Matthias Haslberger
@matt_haslberger
Postdoc @SGovpet. Formerly @NuffieldCollege/@DSPI_Oxford/@Politics_Oxford. Research on AI, tech. change, employment, wealth inequality, comparative education.
I've seen some of these horrendous videos. Only days after HTS has been taken off the US list of terrorist groups and the regime has been graced with a visit by the UK Foreign Secretary. Normalisation with these monsters must be stopped.
Videos coming out of Suweida Governorate (southern Syria) show that mass executions of Druze civilians by STG government forces have taken place. The number of killed is probably in the hundreds. I won't be sharing any of the footage for obvious reasons.
An excellent piece of investigative journalism that should make my London friends very angry
Our LondonCentric piece this morn shows how Asif Aziz’s company repeatedly rents some of the UK’s priciest retail spaces to students who vanish without paying millions in tax. There’s so much money for HMRC in the WestEnd if it just enforces compliance. open.substack.com/pub/londoncent…
This is the reality of "liberated" Syria. Druze, Alawites, Christians are fair game for jihadists. Sadly none of this is surprising, but it can still be stopped with sufficient pressure on the new regime.
Our LondonCentric piece this morn shows how Asif Aziz’s company repeatedly rents some of the UK’s priciest retail spaces to students who vanish without paying millions in tax. There’s so much money for HMRC in the WestEnd if it just enforces compliance. open.substack.com/pub/londoncent…
Linksgrüne Journalisten und Politiker phantasieren von einer "geplanten Kampagne" gegen #BrosiusGersdorf. Mit Verlaub: Das ist ein Witz. Die virale Verbreitung ihrer radikalen Thesen haben sich die Dame und andere Kulturkämpfer selbst zuzuschreiben. welt.de/kultur/stuetze…
@madselk, @benwansell, Laure Bokobza, @aslicansunar, @matt_haslberger, and Jacob Nyrup. 2025. ‘Why Is It so Hard to Counteract Wealth Inequality? Evidence from the United Kingdom’. @World_Pol. 77(3): 515–61.
This is an excellent proposal for a smart AI strategy for Europe. Leverage Europe's strengths instead of trying to emulate the US and China!
Is Europe losing the AI race? Yes, but it can still win. We propose (with Jesús Saa-Requejo) to stop chasing an impossible "sovereignty" dream and become the world's smartest AI user. This requires two principles: move fast and ensure open competition. siliconcontinent.substack.com/p/the-smart-se…
The crucial point about Rachel Reeves crying in parliament isn't that she's a woman, but that's she's a politician. Merkel's tears affected the Eurozone crisis. Bismarck's tantrums may have changed the course of history. ZEITGEIST on political tears 👇 katjahoyer.uk/p/merkels-tear…
Why do governments wait until the fiscal crisis hits to act? Alesina & Drazen (1991) argue that stabilization delays aren’t irrational. They’re a war of attrition as groups fight to avoid bearing the cost. The Big Beautiful Bill is setting up the next round.
When I studied Alesina-Drazen 91 in grad school, I associated it with Latin America. But now it feels like home. (If you don't know the paper, it is a gem. Worth reading!)
Not just Britain! Same problem in the German-speaking countries. Stop installing complicated airflow cooling systems that don't work precisely when they are most needed, and embrace AC!
A land of long holidays, cool homes and tree-lined streets awaits economist.com/britain/2025/0…
Middle East Christians have a saying — too brown for the right, too Christian for the left. For this reason, they’ll always be a political inconvenience that is occasionally tokenized or overlooked
True. It is weird that the US has alleged Christian leaders in high positions but their Middle East policies reliably harm Christian communities that go back to the apostles - the “born again” Bush 43 especially disastrous
Other events may dominate this news cycle, but the Christians (and other minorities) of Syria, whose impossible situation is in no small part due to Western support for islamists deemed a "lesser evil", deserve to be remembered.
True. It is weird that the US has alleged Christian leaders in high positions but their Middle East policies reliably harm Christian communities that go back to the apostles - the “born again” Bush 43 especially disastrous
We've had the Long Parliament, the Rump Parliament, and even an Useless Parliament. But if this parliament goes down in history, it will be as the Death Parliament. My write-up of this afternoon for @unherd. unherd.com/newsroom/assis…
Wrote a peer review that I thought was too harsh; got sent the other review which was as harsh. Mental anguish averted.
italian catholics after the pope introduces them to deep dish
Worum wird gerade im Bundestag gerungen? ▪️Um 2. Wahlgang heute noch durchzuführen, braucht es 2/3 Mehrheit. ▪️Die politische Mitte hat diese im neuen Bundestag nicht mehr. ▪️Gebraucht wird zusätzlich die AfD ODER die Linke. ▪️AfD würde mitstimmen, aber in diesem Fall stimmt die…
New article in @spaajournal (with Kees van Kersbergen): We explore how firms – often overlooked in debates on AI and social policy – perceive AI and what policy responses they support. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/146795… 🧵
Excited to share our new article published in @SPSR_RSSP! We compiled Swiss municipality-level direct-democratic vote results from 1866 to 1944 through extensive archival work and filled some gaps in existing datasets up to 2023. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…
Another W for Bavaria
It’s mad just how influential the Bavarian monarchy was on how modernity pictures the ancient world. When we think of classical Athens or Norse mythology, what we tend to see in our mind’s eye is a look that was sponsored by Bavarian kings.