Matt Pierson
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matthewcpierson.bsky.social
Matt Pierson
@matthewcpierson.bsky.social
140 followers 190 following 210 posts
Researching tax avoidance, illicit flows, and their effects on household and public finance. | WRDS, UPenn | Otherwise: all things data.
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Reposted by Matt Pierson
mattcollin.bsky.social
There are those in the development sector that try to romanticize rural life, but most people really are happier living around lots of other people

voxdev.org/topic/migrat...
November 27, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
taxobservatory.bsky.social
📢 Don't miss our joint Paris Tax Workshop on December 5th!

🎤 İrem Güçeri ( @blavatnikschool.bsky.social ) & Sébastien Laffitte (THEMA & EUTO)

🕛 12:00–15:00 CET
📍 @pse.bsky.social & zoom
🌐 Language: English

Registration: www.taxobservatory.eu/event/paris-...
November 27, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
economeager.bsky.social
I appreciate the WSJ following up on this story, which is already in danger of being one of many forgotten scandals in elite academia.
November 22, 2025 at 4:29 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
jmwooldridge.bsky.social
The next online installment of ESTIMATE: The Reduced Form is coming on Dec 11-12. I've continued to unify and expand regression-based methods to apply to exit, non-binary treatments, DDD, discrete outcomes, and more.

All proceeds to the MSU economics PhD program.

econ.msu.edu/academics/es...
Estimate Reduced Form | Economics | Michigan State University
econ.msu.edu
November 16, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
Keys & Mulder build dataset to study homeowners insurance using over 74 million premiums from 2014–2024 inferred from mortgage escrow payments. Premium increases are capitalized into home values, reducing home price growth by over $40,000 in the most exposed zip codes. www.nber.org/papers/w32579
November 19, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
aeacswep.bsky.social
CSWEP strongly condemns Larry Summers’ behavior as revealed in the email correspondence with the late Jeffrey Epstein. While abuse of power in the economics profession is not new, rarely has the intent behind such abuse been so clearly stated.
November 19, 2025 at 7:25 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
Pour one out for my colleague Ted, who just finished a multiyear overhaul of our Event Study application with new features and a fully Python backend who now…has to add a new feature
paulgp.com Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 8d
Wrote a new paper on the econometrics of financial event studies, would value feedback! It's very new.

With my amazing grad student Tianshu Lyu www.tianshulyu.com, who is on the market. You should hire him!

paulgp.com/papers/finan...
Financial event studies, ubiquitous in finance research, typically use linear factor models with known factors to estimate abnormal returns and identify causal effects of information events. This paper demonstrates that when factor models are misspecified an almost certain reality traditional event study estimators produce inconsistent estimates of treatment effects. The bias is particularly severe during volatile periods, over long horizons, and when event timing correlates with market conditions. We derive precise conditions for identification and expressions for asymptotic bias. As an alternative, we propose synthetic control methods that construct replicating portfolios from control secu rities without imposing specific factor structures. Revisiting four empirical applications, we show that some established findings may reflect model misspecification rather than true treatment effects. While traditional methods remain reliable for short-horizon studies with random event timing, our results suggest caution when interpreting long-horizon or volatile-period event studies and highlight the importance of quasi experimental designs when available.
November 19, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
sesmith.lol
Fascinating read about Russian bankers snapping up real estate in the US and then frantically trying to figure out how to avoid seizures in the wake of sanctions.
Sanctioned Russian bankers plowed millions into this South Carolina resort
Russian bankers hit by U.S. sanctions bought multimillion-dollar homes in South Carolina’s Palmetto Bluff neighborhood and retail centers in Atlanta, Georgia.
www.postandcourier.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
itsafronomics.bsky.social
I am not being hyperbolic when I say that how Harvard and the economics profession respond to Larry Summers will determine who makes up the next generation of economists.

#econsky #news #harvard
November 18, 2025 at 2:10 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
dynarski.bsky.social
A senior academic using mentoring as leverage to obtain sex is a contemptible abuser of power.
dynarski.bsky.social Prof Dynarski @dynarski.bsky.social · 10d
Summers conferred with Epstein frequently about how to extract sexual favors from a Harvard econ grad (AB '04, PhD '09)

The grad is from China

Epstein and Summers referred to her by the codename "Peril"

Racism and sexual exploitation in one efficient package

bit.ly/3LHpin8
As Summers Sought Clandestine Relationship With Woman He Called a Mentee, Epstein Was His ‘Wing Man’ | News | The Harvard Crimson
When former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers was pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee, he turned to a longtime associate for guidance: convicted sex offender Jef...
bit.ly
November 17, 2025 at 8:07 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
econ5k.bsky.social
I hope you're all ready for some running this December!

#ECON5k

@inaganguli.bsky.social @dbergstresser.bsky.social @sandrahgoff.bsky.social @yanarodgers.bsky.social
November 14, 2025 at 1:35 AM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
This is super cool use of historical data to answer a current question.
ppcreanza.bsky.social Pier Paolo Creanza @ppcreanza.bsky.social · 15d
🚀 I'm on the #EconSky Job Market!

My JMP asks a classic question:
Do large, dominant firms foster or hinder innovation?

To study this, I turn to the Great Merger Wave (1895–1904), when >2,600 U.S. firms combined into corporate giants like U.S. Steel and DuPont.

A JMP 🧵👇 (1/13)
November 11, 2025 at 10:27 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
"WRITE THAT DOWN"

-political economy grad students
bonescrosby.bsky.social Resident Bills Homer @bonescrosby.bsky.social · 16d
It’s something of a gerontocracy. Say what you will about Phillip Morris, but when more folks smoked, this wasn’t as much an issue.
November 10, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
richardrubindc.bsky.social
New from me: The corporate tax cuts from this year's law are running into a roadblock -- the 2022 corporate minimum tax.

Companies (Meta, Qualcomm) are disclosing billions of dollars in tax breaks they can't use. And there's pressure on Treasury to ease the rules.

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Trump’s Tax Cuts Are Exposing Companies to Biden’s Tax Hike
Democrats’ older alternative minimum tax claws back billions of dollars in savings from the newer GOP law.
www.wsj.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:14 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
The tension for sales people between Clearly Cishet Man Alone in a Cosmetics Shop and Customer Wearing Headphones is quite the social awkwardness generator
November 8, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
rickhornbeck.bsky.social
Hi all, please spread the word and we hope everyone can make good use of this new data drop: cmfdata.org

The full surviving establishment-level Census of Manufactures manuscripts and digitized data from 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880!
Historical Census of Manufactures Microdata - Historical Census of Manufactures Microdata
CMFdata.org
November 6, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
tenaprelec.bsky.social
New OA article @europe-asia.bsky.social: The Incumbency Advantage and the Enabler Effect: How Londongrad Beat the UK AML Regime

Drawing on £2bn of property data, we show that not a single incumbent kleptocrat (0/72!) lost their UK assets.

with @jheathershaw.bsky.social T. Mayne & S. Tokubayev
November 3, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
gelliottmorris.com
these charts show the relationship between zip code-level average income and individual probability of voting for democrats in different regions of the country. one of my favorite group fo charts, lots of stories to unearth
November 2, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
lswisnom.bsky.social
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
November 3, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
bdgesq.bsky.social
Architect here. If any other states want to fill coffers that the feds have emptied, and want to build a fairer tax system that asks billionaires to finally pay more like a fair share, my DMs are open!
ddayen.bsky.social David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · Oct 23
California is readying a one-time 5% tax on billionaires for the 2026 ballot that would go toward compensating for Trump's Medicaid cuts. The architects see it as a national model.
It will be announced today.
October 23, 2025 at 3:09 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
@taxobservatory.bsky.social 's lunch seminars are now hybrid, so even if you don't live in Paris (I mean...) you can keep up with tax research from the comfort of your own wherever
taxobservatory.bsky.social EU Tax Observatory @taxobservatory.bsky.social · Oct 20
Does Switzerland’s tax system really level the playing field — or just move the goalposts? 🤔

Join Enea Baselgia (ETH Zurich) at our next #LunchSeminar.

🗓️ Oct 24 | 12:00 CET |
📍@PSEinfo & online
🔗 lnkd.in/dkpC68XU
October 21, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
joshua-goodman.com
Wow. This is the paper I have been waiting for. Mobile apps are brain rot, with meaningfully bad economic consequences for those who overuse them.
October 17, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
paulgp.com
Posted a short blog post with updated data (and public repo with data) of current state of Econ job market:

paulgp.com/2025/10/08/j...
October 8, 2025 at 8:26 PM
matthewcpierson.bsky.social
I want to teach an Economics of Immigration course (no I don't), just once, so I can have this image as my opening slide.
Incredible satire or the least self-aware image of all time?
October 8, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Matt Pierson
trevondlogan.bsky.social
Good history helps us avoid nostalgia. The great article “Economic History and the Historians” (2020) by Anne McCants reminds me why nostalgia can get us in trouble. Two of her examples are very relevant to today: vaccinations and the popular narrative of some economic “good old days.”
Getting vaccinated is unpleasant. Dying of measles is worse. In the decade before the 1963 vaccine for measles emerged, an average of 475 Americans died from measles every year, most of them children. This (absolute) number had dropped to a low of 1 in 1981, despite a steadily increasing population that might have hypothetically contributed additional cases. Sadly, the number of measles cases in the United States has been steadily climbing upward again because we seem not to remember the ravages of the disease so much as the inconvenience of the shot—even without taking into account the absurd rejection of the solid scientific evidence in favor of vaccinations. Many people still have an elderly relative who survived a bout of severe childhood illness; not one of us has an elderly relative who did not. The blurring of the historical evidence for and against vaccination that arises from strangely incongruous historical narratives allows a seemingly inconsequential but nonetheless deadly nostalgia to run rampant. Another example of dangerous reverence for the past concerns the flurry of popular enthusiasm lately (at least if the pundits of the 2016 American election are to be believed) for the “good old days” of the 1950s when a family could live securely on just one income (in these nostalgic accounts, that one income is usually a man’s). Lest we forget, these are the same good old days of poor air quality and measles. Maybe trivial in comparison but certainly indicative of the scope of the cognitive problem that nostalgia presents, the average size of a new home built in America in 1950 was 983 sq. ft.; by 2010, the average size had risen to 2,392 sq. ft. Given that families were larger on average in the 1950s than they were in 2010, per capita space allocation had risen even faster than total area. Although we might not need that much personal space, many of us have become used to it. Older furniture now looks tiny compared to what is now on offer in showrooms, whereas older television sets were behemoths with miniscule screens showing programs in glorious black and white.
September 29, 2025 at 6:46 PM