Matt Darling 🌐🏗️
@besttrousers
Just some guy, y'know?
Hey folks, I have a new big paper up at @niskanencenter. It's about the weird way that the USA finances our unemployment insurance system and how it is RUINING THE LABOR MARKET.
New: Appeals court panel finds that President Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, with the majority opinion stating it contradicts the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment
Some professional news: After 11 years of columnizing at WaPo, I'm taking the buyout. This is my last column. It is my advice to any other lucky pundits who land a perch like this—11 principles I've aspired to, even if I haven't always achieved them: wapo.st/3TU2fGw
👀
Trump is doing the opposite of what the “Abundance” book recommends by canceling transmission lines and weaponizing the federal permitting process to block solar and wind development. That’s just a fact. Now can we have a real argument about what everyone really believes, please?
I've been clear that there's supply and demand. If you constrain supply through aggressive regulation while stimulating demand, you get inflation (2021-2024). If you liberalize supply through aggressive deregulation, energy abundance and tax incentives for increased supply of…
I've been clear that there's supply and demand. If you constrain supply through aggressive regulation while stimulating demand, you get inflation (2021-2024). If you liberalize supply through aggressive deregulation, energy abundance and tax incentives for increased supply of…
This account seems to neither know that PhD programs teach all of that, nor that econ PhD students *receive* stipends, rather than paying. Sadly, such lack of info dominates many "critiques of mainstream economics." To criticize something well, it's important to know it well.
I don't know what lunch room you've been hanging out in but Investment banks prefer flexible, data-driven models: time series models (ARIMA, VAR, GARCH), machine learning, scenario analysis, Monte Carlo simulations, etc. These allow adaptation to market conditions and do not…
The nytimes homepage has lots of important news and delightful articles. You are not required to read a woman you dislike talking about her failed relationships. Better for you to not read it, and thereby not convince them to commission more. nytimes.com/2025/07/22/cli…
How it started/How it's going
I don't think the Teachout op-ed was strong. But in shitting on it, some econs again strawmanned greedflation theory to mean "greed go up -> prices go up" It's annoying because there are reasonable models of how 2021-present could increase pricing power
Alon Levy thinks we could turn both DC-NYC and NYC-Boston into sub-2-hour commutes. And we could do it for 6x cheaper than Amtrak's estimate.
in honor of @crampell, the 🐐, leaving wapo, here’s the video of when she decapitated stephen moore live on television
We're celebrating the remarkable career of Richard Thaler with a special edition of our newsletter. Thank you, @R_Thaler, for your incredible impact on BCFG, our field, and the world. And thank you to everyone who contributed to this tribute! Read here: bit.ly/3IAxPa5
It's sort of funny that the "centrist" housing take being mocked here is requiring some units to be priced below market rent. (I'd argue that this is mostly associated with the left, whereas the centrist approach is more YIMBY)
"We don't need socialism. We need public-private partnerships." After Mamdani's primary victory in New York, establishment Democrats are already copying his signature videos. Zeteo produced our own (fake) centrist Democrat featuring Zeteo senior producer @heycappello.
“To transform the operations of the public sector, leaders will need both courage and creativity. Government unions and contractors alike will be uncomfortable. The question is whether to prioritize the needs of the existing system or the needs of the public it is supposed to…
Check out @RadWill_'s guest post for @employamerica! Evidence AI is already accounting for labor mkt weakness is thin. But I wouldn't be shocked if firms that went big on capex and now looking to cut back spending use AI as a tactical justification for labor cuts (a la 2000-03)
A lot of people are blaming AI for grads’ poor outcomes, but I find the evidence for this claim is surprisingly thin. Excited to release a new analysis w/ @employamerica on the labor market performance of recent college grads. 🧵