About
Welcome to Nominal News!
My name is Pawel and I am an Economics Ph.D.
If you are interested in social or economic questions, then this newsletter is for you!
At Nominal News, I bring the latest economic research and academic rigor to current social questions and issues.
For example:
How will genAI impact the labor market? Should I be concerned about my job?
Can we bring manufacturing back by imposing tariffs?
Do men’s spousal preferences impact women’s wages?
All these questions (and more) have been answered to varying degrees by economists.
But I also don’t want to just give you answers to these questions – I want to share with you the tools I learned during my Ph.D. training that will enable you to answer many of these questions on your own. The world is constantly changing, so an answer that might have worked in the past may no longer be relevant today.
If you find this interesting, please consider subscribing!
Free Tier
As a Free Tier subscriber, here’s what you can expect:
• A weekly deep-dive on an economic or social topic posted on Monday;
• Always research-based analysis and discussion;
• No genAI written content (I think only when writing about an economics paper can one actually understand it);
• Beyond just economic results, I will also teach the underlying methods and economic thinking so that you can apply it to new situations – like policy proposals or business questions.
Below are a few example articles:
Paid Tier
As part of the Paid Tier, in addition to the above, you will receive:
Special edition articles ~twice a month, covering breaking economic developments, as they occur;
Audio coverage of certain deep dive articles to give further information and opinion on the topic covered;
Early access to my own data analyses;
Prioritizing responses to any questions about the weekly deep dives.
The Nominal News Mission
As a trained Ph.D. Economist, I have noticed that the field of economics generally does not attempt to analyze or discuss current issues in a holistic way. This is primarily driven by the fact that the economics field does not value this type of work, instead focusing on research of narrowly defined questions that can be examined in great detail. This type of research is very high quality, but usually takes years to publish. However, many issues around the world need to be addressed in a far shorter span of time. In these cases, the field usually chooses to remain silent, arguing that since this particular issue has not been studied, having a discussion or voicing an opinion is not academically valuable, as we cannot be 100% certain that the answer is correct.
Economists, however, have already studied a lot of different topics and generated many great insights. The field has also developed helpful frameworks to think about any societal issue. These frameworks and insights can be synthesized to discuss and evaluate possible outcomes of policy decisions on current economic issues in society.
Thus, in this Substack, I would like to share the tools and skills that I have acquired as a trained economist, and use them to discuss the various current economic issues facing us today. My focus is on the US economy, as that is where I am based, but I also discuss issues from around the world, if I believe my contribution is valuable. If there are any issues you would like me to address or any feedback, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
You can also follow Nominal News on Substack, Bluesky and Threads.
