Visit https://margin-of-error-arshade.zocomputer.io/ for all of the latest articles, information, and more! Welcome to the first issue of Margin of Error — a newsletter about economics, law, and the messy space where they meet. The name is deliberately chosen. In statistics, the margin of error captures the uncertainty around an estimate. In argument, it is the zone between "I am probably right" and "I am certain." I find that zone more interesting than the certainty on either side. Most of the important questions in policy, law, and social science live there. What this isShort-form writing on things I find interesting. Mostly economics and law, sometimes the intersection with technology or global affairs. Occasionally something more personal. The format will vary. Some issues will be a single essay. Some will be links with short commentary. I am not committing to a fixed schedule — I would rather write less and write well than publish on a cadence. What I am thinking about this weekSectoral employment in India. I have been working through the Periodic Labour Force Survey data, trying to understand how employment has shifted across sectors, regions, and genders over the last decade. A few things are already striking: the informal sector is much more persistent than official narratives suggest, and the gender gaps are not narrowing uniformly. More on this when I have something worth saying. The access-to-justice measurement problem. See this issue's companion piece on the main site. Courts track outcomes. They do not track who could not afford to get through the door. That asymmetry in measurement is doing a lot of quiet damage to accountability. Tariff politics, again. The latest round of US trade announcements is a useful reminder that trade policy is never purely about economics. It is about which industries have political power, which constituencies need to be held, and which adversaries need to be signalled at. The economic models are inputs, not outputs, in that process. Thanks for reading. More soon. — Arin |
Issue #1: Welcome to Margin of Error
Visit https://margin-of-error-arshade.zocomputer.io/ for all of the latest articles, information, and more! Welcome to the first issue of Margin of Error — a newsletter about economics, law, and the messy space where they meet. The name is deliberately chosen. In statistics, the margin of error captures the uncertainty around an estimate. In argument, it is the zone between "I am probably right" and "I am certain." I find that zone more interesting than the certainty on either side. Most of the important questions in policy, law, and social science live there. What this isShort-form writing on things I find interesting. Mostly economics and law, sometimes the intersection with technology or global affairs. Occasionally something more personal. The format will vary. Some issues will be a single essay. Some will be links with short commentary. I am not committing to a fixed schedule — I would rather write less and write well than publish on a cadence. What I am thinking about this weekSectoral employment in India. I have been working through the Periodic Labour Force Survey data, trying to understand how employment has shifted across sectors, regions, and genders over the last decade. A few things are already striking: the informal sector is much more persistent than official narratives suggest, and the gender gaps are not narrowing uniformly. More on this when I have something worth saying. The access-to-justice measurement problem. See this issue's companion piece on the main site. Courts track outcomes. They do not track who could not afford to get through the door. That asymmetry in measurement is doing a lot of quiet damage to accountability. Tariff politics, again. The latest round of US trade announcements is a useful reminder that trade policy is never purely about economics. It is about which industries have political power, which constituencies need to be held, and which adversaries need to be signalled at. The economic models are inputs, not outputs, in that process. Thanks for reading. More soon. — Arin |