#AcademicRunPlaylist - 7/24/25

Author

Ben Waber
July 24, 2025

A selfie of me in front of Japan's National Stadium in the early evening. Five levels of increasingly vertically angled wooden slats mark out the different tiers of the arena, with large columns angled inward to prop up the final level. Greenery peaks out from atop all but the first and final tier. The first level is white concrete with cylindrical columns. Behind me is a stone statue of a man sitting on a rock atop a concrete block pedestal. To the right is a small tree. I'm a bald, middle-aged, white man with a red beard flecked with white. I'm wearing glasses with thick black rims and a dark blue New Balance running shirt.

I had a great day zipping around with David Barrett on his whirlwind swing through Tokyo, and later while going for my evening run I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a fantastic conversation between friends of the playlist Ann Lipton and Michael Levin on Paramount's recent shady dealings and Caremark violations and Cracker Barrel's fascinating advance notice bylaws on the Shareholder Primacy podcast. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXImCTKB1mA

Next was the final day of the National Bureau of Economic Research labor studies conference. I especially liked the talk by Jason Sockin on interview difficulty and new hire job satisfaction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqfFBE5uct0

Next was the NBER gender in the economy conference. I particularly liked the talk by Raquel Fernández on economic incentives and cultural change around parental leave (unfortunately the first few minutes are muted)

Next was the NBER symposium on the economics of social security, with a notable talk by Anders Humlum on reskilling and resilience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fu-Jss9mYQ

Next was a pair of talks by Nathan Atkinson (profitable misconduct) and Elena Prager (collusion through common leadership - highly recommend) at NBER. Prager convincingly shows that appointing someone to a board who's simultaneously an executive at a company competing in an overlapping labor market is an extremely strong signal of collusion https://www.youtube.com/live/xWnE1Vqiryk?si=yuRXZpEeZNY10V0O&t=16048

Last was an excellent talk by Jillian Grennan on the innovation and workforce effects of introducing a fair patenting mentoring program in a large tech company https://www.youtube.com/live/gXoqp7I4hUg?si=ZAZ9ieZDM8yNRtJx&t=12491