Otis Reid
@otis_reid
Interested in policies and politics to make the world a better, more equitable place. Work at @open_phil. Tweets my own. PhD from @MITEcon. From NC.
A combination of high boomer wealth + people surviving a lot longer (but still having mental decline) + AI is going to make these scam risks very severe in coming years. Bank safe haven laws for stopping suspected fraud seem like a start but we’ll need more I suspect
Some “pig butchering” scam victims say banks aren’t doing enough to prevent the fraud. on.wsj.com/411yUOc
See our No-Spin report on the Baby’s First Years RCT, studying the effects of providing unconditional cash transfers to low-income, new mothers in the US. In brief: This high-quality RCT found no impact on any of the study’s primary child development outcomes at 4y follow-up.🧵
New PNAS paper on US academics' publication rates during tenure-track and post-tenure. Publication rates rise steeply until tenure and then plateau for lab-based fields, while declining for other fields.
There is *so much* variation even across Europe on which immigrants come in and how their children do. Figure (Boustan et al) shows rank gap vs. native-born for immigrants and their children. One of the richest graphs around. What is going on here? 1/
I was aware that Paul Douglas, who co invented the Douglas-Cobb production function was a Senator — I did _not_ know that he enlisted in the Marines at age 50 in WW2, requested combat duty, and won two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star
Most recruits are 21 when they step onto Parris Island. Paul Douglas was 50. A professor, politician, and patriot, Douglas left behindb a life of comfort in 1942 to enlist in the Marine Corps-becoming the oldest recruit in Parris Island history. From enduring boot camp without…
New blog post! "There is a silent majority in America" Once again I'm looking at this awesome high-response rate mail survey the NYT ran in 2022 and what it says about the actual shape of the electorate. The silent majority is real and it's distrustful moderates. Link below!
NYC's lodging restrictions are paying off - for upscale hotel owners. wsj.com/real-estate/co…
🅿️ Chicago city council just passed parking reform that will remove parking requirements around transit! On the menu of YIMBY policy ideas, this one has been proven to have nearly the highest impact in terms of new housing production. Thank you @ChicagosMayor @AldermanLaSpata…
This is a big problem - direct donations to candidates can buy up to 10X more ads than can be bought by committees/superpacs. R’s have made real effort to try to direct small donor money to swing races and D’s pointedly have not.
🚨 Of the top 16 fundraisers in the House, 100% of GOP money is going to competitive races But 91% of Democratic money is going to safe seats Dem Donors: funding viral videos & list buys GOP Donors: funding battleground seats
In fact, involuntary hospitalization nearly doubles the likelihood that patients will be charged with a violent crime and that they will die by suicide or drug overdose in the 3 months afterward for those who would be hospitalized by one physician, but not another.
Today's newsletter: THE ENIGMA OF THE BABY BOOM The baby boom is one of the most famous social events of the last 100 years. It's also a profound mystery, even to many people who've spent decades studying it. In fact, the more you look at it, the weirder it seems. The rate…
Cities are failing families, and parents are opting out. NYC lost 17% of its under-5 population since 2020. SF has more dogs than kids. Meanwhile, birthrates plummet. The US won't succeed without fixing this. Yesterday I published an 8-part "Abundance for Families" agenda: 🧵
Lmao at the pilot coming on the intercom before we pull back from the gate to tell us that there was a software error and he has to reboot the plane “like your home computer” to resolve it. Turning it off and on remains undefeated.
Pretty crazy and immediate passthrough of banning rental broker fees onto higher rents. Seems like it could have some value—capitalizing this expense over time rather than having it up front. But once it's baked into base rent, you keep paying it into the future.