News

2026

JuneNew book chapter: “Culture and the Great Escape” — for the Handbook of Culture and Economic Behavior (Enke, Giuliano, Nunn & Wantchekon, eds.; Elsevier).
Keynote at the Computational Economic History Workshop in Vienna.
MayKeynote lecture at the NICEP conference in Nottingham.
Talk at NWU.
“Going Viral” now forthcoming in JEEA (with Caesmann, Caprettini, Yanagizawa-Drott).
AprilThe Economist features “Never Enough”.
Delivering the Griffin Lecture at U Melbourne.
MarchCoverage in VoxEU and The Spectator on “Never Enough” about status incentives and German fighter pilots.
AER Excellence in Reviewing Award.
Talk at UBC Vancouver.
FebruarySwiss AI research grant for 50,000 GPU hours.
JanuaryOut in AEJ: Applied: “Highway to Hitler” (with Nico Voigtländer).

2025

NovemberPresenting “Never Enough” (with Ewan Rawcliffe and Leo Bursztyn) at U Chicago Behavioral Economics Conference.
SeptemberPresenting “Legacy on Deck” (with Guo Xu) at U Chicago AI in Social Science Conference.
AugustTalks at the Econometric World Congress: “American Life Histories” and panel on publishing in economics.
MayTalk at the Brown Long-Run Growth Conference.
AprilPodcasts with Steve Davis and Tim Phillips on “American Life Histories”.
Talks at Harvard and BU.
MarchTalks in Utrecht, Stockholm, and Brown.
FebruaryTalk at the Econ Hist Group in Oxford.
Talk at EIEF, Rome.

2024

NovemberTalk at the PE Group in Oxford.
Talk at U Bocconi.
SeptemberPresenting “American Life Histories” at the Becker-Friedman Conference on AI in the Social Sciences.
JulyNBER-SI talk on “American Life Histories”.
JuneTalk at LUISS, Rome.

2023

MayTalks at U Chicago and NWU-Kellogg.
AprilPresentation on “Image(s)” at the NBER Cultural Economics Spring Meeting.
MarchSeminar at UNSW, Sydney.
Visiting Monash Business School in Melbourne.
JanuaryThe Economist features “Fighting for Growth” and “Slavery and the British Industrial Revolution”.
Keynote at the First Bolzano Workshop on Historical Economics.
Out in American Political Science Review: “Collective Remembrance and Private Choice” (with Vicky Fouka).
Out in Quarterly Journal of Economics: “New Deal, New Patriots” (with Bruno Caprettini).

2022

DecemberOut in Journal of Finance: “Financial Crises and Political Radicalization” (with Doerr, Gissler, Peydró).
OctoberOut in Review of Economic Studies: “Killer Incentives” (with Ager, Bursztyn, Leucht).
SeptemberElected Fellow of the Econometric Society.
JulyKeynote at ACES Summer School in London on “The End of the End of History”.
MayOut in Explorations in Economic History: “Sweet Diversity” (with Jonathan Hersh).

2021

SeptemberPodcast interview with Tim Phillips on “Going Viral”.
JulyDelivering the 2nd Annual Crafts Lecture at the Warwick Summer School.
Out in PNAS: “The Long Run Effects of Religious Persecution” (with Drelichman, Vidal-Robert).

2020

OctoberOut in American Economic Review: Insights: “Rage Against the Machines” (with Bruno Caprettini).
MarchThe Economist profiles my work on pandemics and economic growth.