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John Holbein

@johnholbein1.bsky.social

15K followers 4.3K following 1.2K posts

Associate Professor of Public Policy, Politics, and Education @UVA. I share social science.

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · Jun 12

Did you know that your siblings can influence whether you vote?

Well, because of our new working paper you do!

@mike-bloem.bsky.social, @jonisaacsmith.bsky.social, sam imlay

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 2d

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 5d

typo!! She’s 3 years old. Whoops!

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 5d

www.gofundme.com/f/8ze9yt-jos...

Donate to Josie's Fight Against Leukemia, organized by Emily Holbein

My sweet niece, Josie, is a 3.5 year old girl full of spunk. She loves playing outside, s… Emily Holbein needs your support for Josie's Fight Against Leukemia

www.gofundme.com

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 5d

It’s unconscionable that lifesaving medical care is so expensive that we’re forced to platforms like GoFundMe to help kids survive.

Regardless, if you have the desire and the means, would you consider donating to help a 6 year old family member’s battle with leukemia?

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Reposted by John Holbein

Josh Miller @jdmiller.bsky.social · 5d

New paper led by @drlynam.bsky.social on the need for more training in and engagement with open science practices in clinical psych programs. It has been difficult to make progress due to a variety of barriers, including students working in labs uninterested or hostile to these approaches.

PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · 6d

The Open Science Movement and Clinical Psychology Training: Rigorous Science is Transparent Science: https://osf.io/s46wd

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 6d

Perhaps one way to evaluate the quality of a research article is to assess its teachability.

Is the article clear about its identifying assumptions?

Does it lay out the results clearly?

Does it engage with its limitations transparently?

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 6d

Well said

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 6d

www.givesendgo.com/helptheSanfo...

Help the Sanford Family

My name is Dave. Like all of you, I was shocked by the murders at the LDS chapel in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on September 28. Multiple families were left griev...

www.givesendgo.com

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 6d

After the heinous shooting at an LDS chapel in Michigan over the weekend, a member of the church set up a fund for the shooter's wife and children.

It's raised $150k so far.

Deeply moving.

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 8d

www.iza.org/publications...

The Effects of Minimum Wage Increases on Poverty and Food Hardship

We study how minimum wage (MW) increases affect poverty and food hardship in the United States from 1981 to 2019. Applying stacked difference-in-diffe...

www.iza.org

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 8d

Increasing the minimum wage decreases poverty and food insufficiency.

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 8d

www.iza.org/publications...

The Effect of Broadband Internet on Mental Health-Related Disability Insurance Claims

We examine the causal impact of high-speed internet on adult mental health using administrative data from Belgium. We exploit predetermined telecommun...

www.iza.org

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 8d

In Belgium, high speed internet increased mental health-related insurance claims.

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 9d

If you have the bandwidth and know any “Mormons”, today has been especially difficult for them.

Just a thought.

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 9d

BREAKING: Multiple people have been shot at a Mormon church in Michigan and the shooter is down, police say.

Multiple people shot at Mormon church in Michigan and shooter is down, police say

Police say multiple people have been shot at a Mormon church in Michigan and the shooter is down. Local police said in a social media post that the shooting occurred at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, about 50 miles north of Detroit.

bit.ly

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 10d

www.iza.org/publications...

Political Views and College Choices in a Polarized America

We examine the role of students’ political views in shaping college enrollment decisions in the United States. We hypothesize that students derive uti...

www.iza.org

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 10d

The median college student is willing to pay just under $3k to attend a college where the share of students with opposing political views is 10 percentage points lower.

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Reposted by John Holbein

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 12d

I’m starting to notice a trend in the polling data…

—Top Public Worry: Corruption

—Biggest problem in Fed Gov: Corruption

—Top fear: Corruption

—What one word would you use to describe American government?: “Corrupt”

It’s almost like voters are trying to tell us something.

Top 10 American Fears of 2024 (Chapman Survey)
Horizontal bar chart ranking the top fears of Americans (percentage “afraid” or “very afraid”):
1. Corrupt government officials (65.2%, top fear for years).
2. Loved ones becoming seriously ill (58.4%).
3. Cyberterrorism (58.3%).
4. Loved ones dying (57.8%).
5. Russia using nuclear weapons (55.8%).
6. Not having enough money for the future (55.7%).
7. U.S. becoming involved in another world war (55.0%).
8. North Korea using nuclear weapons (55.0%).
9. Terrorist attack (52.7%).
10. Biological warfare (52.5%).
Red bars display percentages; small arrows indicate change from 2023 rankings.

Top Public Worries in the U.S. (Yale & GMU poll, May 2025)
Stacked bar chart of worries among U.S. adults. Categories ranked by share “very worried”:
• Government corruption (54% very worried, top issue).
• Other leading concerns: cost of living (48%), the economy (47%), state of democracy (44%), disruption of federal services (44%), cultural/social divisions (36%), treatment of immigrants (35%), global warming (29%), crime (26%).
• Lower worries include job security (17%), health (16%), and being targeted because of identity/beliefs (15%).
Green shades show “very/somewhat worried,” yellow/orange shades show “not very/not at all worried.

Perceptions of Federal Government Problems (AP-NORC poll)
Bar chart showing the percentage of U.S. adults who consider various issues in the federal government to be a major problem, minor problem, or not a problem.
• Corruption: Overall 70% major, 22% minor, 7% not a problem. Higher among Republicans (78%) than Democrats (63%).
• Inefficiency: 65% major overall, with Republicans (81%) much higher than Democrats (55%).
• Red tape (bureaucracy): 59% major overall, with Republicans (73%) higher than Democrats (47%).
• Civil servants unwilling to implement president’s agenda: More partisan split—Republicans 56% major problem, Democrats 20% major problem; overall 34% major, 36% minor, 28% not a problem.
Title: “Majority of the public believe corruption, inefficiency, and red tape are major problems in the federal government.

Word Cloud of How People Describe American Government (Berkeley Democracy Policy Lab)
Large central word: “Corrupt.” Other prominent words: Broken, Chaotic, Dysfunctional, Shit, Clueless, Divided, Inefficient, Crooked, Hijacked, Justice, Woke, Bloated, Untrustworthy, Hopeless, Frustrated, Disastrous, Messy, Sneaky, Turmoil, Delusional. Smaller scattered words include both negative and neutral terms such as Crap, Important, Poder, Resilient, Unfocused, Needs Help. Visual emphasizes “Corrupt” as the dominant public perception.

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 13d

TIL some journals call desk rejections “summarily rejecting.”

Sounds like they're executing manuscripts.

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 22d

"Abortion, Economic Hardship, and Crime"

www.nber.org/papers/w34245

Abortion, Economic Hardship, and Crime

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

www.nber.org

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 22d

Reducing access to abortions ...

- increases families' economic hardship,
- increases families' debt,
- increases income inequality,
- increases housing insecurity, and
- increases financially motivated crime rates.

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Reposted by John Holbein

Ryan Briggs @ryancbriggs.net · 27d

The pretty draft is now online.

Link to paper (free): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....

Our replication package starts from the raw data and we put real work into making it readable & setting it up so people could poke at it, so please do explore it: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...

The social sciences face a replicability crisis. A key determinant of replication success is statistical power. We assess the
power of political science research by collating over 16,000 hypothesis tests from about 2,000 articles in 46 areas of the
discipline. Under generous assumptions, we show that quantitative research in political science is greatly underpow-
ered: the median analysis has about 10% power, and only about 1 in 10 tests have at least 80% power to detect the
consensus effects reported in the literature. We also find substantial heterogeneity in tests across research areas, with
some being characterized by high power but most having very low power. To contextualize our findings, we survey
political methodologists to assess their expectations about power levels. Most methodologists greatly overestimate the
statistical power of political science research.

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 29d

Academics in 2025 be like “recent research shows…” and cite a 2001 study.

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · Sep 6

Be honest: how many tabs do you currently have open?

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · Sep 3

whoa

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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · Sep 1

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Letters of Recommendation by High School Counselors in Selective College Admissions: Differences by Race and Socioeconomic Status in Letter Length and Topics Discussed - Research in Higher Education

Letters of recommendation from school counselors are required to apply to most selective universities. We use cutting-edge natural language processing techniques to algorithmically analyze a national ...

link.springer.com

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