Dennis Alexis Valin Dittrich
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davdittrich.economicscience.net
Dennis Alexis Valin Dittrich
@davdittrich.economicscience.net
770 followers 740 following 2.6K posts
Interested in bounded rationality, trust, discrimination, fair compensation, labor economics, quantitative methods, dataviz, rstats, open source

1stgen Professor of Economics (2005-2022)
Senior Economist at the Stepstone Group

https://economicscience.net
Posts Replies Media Videos
davdittrich.economicscience.net
#EconSky
Things versus People: Gender Differences in Vocational Interests and in Occupational Preferences https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122003201

HT @SteveStuWill

"On average, men are more interested in working with things, whereas women are more interested in 1/3
October 29, 2025 at 6:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
#Signaling https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/signal-4

Via @ZachWeinersmith

#math

orig https://fediscience.org/@davdittrich/115414470576329899
October 21, 2025 at 11:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via Koenfucius:
Which do workers value more—pay or perks?

New research looks into how people trade-off money versus other job benefits:

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/money-versus-perks-which-do-workers-value-more

orig https://mastodon.social/@Koenfucius/115334382178843623
October 7, 2025 at 10:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via The Funny Pages:
New Comic Found: Dark Side of the Horse - 2025-09-30 https://www.gocomics.com/darksideofthehorse/2025/09/30

#comicstrip #comic #darksideofthehorse

orig https://mastodon.social/@thefunnypages/115294569587604425
September 30, 2025 at 6:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
The narrative around transformative productivity gains from #AIassisted coding seems not supported by empirical evidence, and is causing real harm. Despite widespread claims of 10x #productivity gains from #AI tools, there seems to be no evidence of a surge in new software releases or an 1/3
September 23, 2025 at 2:57 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
#EconSky
Surface Fairness, Deep Bias: A Comparative Study of Bias in Language Models https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.10491

"… the estimation of socio-economic parameters shows substantially more bias than subject-based benchmarking. Furthermore, such a setup is closer to a real conversation with 1/5
July 25, 2025 at 12:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
#EconSky
Large Language Models, Small Labor Market Effects

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/BFI_WP_2025-56-2.pdf

"#AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation, with confidence intervals ruling out effects larger than 1%. 1/3
This figure displays the average perceived earnings impact of AI chatbots among adopters, categorized by workers’ occupations and whether their employers encourage AI. They are all close to zero.
June 23, 2025 at 9:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 A not so great observation for #experimentalEcon:

"Results indicate that misunderstanding is common: the proportion of participants who misunderstood ranged from 22 % (Dictator Game) to 70 % (#Trust Game) in the online samples and from 22 % (Dictator Game) to 53 % (Public Goods Game) in 1/4
Comprehension in economic games Many disciplines rely on economic games to measure prosocial behavior. However, there is a concern that participants may misunderstand these games, complicating interpretation of results. This study combines online and laboratory data (total n = 1568) to assess subject comprehension of five standard economic games: the Dictator Game, Ultimatum Game, Trust Game, Public Goods Game, and Prisoner's Dilemma. The online and lab data collections are carried out separately and for the online data collection we collect data for two separate platforms (Prolific and CloudResearch’s MTurk Toolkit). Within each data collection participants carry out all five games, and are randomized to comprehension questions with or without incentives for correct answers. Results indicate that misunderstanding is common: the proportion of participants who misunderstood ranged from 22 % (Dictator Game) to 70 % (Trust Game) in the online samples and from 22 % (Dictator Game) to 53 % (Public Goods Game) in the lab sample. Incentivizing the comprehension questions had no significant impact on misunderstanding, but numeracy was associated with lower misunderstanding. Misunderstanding also predicted increased prosocial behavior in several of the games. Our findings suggest that misunderstanding may be important in explaining prosocial behavior, making it more complicated to draw clear inferences about social preferences from experimental data.
May 27, 2025 at 10:28 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via Koenfucius:
A good life is one characterized by at least one of happiness and purpose.

Or is it?

Research by Oishi and Westgate suggests there is a third characteristic offering a path to a good life—“interesting times”, or psychological richness: 1/2
April 27, 2025 at 10:30 AM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 The salary bump that people who switch jobs used to command has vanished (in the US)

https://archive.ph/McbH0

#wages #LaborMarkets #EconSky

orig https://fediscience.org/@davdittrich/114405297607333105
April 26, 2025 at 5:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via Koenfucius:
📉📈 Research by @davdittrich et al using a dictator game finds dictators treat women nicer than men regardless of their own gender (and are unaware they do), potentially explained by instinctive female solidarity and men’s chivalry towards women: 1/2
April 14, 2025 at 9:00 AM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 via ‪@economeager.bsky.social‬

today we will all read imbens 2021 on statistical significance and p values, which is a strong contender for having the best opening paragraph of any stats paper

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.35.3.157

#statistics #economics #significance 1/2
Statistical Significance, p-Values, and the Reporting of Uncertainty Theodor Geisel, better known by the nom de plume Dr. Seuss, published The Sneetches in 1961. In this children’s story, the Star-Belly Sneetches viewed themselves as superior to the Plain-Belly Sneetches. When the character of Sylvester McMonkey McBean arrives with a machine that can add or remove belly stars (for a modest fee), social upheaval results. In empirical work in economics, stars have long been attached to numbers in tables and figures to indicate the level of statistical significance: one star typically refers to an estimate that is statistically significant at a 10 percent level; two stars, the 5 percent level; and the coveted three stars, the 1 percent level. In the word of Dr. Seuss: “Those stars weren’t so big. They were really so small./You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all./But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches/Would brag, ‘We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.” In empirical studies, estimates with one, two, or three stars are often viewed as superior to those without such adornments.
April 6, 2025 at 5:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 I, Spacecraft

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/how-3

#DivisionOfLabor #economics #comics #smbc #EconSky

orig https://fediscience.org/@davdittrich/114180250128948259
March 18, 2025 at 12:00 AM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 Half-Past Four is the New Five O’Clock in More Efficient Workday

https://archive.ph/PNdyP

The average American workday now ends 42 minutes earlier than two years ago. Despite the shorter workday, overall productivity has increased by about 2%.

#laborEconomics #work #EconSky

orig … 1/2
March 17, 2025 at 11:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
Proof.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/proof-3

via @ZachWeinersmith

#statistics

orig https://fediscience.org/@davdittrich/114043112488663201
THIS WAS PROVEN EMPIRICALLY BY DRAWING SQUARES OF EQUAL AREA, SAMPLING THEM VIA THROWING n DARTS, AND DETERMINING THAT AS N GROWS LARGE, THE RATIO OF DARTS IN EACH SQUARE APPROACHES 1. You could always tell the future statisticians.
February 21, 2025 at 7:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via @flowingdata

Dishonest charts are coming from all directions, and they're only going to hit harder. Unless we push back. So, an interactive guide: Defense Against Dishonest Charts https://flowingdata.com/projects/dishonest-charts/

#dataviz

orig … 1/2
February 13, 2025 at 11:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 Summer Institute on #BoundedRationality

#DecisionMaking in a Digital World | June 17–25, 2025 | MPIB, Berlin, Germany

https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/research/research-centers/adaptive-rationality/summer-institute

#SocialRationality #EcologicalRationality #EconSky

orig … 1/2
Summer Institute on BOUNDED RATIONALITY Decision-Making in a Digital World
February 5, 2025 at 5:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 Work Cohorts

Americans with the same education, income, work hours, and commute as you do.

https://flowingdata.com/2025/01/27/work-cohorts/

#LaborMarkets #dataviz #rstats #EconSky

orig https://fediscience.org/@davdittrich/113901282001563843
January 27, 2025 at 5:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via Koenfucius:
“We don’t choose whether to use heuristics—they are, quite simply, the only way we can make decisions.”

Matt Grawitch sets the record straight on an underrated, if not maligned, decision making strategy: … 1/2
January 21, 2025 at 12:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via Tim 🎮:
Have you had that "Upcoming price change for your Microsoft 365 subscription" email yet? They want to charge you an extra 50%ish for AI features, and they do *not* make it easy to find the way to turn it off. It took me minutes of searching - this is a particularly evil dark … 1/2
Screenshot from the Microsoft 365 subscription page, showing the "Turn off recurring billing" item as highlighted.
January 11, 2025 at 11:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 What We’ve Learned About Money and Happiness https://econlife.com/2025/01/money-and-happiness-6/

"Predictably, our short-term #happiness provides information about our preferences (and I assume our demand). By contrast, looking at the long run takes us to policy issues."

#economics … 1/2
January 9, 2025 at 3:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via Kees van der Leun:
Whatsapp, like Facebook, is owned by Zuckerberg's Meta.

Signal is owned by the Signal Foundation. And it's more secure. We have a choice.

orig https://mastodon.energy/@Sustainable2050/113788915387738857
Whatsapp logo
January 7, 2025 at 11:00 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via Tom Gauld:
Happy New Year!
(my cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social)

orig https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:oflombnj6v6xyohhatfkbzyd/post/3leocpmrmys2w
Two scientists share an office. The first, whose half of the room is neat and tidy, says “My new year's resolutions are to jog to work every day, choose the healthy option at lunch, and run a pleasant, well-ordered workspace.” The second, working in a total mess, replies “In the interests of scientific rigour, I'll be the control, and change absolutely nothing.”
January 1, 2025 at 12:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
via @MiguelHernan:

Upgrade your #causalinference arsenal. A revision of our book "Causal Inference: What If" is available at https://miguelhernan.org/whatifbook Thanks to everyone who suggested improvements, reported typos, and proposed new citations and material. Enjoy the #WhatIfBook … 1/2
December 23, 2024 at 6:30 PM
davdittrich.economicscience.net
📉📈 via Florian Ederer:

Return-to-office (RTO) mandates lead to abnormally high employee #turnover, especially for female/more senior/more skilled employees.

It also takes significantly longer to fill these job vacancies after #RTO mandates. … 1/2
Return to Office Mandates and Brain Drain By tracking over 3 million tech and finance workers’ employment histories reported on LinkedIn, we analyze the effect of S&P 500 firms’ return-to-office (RTO) mandates on employee turnover and hiring. We find that these firms experience abnormally high employee turnover following RTO mandates. The increase in turnover rates is more pronounced for female employees, more senior employees, and more skilled employees. Further, it takes significantly longer time for these firms to fill their job vacancies after the mandates. Their hire rates also significantly decrease. These results are consistent with firms losing their best talent and female employees and facing greater difficulties with talent attraction after RTO mandates. Our study highlights brain drain as a significant cost of RTO mandates even for the largest firms in the world. Keywords: Return-to-office Mandate, Employee Turnover, Employee Hiring, Human Capital
December 16, 2024 at 11:30 PM