🚨 Call for Papers 🚨 We'll be hosting the 24th Nordic Conference in Development Economics (NCDE) in Växjö, Sweden, on June 16-17, 2026. Keynote speakers: @hjortj.bsky.social & Rohini Somanathan 🤩 Submit your papers here (deadline February 28): axacoair.se/go?py3X14W0
In today's VATT Seminar, @mstryjan.bsky.social (@aalto.fi, @helsinkigse.bsky.social) discusses their research
Local Institutions and Leader Incentives: The Political Economy of Rwanda’s Fertility Transition
🕙10:30-11:30 at Economicum. Welcome!
All VATT seminars: vatt.fi/en/vatt-semi...
Any conversation about a ceasefire proposal must start with this: Palestinians in Gaza and hostages in captivity deserve to be free and safe from bombing, starvation, and suffering immediately. Any deal that brings us closer to a cessation of this intolerable reality is welcome. (1/3)
“We call on Israel to urgently review its rules of engagement to ensure full compliance with international humanitarian law, notably the protection of civilians, including children, and to conduct a thorough and independent investigation of this incident and all allegations of violations.”
This new war is a gift to Netanhayu. Suddenly nobody is talking about things like the war in Gaza, hostages, war crimes, coalition collapses, democracy, peace summits, international sanctions. You think that’s an accident? Or maybe that was the whole point… open.substack.com/pub/elanaszt...
Jerusalem Day: as settlers go on their annual day of terror against Palestinians, we’re on the ground doing protective presence. (1/3)
81 days
During the past several days, Israel has intensified its attacks on Gaza, following more than ten weeks during which it blocked all entry of aid and other goods to the Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement last night that Israel will allow entry of “a basic amount of food for the population” in order to continue the war demonstrates that Israel has no intention to stop its unlawful use of aid as a lever of political pressure. Every day, the Israeli army is killing and injuring hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza. All residents of the Strip are at risk of famine, while the healthcare system is collapsing due to severe shortages of medicine, medical equipment, and fuel. Israel is deliberately inflicting conditions that make life impossible in Gaza, with the declared goal of carrying out ethnic cleansing. Israel must stop the attacks and allow immediate entry of aid! The plan being formulated by the US and Israel for distribution of goods does not meet gaping humanitarian needs created by the blockade and widespread attacks. The UN and other international humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza have categorically rejected the plan on the grounds that it does not adhere to basic humanitarian principles. Israel has openly declared that the plan aims to advance its goals of expanding its physical presence in Gaza and forcibly transferring the civilian population. Israel’s commission of war crimes, which could also amount to crimes against humanity, must not be met with continued silence and inaction by the international community. We call again for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages. Simultaneously, Israel must immediately stop its attacks, cease its policy of starvation, open the crossings for entry of aid to Gaza, and allow aid organizations in the Strip to carry out their work.
Virtually all human rights organizations in Israel call the government to halt its attacks and open the crossings for aid. This is from 19th May. Signed by B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Gisha, Mizrahi Civic Collective, Mothers Against Violence, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Yesh Din, etc.
🚨 REPLICATION REPORT UPDATE: One year ago, a tweet by John Holbein alerted me, @ollefolke.bsky.social, and @jopieboy.bsky.social to a paper with a shocking result about Sweden’s law criminalizing the purchase of sex.🧵
61 days of total siege on 2 million people in the Gaza strip, with no food entering
Are you an urban economist located in the Nordics or working with Nordic data?
You're in luck!
We are organizing the Second Nordic Meeting in Urban Economics in Helsinki, Sept 8-9, 2025.
You can find the call for papers here:
sites.google.com/view/second-...
Yes! I have been hoping for this. I don’t know what I’ll do with my teaching and supervision if these surveys - even just already collected ones - continue to be unavailable. Are you aware of any researcher coordination around sharing the existing datasets?
🚨Development Economists!🚨Do you use Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS Program) data, which had been supported by USAID? IPUMS ( @ipums.bsky.social ) and the UN Statistics Division have a survey for you. I just filled it out. You can too. #econsky
I am a professor at Columbia University. All of the student NIH training grants have been canceled and now there are reports that ALL funding will be frozen. Why are Universities not banding together and speaking out publicly and forcibly about governmental attacks on biomedical research?
“…Americans are witnessing deletion weaponized on a large scale as a political tool. These deletions undermine basic good government — and the historical record. Elon Musk: “If you don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it is easy for the weed to grow back.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/o...
So many more books are being digitally burned by Musk and Trump than the Nazis could have ever dreamed of.
The Republicans’ war on civilisation continues.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Exactly why the Israeli government has best-friended antisemitic far-right politicians across Europe: they give Israel cover, all the way, and in return get image rehabilitation along the lines of: 'We can't be antisemitic! Look, we love Israel!'
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
Indeed. An added twist in the US is that there, the repression is happening in the name of “stopping antisemitism”, so that all the blame for it can be deflected to a minority, the jews. In Israel the motivation is ”security” for the majority.. and lots of people buy it.
Largest protest against Hamas erupted in northern Gaza since the war started, and after the death toll surpassed 50,000, with no end in sight.
www.cnn.com/2025/03/25/m...
Great to see this paper out, congrats!
When will political and other leaders in Europe understand that when they are ”supporting Israel” they are not supporting the people?
It's going to be high stakes drama in Israel for the next two weeks. Either the government is able to consolidate power - and transform Israel's constitution - or it is forced into retreat and early elections. There are compromise middle paths but they seem less likely.
1/
”Man får inte missförstå oss och tro att vi är ett slags mellangrupp som inte väljer sida, vi är väldigt ideologiska och vi väljer sida. Den sida vi väljer är frihet för palestinier och judiska israeler, fred för båda folken. Samtidigt måste vi erkänna den ojämlika maktbalansen.”
🧵6/6
Arab-Jewish partnership movement Standing Together said: "Halting the entry of food and medicine does not hurt Hamas, but rather the civilian populations, and as we heard from the hostages that came back alive – it hurts them too"
”I recognized that we were likely witnessing a blueprint for how to dismantle an agency — and USAID was the first to go. Why USAID? One argument is that the advantages of USAID aren't seen by most of America.”
"Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive"
A new report from HRW
www.hrw.org/news/2024/12...
A collection of scenes from this movie about when Robin Hood and his gang first steal the gold and then bring back the ”tax refund” to the people is part of a Swedish Xmas tradition, a show that like half of he population see every year..
Right. I’ve seen others writing that too about how non political tweets would get targeted. I have to admit I’ve hardly been on twitter for over a year now so I guess I missed some of that development. Hope it will work out better here!
Yea there is a mismatch, although I don’t think it’s as simple as being a left/right issue or divide. The tendency to shut down discourse is contagious.
