Max Thaning

Researchers often can't increase the size of their sample (e.g., due to research constraints). In my paper on sample size justification I discuss approaches to increase power without increasing the sample size (e.g., within designs, reducing variability) lakens.github.io/statistical_...

One of my empirical-work econ takes is that I think academia should be *more* open to publishing work based on best-we-can-do weak data, as long as there's really no other way to address the question and that work is very clear about what it can and can't actually say.

This paper finds that economists whose job market papers report (marginally) statistically significant results are more likely to secure academic jobs. Hiring committees prefer statistical significance; this creates incentives for researchers to p-hack.

📢 Call for Papers 3rd Workshop on Wealth Inequality, Economic Mobility & Labor Markets 📍 𝐖𝑼 Vienna | 🗓 19–20 Nov 2026 🗓 Submission deadline: June 30 🔗 Details & submission: wu.ac.at/ineq/ws26 #INEQ #CfP

🚨NEW PUBLICATION 🚨Household typologies in European surveys are biased against the reality of families in Southern and Eastern European countries. They mainly reflect family types that are more common in North-Western countries. This is problematic for European statistics, research and policy. 🧵

We have a new paper out in Sociology of Education @soceducation.bsky.social on Intergenerational educational mobility in Scandinavia and the United States. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Only this week left to apply!

Someone went to the trouble of creating 5 fake OSF accounts today, linking to 5 fake ORCID accounts, and generating 5 fake papers to submit to SocArXiv, with fake author and emails. Dude, if you are reading this, I hope you get the help you need (or a better job).

Nordic ESPAnet Early Career Seminar! Opportunity for Doctoral students and Postdocs to discuss their work, in an environment tailored to quality feedback. Organised at @sofi.su.se and keynotes by @cassandraengeman.bsky.social and @janhelmdag.bsky.social More info: espanet.org/nordic-semin...

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Min besvikelse över att framträdande Socialdemokrater inte högljutt protesterar (och ångrar beslutet) över att dessa utvisningar fortgår är monumental. special.aftonbladet.se/story/L40VBP

Explainers & tutorials are a great way to criticize current practices with a positive twist. Tailoring them to a specific substantive (!) subfield can greatly increase uptake. Forget about novelty; if some statistican said sth in the 70s but no one was around to hear it, say it again.>

Is social media dying? How much has Twitter changed as it became X? Which party now dominates the conversation? Using nationally representative ANES data from 2020 & 2024, I map how the U.S. social media landscape has transformed. Here are the key take-aways 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2510.25417

A widely held view is that the Gini coefficient is not decomposable by subgroups. This paper proposes an axiomatic framework that ensures well-behaved within and between-group terms under which the Gini is decomposable with a novel and unique formula. buff.ly/XdnzG6F

Big congratulations to @zethis.bsky.social, whose doctoral thesis has now been published! Outstanding work. And it is almost as thick as Tolstoy's War and Peace...

Indeed! Thanks to the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, Forte 🙏🏻 w/ @pengzell.bsky.social

Just FYI if you are not familiar with Academia, it is at least 50% this

Something to look forward to 🤩: www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...

Applications are open for our postdoctoral scholars program! These 2-year positions start in Aug. 2026 and are based at the GC CUNY Stone Center. One is focused on #mobility and #poverty, the other on #wealth and/or wealth inequality. Apply by Nov. 3! #EconSky #Sociology #PoliSciSky bit.ly/40TZR6J

🚨Multigroup Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition working paper out! Extending KBO decomposition for more than two groups by relating group prevalence and estimated coefficients to the sample average - as well as other juicy meth discussions 😎 Joint work together with @rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social

With the Inequality Cluster, Alex Ludwig (EUI Economics), Francis Vella (Georgetown U), and I organize a one-day conference on Social Mobility. www.eui.eu/events?id=58.... Looking forward to welcoming speakers @pengzell.bsky.social @xisong.bsky.social, Jo Blanden, Kjell Salvanes and Mikael Lindahl>

And the 1st Replication Award of the Academy of Sociology goes to.. Sergio Lo Iacono, Wojtek Przepiorka, Vincent Buskens, Rense Corten, Marcel van Assen, and Arnout van de Rijt for "The competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions revisited: A multilab replication" #AkadSoz25 #sociology 1/

Join us at INET Oxford (@inetoxford.bsky.social)! I'm hiring one post-doctoral researcher and three research assistants in the field of inequality, social policy, and social mobility to join our research team. Deadline: October 24. Read more and apply: www.inet.ox.ac.uk/vacancies

Just because an LLM can produce a report with various figures & charts doesn't mean it is good at statistics. Because good statistics is not about producing code. It's about deep knowledge of study design & conduct. In my opinion, 95% of all data science problems come from poor questions & design.

@ifau.bsky.social utlyser forskningsbidrag 2025! Ansök senast 15 september om medel för projekt inom arbetsmarknad eller utbildning. Totalt ca 5,6 miljoner kr delas ut. 👉 Läs mer och ansök: ifau.se/Forskningsbidrag #forskning #utbildning #arbetsmarknad #IFAU

Luxembourg is going to be unstoppable. The world better get ready for Bouneschlupp and Kniddelen

Job alert! Join us at @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social as a postdoctoral fellow to work on your own research for three years. #sociology

Soon to open offer for a *funded* PhD to study child poverty dynamics at @demosocupf.bsky.social @upf.edu If you have an interest in quantitative methods, social policy and child poverty this may be for you! Feel free to reach out for enquiries

You cannot be truly creative if it is not safe to fail. Yet modern academic science requires constant short term success. To survive, you must win grants & 'deliver' on those grants by publishing lots of papers. That leads to a culture of low risk, iterative research oversold as 'groundbreaking.

Voices from INEQ 🔊 "In bester Gesellschaft" is a podcast co-created by INEQ. In episode 6: Wealth @franziskadbacher.bsky.social joins the discussion. 🎧 Listen (in German): short.wu.ac.at/ineq_podcast_06 #INEQ

The winner of this year’s significant contribution award goes to The great separation: Top earner segregation at work in advanced capitalist economies O Godechot, et al American Journal of Sociology 130 (2), 439-495, 2024 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

It was such an honor to receive this award from @isa-rc28.bsky.social on behalf of @oliviergodechot.bsky.social and other coauthors.

The families in households typology In this new paper from the @reusilience.bsky.social project, we improve standard family-type variables in EU-SILC By @bartovalzbeta.bsky.social, @thaning.bsky.social, @wvlancker.bsky.social and @rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Final conference of rEUsilience and this is (parts of) the wonderful crew - here w/ miami vice flair. Thx for a great journey! @rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social @wvlancker.bsky.social @abrarbawati.bsky.social @amatysiak.bsky.social @cofaceeu.bsky.social and analog 📷 by great @merveuzunalioglu.bsky.social

I asked Chatbox AI for a graph: trends by political party in their attention for educational expansion (with a more elaborate instruction). This is what came out.😱

Tech bros pitching machine learning over "conventional stats" be like

🧵1/4 🚨 We have finalized our DID textbook! You’ve run out of excuses for sketchy pre-trends and mysterious TWFE coefficients. 📘 Credible Answers to Hard Questions: Differences-in-Differences for Natural Experiments By Chaisemartin & D’Haultfœuille. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Interested in doing a PhD at the Institute for Analytical Sociology @iasliu.bsky.social? Look no further: 1-2 fully funded PhD positions now available!

The need and capacity for resilience in European labour markets: an inequalities in resilience framework New @reusilience.bsky.social working paper by @rnieuwenhuis.bsky.social, @thaning.bsky.social, @bartovalzbeta.bsky.social and Lovisa Backman. reusilience.eu/publications...

Why do social class and income still stick together after 100 years? @thaning.bsky.social has the Swedish data – and the answers. June 24, 12:15 Hosted by @fabianpfeffer.bsky.social Because meritocracy is more of a vibe than a reality. #isimunich #sociology #inequality #lmu

Academia will form these little pockets -- people whose theorizing is outrageous & supported by methods outdated since the 90s -- but once it reaches a critical size those people just review each others papers & grants, form societies, hand out awards etc, like a self-contained parallel society.

👇🏻 @martinhallsten.bsky.social 🤘

What we know and do not know about social mobility https://osf.io/uznr6 This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the field of social mobility research, examining both class/occupational mobility and income mobility. It traces the historical development of sociological and econom #sociology

This is a brutal report on the status of non-EU international PhD students in Sweden. Due to a wave of anti-immigration policies, the Migration Authority is slow, opaque, and inconsistent adding massive burdens to non-EU PhD students' lives. universitetslararen.se/2025/05/08/i...

🚨 REPLICATION REPORT UPDATE: One year ago, a tweet by John Holbein alerted me, @ollefolke.bsky.social, and @jopieboy.bsky.social to a paper with a shocking result about Sweden’s law criminalizing the purchase of sex.🧵