BC SOCIETY
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1/OK, I should really write another thread about university-centric regional development, because I think people often make some (very understandable) mistakes when thinking about this issue.

 2/The biggest myth, I think, is that universities help regions by educating locals as undergraduates.

Skeptics of universities say: "But most of the people who graduate end up leaving."
3/In fact, most of what a university does for a regional economy is NOT about educating local kids.

Educating local kids is good for the nation, but doesn't help a region much.

The way a university helps a region is through RESEARCH.

https://t.co/zud8wNQDTh
4/Undergraduates usually leave town after graduation.

But university RESEARCH pulls in OTHER smart people from other regions, and they stay there.

Here's a paper showing that this is the main way universities increase a region's human capital: https://t.co/ofu256tsFi
5/Research also pulls in business investment.

Companies want to partner with university labs, so they can commercialize the technologies the labs produce. So they invest in the labs, and sometimes they even put their offices in the town.
6/So should we be worried that college enrollment is dropping?
https://t.co/NiVzQVgn5I

Answer: A little bit. But mainly because this means less tuition money that can be used to fund university research labs.
7/Yes, it would be great if universities were allowed to admit more foreign students (who pay high tuition that can be used to fund research labs that draw in smart workers and business investment).

BUT, the most important thing is to fund research more!!
8/Myth #2 is the idea that a university only helps a region if it creates a new technology cluster - a "next Silicon Valley".

Critics of university-centric development like to point out that the probability of succeeding at this is very low.

But this doesn't really matter.
9/Universities help regions even when they don't become the "next Silicon Valley".

My hometown of College Station is no Silicon Valley. But College Station, and its surrounding region, are thriving thanks to a university.

https://t.co/2GduLv9SL5
10/Even a humble, non-prestigious university can help a declining region in real, important ways.

Beyond the research-and-investment thing I discussed earlier, universities also draw in residents from small towns, creating pleasant small cities.
https://t.co/2xqpKdMZUs
11/And even if a town doesn't become a tech cluster, universities can help local business, government, and nonprofit leaders plan local industrial development.

https://t.co/hYSbEKxeV8
12/Finally, Myth #3 is the idea that university-centric development needs prestigious universities like Harvard to build new branch campuses.

In fact, this is unlikely to be a useful approach. https://t.co/uxUcLHzmON
13/We already HAVE tons of universities and colleges in almost all regions of America.

What we have to do is UPGRADE the RESEARCH CAPABILITIES of the second- and third-tier universities.
14/How do we upgrade existing 2nd- and 3rd-tier universities?

1. By spending more research dollars there

2. By encouraging companies to partner with the labs there

3. By letting these universities admit more high-paying foreign students

4. A new land grant program?
15/To sum up, the three big myths of university-centric development are:

1. The myth that education is the main thing universities do for a town

2. The myth that universities need to create the "next Silicon Valley"

3. The myth that new branch campuses are the answer
16/University-centric regional development is about research. It's about drawing in businesses. It's about drawing in people and creating a pleasant, efficient city in a declining region. It's about coordinating leadership to boost local growth.

And it works.

(end)

More from Noah Smith

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1/Here is a thread about climate change that's going to make a lot of people mad.

Basically, America, on its own, has a LOT power to stop climate change than almost anyone admits.

2/China now emits far more CO2 than the U.S. It emits almost as much as Europe and the U.S. combined.


3/In fact, even this huge disparity dramatically understates the degree to which China is in the driver's seat of climate change.

China, being still much poorer than us, has much more room to grow its economy. Hence, the emissions gap will only grow larger.


4/This leads to an uncomfortable but unavoidable fact: The battle to halt climate change will be won or lost in China.

America's power - and thus, the power of American politicians, activists, businesses, etc. - to save the planet from climate catastrophe is very marginal.

5/This is just a fact. But it's an uncomfortable one for a people like Americans who are used to thinking that the world lives or dies at their command.

Thus, I see many Americans desperately trying to preserve the illusion of control with respect to climate change.
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Very interesting new report about how America's economic geography has changed since the great recession: https://t.co/l3YE4WzgKx

Short version: Places with lots of skilled workers are doing great, other places aren't. But more people are moving to the former, which is good.

And here are cool interactive maps to go along with the

Report is via @LettieriDC, who is doing great work on struggling places.

A bit of good news: People are moving from economically bad places to economically good places, though probably too slowly.


Rural America continues to languish.
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To me, the most important aspect of the 2018 midterms wasn't even about partisan control, but about democracy and voting rights. That's the real battle.

2/The good news: It's now an issue that everyone's talking about, and that everyone cares about.

3/More good news: Florida's proposition to give felons voting rights won. But it didn't just win - it won with substantial support from Republican voters.

That suggests there is still SOME grassroots support for democracy that transcends

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We seem to have accepted electoral dysfunction in Florida as a permanent thing. The 2000 election has never really
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3/And we've kept ramping this number up and up.


4/But the problem begins when PhDs start looking for (usually academic) jobs.

5/The U.S. built a ton of universities and then we stopped.

Professors have tenure.

That means there are just going to be fewer new tenure-track jobs than before. Everyone in academia already knows this well.
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Our first panel is about cryptocurrency! We have @matt_levine, @tylercowen, @eiaine, @nirkaissar, and Camilla

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Cowen: I'll bet on the payments companies over crypto.
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View the resolutions and voting results here:

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Israel and the U.S. voted 'No' https://t.co/HoO7oz0dwr


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Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No'
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(Thread👇) Tell us if you can relate to any of these? Do you have your own values that guide your decisions? Share them with us! ⛳

0. Coder != engineer

Coders focus just on writing code to make something work. Engineers take a much wider view, focusing on both the problem and every aspect of the solution. 🤓

1. “Import lib”

It's not wise to waste time building tools or libraries if there’s already something that does the same job! Wherever possible, extend existing libraries and contribute back to the community. 💁‍♀️

2. With great power comes greater responsibility

Every choice we make on our platform and every feature we build stands up to a responsibility — helping people make more data-driven decisions and bring about real change for millions of people. 💪

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A summary thread on the significance of AVA6000 - and #AVCT's pre CISION platform as a whole - to both the oncology industry and to AVCT itself. 1/10

In very basic terms, #AVCT's pre CISION chemotherapies are essentially reformulated versions of existing, approved chemotherapies that have been used on cancer patients for many years - decades, even.

The pre CISION tech is simply an attempt to improve the safety profile... 2/10

...of the chemo.

Most therapeutics going through clinical trials look for an improvement of at least 20% over the existing industry-standard drug. A 50% increase in efficacy would usually be considered an astonishing result.

In pre-clinical mouse models for #AVCT's AVA6000 3/10

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