James Bland
@jamesbland.bsky.social
Economist at UToledo. 🇦🇺 Bayesian Econometrics for economic experiments and Behavioral Economics
Free online book on this stuff here: https://jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBayesianTechniques/section.html
https://sites.google.com/site/jamesbland/
He/his
Free online book on this stuff here: https://jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBayesianTechniques/section.html
https://sites.google.com/site/jamesbland/
He/his
Pinned
James Bland
@jamesbland.bsky.social
· Oct 16
Structural Bayesian Techniques for Experimental and Behavioral Economics
A book about estimating models from experimental economics datasets
papers.ssrn.com
My book is now available as a PDF here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
It will still always be available in HTML (here: jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...), and HTML will be my preferred version (the tables look better).
It will still always be available in HTML (here: jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...), and HTML will be my preferred version (the tables look better).
Another chapter of my free online book is available!
In it I teach you about data augmentation and what to do when your experiment's paraticipants like round numbers.
#EconSky #TeachBE #TeachEcon
jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...
In it I teach you about data augmentation and what to do when your experiment's paraticipants like round numbers.
#EconSky #TeachBE #TeachEcon
jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...
9 More filling in the blanks: data augmentation | Structural Bayesian Techniques for Experimental and Behavioral Economics
9 More filling in the blanks: data augmentation | Structural Bayesian Techniques for Experimental and Behavioral Economics
jamesblandecon.github.io
January 26, 2026 at 12:15 AM
Another chapter of my free online book is available!
In it I teach you about data augmentation and what to do when your experiment's paraticipants like round numbers.
#EconSky #TeachBE #TeachEcon
jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...
In it I teach you about data augmentation and what to do when your experiment's paraticipants like round numbers.
#EconSky #TeachBE #TeachEcon
jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...
Working on a new chapter of my book.
January 25, 2026 at 6:16 PM
Working on a new chapter of my book.
I estimated my behavioral economics students' risk preferences, and you can too! A blog post about how to do it in R and Stan.
#TeachBE #EconSky
jamesblandecon.github.io/posts/2026-0...
#TeachBE #EconSky
jamesblandecon.github.io/posts/2026-0...
JamesBlandEcon: Estimating my students' risk preferences in Stan
and how you could do it too
jamesblandecon.github.io
January 21, 2026 at 9:00 PM
I estimated my behavioral economics students' risk preferences, and you can too! A blog post about how to do it in R and Stan.
#TeachBE #EconSky
jamesblandecon.github.io/posts/2026-0...
#TeachBE #EconSky
jamesblandecon.github.io/posts/2026-0...
Just started teaching risk preferences in Behavioral Economics. We ran a Holt & Laury (2002) task and a Gneezy & Potters (1997) task in class today. Here are estimates of my students' EUT risk preferences for the utility function u(x)=x^r (so r<1 is risk-averse). #TeachBE #EconSky
January 20, 2026 at 8:33 PM
This should not come as too much surprise to anyone who's been following my posts for the last few days, but my next book chapter will be a little bit different.
jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...
#EconSky
jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...
#EconSky
December 15, 2025 at 5:46 PM
This should not come as too much surprise to anyone who's been following my posts for the last few days, but my next book chapter will be a little bit different.
jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...
#EconSky
jamesblandecon.github.io/StructuralBa...
#EconSky
Harold Zurcher's policy function for replacing bus engines. Estimated in Stan.
Shaded regions show 95% Bayesian credible regions.
Dashed curve is the logit fit through the data.
Estimated with fixed discount factor of 0.9
More to come. Watch this space!
#EconSky #Structural #DynamicProgramming
Shaded regions show 95% Bayesian credible regions.
Dashed curve is the logit fit through the data.
Estimated with fixed discount factor of 0.9
More to come. Watch this space!
#EconSky #Structural #DynamicProgramming
December 14, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Harold Zurcher's policy function for replacing bus engines. Estimated in Stan.
Shaded regions show 95% Bayesian credible regions.
Dashed curve is the logit fit through the data.
Estimated with fixed discount factor of 0.9
More to come. Watch this space!
#EconSky #Structural #DynamicProgramming
Shaded regions show 95% Bayesian credible regions.
Dashed curve is the logit fit through the data.
Estimated with fixed discount factor of 0.9
More to come. Watch this space!
#EconSky #Structural #DynamicProgramming
Got my hands on some old data! I feel like this is a rite of passage for structural econometricians that I haven't yet had a crack at. Going to have a go at getting this to work in
Stan
Stan
December 12, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Got my hands on some old data! I feel like this is a rite of passage for structural econometricians that I haven't yet had a crack at. Going to have a go at getting this to work in
Stan
Stan
Hello #EconSky, and in particular experimental economists. Do you have a paper where you estimate preferences and then use these estimates on the right-hand-side of a regression (or logit, tobit, etc)? I'm looking for a good example dataset for a chapter idea I have for my book.
December 8, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Hello #EconSky, and in particular experimental economists. Do you have a paper where you estimate preferences and then use these estimates on the right-hand-side of a regression (or logit, tobit, etc)? I'm looking for a good example dataset for a chapter idea I have for my book.
@profanity.accountant, what's my score?
November 29, 2025 at 8:42 PM
@profanity.accountant, what's my score?
I tried something that didn't work too well, so I wrote a paper about it. a thread ...
github.com/JamesBlandEc...
#EconSky
github.com/JamesBlandEc...
#EconSky
November 29, 2025 at 4:51 PM
I tried something that didn't work too well, so I wrote a paper about it. a thread ...
github.com/JamesBlandEc...
#EconSky
github.com/JamesBlandEc...
#EconSky
Reposted by James Bland
Does anyone want a survivorship bias shortbread
November 29, 2025 at 4:50 AM
Does anyone want a survivorship bias shortbread
Bring it! The draft is coming together!
November 28, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Bring it! The draft is coming together!
I found out that something doesn't work very well. In the interest of not burying it so that someone else goes down this rabbit hole again, maybe I will try to write a paper.
November 27, 2025 at 10:49 PM
I found out that something doesn't work very well. In the interest of not burying it so that someone else goes down this rabbit hole again, maybe I will try to write a paper.
New version of a working paper: "Meta-study in the shadow of the future: the effect of continuation probability on strategies"
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I have re-done the analysis with an expanded list of strategies
#EconSky
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I have re-done the analysis with an expanded list of strategies
#EconSky
November 27, 2025 at 1:07 AM
New version of a working paper: "Meta-study in the shadow of the future: the effect of continuation probability on strategies"
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I have re-done the analysis with an expanded list of strategies
#EconSky
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I have re-done the analysis with an expanded list of strategies
#EconSky
I am obsolete. A thread.
#ChatGPT #EconSky
I might be late to the game with this, but here we go.
Today I asked ChatGPT to write some code for me. This is something I've been avoiding for a while. I *like* coding. The act of it brings me joy, but I was curious ...
github.com/JamesBlandEc...
#ChatGPT #EconSky
I might be late to the game with this, but here we go.
Today I asked ChatGPT to write some code for me. This is something I've been avoiding for a while. I *like* coding. The act of it brings me joy, but I was curious ...
github.com/JamesBlandEc...
github.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:25 PM
I am obsolete. A thread.
#ChatGPT #EconSky
I might be late to the game with this, but here we go.
Today I asked ChatGPT to write some code for me. This is something I've been avoiding for a while. I *like* coding. The act of it brings me joy, but I was curious ...
github.com/JamesBlandEc...
#ChatGPT #EconSky
I might be late to the game with this, but here we go.
Today I asked ChatGPT to write some code for me. This is something I've been avoiding for a while. I *like* coding. The act of it brings me joy, but I was curious ...
github.com/JamesBlandEc...
Weird question: For strategy frequency estimation (SFEM), does anyone have a fast way to code up how many times a participant has followed a strategy? This is really easy for (say) memory-1 strategies, but for strategies with more than 2 states I can't see the matrix wrt doing it fast
#EconSky
#EconSky
November 13, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Weird question: For strategy frequency estimation (SFEM), does anyone have a fast way to code up how many times a participant has followed a strategy? This is really easy for (say) memory-1 strategies, but for strategies with more than 2 states I can't see the matrix wrt doing it fast
#EconSky
#EconSky
New version of my working paper: "Meta-study in the shadow of the future: the effect of continuation probability on strategies"
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I have added another experiment to the meta analysis, bringing it to a total of eleven experiments.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I have added another experiment to the meta analysis, bringing it to a total of eleven experiments.
Meta-study in the shadow of the future: the effect of continuation probability on strategies
<p>This paper develops methodology for estimating and aggregating causal <span>effects for latent outcome variables. Using data from thirty-four treatments
papers.ssrn.com
November 12, 2025 at 3:19 PM
New version of my working paper: "Meta-study in the shadow of the future: the effect of continuation probability on strategies"
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I have added another experiment to the meta analysis, bringing it to a total of eleven experiments.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I have added another experiment to the meta analysis, bringing it to a total of eleven experiments.
Getting ready to present my work at Purdue
Also looking forward to catching up with a whole lot of friends and colleagues from my PhD program!
link to paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Also looking forward to catching up with a whole lot of friends and colleagues from my PhD program!
link to paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
November 6, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Getting ready to present my work at Purdue
Also looking forward to catching up with a whole lot of friends and colleagues from my PhD program!
link to paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Also looking forward to catching up with a whole lot of friends and colleagues from my PhD program!
link to paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
New working paper!
"Adding parameter heterogeneity to structural models: some guidance for the practitioner"
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
a thread ...
#TeachBE #EconSky
"Adding parameter heterogeneity to structural models: some guidance for the practitioner"
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
a thread ...
#TeachBE #EconSky
November 4, 2025 at 4:42 PM
New working paper!
"Adding parameter heterogeneity to structural models: some guidance for the practitioner"
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
a thread ...
#TeachBE #EconSky
"Adding parameter heterogeneity to structural models: some guidance for the practitioner"
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
a thread ...
#TeachBE #EconSky
November 3, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Getting ready to present this at @pittecon.bsky.social
Link to paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Link to paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
October 31, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Getting ready to present this at @pittecon.bsky.social
Link to paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Link to paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Low BFMI.
What terrifying thing are you dressing as this Halloween I'm dressing up as acid reflux
October 30, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Low BFMI.