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Pawel Langer
Personal blog · nominalnews.comeconomicspolitics
Pawel Langer writes Nominal News, a personal blog at nominalnews.com about economics and politics. Since 2024, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 63 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters cite this economics blog's posts on non-compete agreements, union spillover effects on non-union workers, and early childhood investment as supporting background for their own points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
PhD Economist translating the latest economic research into clear, policy‑relevant insights on current issues.
What Hacker News says?
One of the best decisions made. Non-competes are harmful and the problem they claim to solve can be resolved in other ways. Why economists are so critical of non-competes - https://www.nominalnews.com/p/to-compete-or-non-compete
Comment linking /p/to-compete-or-non-compete
on “FTC announces rule banning noncompetes”Submitted 'Your pay is still – not – going up too fast' as a story · 82 points
HN discussionCommon leadership, via the sharing of board members, significantly increased the likelihood that tech firms would not hire each others' workers. This form of 'no-poaching' may have had much bigger impacts on wage suppression: "It is worth noting that such collusion against workers may have costs beyond just the directly impacted workers in the high-tech sector. Wages and salaries of jobs in one industry can serve as…
Comment linking /p/competition-no-poaching-real-page
on “Collusion through Common Leadership [pdf]”Submitted Work Requirements – An Ineffective Policy as a story · 24 points
HN discussionSuch unionization also has significant spill-over effect on non-unionized workers, which improves their outcomes also ( https://www.nominalnews.com/p/unions-strike-action-and-the-e... ). It's good to see this shift as it also improves outcomes for consumers.
Comment linking /p/unions-strike-action-and-the-economy
on “Volkswagen workers vote overwhelmingly to join the UAW”Submitted Yes – Tariffs Have Increased Prices and Inflation in the US as a story · 14 points
HN discussionFinancial investment, nutrition and parental time investment have also shown significant impacts all forms of development ( https://www.nominalnews.com/p/early-child-investment-child-t... ). Discerning these impacts will always be difficult. Regardless, it appears that external factors do play a more an important role than maybe inherent ones.
Comment linking /p/early-child-investment-child-tax
on “Environment shapes emotional cognitive abilities more than genes”Submitted Republican Administration Fires Head of BLS After 'Bad' Jobs Report as a story · 6 points
HN discussionBossler, Chittka and Schank found that after the second minimum wage increase (from EUR to 10.45 to EUR 12.00), average wages of the people who were earning less than EUR 12 went up by 6%. Moreover, there was no noticeable reduction in employment. There was however a slight reduction in hours worked – impacted individuals worked 1% fewer hours, meaning their overall monthly wages went up only by 5% on average. Thus,…
Comment linking /p/minimum-wages-employment-benefits
on “A 22 percent increase in the German minimum wage: nothing crazy”Submitted The Federal Reserve Is Right as a story · 6 points
HN discussion"Are early stage investors and venture capitalists better than an algorithm? This paper suggests that the answer to that question is ‘no’. Although venture capitalists outperform the broad stock market quite significantly, most of this overperformance is driven by only a subset of their investments. An algorithm can prune out the investments that are ‘predictably bad’. This increases returns by approximately 7–41%,…
Comment linking /p/new-research-highlights-december
on “Predictably Bad Investments: Evidence from Venture Capitalists”Submitted Is the US Supreme Court Biased Towards the Rich? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionWhy economists are so critical of non-competes - https://www.nominalnews.com/p/to-compete-or-non-compete
Comment linking /p/to-compete-or-non-compete
on “The FTC has banned noncompete agreements”Submitted Alternatives to Police – Do They Work? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionA firm that goes from having about half of their H-1B applications succeeding to winning all of their H-1B applications (firms on average apply for 2.5 H-1B visas in a given year): - sees a 4.5 percentage point (10% more likely) increase in getting venture capital funding; - sees a 1.5 percentage point (20% more likely) increase in going public (IPOing on the stock market); - sees the number of patents increase by 4…
Comment linking /p/h-1bs-immigrants-with-degrees-spur
on “H-1B Lottery Outcomes and Entrepreneurial Success”Submitted High Skilled Immigration – The Economic Benefits of the H-1B Visa as a story · 4 points
HN discussionCollege-educated immigration is often considered to reduce local job-hiring and push down wages. It appears, however, that an additional H-1B lottery win increases both immigrant and local employment. Moreover, immigration reduces offshoring, increases patenting and increases venture capital investments. To read more: https://www.nominalnews.com/p/h-1bs-immigrants-with-degrees-... ("H-1Bs – Immigrants with Degrees S…
Comment linking /p/h-1bs-immigrants-with-degrees-spur
on “The Impact of Immigration on Firms and Workers: Insights from the H-1B Lottery”Submitted Unemployment Benefits Boost Growth as a story · 4 points
HN discussionFenizia and Kirchmaier (2025) (“FK”) studied the impacts of working from home by public sector employees. Workers assigned to work from home end up recording about 9%-10% more cases compared to workers in the office. To read more details on this study: https://www.nominalnews.com/p/wfh-hybrid-productivity
Comment linking /p/wfh-hybrid-productivity
on “Not Incentivized yet Efficient: Working from Home in the Public Sector”Submitted One Year Since "Liberation Day" Tariffs– The Economists Were Right as a story · 4 points
HN discussionDo the extra years of schooling at college increase people’s skills or is college just an expensive signal? The study by Arteaga (2018) suggests it’s the former. After reducing the required coursework at a university, wages of graduates fell by approximately 15%. Here is the link to the write-up of this article - https://www.nominalnews.com/p/higher-education-is-it-worth-i...
Comment linking /p/higher-education-is-it-worth-it-signal-skill
on “Is College Signaling or Human Capital Appreciation”Submitted Something is rotten in the state of Economics as a story · 4 points
HN discussionUsing entry of Starbucks cafes into neighborhoods, researches found that the creation of third places leads to increased business formation. Overview of the paper and the methods here - https://www.nominalnews.com/p/coffee-entrepreneurship-innova...
Comment linking /p/coffee-entrepreneurship-innovation-starbucks
on “Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés”Submitted A Tax by Any Other Name: Equity Stakes, Tariffs, Government Debt as a story · 4 points
HN discussionClemens, Lewis and Postel (2018) (“CLP”) looked at the impacts of the termination of the Bracero Agreement. The original reasoning for cancelling the Bracero Agreement was to improve wages of US citizens in the agriculture sector, especially in states that had a high number of immigrants from Mexico under the Bracero Agreement. CLP found that there was no change in real wages for citizens after the agreement was ter…
Comment linking /p/h-2b-immigrants-economic-growth
on “Immigration Restrictions as Active Labor Market Policy”Submitted Why Import Tariffs Are Identical to Export Taxes as a story · 4 points
HN discussionIn 2018, the US Supreme Court abolished the federal sports betting ban. Many states legalized sports betting soon after. So what has been the impact of sports betting legalization on household finances - did it impact saving or did it shift consumption around. The authors find that: 1.The legalization of sports betting has led to a reduction in net investment, with a $1 increase in sports betting reducing net invest…
Comment linking /p/sports-betting-investments-costs
on “Impact of Sports Betting Legalization on Household Finances”Submitted How the Internet Is Changing Economics as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted How AI Helps and Hampers Junior Workers as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Trump's Childhood Savings Accounts – A Flawed Policy as a story · 3 points
HN discussion