Today was a nice end to a busy but fulfilling work week, and while getting out in the early evening I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was the second day of the NBER innovations in measuring employment symposium. I particularly liked the panel on standardization and expansion of employment and wage records with Erica L. Groshen, Julie Hatch, Chris Kurz, and Frank Fiorille https://www.youtube.com/live/aXOe_NS3iVo?is=a1xHsNxGuqiE3nfp

Last was “Haiti: The Aftershocks of History” by Laurent Dubois. This is an impressive dive into the history of Haiti, starting with its colonization and continuing to the early 21st century. Dubois paints a rich, insightful picture of its formative period of independence, its devolution into civil war, occupation and looting by the US, and the shaky post occupation period, laying out the casual threads between these different eras and how they influenced the current state of the nation. What emerges is how many different paths could have been taken, particularly by colonial powers in dealing with Haiti, and how they almost always chose the most extractive, damaging relationship. This not only comes from the now well known usurious, morally repugnant reparations payment TO France, but also from how the US literally stole all of the gold from the Haitian central bank and then proceeded to rule the country for 20 years (which I was never taught as a kid). As the title says, these aftershocks continue to reverberate today, and that makes it all the more important for us to learn that history. Highly recommend https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250002365/haititheaftershocksofhist

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