M G Fikru

When Everyone Sounds Qualified, What Counts as Evidence?

AI makes it easier to write convincing résumés and college applications. The real challenge is differentiating what applicants claim from what they can…

Oct 22 • AI Wide Open and Mahelet G. Fikru

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Is AI Making Students Lazy Thinkers? Only When It Skips the Thinking Step

How I use AI as an economics professor, and the simple test I use to decide when AI helps learning and when it replaces it

Oct 9 • Mahelet G. Fikru

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The Age of Content Scarcity Is Over. Judgment Is What’s Scarce Now.

What my readers taught me about the one skill AI can’t supply, and why it should change how we teach and learn.

Oct 1 • Mahelet G. Fikru

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September 2026

Economists on Substack: A Living Directory of Named Economists Who Write in Public

Who they are, what they study, and where to read them — updated by an economist.

Sep 30 • Mahelet G. Fikru

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The U.S. Needs Better Rare Earth Policy Tools Than a National Champion Approach

The U.S.

Sep 17 • Mahelet G. Fikru and Bonnie L. Thorton

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August 2026

Let’s Do Classwork!

Free, interactive economics exercises on supply and demand, elasticity, cost curves, game theory, and environmental economics, plus a U.S. pollution…

Aug 26 • Mahelet G. Fikru

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AI in higher education: What institutions should do next

Universities trained faculty for online teaching. With AI, most didn't. Here's a 3-step framework for how higher education should actually respond.

Aug 10 • Mahelet G. Fikru

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July 2026

What the streets of Addis reveal about the fundamental questions of economics

Economics is not only found in models and data. It is visible in everyday life.

Jul 19 • Mahelet G. Fikru

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Reshoring Takes Different Forms, Each With Its Own Tradeoffs

There is growing discussion in the United States about reshoring: bringing manufacturing back home so that production occurs domestically and jobs…

Published on Decode Econ • Jul 17

Corporate profits linked to toxic industrial pollution

Companies with relatively many patents and more employees own facilities that tend to release lower proportions of their toxic waste into the…

Published on The Afternoon Story • Jul 10

My University Prepared Me for the Pandemic. Not for AI.

What I learned through three years of trial and error — and what other educators can use right now

Jul 3 • Mahelet G. Fikru

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June 2026

Virginia Gave Data Centers A Carrot. Now It's Reaching For The Stick.

A first-of-its-kind energy tax that raises $600 million per year in state revenue, and the question every economist is asking: is the stick big enough…

Jun 24 • Mahelet G. Fikru

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