Caroline Krafft
LightNews LightNews
banner
ckrafftc.bsky.social
Caroline Krafft
@ckrafftc.bsky.social
10K followers 7.1K following 230 posts

Economist, Associate Prof. @ Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota Development/Labor/Education/Gender/ECD/Inequality in the Middle East and North Africa.

Videos
Economics 22%
Political science 22%
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
ckrafftc.bsky.social
Caroline Krafft @ckrafftc.bsky.social · Mar 10
📣 New paper "Do employers discriminate against married women? Evidence from a field experiment in Egypt" published in the Journal of Development Economics! #EconSky #menasky

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
ABSTRACT This research submitted fictitious resumes to online job postings in Egypt, randomizing gender and marital status. More job postings explicitly required men (14 per cent) than women (4 per cent). Despite the gender discrimination in postings, women were only slightly less likely to receive callbacks than men, with only a small difference between single and married women. Differences in callbacks by sex and marital status were not statistically significant. Women and especially married women were, however, particularly likely to be asked for more information rather than scheduled for an interview.

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, David Lazer, Brendan Nyhan , and 6 more

aeajournals.bsky.social
AEA Journals @aeajournals.bsky.social · 15h
Forthcoming in the AER: "“Potential” and the Gender Promotion Gap" by Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
“Potential” and the Gender Promotion Gap
(Forthcoming Article) - We show that subjective assessments of employee “potential” contribute to gender gaps in promotion and pay. Using data on 29,809 management-track employees from a large retail ...
www.aeaweb.org

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

ishmamunoz.bsky.social
Isma Muñoz @ishmamunoz.bsky.social · 1d
New paper out in Population and Development Review:

We explore how the influence of grandparental co-residence on grandchildren’s nutrition varies across Africa’s diverse demographic and health contexts 👇

📄 doi.org/10.1111/padr...
<em>Population and Development Review</em> | Population Council Journal | Wiley Online Library
In many modern populations, grandparents are increasingly becoming the primary caregivers of their grandchildren. This phenomenon has renewed interest in the role that grandparents play in within-fam...
doi.org

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, Michael J. Allen, Jonathan Hopkin , and 2 more

beijingpalmer.bsky.social
BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 2d
the Iranian drought story is insanely undercovered.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/07/i...

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, Joshua L. Rosenbloom , and 1 more

trevondlogan.bsky.social
Trevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 2d
The Race and Stratification Working Group at @nber.org will have its annual meeting on Friday, March 27, 2026. Francisca Antman, Bocar Ba, Robynn Cox and I are organizing the program. December 11, 2025 is the deadline to submit your paper!

www.nber.org/conferences/...
Economics of Race and Stratification, Spring 2026
www.nber.org

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, Laia Balcells

lavidagata.bsky.social
Kat O’Brien @lavidagata.bsky.social · 3d
Fascinating indeed. And not reassuring for those of us for whom excellent writing has been a differentiator.
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have significantly lowered the cost of producing written content. This paper studies how LLMs, through lowering writing costs, disrupt markets that traditionally relied on writing as a costly signal of quality (e.g., job applications, college essays). Using data from Freelancer.com, a major digital labor platform, we explore the effects of LLMs’ disruption of labor market signaling on equilibrium market outcomes. We develop a novel LLM-based measure to quantify the extent to which an application is tailored to a given job posting. Taking the measure to the data, we find that employers had a high willingness to pay for workers with more customized applications in the period before LLMs were introduced, but not after. To isolate and quantify the effect of LLMs’ disruption of signaling on equilibrium outcomes, we develop and estimate a structural model of labor market signaling, in which workers invest costly effort to produce noisy signals that predict their ability in equilibrium. We use the estimated model to simulate a counterfactual equilibrium in which LLMs render written applications useless in signaling workers’ ability. Without costly signaling, employers are less able to identify high-ability workers, causing the market to become significantly less meritocratic: compared to the pre-LLM equilibrium, workers in the top quintile of the ability distribution are hired 19% less often, workers in the bottom quintile are hired 14% more often.

Reposted by Anne Applebaum, Stephen M. Walt, Michael E. Mann , and 68 more

newyorker.com
The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 4d
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

cgdev.org
Center for Global Development @cgdev.org · 4d
Gender parity in hiring hasn't translated into parity in promotion at IFIs.

To help close this gap, Kelsey Harris & @eeshani.bsky.social launch a new phase of work to analyze data, spotlight solutions, & help IFIs strengthen women’s leadership pipelines:
https://bit.ly/3KxW4qa
https://bit.ly/3KxW4qa
t.co

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

yonahfreemark.com
Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 4d
New working paper studying project permitting in Seattle estimates that design review as part of the development process increased review time by 4 to 5 months. Author's model estimates that design review was associated with a 3% decline in the number of units permitted.
static1.squarespace.com

Reposted by Richard S.J. Tol, Caroline Krafft, Michael Kevane , and 2 more

johncawley.bsky.social
John Cawley @johncawley.bsky.social · 5d
New data on the #EconJobMarket as of Nov 2. Based on total # of job listings on JOE, this year continues to be even weaker (by 11%) than during COVID (2020). 1/many #EconSky

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

snackeru.bsky.social
snackerü @snackeru.bsky.social · 7d
The University of Minnesota just announced the "Meal-A-Day Program" which will provide one meal a day for SNAP benefit recipients while the SNAP program is limited or unavailable. This makes me very happy. A lot of students, faculty, and staff at the U need this, unfortunately.
University Services Meal-A-Day Program Dear students, faculty, and staff, The University of Minnesota is committed to supporting our students, faculty, and staff facing food insecurity. One way we are supporting our community during the disruption of SNAP benefits is through our temporary Meal-A-Day Program. University of Minnesota students, faculty, and staff on all campuses who are current SNAP benefit recipients will be able to access one free, in-person meal in a residential dining hall each day that SNAP benefits are limited or unavailable. Students, faculty, and staff may follow the process outlined below to verify eligibility. We expect the program to continue until SNAP benefits resume. Accessing the Meal-A-Day Program This program is only for students, faculty, and staff who are current SNAP benefit recipients, and who do not have existing meal plans. One-time verification of SNAP benefits will be required in order to access the Meal-A-Day Program.

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, Nicole Guenther Discenza

itsafronomics.bsky.social
Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.bsky.social · 8d
"Why don't people support welfare programs?"

Racism. More specifically, anti-Blackness.

White folks asked about who welfare serves overestimate the number of Black people on welfare. Not only that, but just the mere THOUGHT of who welfare supports led less white people to support it. #blacksky
Race and Redistribution in the United States: An Experimental Analysis∗ Jesper Akesson, Robert W. Hahn, Robert D. Metcalfe and Itzhak Rasooly† February 12, 2022 Abstract It is often argued that many White Americans oppose redistributive welfare policies because of animosity toward Black Americans. While a host of observational studies lend credence to this view, it has not yet been rigorously tested using the tools of randomized inference. In this study, we do exactly this by conducting two incentive-compatible experiments (n = 9, 775) in which different participants are randomly given different information about the share of welfare recipients who identify as Black and White. Our empirical analysis yields four main findings. First, most respondents greatly overestimate the share of welfare recipients who are Black. Second, these exaggerated beliefs reduce support for welfare among White respondents, a causal claim that we establish using treatment assignment as an instrument for beliefs. Third, just making White participants think about the racial composition of welfare recipients––holding constant their actual beliefs––reduces their support for welfare. Fourth, providing accurate information about the racial composition of welfare recipients does not influence support for welfare (relative to not receiving any information).

Reposted by Steve Peers, Caroline Krafft, Chris Hanretty , and 2 more

nickkapur.bsky.social
Nick Kapur @nickkapur.bsky.social · 8d
Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back!

Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.

Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!

#MundaneHalloween

Reposted by Diane Coyle, Richard S.J. Tol, Alistair Munro , and 12 more

paulgp.com
Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 9d
Dropping a beta version of this page while everyone is up and processing baseball!

This tool lets you search the full text of papers from the American Economic Review, American Economic Journal series, and over 30,000 NBER working papers.

paulgp.com/econlit-pipe...
Economics Literature Search
Full-text search across 15,000+ papers from top economics journals and NBER working papers. Track how empirical methods have evolved over time.
paulgp.com

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

cobrienudry.bsky.social
Cleo O'Brien-Udry @cobrienudry.bsky.social · 9d
putting together my grad IPE syllabus for next semester! what exciting new IPE work should I include? self-promotion encouraged!!

Reposted by John McLaren, Caroline Krafft

lorennacleary.bsky.social
LorennaCleary.bsky.social @lorennacleary.bsky.social · 10d
God I bloody love economists. This one zeroes in on Rand Paul’s tweet complaining about the number of people on food stamps. And while he doesn’t touch on income inequity vs cost of living, he does explain the cost for SNAP now vs pre-pandemic.

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

aaronsojourner.org
Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 11d
It's that time of year again...
#EconSky
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · Sep 15
Econ job market candidate intros.

Candidates, communicate:
1) your name, program, & fields,
2) image of JMP title & abstract + Alt Text,
3) #EconJMP, &
4) a link to your website.

Employers, browse & interact respectfully.

Everyone else, shhhh.
📉📈

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

toddpugatch.bsky.social
Todd Pugatch @toddpugatch.bsky.social · 12d
Wow -- allocation of World Bank project managers in Africa is literally a matter of life and death: "I find that better project management reduces violent conflict...Poorly managed projects increase conflict while well-managed projects do the opposite." #econsky www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
The Management of Aid and Conflict in Africa
(November 2025) - This study investigates the relationship between the management of development aid and violent conflict in Africa. I exploit variation in World Bank project management quality driven...
www.aeaweb.org

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

benglasner.bsky.social
Ben Glasner @benglasner.bsky.social · 13d
Even the smartest AI in the world can’t see why the internet loves a chunky bear:

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

voxdev.bsky.social
VoxDev @voxdev.bsky.social · 13d
🆕 How group coaching makes graduation programmes more cost-effective

Emily Beam, Lasse Brune, Stefan Dercon, Dean Karlan, Ashley Pople, Christopher Udry & Rocco Zizzamia https://voxdev.org/topic/social-protection/scaling-poverty-alleviation-how-group-coaching-makes-graduation-programmes
Scaling poverty alleviation: How group coaching makes graduation programmes more cost-effective
Group coaching in multi-faceted poverty alleviation programmes delivers the same results as individual coaching – at much lower cost.
voxdev.org

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

dbassok.bsky.social
Daphna Bassok @dbassok.bsky.social · 17d
www.vpm.org/news/2025-10...
Long waitlists for subsidized child care taking economic toll on families
Some parents face “a catch-22 of wanting to work, but needing child care ... to get that job.”
www.vpm.org

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

liselhintz.bsky.social
Lisel Hintz @liselhintz.bsky.social · 17d
The MENA writing solidarity group I run is open to new members!

We’ve completed 132 weeks. 150+ scholars - from MA students to full profs - have joined. Some joined 200+ sessions.

If you or your students from/working on MENA might benefit from a virtual writing community, please reach out!

Reposted by Caroline Krafft

bencasselman.bsky.social
Ben Casselman @bencasselman.bsky.social · 17d
I estimate we'll ultimately collect about $33 billion in tariff* revenue in October, a bit ahead of September's $32 billion.
* Technically this includes certain excise taxes, not only tariffs. Have to wait for the Monthly Treasury Statement for a full breakdown.

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, Robert C. Richards

meganstevenson.bsky.social
Megan Stevenson @meganstevenson.bsky.social · 17d
Many people know that there are multiple metrics for racial bias in algorithms -- and that they can yield *very* different results.

In a new paper with Aurelie Ouss, we show the same is true for racial disparities in treatment effects. 1/

#econsky #polisky

Reposted by David Lazer, Caroline Krafft, Mirya R. Holman , and 5 more

robmickey.bsky.social
Rob Mickey @robmickey.bsky.social · 18d
Grad students in political science and other social sciences! Consider applying to the great 2-week summer program in Qualitative and Multi-Method Research at Syracuse. Info is here:

www.maxwell.syr.edu/research/cen...
Institute for Qualitative & Multi-Method Research
www.maxwell.syr.edu

Reposted by Alistair Munro, Caroline Krafft, Aaron Sojourner , and 2 more

daveevansphd.bsky.social
David Evans @daveevansphd.bsky.social · 18d
An economist reached out and asked where they might publish a review they'd written.

Here's my (certainly incomplete) list of 30+ journals where economists publish reviews. bit.ly/3QfaE6m

(Additions welcome with a specific review example!)

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Lisa W. Fazio, Carl Henrik Knutsen , and 5 more

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, Alice Reid, Evan Roberts

wrigleyfield.bsky.social
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field @wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 18d
Postdoc at the Minnesota Population Center, @minnpop.bsky.social

Applications open now and being evaluated on a rolling basis. Pass on to demographers you know!

(This one requires folks to relocate to the Twin Cities, because it involves work in the restricted data center)
hr.myu.umn.edu

Reposted by Dani Rodrik, Nicholas A. Christakis, David Lazer , and 12 more

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 18d
Pleased to share that the Kennedy School has been authorized to conduct a faculty search in American politics

This is as an extraordinary opportunity for us - please share widely with your networks and consider applying

academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/15418
Professor of Public Policy (American Politics)
Harvard Kennedy School seeks a scholar of the highest distinction to appoint as a professor of public policy, focusing on American politics, elections, and policy. We particularly welcome applications...
academicpositions.harvard.edu

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, Patrick Präg, Gayle Kaufman

femquant.bsky.social
FemQuant @femquant.bsky.social · 18d
We have a fantastic line-up of panel speakers - Christina Dragon, Fernanda Fortes de Lena, Onikepe Owolabi, and Kristopher Velasco - for our November FemQuant online event: Feminist Research and Data Activism in Political Turmoil. Sign up to join us on 5 Nov femquant.wordpress.com/seminar-seri...
Seminar listing on pink background and in the top rigt corner two speech bubbles in matching pink on a background of grey swirls. Panel discussion: Feminist Research and Data Activism in Political Turmoil. Speakers: Onikepe Owolabi, Kristopher Velasco, Christina Dragon & Fernanda Fortes de Lena. Wednesday 5 November 2025 11:30am EST/ 4:30pm GMT/ 5:30pm CET