Chris Blattman @cblatts Twitter profile

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Chris Blattman

2 years

*Why We Fight* is a best new book according to @WSJBooks , @FTEconomics , @latimes , @amazonbooks , @TheEconomist , @NickKristof & more Buy the book, listen to the podcasts, or read the reviews here:

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

7 years

In college, I believed this deeply. It's fundamental to justify libertarian stance. Learning it was empirically false changed my politics.

Paul Ryan

@SpeakerRyan

7 years

In our country, the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life. This is what makes America so great.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

Just hired a 21yo for their first job. What basic professional advice do they need? Here's what I tell all my new staff, but perhaps you can add. I'll start small. 1/ Use an online calendar. Have a foolproof system of reminders, so you never forget a deadline or obligation.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

7 years

I don't think you should go to this university

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

With PhD applications due soon, thousands of young people are currently beginning their statements of purpose with the same cliché story, or the same anodyne statement Stop right now! Here are 10 thoughts for doing this right. Helps you, and helps admissions committees.👇

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

Medellin, Colombia has 100s of powerful gangs, but still went from one of the most violent cities in the world to homicide rates far lower than that of St Louis, Baltimore or Detroit. What happened? The story here: great success, but at a terrible & hidden price. A 🧵

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

US Rep for Kentucky’s 4th district, ladies and gentlemen

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

I find the UAustin ridicule cringeworthy. The fact that I’m at a leading policy school at one of the more “freethinking” places and I can’t think of a single conservative on the faculty (and a handful—at most—in our other professional schools) ought to be deeply concerning.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

Not the opening lines I would have picked.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

2/ Use the calendar to schedule intensive work time, not just meetings. Some kinds of work (like research or coding or writing) benefits from long, uninterrupted blocks of time. Most people schedule meetings only, and don't schedule these long blocks. Do both.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

3/ Organize your contacts. Make a habit of saving everyone's names, emails and other contact info in a way that syncs across your devices. Keep notes of key info, like birthdays and the names of spouses and children.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

9/ Assume most negative feedback you receive is true, at least in part. Don't get defensive. If someone is rude or malicious, assume it's mostly their fault. But also triple check if there is usually a lesson there for you as well. Dealing with assholes is a skill.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

5/ Learn to email professionally. I've written a longer post about that here:

Students: How to email to your Professor, employer, and professional peers - Chris Blattman

A third of student emails make me cringe. Not from scorn (well, maybe a little scorn) but mainly sympathy. Distressing sympathy. Here are 12 pieces of advice. I welcome others from readers. (Examples...

chrisblattman.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

What if I told you that roughly $500 for therapy + a little cash helped the most troubled young men in West Africa drop their crime and violence by half. For at least 10 years. Almost 350 fewer crimes PER PARTICIPANT over 10y. That's ~$1.50 per crime averted. New paper & a 🧵

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

Whenever I hear students in my school discuss conservative viewpoints, I am struck by how naive, astonishing, false, and elitist they are. This should be worrying most of all to those who care about progressive causes, for these kids do not understand their opponents.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

Looking for alternatives to policing? So was the mayor of Medellin. In 2018, we worked with his govt to choose 80 neighborhoods. In half, the city intensified civilian staff and problem-solving 10-fold, for 2 years. The results were... unexpected. Paper:

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

7 months

I am hiring several pre docs/research assistants in Medellin. RT! Apply! Past RAs have regularly gone on to top-10 PhD programs or to great policy careers. My earliest field RAs are now professors at top universities. Too many pre-docs are US-based and focused on data analysis.…

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

4/ However you email, make sure it's archived in one place that belongs to you. That way you have all your correspondence for life. e.g. You can have all emails received & sent archived in a personal Gmail account with labels---something that only takes a few minutes to set up.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

Young conservatives are reading our tweets and are being dissuaded from academia. Young progressives are reading us and confirming their view that it is perfectly fine to dismiss and ridicule ideas they don’t share (even if they’ve never thought about them deeply).

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

7/ Learn to manage stress. My sense is that the #1 way to do this is 20-60 minutes a day of intensive exercise (which has many other benefits too). But I am not that kind of doctor, so you figure out you. But figure something out.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

13/ Make it simple and fast for colleagues to respond (especially the busiest ones). List options briefly, make recommendations clearly, and (whenever possible) frame emails and other messages in ways that can be answered with a yes/no.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

4 months

Such a weird backwards view of what drives economic growth. Higher education is one of the most important exports that developed nations have. Selling a terrifically valuable service to foreigners. It just happens to be bought on our soil (which means they buy a tremendous amount…

Rishi Sunak

@RishiSunak

4 months

From today, the majority of foreign university students cannot bring family members to the UK. In 2024, we’re already delivering for the British people.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

If your reaction is that there are no theoretically or empirically well founded conservative viewpoints, then I would ask you to consider (1) perhaps you haven’t engaged seriously with them, and (2) perhaps we should be increasing the supply of serious investigation.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

If 10y ago you told me that $200 + 8 wks of therapy could halve the rate that a city’s most dangerous men engage in crime & violence, I’d have thought you were nuts. We just went back after 10y and the results amaze me. A @washingtonpost op-ed & a thread on long run research

Washington Post Opinions

@PostOpinions

2 years

A new study, conducted in Liberia, finds that the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy are remarkably durable, @cblatts writes in @PostOutlook

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

If people could go back in time and kill Hitler, then he would already be dead and you would have no idea who he is. That means there’s a chance that all the most terrible people in history have been killed already and Hitler somehow did not make the cutoff.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

7 months

A democracy’s answer to war crimes should not be war crimes

Human Rights Watch

@hrw

7 months

BREAKING: Israel has used white phosphorus in military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, putting civilians at risk of serious and long-term injuries. White phosphorus causes excruciating burns and can set homes afire. Its use in populated areas is unlawful.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

8 years

Best police report EVER

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

12/ Learn to upward manage. Mgmt is not just about leaders training and guiding and investing in their teams. That's essential. But teams work better when they manage their leaders well. A key part of your job and success is learning how to manage people more senior than you.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

6/ Have a foolproof backup system. At a minimum keep all your files in the cloud. Even then, consider an external hard drive as a second backup, should the cloud fail.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

10/ Seek out mentors. To find them, try to have short meetings with people you admire in your organization or professional circles. This is challenging if you are not in a field or organization that institutionalizes this. But that just makes finding them more important.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

Here's a story of unintended consequences, of academic theories and government policy gone wrong, of how damn hard it is to tackle organized crime, and of insights into what criminal organizations really want and do. It starts in Medellin. [Paper: ]

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

9 months

We lost my dad Jim to heart and lung disease this week, at 73. Young, but he was a model of how to live life. I've spent my career city to city every few years. He and my mom did the same, until 1984 when they finally settled in Ottawa with their three boys. They built a…

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

8/ Cultivate feedback. If your organization has a well-established process for feedback from above and below, fabulous. If not, seek it out in a disciplined way. Ask at least once a year to meet with a supervisor or other colleagues and solicit positive & negative feedback.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

14/ In most careers, one of the most important things you can do is to learn to write well. Do this the same way you acquire any skill: seek out expert sources & mentors + practice the skills you learn. A lot. Read books. Read books on writing. Use tools for writing.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

I would like to offer your son a place in our PhD program

Rogue Dad, M.D.

@RogueDadMD

6 years

Just learned our 9y/o did an experiment on us. Lost tooth, told no one for 3d, kept tooth under his pillow. No $. Then he tells us he lost the tooth, next night there is money under his pillow. Then confronted us with his scientific evidence that the tooth fairy isn't real.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

4 years

OK who wants a thread on why gangs rule? Not why gangs are great. I mean, when and how do they govern civilians. Here we are meeting one gang leader who, besides running the drug trade, has built this crafts school behind him, a recycling center, and a community pool.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

11/ I hate to get into wardrobe, because on a personal level I could care less, but since not everyone feels the same way, a good rule of thumb: it is better not to be below the median level of professional for your workplace.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

7 months

Timing is everything: Arab Barometer interviewed a random sample of 399 Gazans between Sept 28 and Oct 6—the day before Hamas’ attack. Fatah has more support than Hamas, and a majority support a peaceful settlement with Israel, principally the two state solution based on the Oslo…

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

Per minute page views of PornHub during the Hawaii missile alert. Should I raise or diminish my opinion of human nature? I can’t decide how to adjust my priors.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

16/ Assume your 40-year old self will remember almost nothing your current self does. In fact, self next week will forget a lot. Find a system for keeping notes, ideas, etc easy to access and find and add to. A basic notes app on your phone goes a long way.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

15/ Read a lot. Read widely. Plan your time to read and build it into your daily schedule. Highlight and make notes for your future self to skim ideas quickly. Make sure that it is easy for your future self to find these notes and be able to relearn.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

24/ Talk less. This becomes more important rather than less important as you get senior. Try not to be the first person who speaks. Ask people what they think. Ask people if they have anything to add, or disagree.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

So many aspiring young social scientists applying for their first research assistant positions right now, I thought I'd regale you with my first RA job (and my third best field work story). 👇

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

What the actual f**k. Pigeons can be trained as radiologists. Had to double check today is not April 1.

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@emollick

1 year

Forget losing jobs to AI, look to the sky! Flocks of pigeons detect cancer in scans with 99% accuracy & “are suitable surrogates for human observers in certain medical image perception studies, thus avoiding the need to recruit, pay & retain clinicians...”

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

22/ Do not commit to things you cannot deliver. Hone a discipline and a reputation for only agreeing to do things you can do, then do it on time. This takes self-awareness, discipline, and good time management—all of which you will have to learn.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

25/ If you are unhappy in what you are doing, try to leave. There is nothing wrong with quitting something. Finding what you are good at and fulfills you is a process of trial and error. Your first choices are almost certainly wrong. Failure is progress. Get past them quickly.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

300 people committed most of the shoplifting in a city of 9 million. A useful reminder that most crime & violence is committed by a tiny number of people, and that nearly every effective social or policing problem has to be hyper targeted or it will fail.

A Tiny Number of Shoplifters Commit Thousands of New York City Thefts (Published 2023)

Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in the city last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Businesses say they have little defense.

www.nytimes.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

4 years

Since we‘re all on the subject of super viruses, I don’t think I ever think I ever wrote about my H1N1 days. I had a good outcome but it made me take “bad flus” seriously. 2009, Jeannie and I flew into Liberia for 2-week spring break to do research. Not a great place to get sick

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

Like any profession, economics has a hidden curriculum—for how to succeed (plus how to help others succeed). @marcfbellemare 's new book pulls back the curtain. A thread on some of my favorite advice and insights from the book.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

Two history books that blew my mind, mostly because they totally turned upside down my beliefs about regions or periods I didn’t know. But they were also wonderfully written, and shaped how I think about being a better academic.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

7 months

Possibly the most important news of the year, which won’t make it to your news app: first vaccine approved to fight malaria cut deaths among young children by 13% over nearly 4 years. This is *massive*.

First malaria vaccine slashes early childhood mortality

Huge analysis of RTS,S in Africa shows it decreased toddler deaths by 13%

www.science.org

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

Following Tyler, my first pass at 12 rules to life <thread> 1. Treat others decently, always. People value dignity more than almost anything else. Give it to them. 2. In fact, go further than that. Help other people every day, even if it is something small.

tylercowen

@tylercowen

6 years

By popular request, 12 rules for life,

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

17/ Financially speaking: Save as much as you can in diversified, low-fee ways. In the US, get a retirement account (if your employer doesn't already have one) and fill it with primarily stock-based index funds with the lowest-cost providers, such as Vanguard.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

5 years

Oh my god. Somebody give this ad agency a standing ovation.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

25/ Do not try to push yourself up by pushing other people down. It sounds trite, but if you push others around you up—if you are helpful, promote others' ideas, give credit, be thankful—this will be good for them and also good for you in the long run. In the short run too.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

Why did America stay in Afghanistan 20 years? Everyone has their pet theory. But I study conflict for a living, and I was always puzzled Here's how a Chicago gang leader changed the way I look at America's long war. And what he taught me about why we fight more generally. A 🧵

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

Grad application form to Harvard doctoral programs.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

I used to host all my papers with @SSRN . I’m out. It just gets worse. Now people have to create an account & login to download freely uploaded papers. This used to be the easiest way to make PDFs available to all. I’m exiting the whole system this month. Shame on @SSRN .

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

@ethanbdm When we piloted a public lottery to evaluate cash transfers in Liberia, the potential recipients arranged beforehand to insure one another. After the randomization and grant, the winners compensated the losers and unraveled the field experiment.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

8 days

Must admit: I did not think of scattering copies of my book around encampments as a viral marketing opportunity

Matt Katz

@mattkatz00

8 days

Dep. Commissioner Daughtry says he found "a book on terrorism" at Columbia. (The book is not a how-to book, but a history written by a renowned British historian.)

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

21/ Learn to manage conflict, and how to manage your own emotions in those situations. Dispute resolution is an amazing general-purpose skill, very similar to negotiation but much broader. It will serve you in many ways. Read about it. Take classes. Get a therapist or coach.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

23/ Learn to say no kindly and clearly. Decline invitations you cannot make with thanks. Turn down assignments you don't have time to do properly or on schedule. Resign professionally.

Just say no - Chris Blattman

“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.” That is Warren Buffett, quoted in Farnam Street. I’m always delighted...

chrisblattman.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

Some academic job market paper advice. You show already know that most people will only read the abstract and intro. So these need to be polished & self-contained. You will need to rewrite them every day for months. But how to make them perfect?

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

Here are the posts I wrote over the years on writing:

Advice: Writing - Chris Blattman

Advice posts on writing Learn More Subscribe to the Blog Recent Posts

chrisblattman.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

20/ Learn to negotiate in a clear, forthright way. This is a skill like any other. Taking negotiation classes or reading books is recommended. My advice for academic negotiation is here, and it may apply more generally:

Negotiating your academic job offer - Chris Blattman

Updated December 2014 You’re finishing a PhD and you’ve just gotten a phone call with a verbal job offer. Congratulations! And welcome to the bottom of a whole new pyramid. But before you get to the...

chrisblattman.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

How come no one gets this excited when I tweet how how the UN is a broken and twisted wreck, close to harming humanity more than it helps, that needs to be razed to the ground before it can be rebuilt to its proper ideals?

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

I realized that I need to more formally teach some of my project staff how to manage upwards. Today I told one that "You have to treat any busy manager like an ADHD toddler who needs clear and constant instructions and reminders. Especially professors."

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

4 years

I am a huge supporter of universal healthcare. I lived under it for half my life. This is not how it works.

Mike Kelton

@mikekelton

4 years

IF👏🏻WE👏🏻HAD👏🏻UNIVERSAL👏🏻HEALTHCARE👏🏻THEN👏🏻CHECKING👏🏻YOURSELF👏🏻INTO👏🏻THE👏🏻HOSPITAL👏🏻OUT👏🏻OF👏🏻PRECAUTION👏🏻WOULD👏🏻BE👏🏻FOR👏🏻EVERYONE👏🏻NOT👏🏻JUST👏🏻THE👏🏻PRESIDENT👏🏻WHO👏🏻DOESN’T👏🏻PAY👏🏻TAXES👏🏻

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

One of my colleagues reminds me to note that we remain an intellectually open place and would like to be a faculty with ideological breadth (which I wholeheartedly agree with)

Ethan BdM

@ethanbdm

3 years

@cblatts We have also made enthusiasticc senior job offers that have been turned down (I don't think because of our uninviting ideological culture) to senior, public facing Republicans during your time at Harris.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

5 years

Set your 2-year clock for my book: Why We Fight. Everything you need to know about why gangs, nations, and other groups go to war, and how to stop it. Just signed with editor Wendy Wolf @VikingBooks , an imprint @PenguinUSA ! Huge credit to agent @WordNerdMargo of @BrockmanInc .

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

Students at elite schools get this info from their advisors. As a foreigner at a state school, and a first gen college student, I never received this guidance. Think of these advice posts as trying to level the playing field. Please spread them around or add your advice here.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

I love the message of Why Nations Fail but as (Jim and Daron are first to say) the policy prescription feels like "try not to have highly concentrated wealth and power 300 years ago." That's what's so helpful & important about Stefan Dercon's new book

Gambling on Development

www.amazon.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

My students are often confused about the idea of “lack of credible commitment” in bargaining. I think I have a new example for class.

Ann Coulter

@AnnCoulter

6 years

Hey, Mitch McConnell! Here's OUR deadline: Confirm this fine judge by sundown Monday or we're not voting Republican this fall. #WhatsThePoint #MinorityLeaderMcConnell

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@cblatts

3 years

After first putting pen to paper in June 2017, the first draft of the book is done and with @vikingpress @penguinrandom for editing! It will be a hectic few months of revising. Should be out early 2022!

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@cblatts

10 months

18/ If you have student or other debt, prioritize paying it off only if your real interest rate exceeds your real rate of return on an index fund. Historically, I believe this is about 5%.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

4 years

Some academic job market advice. When prepping materials (cover letter, research, teaching, diversity statements...) here is my personal view: 1. We will look at these for 20 seconds before deciding if we read for another 45 seconds. This means: Make it easy to skim!

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@cblatts

4 years

At ⁦⁦ @Brown_Economics ⁩ tomorrow? Am presenting the 3-year odyssey that has been our mapping of organized crime and how it works in Colombia: how they manage a cartel, control violence with 100s of gangs, theory of the criminal firm, personnel economics of the gang, etc

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

19/ Should you go to graduate school? For most professional careers: yes, but only after working for at least 2-3 years. And ideally to acquire new technical skills. Advice discipline specific, but most of my advice for graduate school is here:

Advice: Undergraduates and Masters - Chris Blattman

Advice for undergraduate and Master’s students Learn More Subscribe to the Blog Recent Posts

chrisblattman.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

Why We Fight is out April and available for preorder!

Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

www.amazon.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

Grad students refereeing their first paper.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

Wow. After a week of reading @TheEconomist and @FT instead of @nytimes and twitter for news, I already feel like a happier person with so much more current global info than I’ve had the past two years. Best money I have spent all year.

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@cblatts

1 year

4/ Immediately communicate what kind of scholar you want to be Use first paragraphs to: - State fields of interest at broadest level - Give 2-3 specific topics and questions within that field - Name who you would like to work with in the department and why it’s a good fit

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

Happy mother's day! And the natural question for the occasion: Would there be less war in the world if moms were in charge? The research says 'probably yes', but perhaps not for the reasons you think. A 🧵, starting with the Peloponnesian War and a play called Lysistrata.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

Here's the story of a city's response to spiking gun deaths. Of READI Chicago—an ambitious effort to build & study a program of jobs & CBT for the men most likely to shoot or be shot. Of HUGE success by some measures (64% fewer shooting & homicide arrests!) & no impact by others.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

4 years

I’m going to vent. I hate this move to online teaching. I know it’s necessary, but I loathe and fear it right now. I had my lecture down to an art. Refined for years. But no one will be engaged online. How the hell do you inspire a class in Zoom?

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

Request: anyone know PhD students working on crime, especially gangs/org crime, in Latin America? Am interested in seeing the pipeline and connecting people into an org crime research initiative.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

10. If you feel you’re among the smartest people in the room, you are in the wrong room. You’re only going to learn from being around others who know more than you. If you can’t find a room of people smarter or better informed than you, then you are probably a delusional asshole

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

5 years

My most memorable: camping in an illegal diamond mining camp on Liberia-Sierra Leone border, to run an experimental behavioral intervention for ex-rebels, I lock the keys in our Land Cruiser on night 1 with all gear inside. Spend the night searching for former pro car thieves. 1/

Jason Rasgon

@vectorgen

5 years

What's the weirdest thing you've done for science? For me, it was giving nicotine enemas to caterpillars when I was a postdoc. I'm certain this isn't the weirdest thing compared to what y'all have done

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

Today’s self own: I’m speaking in Belfast at a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. 8am, in the conference coffee room, a bunch of politicians and diplomats and academics are milling around. I know no one, and I’m not a mingler. So, I stand to the…

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

11 months

An unexpected joy of being at the ⁦ @BeckerFriedman ⁩ political economy conference in Paris is having ⁦ @k_sonin ⁩ give us a real-time paper presentation on events as they evolve in the previous 24h. Will try to capture some of the main points.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

6 years

Best midterm question ever?

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

Why doesn’t every university have a comunal pet dog like Camilo ⁦⁦ @ITAM_mx ⁩?? You can sign him out at the administration building to go for a walk! Happiest guy.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

5 years

This is amazing. Artist: insane51 in Worcester MA

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

I talk a lot about this in my book, Why We Fight. Like gangs, nations, political factions and ethnic groups don't want to go to war. When they do fight, it's for similar reasons. And the solutions resemble one another too. But that's not this thread.

Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

www.amazon.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

5 years

Proposition: You are not a real empirical social scientist unless you have published a null results paper. (Told to me today by a giant figure from my economics dept. I am inclined to agree.)

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

Also in the interest of correcting the record, am learning from my colleagues that there is more conservatism and cross-party boundary-ism on my faculty than I knew (all of it of the most reasonable and empirically founded nature). So that is comforting.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

11 months

But the most significant thing about the last few hours is not what Putin or Prigozhin has said. It is what has it been said. The silence of so many governors and mayors and other supposed political allies of Putin is quite significant.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

1 year

This is hard to do (because you don’t yet have a PhD) but doing it well is a good signal of your creativity, knowledge of the field, and potential as a researcher. I’ve written more about this here:

PhD applicants: Writing your statement of purpose - Chris Blattman

I’ve read a lot of personal statements for PhD applications. I sat on admissions at UChicago, Columbia, and Yale, mostly in economics, political science, and public policy. Here’s the advice I’ve...

chrisblattman.com

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

We have lived to see this happen

Iván Duque 🇨🇴

@IvanDuque

3 years

Colombia has full confidence in the stability of the institutions of the United States of America, as well as its respect for democracy and the rule of law, values shared by our countries since the beginning of our republic.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

3 years

As a PhD, Card asked me about my JMP in elevator. It’s an Angrist-like study of conscription on human capital, I said, with child soldiers in Uganda. Where’s I get that data?! he asked. I ran a survey during the war. He stared at me blankly. Doors opened. He walked out silently.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

2 years

That's the week the govt coincidentally shifted each criminal leader from their prison. Scattered about, they suddenly found themselves in the same holding cell for a few days. Coincidentally, a trusted criminal mediator was arrested & placed in the same cell. Killings plummeted.

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