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Noel Johnson

@ndjohnson.bsky.social

550 followers 150 following 290 posts

Professor of Economics at GMU. https://noeldjohnson.github.io

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Political science 39%

Economics 37%

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Reposted by Noel D. Johnson

Sascha O. Becker @essobecker.bsky.social · 1d

"No way I am going to retire. Even if my students are retiring, not me." ❤️

Alexander Wulfers @alexanderwulfers.com · 1d

"Bob Fogel said to me once: For economics to work without economic history is like an evolutionary biologist without paleontology. You just miss 99.5% of all the species that ever walked on this earth." Joel Mokyr www.youtube.com/live/__0sGvj...

LIVE: Nobel Prize in economics winner Joel Mokyr speaks

YouTube video by Reuters

www.youtube.com

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · 1d

Congrats to Joel Mokyr on the Nobel Prize. I'll take this opportunity highlight one of his less mentioned works: "Demand vs Supply in the Industrial Revolution". A great example of how to combine theory with history. tinyurl.com/yv8ed8mj

Dropbox

tinyurl.com

Reposted by Noel D. Johnson, Hisham Zerriffi

Mauricio Drelichman @mdrelichman.bsky.social · 1d

Elated at Joel Mokyr's Nobel Prize! You can find numerous accounts -now multiplying by the minute- of his scholarly contributions. Today I want to celebrate the man and the mentor.

Joel Mokyr at the 2011 conference in his honour at Northwestern.

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · 1d

The adds are for Colgate, Grinnell, and Bocconi in case you’re wondering.

Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · 1d

I just checked JOE and I count 3 adds for economic history positions (I’m not counting the “any fields”). There seems to be a bit of a gulf between what the Nobel committee is recognizing and what Econ departments think they should be doing.

Erik Angner @erikangner.com · 1d

That's like four economics awards in a row with a substantial economic-history component, right? That strikes me as a remarkable shift. www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists...

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Reposted by Noel D. Johnson

Pseudoerasmus @pseudoerasmus.bsky.social · 1d

Mokyr's work could not have been done today in most economics departments, but the irony is that his work would not fit in history departments today, either. Methodologically he seems more 'history' than 'economics' to economists, but the content and reasoning are too 'economics' for most historians

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Reposted by Mark D. White, Kris Inwood, Noel D. Johnson , and 1 more Mark D. White, Kris Inwood, Noel D. Johnson, Matthias Schmelzer

Erik Angner @erikangner.com · 1d

That's like four economics awards in a row with a substantial economic-history component, right? That strikes me as a remarkable shift. www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists...

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · 4d

Thanks for the heads up "K9 advantix II large dog". For use on dogs only. Got it.

Reposted by Mark D. White, Johan P. Olsen, Kevin Carey , and 7 more Mark D. White, Johan P. Olsen, Kevin Carey, Lesley Bartlett, Robert B. Reich, José Antonio Noguera, Noel D. Johnson, Simon Lester, Klaus Oschema, David Darmofal

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 5d

“I’ll declare war on you if you don’t give me the peace prize” is an incredible bit

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Reposted by Nuno Palma, Noel D. Johnson

Patrick Fitzsimmons @patrubenfitz.bsky.social · 8d

Was thrilled to write this for @broadstreetblog.bsky.social (which I recommend for anyone interested in historical political economy)

www.broadstreet.blog/p/blood-and-...

Blood and Iron: Political Fragmentation in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean

How new technology reshaped the political equilibrium of the early Iron Age through violence.

www.broadstreet.blog

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · 10d

Science marches on. Also, I’m not eating this.

Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 11d

Scientists revive old Bulgarian recipe to make yogurt with ants. Ants carry lactic and acetic acid bacteria that help coagulate milk, as well as formic acid to acidify it. They even partnered with Danish chefs to create three recipes using ant yogurt. arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Scientists revive old Bulgarian recipe to make yogurt with ants

Ants carry lactic and acetic acid bacteria that help coagulate milk, as well as formic acid to acidify it.

arstechnica.com

Reposted by Noel D. Johnson

Daniel Bergstresser @dbergstresser.bsky.social · 10d

questions mount

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Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis, Catherine J. Frieman, Noel D. Johnson

Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 11d

Scientists revive old Bulgarian recipe to make yogurt with ants

Ants carry lactic and acetic acid bacteria that help coagulate milk, as well as formic acid to acidify it.

arstechnica.com

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · 12d

Pierre Bourdieu was on to something… #theinheritors

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 12d

I was better informed than a lot of grad students about a lot of the hidden curriculum, but this stuff was *totally* invisible to me, and it took me years to see it and understand how important it was.

Are Skeie Hermansen @aresherman.bsky.social · 12d

• Children of PhD-educated parents are 28 times more likely to become professors than those whose parents only completed compulsory school.
• Children of professors are 11 times more likely to join the faculty than everyone else.

Reposted by Noel D. Johnson

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 12d

Are Skeie Hermansen @aresherman.bsky.social · 12d

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Reposted by Anna O. Law, Lisa W. Fazio, Jan W. Mueller , and 8 more Anna O. Law, Lisa W. Fazio, Jan W. Mueller, Linda J. Skitka, Fabián Muniesa, Jacob Montgomery, Robert Wolfe, Bessma Momani, Kate Starbird, Noel D. Johnson, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 12d

Somebody actually sat down and wrote these two sentences, one after another. www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/u...

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Reposted by Patrick Svensson, Noel D. Johnson

Guido Alfani @guidoalfani.bsky.social · 18d

The recording of the Tawney Lecture on "Economic Inequality and Social Mobility in Preindustrial Societies", which I had the honour to deliver in Glasgow last spring, is now online! Thanks
@echistsoc.bsky.social for inviting me.
ehs.org.uk/multimedia/t...

Tawney Lecture 2025: Economic inequality and social mobility in preindustrial societies - Economic History Society

ehs.org.uk

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Reposted by Noel D. Johnson

Melissa Thomasson @mthomasson.bsky.social · 18d

It’s always great to see that the world supply of soy (or virtually any other commodity) is indeed perfectly elastic. Gotta say that this tariff brought in a heap of revenue. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/b...

China Bought $12.6 Billion in U.S. Soybeans Last Year. Now, It’s $0.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Noel D. Johnson

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 20d

This is The Dumb Place.

Mike Stabile @mikestabile.bsky.social · 21d

Megyn Kelly has called on Etsy to burn the witches.

"You're playing with fire messing with this stuff. There are actually are demons in this world. Calling up the spirit world, in particular the devil's spirit world, can actually have real world consequences. It's not something to mess with!"

Screenshot of Megyn Kelly's Youtube channel

Video title: Megyn Kelly Reveals Erika Kirk Was Shaken By Jezebel's
Article About Placing a CURSE on Charlie Kirk

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Reposted by Noel D. Johnson

Pseudoerasmus @pseudoerasmus.bsky.social · 23d

From a new paper by @mjdcurtis.bsky.social, David de la Croix, et al. The Little Divergence in 'academic human capital' (kind of publications index) btw northern & southern Europe started ca 1500. Northern Germany diverged from central & southern German areas after the Thirty Years' War.

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · Sep 11

Working at the office today and somebody put the following out for free on the break room table. Nice try. I’ve been in this game long enough to know when some phd student in the experimental group is running a behavioral study.

Reposted by Noel D. Johnson

Pseudoerasmus @pseudoerasmus.bsky.social · Sep 11

I was going to tweet this last year but somehow I was impeded…

“When [economic] growth does, and does not, reduce poverty”

www.bii.co.uk/en/news-insi...

— A great literature review by a team including @paddycarter.bsky.social and @paulsegal.bsky.social

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · Sep 9

When your little cousin’s new bed looks more attractive than your old one…

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · Aug 26

Sometimes the Devil tempts you and you just have to force yourself to look away.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · Aug 24

Remembering today when pro-GOP media erupted with outrage over Kamala Harris' warning that Trump had plans to militarize the national guard and deploy them on the streets of US cities. Indeed, he had such plans. And now he's implementing them.

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Reposted by Diane Coyle, Garry Peterson, Charles West , and 4 more Diane Coyle, Garry Peterson, Charles West, Berk Özler, Caroline Fohlin, Noel D. Johnson, Ernst Langthaler

Pseudoerasmus @pseudoerasmus.bsky.social · Aug 20

There are several recent papers which could fall under the heading ‘Economic History of the Scientific Revolution’ but this network analysis tracing how scientific ideas diffused amongst scholars in the period 1084-1793 is a real milestone, an ‘epidemiological’ model of how ideas spread like disease

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · Aug 18

Speaking of jiu jitsu, this is world class trolling on the wikipedia page for BJJ:

Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · Aug 18

The good news is that my Wife need never worry again about me taking my wedding band off. The bad news is that jiu jitsu is still really difficult and my guard passing sucks (which is why I jammed my fingers into the mat really, really, hard).

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Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · Aug 18

I bought these two guys during COVID lockdown. Just transplanted them to bigger pots. Feels like a win for everybody.

Noel Johnson @ndjohnson.bsky.social · Aug 18

One thought I have when I read various hand wringing commentaries about Professors using AI to grade papers is that they’re being a little precious regarding the quality of human TA graders (let alone the grading of the professors themselves).