Boycott the American Economic Association

Elites have failed the economics profession. Don't reward their incompetence by giving them any money.

I have never been a blogger who blogs about Covid, it just isn’t really my schtick.

I sat silently on the sidelines during the entire pandemic, happy to watch other bloggers fight each other over masks and vaccines. This week, however, was my breaking point, I guess, when I made the editorial decision to report on booster mandates at Western University:

The Democracy Fund @TDF_Can

Western University Hit With Lawsuit! karlstack.substack.com/p/western-univ… via @realChrisBrunet

karlstack.substack.comWestern University Hit With Lawsuit!a quick update on “Western University Goes Full Retard”

Just like booster-mandate-drama at Western boiled over into a lawsuit, booster-mandate-drama in the economics profession is reaching its own apogee.

The American Economic Association (AEA) just announced mandatory booster shots and N-95 masks for those who wish to attend their annual meeting in New Orleans on January 6-8, 2023.

ASSA 2023 isn’t just some random conference!

The reason ASSA is such a big deal is that economics professors have built themselves a centralized clearinghouse where the demand side and supply side of the Econ PhD labor market meets once per year, and every employer is supposed to play by standardized rules.

Candidates for tenure track jobs are interviewed at the ASSA meeting in January, after which successful candidates are invited to the “fly-out” stage of the interview.

Because of this system, which revolves around the annual ASSA meeting, the Econ PhD job market has historically worked better than essentially any other academic market in terms of match quality, speed, low cost, etc.

In January 2023, only woke economists will be allowed to attend ASSA.

“Woke” is a crude word, sure, but I think it is accurate since these are indeed woke political activists; Covid hasn’t been about “public health” for a long time now. Wake up.

The point of this booster mandate is to filter out non-woke economists from the economics profession. They aren’t doing this by accident. AEA leadership are slick, woke, conniving political operatives with extremally high-IQs — it seems like half of them eventually go on to win the econ Nobel prize. Don’t put it past these snakes to attempt to shape the future of the profession to their political liking… they probably even call their manipulation something autistic like “nudging.”

These neurotic freaks are sick in the head. Your medical autonomy is a joke to them — something to be gamified; a lever to pull; a knob to be twisted; a vice to be turned to inflict maximum control. Don’t let President-Elect of the AEA Susan Athey make your medical decisions for you, for she is no better qualified to dictate “Covid science” than any randomly chosen cashier at McDonalds.

Even a McDonald’s cashier can see what the AEA cannot: that the the mRNA injection doesn’t work. The booster shot does not stop transmission.

It’s really as simple as that, and everything else is noise.

The whole point of vaccine mandates is to stop transmission, but the vaccine doesn’t stop transmission.

Anyone who is still pushing booster mandates at this point is 100% brainwashed, their minds have been broken by cognitive dissonance because they can’t handle the failure. It’s amazing how hard it is for some people to accept failure. It’s like it just doesn’t compute. The vaccine has failed, and you are seeing its failure in real time. How many other vaccines do you know that require 5 doses to “function properly” and then don’t even function properly? When has that ever happened before?

How many boosters will it take? When will enough be enough?

Errol Webber @ErrolWebber

Double-vaxxed, double-boosted, double-masked Joe Biden just got double-COVID. Please explain that.

Justin Trudeau @JustinTrudeau

I’ve tested positive for COVID-19. I’ll be following public health guidelines and isolating. I feel okay, but that’s because I got my shots. So, if you haven’t, get vaccinated - and if you can, get boosted. Let’s protect our healthcare system, each other, and ourselves.

Worse than being useless, the booster may or may not make your heart explode.

Young doctors in Canada are dying at a rate 23X normal after the second booster

Exhaustive study of German mortality data finds excess deaths tightly correlated with mass vaccination

Do people under 30 die at above normal rates for weeks after mRNA injections?

KJ McCormick @MistaKJ

Cardiologist Who Mocked the Unvaxxed Suddenly Dies in His Sleep After 3rd COVID Jab - American Faith

americanfaith.comCardiologist Who Mocked the Unvaxxed Suddenly Dies in His Sleep After 3rd COVID Jab - American FaithA 52-year-old prominent New Brunswick cardiologist suddenly died in his sleep just two weeks after getting his 3rd Covid jab.

EJMR was the first place to grumble about AEA’s new booster mandates.

Following this EJMR grumbling, economists took to Twitter en masse.

Theodore Alysandratos @th_alys

The AEA mask and vaccine policy is great and I wish more conferences adopted it.

Alex Tabarrok @ATabarrok

The ASSA requirements on boosters mean that most of the US population is ineligible to attend the meetings.

marginalrevolution.com“Follow the science” - Marginal REVOLUTIONTo attend the 2023 ASSA Annual Meeting, all registrants will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and to have received at least one booster. High-quality masks (i.e., KN-95 or better) will be required in all indoor conference spaces. These requirements are planned for the well-being of all…

Jonathan W Williams 🇺🇲 @J2dubyas

@joshgans @tylercowen The AEA blew it, it's ok to say it. They had a very easy option, defer to local health officials on minimum standards. Then people can do anything they wanted in addition as an individual. It's just policy bizarrely detached from reality for 95% outside a few elite universities.

Wojtek Kopczuk 🇵🇱🇺🇦 @wwwojtekk

@m_urquiola Agreed. I supported mask mandates until we had widespread vaccination and I think private businesses (AEA too) should do as they please now. As a member though: setting rules for meetings that alienate a part of the profession because of their symbolism is a very big decision

Tony Yates🇺🇦🌻 @t0nyyates

The most important issue is moving the AEA permanently out of abortion- banning states (it’s in Louisiana this year) out of respect for female participants. If they don’t, boycott it so your female colleagues won’t feel pressured to attend.

Miguel Urquiola @m_urquiola

The AEA meeting emails contain a contradiction: “High-quality masks (KN-95 or better) will be required in all indoor spaces” AND “We anticipate that conditions will allow in-person presenters to remove their masks.” Beyond the ambiguity, this is a cause for concern. https://t.co/G27paKr5Ej

John B. Chilton 🇺🇦 @uaeeconomist

I don't get the whining about the mask requirement at the American Economic Association meeting. It's about making the best effort at lowering the risk for those who are immunocompromised at low cost to all other participants. But no, self-trivialize with whine whine whine.

Scott Kominers @skominers

@joshgans @tylercowen Interestingly, gaming and fandom-related events seem to have much stronger mask requirements than any other conference setting I'm aware of. In addition to Comic-Con, masks were required at SGDQ and also I think at Pokemon Worlds.

Gray Kimbrough @graykimbrough

I won't be attending ASSAs because AEA leadership has refused to consider shifting conference locations. Still, it blows me away that there exist economists who want to attend such a large indoor event but who are angry that they would be required to wear masks.

Jonathan W Williams 🇺🇲 @J2dubyas

🚨Democracy in danger🚨 "In Economics, in addition, the AEA meetings provided a valuable “democratic” venue." More seriously, ask folks at "lower-ranking" institutions, this decision is nothing more than a symptom of how unrepresentative the AEA is of our ENTIRE profession.

Miguel Urquiola @m_urquiola

The AEA meeting emails contain a contradiction: “High-quality masks (KN-95 or better) will be required in all indoor spaces” AND “We anticipate that conditions will allow in-person presenters to remove their masks.” Beyond the ambiguity, this is a cause for concern. https://t.co/G27paKr5Ej

Donald R. Davis @newyorkonomics

@m_urquiola Is it obvious that the number who stay home if masks are required exceeds the number who stay home if masks are not required? NBER SI this year had everyone masked in the presentation room except the speaker. Didn’t seem a great burden.

tylercowen @tylercowen

Mandatory N-95s for the AEA meetings? Really? Even most health care facilities not doing the same. Have they done a cost-benefit analysis? Taken a vote of members? Done a reality check?

marginalrevolution.bulletin.comUpdate Your Browser | Facebook

Jay Bhattacharya @DrJBhattacharya

Economists have one job - point out costs, even when unpopular. With rare exceptions, economists have failed at this during the pandemic. Many were cheered lockdowns. No surprise then that the economists' AEA annual meeting features useless COVID theater & mandatory boosters.

Claudia Sahm @Claudia_Sahm

really, @tylercowen. conference with more than 13,000 economists (yes, that's as wild as it sounds), with some who are almost certainly immunocompromised and the rest of us who would prefer not to go home sick with Covid.

Prof. A.W. Peet @ProfAWPeet

as an employee of @UofT, i have the right to refuse unsafe working conditions. and being in classrooms with people who are unmasked and potentially/actually Covid-19 positive is hellaciously unsafe.

Miguel Urquiola @m_urquiola

The AEA meeting emails contain a contradiction: “High-quality masks (KN-95 or better) will be required in all indoor spaces” AND “We anticipate that conditions will allow in-person presenters to remove their masks.” Beyond the ambiguity, this is a cause for concern.

Phil Magness @PhilWMagness

This is why I choose not to be a regular at the American Economic Association conference. We are 2.5 years into the pandemic, Covid is now endemic, the masking nonsense doesn't deliver what it claims to do, and none of these policies have a scientific basis behind them.

Jerry Dwyer @gpdwyer

I guess the American Economic Association hasn't gotten the message. They're hiding somewhere. For the AEA meetings in January, "High-quality masks (i.e., KN-95 or better) will be required in all indoor conference spaces."

James Broughel @JamesBroughel

I'm hopeful all this attention means we'll be able to take our masks off indoors at the ASSA event. It seems like we have enough evidence at this point to justify it. But I guess we'll have to wait to see if AEA backtracks.

Miguel Urquiola @m_urquiola

For a third year, the AEA has moved interviews online. Now it has a masking policy that detracts from the meeting experience and is stricter than that at any of its members’ workplaces. At some point, the AEA risks extinguishing one of its key activities.

Akhil Vohra @asv141

Is the mask mandate by AEA necessary? Probably not. Is it a big deal? No, it’s a freaking mask. Going to for sure rebel against meetings by *checks notes* not going to New Orleans for a weekend.

Robert Metcalfe @RDMetcalfe

I agree with @m_urquiola on the diminished relevance of the AEA meeting and with @cblatts on the lack of transparency of such an organization Loads of opportunities for researchers & orgs to create their own meetings.

Miguel Urquiola @m_urquiola

The AEA meeting emails contain a contradiction: “High-quality masks (KN-95 or better) will be required in all indoor spaces” AND “We anticipate that conditions will allow in-person presenters to remove their masks.” Beyond the ambiguity, this is a cause for concern. https://t.co/G27paKr5Ej

Federico Gavazzoni 🇺🇦 @fgavazzoni

IMHO, economists should be allowed to participate even if unvaccinated and without masks. (I received 3 shots, I wear a mask when required and, for what I have seen and read, I believe the effectiveness of masks in real life settings has been severely overstated.)

Finally, I will single out Toni Whited, arguably the most powerful person in the finance academy, because her “eugenics” take is the most histrionic of all.

Toni Whited 🇺🇦 😷 @toniwhited

@m_urquiola Catch 22, huh. If there's no mask requirement, then vulnerable people can't come at all. It seems very pro-eugenics to complain about a mask requirement that is aimed to protect valuable members of the economics profession with truly little inconvenience for everybody else.

Her tweet got its own EJMR thread:

Sad.

Toni Whited is the editor-in-chief for the Journal of Financial Economics (JFE), so I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to plug my article about JFE’s corruption.

2 Scandals at the Journal of Financial Economics

My advice to TW is to look at JF as an example for how to behave ethically.

Journal of Finance Withdraws Article Following Karlstack Investigation

Joshua Gans, a professor at the University of Toronto, wrote his own Substack article about mandates at ASSA:.

Economists, at conferences, wearing masks

His Substack article caused a whole twitter dustup of it’s own; and he seemed just a little *too* happy with himself for being featured on Marginal Revolution.

Joshua Gans @joshgans

Looks like I triggered a nerve with @tylercowen calling him and others whiners. He prefers pissed off. marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu… I guess I don’t really think the AEA leadership are equivalent to the CCP.

marginalrevolution.comA further Saturday link - Marginal REVOLUTION1. An AEA Covid response by Joshua Gans. He comes up with just one conference with a proper mask mandate, albeit a weaker and more subjective one than what the AEA is proposing. Even my hospital doesn’t do the same. He cites Comic Con San Diego, but subsequent, more recent Comic Con events don’t…

There is a reason Dr. Gans uses that cute little cartoon avatar to represent himself on Twitter.

I imagine this is what his soul looks like, too. A man's face is his autobiography.

It is worth speculating as to whether or not he wants to force everybody else to wear a mask because his own face is so off-putting — if he forces everyone else to wear a mask, he will be equal to them. It’s like a Harrison Bergeron*** thing, I think.

*** "Harrison Bergeron" is a satirical dystopian science-fiction short story by American writer Kurt Vonnegut, first published in October 1961. In the year 2081, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful.

All I am saying is that physiognomy matters. If Josh Gans were 6’3’’ with 11% bodyfat and a full head of hair, he would be vehemently against mask mandates.

Lost in all this is the idea of natural immunity. Most economists have already been infected with Covid once, if not multiple times.

An economist with the first 2 doses + natural immunity has stronger protection than an economist with 3 doses + no natural immunity. Yet the former is banned from the ASSA conference, while the latter is not, proving once again that these booster mandates are not about “health” or “science”; they are a purely political game.

Unboosted economists are not even offered the opportunity to obtain a booster waiver upon showing a positive antibody test, which is a policy that would at least make sense if you are going to implement booster mandates for health reasons. This lack of accommodation for natural immunity shows once again that this is all Kabuki theatre.

Finally, I would highlight An Open Letter to the Directors of the American Economic Association, which is copy-pasted blow in its entirety. “It makes me weep for my profession,” the letter starts:

The letter ends by signing off as the “Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism.”

“Free market capitalism”? Sounds like a right-wing extremist dog whistle to me. Better institute a 4th and 5th booster mandate at next year’s 2024 ASSA meeting to keep more chuds like this out of the profession, just to be safe. What will the chumps say — ‘yeah I took 3 boosters, but booster 4 is where I draw the line.’ Hah! Of course not. We’ve got them by the balls.

For the greater good, of course.

Disclose.tv @disclosetv

NOW - White House: "When you are not with what majority of Americans are, then you know, that is extreme. That is an extreme way of thinking."

Don’t you get it yet? Woke economists are literally godless communists. First they will seize what remains of the economics profession (like they seized sociology and political science), then after seizing economics they will seize the rest of academy. Then they will seize control of the means of production.

You can’t give these commies an inch, or they will take a mile. You must fight them tooth and nail on every little mask mandate, every little mandatory pronoun, every little censorship, and every little mandatory DEI training session. The long march through the institutions*** is very real, and they are winning.

*** The long march through the institutions (German: der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen) is a slogan coined by Communist student activist Rudi Dutschke around 1967 to describe his strategy for establishing the conditions for revolution: subverting society by infiltrating institutions such as the professions.

Boycott the AEA 2: Electric Boogaloo

Believe it or not, the booster scandal isn’t even the first big scandal to explode over the ASSA 2023 meeting. In June 2022, after Roe V. Wade was overturned, thousands of academic economists took to twitter with their hot takes.

Jennifer Doleac @jenniferdoleac

I’ve never gotten pregnant, but if I had there’s no doubt in my mind that I would have had an abortion. And I wouldn’t have felt even a little bit bad about it. I’m so grateful to have grown up and pursued my career + my full, child-free life with that safety net.

Joseph E. Stiglitz @JosephEStiglitz

Economic and political freedom starts with freedom over one’s own body. Devastated that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade. How can America expect to lead the free world as it makes another big step backward?

Prof Dynarski @dynarski

I grew up, went to college, dreamed, worked, travelled, loved, adventured, didn’t want kids, wanted kids, had kids, built a career I used birth control I had an abortion I had safe pregnancies, never fearing my doctors would hesitate to save my life I grieve for young women

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

This week we learned major details about an all-out GOP attempt to overturn a lost election and a GOP court essentially banned both abortion (yes, a national ban is coming) and gun control. So are the midterms really going to be about gas prices?

Arindrajit Dube @arindube

We will need a whole new Civil Rights movement. And it'll be for a broader set of rights. People like me, living in the (still) comfort of Blue states will need to sacrifice to make sure people everywhere in America have rights.

John Van Reenen @johnvanreenen

The consequences of banning abortion in the US buff.ly/38PkuZf An amicus brief filed with the court by economists is a good guide to this and other evidence

Kathryn Anne Edwards @keds_economist

One of the most important articles economists have written about abortion wasn't about abortion at all, it was about divorce. It used to be the case that in order to get divorced, you had to prove fault of one party, get the permission of both parties, or both. 2/

Following the initial outcry, a petition was circulated demanding that the American Economics Association (AEA) ban Republican states from hosting AEA conferences.

Here is the petition:

Steven N. Durlauf @sndurlauf

1/ This is a very important thread by @econhist_allday. The ASSA meetings should not be held in any state where a woman's health is endangered by anti-abortion legislation. As she notes, meetings should be withdrawn from Texas now and may need to be withdrawn from Louisiana.

Allison Shertzer @econhist_allday

A few women have reached out to me asking what in practice we should do about the ASSAs in Louisiana since travel decisions need to be made soon. I would like to propose a course of action for concerned economists. 1/n

Jennifer Doleac @jenniferdoleac

I reluctantly agree. I have been *really* looking forward to ASSA meetings in New Orleans & San Antonio, but many women worry that traveling to these states will put their health at risk (if they cannot get high-quality emergency care for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies).

Steven N. Durlauf @sndurlauf

1/The American Economic Association @AEAInformation, Econometric Society @econometricsoc and other professional associations must act to ensure that no one who is pregnant is obliged to travel to a location where their health or safety is endangered by antiabortion legislation

Observer @observer

A group of economists is asking the American Economic Association to relocate its upcoming annual meetings in light of state abortion bans that could affect attendees.

trib.alPressure is Building on Professional Groups to Pull Conventions From States With Abortion BansSome industry groups are being asked to move their annual meetings in light of state abortion bans that could affect attendees.

John Cochrane @JohnHCochrane

The Grumpy Economist: Letter to the AEA

johnhcochrane.blogspot.comLetter to the AEA

I have many issues with this petition, but my first thought is omg lol why they would boycott New Orleans over abortion? The city is like all democrat and all black, lmao. It doesn’t make any sense.

The Economics Profession is Systemically Racist and Sexist

The elites at the AEA are so out of touch. First they punish the city of New Orleans over abortion, then they make a stand in NOLA over vaccines despite the fact NOLA is probably the state that cares the least about Covid — only 23% of locals are boosted.

The abortion petition failed, thankfully, and the AEA refused to move the meeting from New Orleans. At least the economics association isn’t as captured as the political scientist association is… yet. The association of political scientists took their own brave stand against abortion in June 2022, displaying this on their website masthead:

The American Political Science Review Goes Woke

Conclusion

Registration for ASSA 2023 will open in 2 days from now, on September 6th.

There are thousands of economists reading this right now.

Don’t register for ASSA 2023, and don’t renew your AEA membership.

Make this their worst attended and shittiest conference ever.

Spend your research/travel budget elsewhere.

The future of the job market for Econ PhDs is increasingly decentralized.

The AEA is slowly dying.

Stop paying them patronage, and they will die quicker.

If you are a PhD student who just spent 6 years in grad school and needs to attend ASSA 2023 to get a job, I have sympathy for you. You shouldn’t boycott this conference. My serious advice is to go out and buy a fake vaxx card. If you are a grad student at the AEA, you are smart enough that you can figure out how to get a fake booster card. They aren’t that hard to find.