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Also in the post: how much detail belongs in an intro, why your results need an interpretation and not just a number, and why the introduction is the worst place in the paper for footnotes. Enjoy! deryugina.com/a-two-for-on...

How to improve contribution statements: "Doe et al. (2012) do X, we do Y" isn't a contribution until you say why Y matters. And build your case on what you accomplish, not on what earlier papers failed to do. "We extend…" and "We are the first to…" read better than "Prior literature has failed to…"

Another mistake: Research q's like "Does air pollution affect human health?" is easy for a referee to dismiss: everyone already believes the answer is yes. Fix such issues by making the question quantitative ("how much?") or by briefly explaining why the answer isn't obvious.

A very common problem: taking too long to get to what the paper does (use the formula above to avoid this). Another common problem: stacking citations in the opening paragraphs. It makes the reader feel the question has already been answered, exactly when you need them to feel it hasn't.

The formula: ¶1 Big-picture motivation, with a clear statement of what we don't know ¶2 What the paper does ¶3 What it finds, in context ¶4+ Extensions, heterogeneity, mechanisms Then 1–2 ¶s on literature contributions, then a road map No cheating by making paragraphs enormous.

Writing a paper introduction is more art than science, but a good formula gets you most of the way there. Today's blog post: a paragraph-by-paragraph template that is used pretty commonly, plus the mistakes I see most often. 🧵 #EconSky deryugina.com/a-two-for-on...

It IS indeed time to crush Putin's war economy. Russia is not as resilient as it looks, and any resilience it has is not so much a show of its strength but of Western hesitance and myopia. time.com/article/2026...

Do you find it really difficult to keep track of the ridiculous amount of wrongdoing by the #Trump administration? Here's a handy reference to keep on hand, organized by type and severity (and updated monthly). ruleoflawfail.com

If you want to better understand how Russia's economy is doing (and what can be done to deny Putin means to continue waging his war), check out my latest policy brief for Economists for Ukraine! econ4ua.org/wp-content/u...

It IS indeed time to crush Putin's war economy. Russia is not as resilient as it looks, and any resilience it has is not so much a show of its strength but of Western hesitance and myopia. time.com/article/2026...

This video shows the deep impact of war on Ukraine in a fascinating way: some settlements are COVERED with drone fiber optic cables, and birds are now using them to weave nests. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCa2...

Do you find it really difficult to keep track of the ridiculous amount of wrongdoing by the #Trump administration? Here's a handy reference to keep on hand, organized by type and severity (and updated monthly). ruleoflawfail.com

This video shows the deep impact of war on Ukraine in a fascinating way: some settlements are COVERED with drone fiber optic cables, and birds are now using them to weave nests. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCa2...

They absolutely do, and it's not clear what it would take to have them rise up against Putin. But they don't need to actually rise up to end the war, Putin just needs to believe they might. And given his relative restraint with respect to the Russian population, I think it's doable.

1/3 New episode of #PolicyImplications with Jacob Kirkegaard. We discuss what Europe has actually built since 2022: the EU has become essential on money, sanctions, coordination, and long-term support for UA. But EU defence future increasingly runs through UA. Link: tinyurl.com/5hfs7u9p

Brilliant paper

A tool I hope someone creates: Assessment of how much a scholar overclaims in their papers when interpreting empirical results. Seems well within the skill set of AI, e.g., Refine. Useful for non-experts assessing evidence (especially working papers but even peer reviewed). + a deterrence effect.

Full brief here: econ4ua.org/policy-briefs/

I have a new policy brief on Russia's wartime economy (with Mariia Dzholos and Oleksii Shpanel-Yukhta. TL;DR: Russia can't sustain this war much longer without imposing substantial hardship on its population. Accompanying op-ed here: voxukraine.org/en/russia-s-...

Observational evidence can be deeply misleading in health settings. In our study of workplace wellness programs, RCT and observational analyses reached opposite conclusions, despite having access to rich administrative data. www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/u...