Prof @HWUEconomics , interested in #econhist, #landreform, #microfinance, #sustainabledevelopment, #health, #nufc & #Seinfeld (not necessarily in that order)
Edinburgh, Scotland
Joined September 2012
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eoinaldo retweeted
What history tells us about the closure of vital waterways. Disputes over the Suez Canal in 1956 and the Strait of Hormuz 60 years later show geopolitical power is often no match for economic power, writes @eoinaldo @HWUEconomics @Researchirel rte.ie/brainstorm/2026/1015/…
eoinaldo retweeted
Congratulations to Panmure House Fellow Professor Eoin McLaughlin on the launch of his new book, "The Inclusive Wealth of Nations: Prosperity, Sustainability, and the Future of Economic Progress".
Professor McLaughlin was joined by @ProfGraemeRoy, Vice Principal and Head of the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow, for a fireside chat attended by a sold-out audience.
The evening concluded with an engaging Q&A session, giving audience members the opportunity to explore the book's ideas and implications in greater depth.
To learn more about The Inclusive Wealth of Nations or purchase a copy, visit: bloomsbury.com/uk/inclusive-…
eoinaldo retweeted
How loan funds helped Ireland deal with effects of Industrial Revolution. By the 1840s, Ireland had one of the densest networks of microfinance institutions in the world to help people adapt to economic change, writes @eoinaldo @HWUEconomics @Researchirel rte.ie/brainstorm/2026/0626/…
eoinaldo retweeted
Is Europe falling behind the US on productivity? The Krugman vs Aghion–Bergeaud–Garicano debate hinges on one choice: current vs constant PPPs. A new note maps the gap behind it — all 27 EU states, two data sources — and what it does and doesn't settle. 🧵
eoinaldo retweeted
When AI first arrived on the scene, I worried it would make economists, or even critical thinkers more broadly, less valuable. In my travels in the past 6 months to work with non-profits, for profits, and government agencies, I have observed how people are actually using AI. I have watched them fumble around with insights they clearly did not create themselves.
My fears are now assuaged. One observation is that AI can produce something that in some cases is very wrong and in others looks nearly right, but is not quite there. Even if in time AI improves to "nearly right" or "exactly right" every time, a second issue still arises: explaining the materials.
Explaining why an answer is almost correct but subtly off requires exactly the critical thinking skills that created the knowledge in the first place. Even explaining "exactly right" material takes critical thinking. I've watched smart people confidently present AI-generated material they clearly don't fully understand. The words sound right. But when someone pushes back just a little bit, the sand castle crumbles.
It is quite difficult to defend what you didn't build. This leads me to now make the optimistic case for human expertise. The value of deeply understanding something — of having built the knowledge yourself — hasn't diminished with AI. If anything, it's increased. The people who can tell the difference between "nearly right" and "right" are more valuable than ever. The people who can explain the subtle details about something that is exactly right are invaluable.
Creating knowledge still matters. Maybe now more than ever.
eoinaldo retweeted
Most read on #RTEBrainstorm: how the growth in eviction notices is quite revealing when viewed against Ireland's historical record, write @eoinaldo @HWUEconomics @HeriotWattUni @Researchirel & Richard McMahon @MICLimerick rte.ie/brainstorm/2026/0205/…
eoinaldo retweeted
'We're seeing eviction rates not seen in Ireland since the 1850s'. The growth in eviction notices is quite revealing viewed against Ireland's historical record, write @eoinaldo @HWUEconomics @HeriotWattUni @Researchirel & Richard McMahon @MICLimerick rte.ie/brainstorm/2026/0205/…
eoinaldo retweeted
In 2019, Fiona Hill testified that the Russian government was “signaling very strongly that they wanted to somehow make some very strange swap agreement between Venezuela and Ukraine.” (Search: Venezuela) i.e. we get Venezuela, they get Ukraine.
s3.documentcloud.org/documen…
eoinaldo retweeted
On the 18th and 19th of June 2026, the Public University of Navarre (Spain) will host a #FRESH meeting on "Energy, Sustainability, and Economic History"
Keynote lecture by Henry Willebald (@HWillebald )
Local organizer: Cristián Ducoing
More details below:
eoinaldo retweeted
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth” with one half to Mokyr “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress” and the other half jointly to Aghion and Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”
#NobelPrize
eoinaldo retweeted
Two graduate students and myself (both are on market this year — hire them) found a way to test the doughnut model and … very simply … it explains nothing. It yields NONE of its predictions.
See here : papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
Forgive me for saying something that many will find heretical, but I think this work is really just a few powerpoint slides written in academese for activists, and most certainly didn't deserve to be published in the world's top scientific journal nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
eoinaldo retweeted
Days in a work week: 5
Days in a month: 30
Total new submissions to arXiv in September: 26,646
arXiv editorial and user support staff: 7
someone who is good at science please help me with this. our team isn't sleeping.
#openaccess #preprints
eoinaldo retweeted
I’m the author of the paper @grok describes here. It’s among the most read and cited articles on psychotherapy outcome—required reading in grad programs around the world
Grok gets literally everything wrong
The paper shows psychodynamic therapy is as or more effective than CBT. Grok says the exact opposite
The title of the paper is literally, “The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy.”
The effect size for psychodynamic therapy for the major study in the paper was .97. Grok says it’s 33. The number .33 does not appear anywhere in the paper.
AI seems to know everything—until it’s a topic where you have first-hand knowledge
(original paper below👇)
eoinaldo retweeted
How changes in height show health effects of the Famine. Research by @eoinaldo @HWUEconomics @Researchirel & @ClioChris @QUBelfast shows how the long‑term health impacts of the Great Irish Famine varied by region & socioeconomic conditions rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0807/…
eoinaldo retweeted
"The Bull Market for Economists Is Over. It’s an Ominous Sign for the Economy." - NYT
If your neighbor can't find a job, it's a recession.
If you can't find a job, it’s a depression.
If economists can't find jobs, it’s the end of work as we know it.
eoinaldo retweeted
Today I learned that in 1944, the UK had a working population of 24m against a total of 48m, and today has a working population of 28m against a total of 69m.
In the 80 intervening years, worker productivity growth has exceeded 2% per year, on average, for a total of over 5x. GDP per capita has increased from £8000 to £40000.
In 1944, the UK produced more than 26000 aircraft, in addition to a similar sized production effort on other war machinery, ultimately crushing the Nazi war machine.
In 2025, the UK has no globally competitive manufacturing, an ongoing energy crisis, an economy that has stagnated for nearly 20 years, almost no primary industry (coal, steel, aluminum, plastics, chemicals...), no major software or computer businesses (despite being the place where the first programmable computers were invented), etc.
How can 5x higher productivity, much better technology, much higher population, access to global markets, and the absence of a desperate shooting war *still* result in going backwards?
eoinaldo retweeted
The US has bombed Fordow. It has very likely used enough force to significantly damage, if not destroy, the enrichment facility.
We likely won't know for quite some time. It's possible we may never know, as that will be a big part of Iran's response. 1/
eoinaldo retweeted
So I went to see Spike Milligan's gravestone recently, to see for myself the "I told you I was ill" epitaph.
Bright sunny day, slightly faded inscription, couldn't see it. Walked away somewhat disgruntled, another bloody urban myth I thought.
5 minutes later had a thought, had to walk back again, fool, there it was "Dúirt mé leat go mé breoite," which of course is Irish for "I told you I was ill. Who knew.
eoinaldo retweeted
"Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance." However worried you were about the impact of AI on education, you weren't worried enough.
