Greetings! I want to share that we have a workshop coming up in a couple weeks called “The Hidden Curriculum“ taught by Mark Anderson and Dan Rees, and I think there are great reasons for you to consider coming. We’ve done this workshop many times now, not counting its embedding in the CodeChella Madrid conferences we’ve held so far, and Mark has been teaching it at the Westerns as well, where I’ve heard through the grapevine it’s been extremely popular. Let me share why I think you should come and who the ideal audience is.
The target of this workshop is three people:
PhD students at the start of their research in graduate school in the social sciences, notably economists but economics-adjacent fields (e.g., education, political science, sociology) might also find much of this useful too since it is largely field agnostic.
PhD students on the job market
Newly minted assistant professors
One thing that’s a bit different this time around: given how much AI has reshaped research workflows over the past year, Mark and Dan will be spending more time than in past sessions on how AI is changing the publishing landscape — what editors are seeing on their desks, how the meaning of “productivity” is shifting, and what young researchers should be thinking about as they build out their pipeline.
The economics job market remains challenging, and last summer’s New York Times piece about it still feels relevant. It described how even PhD economists from top programs were struggling to find positions, with one Harvard professor noting that “all of those who wanted academic jobs would have gotten them” just a few years earlier, but that only three of his seven students landed tenure-track positions. When the traditional path isn’t working, you need every advantage you can get. That’s exactly what Mark Anderson and Dan Rees deliver in their “Hidden Curriculum“ workshop on Wednesday and Thursday, August 5-6, 2026, starting at 7pm Beijing / 8pm Tokyo time (that’s 7am EDT), running about four hours each day.
This isn’t your typical academic workshop that stays safely in theoretical territory. Anderson and Rees tackle the practical skills that determine whether your research actually gets published and noticed — the stuff nobody teaches you in graduate school but everyone expects you to know. As one participant put it:
“Most of the information is generally not available to grad students easily and it’s a learning process for everyone that takes a lot of time. This helps bridge the gap, which I’m really grateful for.”
They cover everything from picking viable research topics and managing multiple projects to navigating the publication process and building the professional networks that actually matter. Both instructors bring serious editorial experience — Rees has been (and continues to be) a coeditor at major journals, and previously served as editor-in-chief at Economics of Education Review, while Anderson spent five years as co-editor at Economic Inquiry. They both have had highly impactful careers in labor, health, education, crime, and history.
The timing feels right given what’s happening in the profession. When traditional paths are shrinking, and when AI is reshaping how research gets done in ways that we’re all still figuring out, the economists who succeed will be those who understand how the profession really works behind the scenes. Another participant noted:
“As an econ grad student early in my research career, this workshop answered every question I had about how research actually gets done and how to deal with the inevitable issues, tradeoffs, and challenges of writing papers. In fact, it answered questions I didn’t even know I had.”
The workshop costs $125 (or $1 for participants currently residing in low-income countries — just email me at causalinf@mixtape.consulting for that rate). Given current market conditions and the pace of change in how research and publishing work, this investment in understanding the unwritten rules of academic success feels more valuable than ever.