Jeffrey P. Clemens
@jeffreypclemens
Faculty @UCSDEcon CEPA Director: https://cepa.ucsd.edu/ Adjunct Senior Fellow @HooverInst RA @nberpubs Editorial Boards: JHE, JPUBEC, JEP and AEJ: Policy
A thread... on my new paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, which discusses a rich set of economic margins along which firms might respond to minimum wage increases. Look below for links to many papers of potential interest: aeaweb.org/articles?id=10… [1/20]
It would be stronger if they provided any numbers to back up their case that the government allocating capital has worked. What was the IRR on all this government investment in China? Seems to me like we're cherry picking ex post. Just one well-known counterexample: China has 60…
Strong case for industrial policy by Autor and Handson, to combat China shock 2.0 I suspect this is the beginning of a new wave of economics on the design and implementation of industrial policy nytimes.com/2025/07/14/opi…
Once again, I'm disappointed to see Autor and co inappropriately extrapolating their DiD results to make conclusions about aggregate effects, and I'm disappointed in the media for giving these unwarranted conclusions space. [1/x] nytimes.com/2025/07/14/opi…
BIG HOUSING NEWS: Our bill allowing more housing near transit stations (SB 79) just passed the Assembly Housing Committee! SB 79 will make transit-oriented development the norm in California — building the homes we need, increasing transit ridership & helping our climate goals.
Nearly everyone has given up on urban K-12 reform. Politicians no longer talk about it. There's but one city, Houston, attempting wholesale reform and early results are incredibly promising. Cities from across the US are starting to pay attention. In 2023, after years of falling…
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!
N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University, presented the 2025 Martin Feldstein Lecture on "The Fiscal Future." youtube.com/watch?v=B916t3…
Key figure from the paper:
California's $20 fast food minimum wage reduced employment by 3.2 percent (roughly 18,000 jobs) over the first year since its enactment, from @jeffreypclemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer nber.org/papers/w34033
The zero-sum trap: the more people believe that wealth, status, and well-being are zero-sum, the more they back policies that make the world zero-sum. marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…
California's $20 fast food minimum wage reduced employment by 3.2 percent (roughly 18,000 jobs) over the first year since its enactment, from @jeffreypclemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer nber.org/papers/w34033
Featured in the latest Bulletin on Health: Health Status and Work Capacity Remain High at Older Ages, Especially for Educated Adults nber.org/bh/20252/healt…
Finding an increase in consumer welfare due to the adoption of the out-of-state license reciprocity for physicians, from Yun taek Oh and Morris M. Kleiner nber.org/papers/w34030
Dramatic news from @CMSGov today---these decisions spill over into private insurance gottlieb.ca/papers/ShadowO… (w/ @jeffreypclemens @JPolEcon) and matter for talent allocation: gottlieb.ca/papers/Doctors… @QJEHarvard Is this good or bad? Depends on which specialties need talent most.
Medicare proposes ‘efficiency’ pay cuts that would hit highly paid specialists the most trib.al/EoUKR8p
🚨🚨🚨 Friends, I am pleased to report a novel finding: Demand curves slope down! New paper: “Did California's Fast Food Minimum Wage Reduce Employment?” By @jeffreypclemens, Olivia Edwards & Jonathan Meer. Link: nber.org/papers/w34033
Grateful to @open_phil and @nberpubs for continuing to support this program, which aims to encourage young scholars to pursue research on the economics of innovation and innovation policy. I'll co-teach tomorrow with Jeff Kling on the budget analysis of productivity policies.
NBER Innovation PhD boot camp today! Lectures by Ben Jones, Heidi Williams, Ina Ganguli, Pierre Azoulay, Chad Jones, Kyle Myers & me, dinner w/ Glenn Hubbard & Ed Glaeser, panels w/ Jeff Kling from CBO, Dylan Matthews from Vox, Matt Clancy from OpenPhil and Caleb Watney from IFP.
Many thanks to the economists who signed on, including @DAcemogluMIT, @AlexBrill_DC, @danieldbunn, @KClausing, @jasonfurman, @KyleLHandley, @djheakin, @BrentNeiman, @kpomerleau, and @MichaelRStrain, and to our magnificent counsel. Full brief is here: aei.org/wp-content/upl…
I organized an economist amicus brief in V.O.S. Selections Inc. v. Trump, the "Liberation Day" tariffs case in which the government's appeal will soon be considered by the Federal Circuit Appeal Court.
New newsletter: The death of partying in the USA The latest American Time Use Survey came out last month. I wanted to follow up on @elcush's declaration that Americans need to party more. The new data confirms: America's social crisis is dire. - Between 2003 and 2024, the…
Health Impacts of Federal Pandemic Aid to State and Local Governments "The researchers estimate that each additional $1,000 in federal aid per state resident led to 38 fewer deaths per 100,000 residents from all causes over the 2020–2022 period." nber.org/papers/w33699 1/n
A Case for Reading Dead Economists conversableeconomist.com/2025/06/30/a-c…
You've probably been hearing a lot about budget bills, environmental reviews, and labor fights out here on the West Coast. It's all adding up to probably the biggest policy change in modern California history. Here's a breakdown for the perplexed.