Writing

Destruction, Policy, and the Evolving Consequences of Washington, DC’s 1968 Civil Disturbance — The Review of Economics and Statistics, with Leah Brooks and Jonathan Rose. We describe and analyze what happened to DC’s 14th Street, Shaw, and H Street retail corridors in the decades that followed the riots after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. (Ungated working paper.)

Intergovernmental Grants to School Districts and Educational Outcomes During the COVID-19 Pandemic — NBER Working Paper, with Jeffrey Clemens and Philip Hoxie. The federal government sent school districts a very large amount of pandemic aid. We evaluate its impact on schools with district poverty shares near 5% and find that the aid crowded out local revenue and did not mitigate learning losses.

A Smaller Labor Force Means a Smaller Economy — The Dispatch. An analysis of the macroeconomic consequences of low fertility and falling immigration.

This Is Your Economy on Tariffs — Home of the Brave. An update on the state of US tariff policy and some suggestions for improvement.

Media

I told Joe Kelly of The Australian that there has been “no rebirth of manufacturing in the heartland; how could there be, with extreme uncertainty over future policy and tariffs on industrial inputs? The main consequences of Trump’s second-term tariff policies have been chaos and disruption. American households have faced higher prices and businesses have seen their supply chains upended.” A belated happy Fourth!

Al Jazeera English, “This is America” — Harry Broadman and I discussed the USMCA renegotiation process (July 13).

Jessica Guynn quoted me in a USA Today article on the economic consequences of the administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Venezuelans (July 30).

Events

Filipe Campante and I taught a week-long mini-course on the politics and economics of the FIFA World Cup (July 13–17), as part of the AEI–Johns Hopkins Fellowship Exchange Program. No video, but we gave a lunch talk on the same topics for students in AEI’s Summer Honors Program, moderated by Shantanu Kamat. You can watch that here.

I moderated a panel on “Delivering Equitable Prosperity” at LibCon2026, the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism’s annual conference on liberalism in the 21st century (July 16–17), with Simon Johnson, Scott Lincicome, and Sonja Trauss. No video unfortunately.

The Center for American Progress hosted an event on immigration policy, featuring Senator Cortez Masto (D-NV), on July 29. I participated as a panelist. You can watch it here.

That’s all for July. Replies and feedback are welcome, as always.

— Stan

This is the June 2026 edition.

Writing

The Strange Logic of World Cup Ticket Prices — Foreign Policy, with Filipe Campante and Florian Ederer. We explain what drove FIFA World Cup ticket prices before the tournament started: host country fans, superstar players, and diaspora communities.

Does Immigration Lead to “Democratic Drain” and Illiberalism in Native Countries? — The UnPopulist. I review Justin Gest’s new book, mostly disagreeing with his argument that emigration weakens democracy in migrants’ countries of origin.

Immigration Policy and Labor Supply — Business Economics, with Anna Maria Mayda and Andrew Selee. This is the article version of a panel discussion at the 2026 NABE Economic Policy Conference. Anna Maria, Andrew, and I discuss how Trump administration changes to immigration policy have affected net migration and the labor market.

Media

Economics in One World Cup — More World Cup content, this time on the Cato Institute podcast, with Ryan Bourne. We talk about ticket prices, local economic impact, immigration, Passportgate, whether it will be coming home, etc.

Al Jazeera English, “This is America” — Ryan and I were also on Al Jazeera together recently, to talk about prediction markets.

I was quoted in Barron’s on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mullin v. Doe, which strips Temporary Protected Status from more than 350,000 immigrants. It is a “big blow for TPS beneficiaries from all countries, as their status (and with that their work authorization) is now either gone or extremely vulnerable.”

Events

The Future of International Tax Reform — I moderated the opening panel, on principles for international tax reform, at this two-day AEI conference (June 15-16) organized by Mindy Herzfeld and Kyle Pomerleau.

As part of AEI’s Summer Honors Program I taught a week-long seminar, “Across Borders: Navigating Globalization,” to undergraduates. Always a joy.

I spoke on trade policy and the transatlantic relationship at the 16th Transatlantic Think Tank Conference, hosted by the Hudson Institute (June 22–24), and hosted Roberto Viola, Director-General of the European Commission’s DG CONNECT, at AEI on June 26. No video footage sadly!

That’s June. Thanks for reading the first issue of Veugerity — feedback is very welcome!

— Stan