@Andrew_Semenza But of course, our intuition says that the technology played a key role in the process of learning
Similarly, working for a defense co has the intuitive feel of playing a role in the process of killing people, even if the counterfactual is more deaths
@Andrew_Semenza Imagine a new technology that teaches a child to read. But in the absence of the technology, the child’s parents would have taught them to read anyways
The (simple) counterfactual theory seems to say the program isn’t responsible for the child knowing how to read
@sharlappalachia I liked this! I identify a lot w the relationship between your relationship w your parents and them buying you things, especially for me when it comes to their upbringing in scarcity
We launch @indevmag with a piece from @PaulFNiehaus on what GiveDirectly’s use of evidence (and a mildly spicy footnote on Paul’s take on microcredit): https://t.co/QTmcWT9hs6
Excited to say I’m moving to the West Coast to start a PhD with the real estate + urban economics group @BerkeleyHaas@FisherUCB this fall!
grateful to all of my mentors @MSFTResearch for sticking with me and teaching me everything I know about econ :)
@odavis_@tysonbrody I'm really skeptical of the exclusion restriction here, Craigslist plausibly has many economic effects than just newspaper closures