Brigitte Roth Tran
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brothtran.bsky.social
Brigitte Roth Tran
@brothtran.bsky.social
13K followers 980 following 170 posts
Senior Economist at SF Fed
Primarily studying extreme weather effects
Views are my own, she/her
www.rothtran.com
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brothtran.bsky.social
Just in time for #EarthDay, a dark-eyed JUNKO has made her nest UNDER the parsley in my raised-bed vegetable garden.

The eggs are very small, ~ 3/4" long.

The nest is beautifully constructed from fine strands.

She flies off when I approach.

I REALLY hope she likes slugs.

Nature is amazing!
Three small white bird eggs partially speckled with dark red spots lay in a meticulously assembled nest of fine straw bits under the shade of some parsley leaves. A zoomed out view of three small white bird eggs partially speckled with dark red spots laying in a meticulously assembled nest of fine straw bits under the shade of some parsley leaves. Also visible is the wood plank on the edge of the raised bed garden. The nest is right up against that wood. Dried out straw mulch is also visible next to the nest as well as a bunch of green parsley leaves. The photo shows the light-colored beak and part of the dark body and eye of the dark-eyed junko who is sitting on her eggs in her nest. She is nestled under leaves of a parsley plant. Also visible is the wood edge of the raised bed vegetable garden.
April 23, 2025 at 2:37 AM
brothtran.bsky.social
So I made this mask for my daughter a couple of Halloweens ago.

Requirements:
PDF pattern from Etsy
printing on cardstock paper
good smaller scissors
glue
fine motor skills
patience

This was my first and only such project. It fit over my kid's head.
Dragon mask. Shades of green with yellow eye and white teeth. Horns that stick out in back as well as one pointing up from snout. Very angular, as it is made of folded paper.
November 9, 2024 at 4:00 PM
brothtran.bsky.social
This is consistent w/our finding that firms hit by #hurricanes talk about supply issues in analyst calls.

In "Pricing Poseidon" (w/ Kruttli & Watugala, see link) we find several channels can explain elevated uncertainty for hit firms, which takes months to resolve. 📈📉

www.frbsf.org/research-and...
Screenshot of regression results table showing that discussion of hurricanes increases after landfall for hit firms and that business interruption, physical damages, insurance, supply, and demand are all discussed more as well (in relation to hurricanes.)
October 4, 2024 at 8:27 PM
brothtran.bsky.social
SO devastating to see all the #Hurticane #Helene news on my feed.

I was reminded of how I spotted a #USGS stream gaging station on a walk at the Arboretum in #Asheville in 2019. It seems like the river may now be higher than the flood gauge. What happens to the measurements then?
USGS marked stream gaging station. A box right next to a short stone wall on a small bridge across a stream. A ribbed pipe approximately 8" wide that extends approximately 6 feet up from a stream towards the back of the USGS stream gaging station box.
September 28, 2024 at 2:52 PM
brothtran.bsky.social
With #divestment in the news a lot lately, some may appreciate a paper I wrote as part of my dissertation. In it I use a relatively simple model to formalize trade-offs faced by an endowment considering how much to invest on what it considers an objectionable firm.

www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
The change in an endowment's utility from increasing investment in a firm is decomposed into contributions to expected return, market risk, idiosyncratic risk, fundraising, direct investment effects, and direct disutility.
May 23, 2024 at 5:22 PM
brothtran.bsky.social
For those of you who are seeing images of the LA River being full of brown water and don't know what the big deal is, this is what the LA River usually looks like.

#AtmosphericRiver #floods #LARiver #Grease
Scene from movie Grease: people wearing sunglasses and 1960s garb standing around 1960s car in dry cement river bed with bridge and blue sky in background.
February 6, 2024 at 6:48 AM
brothtran.bsky.social
Can somebody please explain to me how Ang got to 50 here? And why are we requiring 4th graders to do this exercise?
October 18, 2023 at 3:50 AM
brothtran.bsky.social
This is me when I switch between Stata and R. Ctrl+D, anyone?

Or Ctrl+Y, which is redo in Microsoft products and deletes the current line in Stata. 🤪
Inigo Montoya telling Vizzini, "You keep using that shortcut key. I do not think it does what you think it does."
September 27, 2023 at 3:16 PM