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Brendon McConnell

@brendonmcconnell.bsky.social

230 followers 920 following 23 posts

Associate Professor at City St George's, London. Research Interests: Economics of crime, criminal sentencing, family, and energy. Also: bikes, swimming, puppies. https://brendonmcconnell.github.io/

brendonmcconnell.github.io

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · May 1

First draft of a new paper out today [link: brendonmcconnell.github.io/pdf/plasma.p..., where we document the impact of plasma donation centers on crime in US cities. We find large and sustained effects of these centers on crime, notably property crime and drugs possession. Short thread below..

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Reposted by Brendon McConnell

Marcos Vera-Hernandez @papiteide.bsky.social · 6d

Are you preparing a randomized controlled trial? Don't miss a special symposium of Fiscal Studies (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1475...) with three articles on power and sample size calculations. (1/3) @theifs.bsky.social

Fiscal Studies | IFS Public Economics Journal | Wiley Online Library

Click on the title to browse this journal

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Aug 4

that little nose

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Jul 2

five year old brains are creative places, pretty unconstrained. I like it

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Jul 2

1/4 is worse than I expected.

i will likely have to bail on 1 and 4.
on 2. is it at least Timbaland produced? maybe thats the big pimpin link. I will go for "get your freak on".

irrespective, I really enjoyed this game

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Jul 2

"st. patrick's day" -- has to be jump around
"the chinese music one" -- I wanted this to be big pimpin, but the comment says "she", so I'm going with something by Missy Elliott, I dont not why
"the song for yessing" -- Yeah, Usher
"the baby song" -- Nelly and Kelly dilemma came to mind first

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Jun 30

nice little thread of our recent work highlighting the crime-reducing benefit of combining hotspot policing methods with spatial network models

ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin @rfberlin.bsky.social · Jun 30

🆕 RFBerlin-CReAM Discussion Paper: @corradogiulietti.bsky.social, @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social and @yveszenou.bsky.social propose a new way to fight urban crime by integrating network theory into policing strategies. 🧵

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Jun 30

loads around Reigate, Surrey area. They came early this year too

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Jun 19

wow, you really nailed this Grace

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Jun 13

really like the weaving approach here -- it's super striking. pretty effective too for multi-modal areas

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · May 2

thanks Scott

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · May 2

That's useful to know @scottsantens.com -- thank-you. Do you know of any academic articles I can cite for that? My main reference for substance use going up is doi.org/10.1162/rest...

Universal Cash and Crime

Abstract. We estimate the effects of universal cash transfers on crime from Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend, an annual lump-sum payment to all Alaska residents. We find a 14% increase in substance-ab...

doi.org

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · May 1

can yield the widely documented benefits of UBI on property crime reductions without the jumps in substance use.

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · May 1

conditionality re: drug use that donors face. One way that we have thought of this is that plasma donation income mimics a conditional cash transfer. Our findings suggest that some level of conditionality on UBI schemes

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · May 1

(e.g., the Stockton, CA experiment gave UBI recipients $500 per month). Work on crime and UBI in Alaska finds a drop in property crime, but spikes in substance use. We don't find the latter.

That relates to the aspect of this setting that most caught my interest, namely the layer of

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · May 1

The main mechanism appears to be financial -- monthly donation income can be $400 for regular donors.

The income one can receive from regular donation places plasma income in a similar magnitude to some of the recent UBI experiments in the US

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · May 1

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Reposted by Brendon McConnell

Chris Lang @reddmonitor.bsky.social · May 1

The Tony Blair Institute's report on climate change is pro-fossil fuels, pro-CCS, pro-AI, pro-carbon markets, pro-nature-based solutions, and pro-nuclear.

These are not solutions to the climate crisis.

But they are everything his clients are asking of him.

reddmonitor.substack.com/p/tony-blair...

Tony Blair is a climate lobbyist for Big Tech and Big Polluters

How the media got the story completely wrong.

reddmonitor.substack.com

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Apr 30

her little ears

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Apr 29

love you Chance

Reposted by Brendon McConnell

Yves Zenou @yveszenou.bsky.social · Apr 14

I'm organizing a two-day summer school on networks (10-11 September) at Monash University where Matt Jackson (@JacksonmMatt ), Sanjeev Goyal, and myself will teach a 12 hours course. It is free and anybody interested can apply here: www.monash.edu/business/eve...

Network Economics Conference and Summer School 2025

www.monash.edu

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Mar 18

link to the paper: brendonmcconnell.github.io/pdf/crime-KP...

brendonmcconnell.github.io

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Mar 18

In the paper we use London as a case study and show that disrupting crime in the top 10% of key player neighbourhoods reduces crime by 10.7% more than merely targeting the top 10% areas by crime. Same resources+better targeting => a substantial increase in police effectiveness. [3/3]

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Mar 18

Key idea: if police are trying to reduce total crime, they should target not the highest crime areas, but rather "key player neighbourhoods"-- areas, which by dint of their spatial connectivity to other key crime areas, play a central role in the spatial diffusion of crime. [2/3]

Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Mar 18

first draft out today: how to use the spatial network structure of crime in a city to improve upon the standard hot spot policing approach, joint with @corrradogiulietti.bsky.social and Yves Zenou. [1/3]

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Brendon McConnell @brendonmcconnell.bsky.social · Mar 5

After a long time of battling with Stata, I finally figured out how to change the aspect on a cmogram graph (I wanted a square format). Sharing in case useful. The line after the cmogram command, I typed "graph display, xsize(1) ysize (1)". Before/After pic attached.