Max Nathan

@maxnathan.bsky.social

3382 Followers 590 Following

Professor of Economic Geography, UCL. Also CEP, IZA. Cities, economics, innovation, diversity, and public policy. Views here are mine, not those of UCL, funders, data providers, etc. https://max-nathan.github.io

Lewis Silkin announcing plans for Stevenage New Town in 1947. Boos, jeers, cries of ‘Dictator’ and ‘Gestapo’ from the hostile local audience
“several of the top five economics journals are already experimenting with Refine, an impressive AI-powered reviewing tool that scours economics papers for errors. Ben Golub, one of its creators, shared that even with papers that had been through referees at top journals, Refine was picking up problems in at least a third of cases.”
A hot cross bagel
LB Croydon switched to rules-based planning in 2019. Croydon then delivered more houses on new-build sites of 6-10 units than any other London borough since 2004.
The direction of innovation and work from home, Chungeun Yoon, new out in Research Policy
FT graph showing a drop in Oyster check-ins, and a rise in Overground, Crossrail and Lime bike use during last month’s tube strike
Graph of OECD data showing number of social rental dwellings as a % of total stock (2022 or latest year available, by selected countries). OECD average 7%, UK 16%.
A door where “FIRE EXIT” has been changed to “FIPE EXIT”
A crowd of Lime bikes, and a few Forest bikes, on a street in London WC1, stretching as far as the eye can see
Hounslow council in west London has de facto banned Lime from its streets, causing chaos on the borough’s boundaries as e-bike riders suddenly have to abandon their rides. The story was broken by local news reporter Dara Ó Briain, who had a previous career as a prominent comedian. It’s another example of the regulatory chaos surrounding the capital’s e-bike companies, with both Sadiq Khan and Transport for London largely powerless to regulate them, forcing councils doing it on an ultra-local level.
Table showing an IV regression of 1971 unskilled worker share (col 1) and 2020 log wages (col 2) on 1881 Herfindahl Index and employment. Units are urban settlements identified using a clustering procedure. IVs are predicted industrial concentration and land ownership fragmentation.
Graphs showing UK cities industrial concentration in 1881 versus share of unskilled workers in 1971 (panel a) and low wages in 2020 (panel b)
A screengrab of the profile charilzetheron 3864, who is following me
Ben Ansell’s article on “White British” discourse is correct.
A 1983 Conservative party election poster featuring a British Asian man in a suit. The tagline is: “Labour says he’s black. Tories say he’s British.“
Proposed NIH + NSF cancelled grants / budget cuts add up to $31.5bn. The EU Choose Europe fund is worth $571m.
Macron in Greenland wearing co-ordinated navy blue polo neck fleece, navy blue suit jacket and black hooded coat
Two time-series graphs comparing daily spend in pubs in London vs other big cities, 2019 vs 2024. Thursdays are now the most popular day for an after-work drink in London, but after-work socialising appears to be less popular post-pandemic in other large city centres outside of London.
Title of a new peer-reviewed paper; The city-wide effects of tolling downtown drivers: Evidence from London’s congestion charge, Ian Herzog, November 2024, Journal of Urban Economics
A map of Liverpool and Wirral showing average accessibility time, by foot, to a range of amenities. Mostly blue (15 mins or under).