Jesse Perla
@jlperla.bsky.social
1.1K followers 330 following 66 posts
Associate Professor, UBC Vancouver School of Economics. Interested in the (macro)economics of growth/AI/ML, and use of ML within economics itself. Swiftie. jesseperla.com
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Reposted by Jesse Perla
bankofcanada.ca
Governor Macklem presents Professor @rjuhasz.bsky.social of the University of British Columbia with the 2025 Governor’s Award at the Fellowship Learning Exchange conference 🏆

Congratulations Professor!

Learn more: bit.ly/3YA2wRP

#cdnecon #economy #awards #BankOfCanada
Reposted by Jesse Perla
mehmetmars7.bsky.social
IMO, one of the most time-saving use cases of LLMs is handling the syntax of a new library, which can be time-consuming to learn if it's only needed, say, once. They can also help save time when finding bugs in code, especially when the bugs are common.
bengolub.bsky.social
LLM's speed up writing code that scientists use in everyday work by a factor of at least 3 if you know how to use them well
nycsouthpaw.bsky.social
The closest thing to specific example of a use case I’ve heard is one of the hosts of the Acquired podcast saying—in a paid ad for Claude—that Claude helped him quickly make a table of dates from his research notes.
Reposted by Jesse Perla
kevinmilligan.bsky.social
A few comments on the @mark-carney.bsky.social platform released today. You can find it here: liberal.ca/cstrong/.

I provided some 'sounding board' advice here and there to those working on the platform. As always: I disclose, but you can decide what weight to put on that.

Thread below...
Canada Strong | Liberal Party of Canada
Download our plan
liberal.ca
jlperla.bsky.social
Oh we might have our answer to the breakdown, at list. Not sure about the ordering quite yet: bsky.app/profile/tyre...
tyrellturing.bsky.social
I honestly think LLMs are very useful tools, but this kinda shit shows the real danger with these models:

Stupid people with important roles will use them for purposes they are not well suited for.
Reposted by Jesse Perla
professajay.bsky.social
You can totally see how this mf bankrupted a casino.
jlperla.bsky.social
I am willing to believe the reverse-engineering of the ridiculous numbers, but is there any sensible theory of the ordering of the list?
Reposted by Jesse Perla
jlperla.bsky.social
"ChatGPT, please generate a list of countries and islands along with a random number between 0 and 99%. Remove
Russia and ensure it is sorted randomly rather than going by country name or size"
Reposted by Jesse Perla
jeffclune.com
It is an honor to receive a Killam Accelerator Research Fellowship. Thank you to everyone involved!
science.ubc.ca
Congratulations to the Science recipients of the 2024 Faculty Research Awards:
Jeff Clune @cs.ubc.ca
Alannah Hallas & Alison Lister @ubcphas.bsky.social
Takamasa Momose & Tao Huan @ubcchem.bsky.social
Andrew Trites @ubcoceans.bsky.social

prizes.research.ubc.ca/news-announc...
Reposted by Jesse Perla
s-stantcheva.bsky.social
Understanding causality vs. correlation is genuinely hard especially on complex topics like inflation. Our research finds that 60% of Americans think high interest rates cause high inflation & support rate cuts to fight it. But high rates usually respond to inflation,not cause it
Reposted by Jesse Perla
ubcvse.bsky.social
Congratulations to Jane Platt on receiving the Wesbrook Scholarship, one of UBC's most prestigious awards!

Wishing her success as she continues her research in public policy!

Read the announcement: economics.ubc.ca/news/vse-stu...
Reposted by Jesse Perla
bankofcanada.ca
🎉Congrats to Professor @rjuhasz.bsky.social of the University of British Columbia for winning the 2025 Governor’s Award.

Her research focuses on industrial policy and industrialization, emphasizing their importance in economic studies.

bit.ly/3DLWm9U

#cdnpse #cdnecon @industrialpolicy.bsky.social
Reposted by Jesse Perla
kevinmilligan.bsky.social
Congratulations to our @ubcvse.bsky.social colleague @rjuhasz.bsky.social who has won the 2025 @bankofcanada.bsky.social Governor's Award!

We are proud of and happy for Reka!

bsky.app/profile/bank...
bankofcanada.ca
🎉Congrats to Professor @rjuhasz.bsky.social of the University of British Columbia for winning the 2025 Governor’s Award.

Her research focuses on industrial policy and industrialization, emphasizing their importance in economic studies.

bit.ly/3DLWm9U

#cdnpse #cdnecon @industrialpolicy.bsky.social
Reposted by Jesse Perla
ygorodnichenko.bsky.social
Hey #EconSky

Economists for Ukraine (econ4ua.org) drafted an open letter to the future German chancellor. We call for 🇩🇪 & 🇪🇺 to step up & to ⬆️ support for #Ukraine. Please read & sign (if you agree), the form is at the end of ✉️): tinyurl.com/m9ta2b5d

Please share this letter with your colleagues.
To: The future German chancellor
To: The future German chancellor From: Economists For Ukraine. Dear Chancellor, Congratulations on taking the helm of the Federal Republic of Germany! You are in a perfect storm, and Germany mus...
tinyurl.com
jlperla.bsky.social
We woke up to find our nihilistic juvenile kittens had pulled this book off the shelf and were trying to trash it. A little on the nose...
jlperla.bsky.social
Reverse engineering worries me. I love good data work, and I love applied theory - but trying to reverse-engineer a model from stylized facts is ill-posed. Which explanation to use? My sense is that insisting on data+theory+quantiative application has been a detrimental to publishing in econ
jlperla.bsky.social
One concern is that much of the economics is learned by tinkering with simplifications/FOCs/edge-cases. These tools might make it easy to write down models, solve them numerically/symbolically/etc., but ultimately provide papers with fewer insights. At least for applied-theory papers.
Reposted by Jesse Perla
kevinmilligan.bsky.social
Glad we got through the tariff emergency (at least the first wave of it....).

Also glad that people are bringing creativity, energy, and determination to figuring out a medium and long-run response.

But I want to throw cold water on three ideas I've seen floated. I'll explain...
Reposted by Jesse Perla
tkehoe.bsky.social
Prof. Kim Ruhl (UMN PhD 2004) of University of Wisconsin-Madison has been named as one of 3 members of President Trump's Council of Economic Advisors. I admire Kim for his service to our country, and I hope he is able to have a favorable influence on US economic policy.
news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-e...
UW–Madison economics professor Kim Ruhl appointed as member of President’s Council of Economic Advisers
Established by Congress in 1946, the CEA comprises three economists who advise the U.S. president on a wide range of economic policy issues based on data, research and evidence.
news.wisc.edu
jlperla.bsky.social
A snippet of the 5 minute stream of conscious output before it answered my question.
Reposted by Jesse Perla
apoorvalal.com
chain of thought is hilarious

(distilled deepseek 14b running via ollama)
Reposted by Jesse Perla
danielrock.bsky.social
Hi Everyone!

We're hosting our Wharton AI and the Future of Work Conference on 5/21-22. Last year was a great event with some of the top papers on AI and work.

Paper submission deadline is 3/3. Come join us! Submit papers here: forms.gle/ozJ5xEaktXDE...
forms.gle
jlperla.bsky.social
I asked DeepSeek to do a proof, and it felt like getting a portal into Erdős's amphetamine accelerated inner monologue.

Watching chain of thought output is mesmerizing.