Gordon Rausser Distinguished Chair, Dept of Ag & Resource Econ, UC Berkeley. 🇺🇲 NZ born and raised. 🇳🇿 Ag Data News blog: agdatanews.substack.com
Joined August 2019
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1,230 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
25 Nov 2024
Now at aaronsmithagecon.com
27 May 2020
I’ve created a new website that aims to make agricultural data easily accessible to researchers and the public. All graphs and maps are downloadable as images. asmith.ucdavis.edu (1/10)
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May 25
Hal White was a man before his time. He is chronically under appreciated. He wrote one of the most highly cited papers in the history of economics (White (1980)). Absolute lock for the Nobel if he had lived longer.
May 23
Xiaohong Chen (Yale) presented “Neural Networks for Economics: Theory & Inference”. Long before today’s AI boom, econometricians (Chen, White, and others) built foundations for neural nets as sieves. These tools are now crucial for NN-based estimation and inference in economics.
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May 25
ucsd ftw
May 23
Xiaohong Chen (Yale) presented “Neural Networks for Economics: Theory & Inference”. Long before today’s AI boom, econometricians (Chen, White, and others) built foundations for neural nets as sieves. These tools are now crucial for NN-based estimation and inference in economics.
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Aaron Smith retweeted
May 13
Nowadays, dystopically: Professor stands at the front of a dimly lit room and talks through slides projected onto a giant screen, occasionally writing on a whiteboard with pens that don’t work. A small number of students stare blankly at their laptops or phones.
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May 13
The old days, nostalgically: Professor stands at the front of the room and talks while writing feverishly on the chalkboard. Riveted students take detailed notes and ask incisive questions. If they have to miss class, they borrow a friend’s notes and transcribe them to keep up.
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May 13
Most of the class didn’t show up. They told themselves they would download the slides and watch a recording of the lecture later, but they probably won’t because ChatGPT will do their homework.
In reality, things aren’t that dystopian, and the old days weren’t quite that good.
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May 13
In this week's Ag Data News, I wrote about teaching large classes in the age of AI.
open.substack.com/pub/agdata…
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Apr 24
Please join us for an in-person workshop on the land-use effects of biofuels on May 28 at UC Berkeley.
There is little consensus on this topic. This conference will bring together researchers with a range of perspectives to hash it out.
its.ucdavis.edu/events/revis…
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Apr 6
California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a new tax credit that would allow oil companies that pay diesel taxes to reduce their tax bill if they also produce sustainable aviation fuel.
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Apr 6
Last month, my co-authors and I showed that it would reduce road funding, raise gasoline and diesel prices, and deliver expensive small carbon emissions reductions. energyathaas.wordpress.com/2…
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Apr 6
Today, I responded to some critiques of our analysis. In short, our analysis did not contain faulty assumptions or facts. open.substack.com/pub/agdata…
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Aaron Smith retweeted
Mar 27
“While using 20 year warming instead of 100 year warming has been a convenient way for opponents of natural gas to inflate the impact that natural gas has on the warming of the planet, it also makes a mockery of the notion that climate change is centrally an issue of intergenerational equity.”
@TedNordhaus in 2024
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Aaron Smith retweeted
Mar 22
Farmer pays $5–$8 per cow per month.
A New Zealand company puts a solar-powered smart collar on cows.
It tracks location 24/7, health, temperature, chewing activity, breeding.
Farmer just opens a simple app and draws a line on the map.
That line becomes the fence.
As cows approach the boundary, the collar beeps and vibrates.
With one tap, the whole herd moves to fresh grass or the milking shed.
No physical fences. Less labor. Huge cost savings for farmer.
Already on 700k cows across New Zealand, Australia, and the US.
and now in talks to raise at a $2B valuation led by Peter Thiel.
Mar 22
JUST IN: AI cow collar startup Halter raises at $2,000,000,000.00 valuation, uses proprietary “cowgorithm” to herd cattle.
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Mar 8
People, it's daylight saving not daylight savings.
And it's a good system.
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Aaron Smith retweeted
Aaron Smith examines how new legislation will effect CA gas prices in new #AREUpdate article “California Now Allows More Ethanol in Gasoline: Is This Going to Save Drivers Money?"
Read more: tinyurl.com/ybazbbre
#E15 #GasPrices @ASmithUCB
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9 Dec 2025
This week in Ag Data News (cross posted in EI Blog), California now allows more ethanol in gasoline — is this going to save drivers money?
Short answer: No
energyathaas.wordpress.com/2…
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19 Nov 2025
This week in Ag Data News, using vegetable oils for biofuel accelerates tropical deforestation and increases CO2 emissions.
In a new paper, Tzu-Hui Chen, Rich Sexton, and I show that biofuels from vegetable oils have likely increased, rather than reduced, global emissions.
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6 Nov 2025
This week in Ag Data News, Kostas Metaxoglou and I have a new publication. Link in first comment.
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