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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · 7d

Excited to be giving a NoBeC talk soon — tune in here:

normsandbehavior.sas.upenn.edu/event/nobec-...

Nobec Talks - Alessandro Sontuoso | Penn Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics

normsandbehavior.sas.upenn.edu

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Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · Aug 16

Consensus AI Deep Search is a cool agentic search function that runs full literature reviews across 200 million papers in minutes.

To try it, select "Deep" mode in Consensus and ask any research question!.

Get your free account here: consensus.app

(I am pleased to be an advisor to this company.)

Search - Consensus: AI Search Engine for Research

Consensus is a search engine that uses AI to find answers in scientific research.

consensus.app

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Jul 23

Hard to believe he was performing on stage less than three weeks ago :-/

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Jul 14

Sharp and beautifully written — a nice read.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics @qjeharvard.bsky.social · Jul 14

#QJE Aug 2025, #15, “The Evolutionary Stability of Moral Foundations,” by Avataneo, Norman, and Persico: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

The Evolutionary Stability of Moral Foundations*

ABSTRACT. Moral foundations theory is an influential empirical description of moral perception. According to this theory, individuals make moral judgments

doi.org

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Jun 30

Submit abstract by Jul 4 for the Int’l Wrkshp on Logic & Philosophy: Social Norms (Logical Structures & Philosophical Foundations), Tsinghua–University of Amsterdam Joint Research Center for Logic. Acceptance decisions Aug 29. #philsky #econsky

Committees & details: www.tsinghualogic.net/JRC/4thlp/

The Fourth International Workshop on Logic and Philosophy – JRC for Logic

www.tsinghualogic.net

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Jun 29

If I remember right from music theory, the layout isn’t a drafting artifact though. A piano keyboard has 2 halves—an upper half dividing the octave into 12 semitones (counting black & white keys), and a lower half dividing it into 7 scale steps (white keys). So the asymmetry reflects the 12-to-7 map

Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · Jun 29

The device, about the size of two shoe boxes, was developed in a bid to create 'synthetic biological intelligence' — a new form of computing that could offer opportunities beyond conventional electronics and other developing technologies such as quantum computing https://on.ft.com/4kc8obJ

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Jun 20

Some optical illusions fool Westerners but not the Himba people of Namibia. Bad eyesight? No, just a different edit (or model) of reality.

More evidence for John Dewey’s insight: reality isn’t experienced the same, and perception isn’t passive—it’s shaped by what culture trains us to frame and see.

Science Magazine @science.org · Jun 20

What do you see when you stare at this grid of line segments: a series of rectangles, or a series of circles?

The way you perceive this optical illusion may tie back to the visual environment that surrounds you, a recent preprint suggests. scim.ag/4kTxbmd

Culture literally changes how we see the world

Where city dwellers see rectangles, people who live in round huts see circles

scim.ag

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Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

City St George’s Economics @cityeconomics.bsky.social · May 27

CITY-QMUL Theory wksp

Robert Evans, Cambridge
Tan Gan, LSE
Nenad Kos, Bocconi
Sophie Kreutzkamp, Manchester
Elliot Lipnowski, Yale
George Mailath, Penn
Paula Onuchic, LSE
Francisco Poggi, Mannheim
Ludvig Sinander, Oxford
Aidan Smith, Edinburgh
Leeat Yariv, Princeton
sites.google.com/view/qmul-ci...

City-QMUL Theory Workshop

Details Date: 9-10 June 2025 Location: City St George's University Clerkenwell Campus Tait Building Room C312

sites.google.com

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · May 10

Join us on May 16 at the City University (City St George’s, University of London) for our Theory & Experiments workshop—bringing together leading researchers in micro theory and behavioral economics.

Registration, venue details, and program sites.google.com/view/theory-...

#EconSky #AcademicEvents

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Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · May 9

Here’s how historians use #DataScience to mine the past in ways never before possible. A PNAS Science and Culture piece: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #Digital Historians #ComputationalModel #DigitalHistory #AI #NetworkAnalysis #LLMs

A room filled with shelves of books. With data science tools in hand, historians can ask questions that would be difficult to answer with a lifetime of perusing tomes or scrolling through microfiche. Image credit: Shutterstock/BPTU.

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Apr 30

A great new search tool for economics papers just launched. Worth a look.

Eduard Brüll @eduardbruell.bsky.social · Apr 29

Paste your abstract.
Get semantically similar economic papers—instantly.
No keyword tweaking, no guessing jargon.

This is my new RePEc semantic search engine in action.

Try it now → econpapers.eduard-bruell.de
#EconSky #RePEc

Screenshot of the "Semantic Paper Search" app. An abstract about competition in German primary care is entered on the left. On the right, the app returns highly similar papers from RePEc, including titles, authors, journals, years, abstracts, and similarity scores. Download links and a bibtex-export function are also available.

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Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

Shengwu Li @shengwuli.bsky.social · Apr 21

Economic theory to the rescue.

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Apr 2

Join us on May 1 at the City University (City St George’s, University of London) for a Behavioral Insights for Policy workshop—bringing together top academics & practitioners working on behaviorally informed themes such as consumer choice, online safety, market regulation, computational models & AI.

Bridging Theory and Practice: Behavioural Insights for Policy Workshop | City St George's, University of London

This workshop will bring together academics and practitioners working on behavioural, policy-relevant issues.

www.citystgeorges.ac.uk

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Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

Christian Zimmermann @czimm-economist.bsky.social · Mar 26

Looking for other economists on Bluesky? If they have added their Bluesky handle to their RePEc profile, they are listed here, including by field, country and more:

ideas.repec.org/i/ebluesky.h...

#RePEc #EconSky

RePEc-registered Economists on Bluesky

ideas.repec.org

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Mar 16

New research confirms what we all knew after hammering a nail *and* our thumb, grabbing a hot pan bare-handed, then stepping barefoot on a plug: swearing dulls pain. Turns out, it also boosts strength. So next time you’re at the gym, let the expletives fly—purely to replicate the results, of course.

Swearing is linked with increased pain tolerance and strength

The science behind swearing and its impact on pain and strength is complex, but research has shown that it is linked with a number of positive effects.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

Nature @nature.com · Mar 14

Quantum computers have gained the powerful abstractions that allow programmers of classical computers to design and integrate new apps and hardware, and connect devices into networks with ease

https://go.nature.com/43INRaa

An operating system for networked quantum computers is a huge practical step forward

An operating system for quantum computers allows for easy app networking.

go.nature.com

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Mar 11

Stumbled on a treasure trove of archival history. Want to time-travel through old (even Napoleonic) civil records from the Belpaese? Births, marriages, deaths—it’s all there, waiting to reveal forgotten family roots or prove that your great-great-grandpa’s name was so long it spilled onto a 2nd line

Main Page - Ancestors

The Ancestors Portal makes available online the enormous documentary heritage of civil status records existing in Italian state archives, indispensable for conducting registry and genealogical researc...

antenati.cultura.gov.it

Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

Matt Steinglass @mattsteinglass.bsky.social · Feb 15

Draghi: “The IMF estimates that Europe’s internal barriers are equivalent to a tariff of 45% for manufacturing and 110% for services. These effectively shrink the market in which European companies operate: trade across EU countries is less than half the level of trade across US states.”

Forget the US — Europe has successfully put tariffs on itself

High internal barriers and regulatory hurdles are far more damaging for growth than anything America might impose

on.ft.com

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Feb 10

At $8M a spot, the Super Bowl ad market is a neat case of inelastic demand for attention. In a world drowning in noise, focus is a rare asset. But still, some would probably love a marathon of those artsy commercials—punctuated only by the occasional football break. Meanwhile, I’m restocking queso.

Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

The New Yorker @newyorker.com · Jan 23

Researchers have long debated over whether the language we speak shapes how we perceive the world. Now that some 1.5 billion people speak the same language, English, this question has taken on a new urgency.

How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking?

English continues to expand into diverse regions around the world. The question is whether humanity will be homogenized as a result.

www.newyorker.com

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Jan 17

Read mixed reviews of the “ultimate” Spotify book, where the author dismisses it as a glorified playlist generator. Initially designed as an advertising company, it rewired music with major economic impacts. Artists are underpaid, but is this equilibrium worse than the previous (piracy-fueled) one?

What Spotify took from us by giving us everything

Liz Pelly’s new book examines how playlists reshaped our culture.

www.theverge.com

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Reposted by Alessandro Sontuoso

Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · Jan 9

“An impressive scholarly achievement” says Steven Nadler in his review of Leibniz in His World in the latest issue of @thetls.bsky.social.

Read more (£):
www.the-tls.co.uk/philosophy/h...

Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant by Audrey Borowski

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Jan 6

Interesting. I remember mobile fruit & veggie trucks in Italy blasting prerecorded lyrical announcements, typically in dialect. Ice cream trucks in the US still play repetitive tunes, but strangely without lyrics—maybe because many early immigrants’ kids didn’t speak English as their first language?

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Alessandro Sontuoso @sontuoso.bsky.social · Jan 6

Good point—street vendors still sell freshly cut coconut and almonds on Italian beaches. Though unlike in the Hotelling model, these vendors are continuously in motion, walking along the beach (while beachgoers stay on their sunbeds) 😄

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