Nick Hagerty
@hagertynw.bsky.social
Environmental & resource economist, assistant professor at Montana State. Water, ag, land use, climate, development, research methods
Ooh ooh soy-faced nasally-voiced regulatory apparatchik
November 3, 2025 at 5:59 AM
Ooh ooh soy-faced nasally-voiced regulatory apparatchik
Put another way, I like Corrine and her work, but I would not want to establish a norm that we can't make fun of airport books by business school professors
October 26, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Put another way, I like Corrine and her work, but I would not want to establish a norm that we can't make fun of airport books by business school professors
Well to be fair economists have a history of not engaging super generously with other disciplines
Plus there are many other dimensions of power dynamics here besides age. Econ in general enjoys more influence & pay than other fields, and even more so a prof at a top B-school vs. at a small college
Plus there are many other dimensions of power dynamics here besides age. Econ in general enjoys more influence & pay than other fields, and even more so a prof at a top B-school vs. at a small college
October 26, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Well to be fair economists have a history of not engaging super generously with other disciplines
Plus there are many other dimensions of power dynamics here besides age. Econ in general enjoys more influence & pay than other fields, and even more so a prof at a top B-school vs. at a small college
Plus there are many other dimensions of power dynamics here besides age. Econ in general enjoys more influence & pay than other fields, and even more so a prof at a top B-school vs. at a small college
It's a common misunderstanding -- other disciplines often publish their research in books, so they see economists' books as unrigorous, but that's because they are -- the real research is elsewhere
October 26, 2025 at 9:40 PM
It's a common misunderstanding -- other disciplines often publish their research in books, so they see economists' books as unrigorous, but that's because they are -- the real research is elsewhere
Ah thanks for the correction
October 26, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Ah thanks for the correction
The even bigger point everyone is missing is that this is a POPULAR PRESS book. It never claims to present original scholarly insights. It takes lots of existing ideas and tries to communicate them in accessible ways. It lacks proper academic attribution because it's not a proper academic work.
October 26, 2025 at 9:33 PM
The even bigger point everyone is missing is that this is a POPULAR PRESS book. It never claims to present original scholarly insights. It takes lots of existing ideas and tries to communicate them in accessible ways. It lacks proper academic attribution because it's not a proper academic work.
Reposted by Nick Hagerty
This isn’t actually a thread of different posts. It’s all just different cultivars of a single post
October 7, 2025 at 1:10 AM
This isn’t actually a thread of different posts. It’s all just different cultivars of a single post
Cool, maybe, thanks! I hadn't seen this paper and will have to take a look (and it didn't exist when we wrote the paper...)
September 19, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Cool, maybe, thanks! I hadn't seen this paper and will have to take a look (and it didn't exist when we wrote the paper...)
Last, industrial water pollution likely has many other costs to society. Our paper does not imply otherwise!
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Last, industrial water pollution likely has many other costs to society. Our paper does not imply otherwise!
Why doesn’t some of the worst industrial water pollution in the world seem to hurt agriculture?
Our best explanations:
- a lot of crops are less exposed than you’d think
- pollution gets diluted pretty quickly
- some pollution actually helps crops
Our best explanations:
- a lot of crops are less exposed than you’d think
- pollution gets diluted pretty quickly
- some pollution actually helps crops
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Why doesn’t some of the worst industrial water pollution in the world seem to hurt agriculture?
Our best explanations:
- a lot of crops are less exposed than you’d think
- pollution gets diluted pretty quickly
- some pollution actually helps crops
Our best explanations:
- a lot of crops are less exposed than you’d think
- pollution gets diluted pretty quickly
- some pollution actually helps crops
So: Here's how severely-polluting industrial clusters affect predicted crop yields. Downstream = positive distance = right side
You can see the damage, but it’s small (3%) and the conf. interval includes 0
Plus these are local effects that will decay further downstream
You can see the damage, but it’s small (3%) and the conf. interval includes 0
Plus these are local effects that will decay further downstream
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
So: Here's how severely-polluting industrial clusters affect predicted crop yields. Downstream = positive distance = right side
You can see the damage, but it’s small (3%) and the conf. interval includes 0
Plus these are local effects that will decay further downstream
You can see the damage, but it’s small (3%) and the conf. interval includes 0
Plus these are local effects that will decay further downstream
To solve problem 3 (what areas are exposed) we develop new methods to carefully define and map upstream/downstream hydrological relationships
Defining these relationships is trickier than you might think. We discuss 4 ways prior methods can go very wrong
Defining these relationships is trickier than you might think. We discuss 4 ways prior methods can go very wrong
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
To solve problem 3 (what areas are exposed) we develop new methods to carefully define and map upstream/downstream hydrological relationships
Defining these relationships is trickier than you might think. We discuss 4 ways prior methods can go very wrong
Defining these relationships is trickier than you might think. We discuss 4 ways prior methods can go very wrong
This is hard because it’s the whole village, not individual plots with single crops
The result isn’t great as prediction (R2=0.25) but there’s meaningful signal as a proxy
AND our model is 4x better than just using NDVI, like many papers do
The result isn’t great as prediction (R2=0.25) but there’s meaningful signal as a proxy
AND our model is 4x better than just using NDVI, like many papers do
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
This is hard because it’s the whole village, not individual plots with single crops
The result isn’t great as prediction (R2=0.25) but there’s meaningful signal as a proxy
AND our model is 4x better than just using NDVI, like many papers do
The result isn’t great as prediction (R2=0.25) but there’s meaningful signal as a proxy
AND our model is 4x better than just using NDVI, like many papers do
To solve problem 2 (low-res ag data) we predict village-level crop yields from satellite data, training a random forest on nationally representative survey data.
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
To solve problem 2 (low-res ag data) we predict village-level crop yields from satellite data, training a random forest on nationally representative survey data.
Industrial clusters coincide with a huge jump in river pollution of 300-600%. India’s government names and rates these clusters but doesn’t release public estimates of how polluting they are. We do
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Industrial clusters coincide with a huge jump in river pollution of 300-600%. India’s government names and rates these clusters but doesn’t release public estimates of how polluting they are. We do
To solve problem 1 (bad pollution data) we look at India’s giant industrial clusters and just estimate the effect of being downstream of a cluster. The spatial RD is obvious in Delhi here
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
To solve problem 1 (bad pollution data) we look at India’s giant industrial clusters and just estimate the effect of being downstream of a cluster. The spatial RD is obvious in Delhi here
But 3 problems make this question hard to answer:
1. Pollution data is low quality
2. Ag data is low-resolution
3. Hard to know exactly what areas are exposed
1. Pollution data is low quality
2. Ag data is low-resolution
3. Hard to know exactly what areas are exposed
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
But 3 problems make this question hard to answer:
1. Pollution data is low quality
2. Ag data is low-resolution
3. Hard to know exactly what areas are exposed
1. Pollution data is low quality
2. Ag data is low-resolution
3. Hard to know exactly what areas are exposed
India has some of the worst industrial water pollution in the world. We wanted to know how it affects agriculture, because it’s often highly exposed and lots of people depend on it
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
India has some of the worst industrial water pollution in the world. We wanted to know how it affects agriculture, because it’s often highly exposed and lots of people depend on it
With Anshuman Tiwari
Link here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Preprint here: hagertynw.github.io/webfiles/Wat...
Thread following
Link here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Preprint here: hagertynw.github.io/webfiles/Wat...
Thread following
Industrial Water Pollution and Agricultural Production in India | Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists: Vol 12, No 5
Abstract We study how industrial water pollution affects agriculture in India, focusing on 48 industrial sites identified by the central government as “severely polluted.” We exploit the spatial disco...
www.journals.uchicago.edu
September 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
With Anshuman Tiwari
Link here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Preprint here: hagertynw.github.io/webfiles/Wat...
Thread following
Link here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Preprint here: hagertynw.github.io/webfiles/Wat...
Thread following
Do you think this is the relevant question? For whether I support radical tactics by elected officials on my side, it seems like what matters is whether I think elected officials on the other side are using radical tactics, not whether voters on the other side support them
September 11, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Do you think this is the relevant question? For whether I support radical tactics by elected officials on my side, it seems like what matters is whether I think elected officials on the other side are using radical tactics, not whether voters on the other side support them
Reposted by Nick Hagerty
🔥BLS Staff: "We will publish reliable data, no matter how inconvenient the results... Acting Commissioner is a respected career professional. There are no other political appointees at BLS... will remain accurate & nonpartisan... if that ever changes, the professionals will tell you." #StandWithBLS
September 8, 2025 at 10:12 PM
🔥BLS Staff: "We will publish reliable data, no matter how inconvenient the results... Acting Commissioner is a respected career professional. There are no other political appointees at BLS... will remain accurate & nonpartisan... if that ever changes, the professionals will tell you." #StandWithBLS