ https://t.co/5Ruxs5eZ0n

[Panu Pelkonen @ppelk]

Funded Econ PhD in a beautiful city and a great department. Salary of ~£42.600 per annum + pensions. Deadline 15. February. Enough said.

[Rune Jansen Hagen @rjhagen]

We have a new PhD-position out! Come join us in beautiful #Bergen. At UoB, we're particularly strong in finance, labour/family economics, and IO. For those who cannot apply themselves: please share!
https://t.co/l1MmYpyOFh