Josh Kalla
@j_kalla
Associate Professor of Political Science and Statistics & Data Science @Yale / @ISPSYale. Pittsburgh native. Married to @armon. 🏳️🌈
#QOTD. ”In God we trust. All others must bring data.” -- W. Edwards Deming.
A huge disappointment and unforced error. The housing shortage in Connecticut is driving an affordability crisis that is pricing workers and families out. This bill would have helped. Hoping the governor works with legislators to get something big done in the special session.
Gov. Lamont says he will *veto* HB 5002, the broad housing bill proponents say would boost affordable housing in the state. He says he hopes to see an amended version in a special session this fall. “Veto to me means we can do a lot better.”
Congratulations to @Purdue for keeping undergraduate tuition costs frozen for the 14th year in a row. It's a model of fiscal restraint and commitment to student affordability.
Very neat data showing the influence of @Yale alums!
NEW STUDY: Staff hiring over 1996-2024 shows the diploma divide is in the White House. Elite universities sent far more alumni to work for Democratic presidents. Full paper: myumi.ch/pVMM5 Details: Democratic presidents tend to value more credentials... 1/6
Another interesting paper. Close election RD study examining what happens when a real estate developer gets elected to a city council in CA. About 5% more housing gets built!
Good piece from @CSElmendorf and @ProfSchleich making the case for YIMBYs to move in a more cross-issue direction, focused broadly on creating livable cities: housing, public safety, clean streets, rigorous public schools, and better transportation
People support housing density if they like cities. The YIMBY movement will go farther if it evolves into a broader “livable cities” coalition. @CSElmendorf and @ProfSchleich show the way ⬇️
Great interview on the nitty gritty of what it would take to build high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor
About 1/5 of Americans live on the Northeast Corridor, from DC to Boston. It's an ideal stretch for high-speed rail, but could we build it? Amtrak says it'd cost more than $100 billion. What if Amtrak is wrong? statecraft.pub/p/how-cheaply-…
Today (w/ @UniofOxford @Stanford @MIT @LSEnews) we’re sharing the results of the largest AI persuasion experiments to date: 76k participants, 19 LLMs, 707 political issues. We examine “levers” of AI persuasion: model scale, post-training, prompting, personalization, & more 🧵
Wherever the people do not believe in something beyond the world, they will worship the world. But, above all, they will worship the strongest thing in the world. - GK Chesterton "The False Gods of Our Feeds" New on ET by Rohan Routroy @iamrrr! 🧵 (no paywall on this one)
Highly recommend applying to our two new Abundance and Growth roles at @open_phil ! We are looking for up to 4 new team members including specialists in areas like energy, housing, clinical trials, etc. as well as broader generalists to help us direct $120M+ in the coming years
The Abundance and Growth Fund at Open Philanthropy is hiring! We’re looking for 2-4 people to help expand this new $120+ million program to accelerate economic growth and reduce the cost of living through strategic grantmaking and research. (1/4) openphilanthropy.org/research/annou…
Nice to see our @YalePolling/@YouGov survey included in the NYT polling average!
In the latest @YalePolling, a plurality of New Yorkers oppose “sore loser” laws. About 49% of respondents who selected Mamdani first oppose sore loser laws; 41% of Cuomo respondents. yalepolling.substack.com/p/new-yoll-city
Thank you for your patience while we sorted out some technical difficulties! Our apologies for the tabulation error; all fixed now, no change to results. Final round of RCV: Cuomo leads Mamdani 57-43. @YalePolling /@YouGov, 6/17-6/22, N=645 NYC RVs
We're aware that there was an error in tabulating the RCV results for our NYC poll, and we're in touch with YouGov so that we can figure out what went wrong.
Epsilon Theory contributor and all-around good human being @Chris_arnade pauses from walking the world to take a first cut at a grand unified theory of urban planning! "How to Build the Perfect City" (no paywall on this one ... thanks, Chris!) 🧵
Really important paper from @seth_j_hill! "I find minimum wage increases between 2006 and 2019 led to more homelessness in American municipalities. This finding could help explain why homelessness surged in places that substantially increased minimum wages like NYC Seattle & SF"
Now available online: "Minimum Wages and Homelessness" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/so…. I find that American cities that increased their minimum wages in the 2010s saw notable rises in homelessness relative to cities that did not.
What’s the return on government support for R&D? To try to get a credible answer, @open_phil and @SloanFoundation are committing up to $1 million to trying something new: we call it a Pop-Up Journal. Today, we’re inviting organizations to bid on a five-year contract to…
Check out this great resource from @shirokuriwaki on visualizing ticket-splitting rates. Really cool data in here!
I've launched a new website where anyone can interactively visualize ticket-splitting rates from actual ballots (cast vote records) for any pair of contests on the 2020 Georgia ballot. Check it out! ballots.isps.yale.edu
Good piece on how the file-drawer problem exists in industry too
Democratic organizers are hesitant to admit when get-out-the-vote efforts don’t work, @russellberman writes. One group is trying to change that. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Some reflections on the 10 year anniversary of the LaCour retraction
10 years after the downfall of a same-sex marriage canvassing study, tenure, some better practices — and an engagement retractionwatch.com/2025/06/06/sam…