Bookmarks (569)

This short note shows that accounting for capital adjustment is critical when analyzing the long-run effects of trade wars on real wages and consumption. The reason is that trade wars increase the relative price between investment goods and labor by taxing imported investment goods and their inputs. This price shift depresses capital demand, shrinks the […] The post Long-Run Effects of Trade Wars appeared...

1. I find this illustrative, and also very, very naive.  Here is a related query.  I think this crowd is bad at modeling social systems and macro systems more generally.  That is an intrinsically thing to do, but I would keep that in mind when reading “rationalist” analyses. 2. Yale sells $6 billion of its […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

My latest paper, Pandemic Preparation Without Romance, has just appeared at Public Choice. Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic, despite its unprecedented scale, mirrored previous disasters in its predictable missteps in preparedness and response. Rather than blaming individual actors or assuming better leadership would have prevented disaster, I examine how standard political incentives—myopic voters, bureaucratic gridlock, and […] The post Pandemic Preparation Without Romance appeared first...

Here is the thread, here is the paper: Relatively flat US output growth versus rising numbers of US researchers is often interpreted as evidence that “ideas are getting harder to find.” We build a new 46-year panel tracking the universe of U.S. firms’ patenting to investigate the micro underpinnings of this claim, separately examining the […] The post “Growth is getting harder to find,...

The United Arab Emirates aims to use AI to help write new legislation and review and amend existing laws, in the Gulf state’s most radical attempt to harness a technology into which it has poured billions. The plan for what state media called “AI-driven regulation” goes further than anything seen elsewhere, AI researchers said, while […] The post It’s happening, UAE edition appeared first...

It was a week long, in Hartford, CT, sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies.  The four faculty were: Robert Nozick Israel Kirzner John Gray Ronald Max Hartwell Those were the only faculty, for one week — pretty amazing!  Libertarianism and classical liberalism quite simply had much higher intellectual status in those days.  You could […] The post The 1982 IHS seminar I attended...

1. The Druid critique of progress (check out the guy’s bio). 2. Have researchers discovered (created?) a new colour? 3. “Our results robustly point towards a decrease in annual growth rates of approximately two percentage points during the first decade after implementing socialism.” 4. How are Chinese robots doing in races with humans? (WSJ) 5. The […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden are among the nations the U.S. Department of Agriculture approached to address the shortage brought on by a bird flu outbreak, according to European industry groups. But supplying Americans with eggs would be complicated for foreign producers — but not because of political tensions over the myriad import tariffs President […] The post Our non-eggcellent regulations appeared first on...

At the same time I started reading economics, at age 13, I also was reading philosophy.  I lived in Hillsdale, New Jersey, but River Vale had a better public library for those topics, so I would ride my bike there periodically and take out books (I also learned about Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis by […] The post My history with philosophy appeared first...

Mexico [is]…the current hub of AI server manufacturing. Of the servers imported by the U.S.—including AI and non-AI servers—about 70% come from Mexico, according to a report by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. More of this, please.  Here is the full WSJ piece, via the excellent Kevin Lewis. The post Mexico fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to...

Not exactly my views, but well worth reading as a whole.  Here is one excerpt: …much of this extinction will seem voluntary. In a normal evolutionary bottleneck, the goal is surviving some immediate physical threat — a plague or famine, an earthquake, flood or meteor strike. The bottleneck of the digital age is different: The […] The post The Ross Douthat manifesto? appeared first...

A recent survey, commissioned by the Bible Society and conducted by YouGov, showed 16 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 in England and Wales said they attended church at least monthly, significantly up from 4 per cent in 2018. Here is more from the FT.  Addendum: The above quotation from the FT is slightly misleading.  Both […] The post England and Wales fact of the...

1. How tariffs affect trade deficits. 2. How many “ghost branches” of humanity are there? 3. There is actual humor in this NYT piece on the pro-natalism movement.  “With” or “at,” you can debate, but not all readers will align with the NYT perspective.  Bryan has the best line.  The correction is funny too.  I […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Individual construction tasks have, on average, not gotten cheaper since at least the 1950s. Bricks haven’t gotten cheaper since the mid-19th century, despite massive improvements in brickmaking technology. Construction has a reputation for being slow to innovate, but innovations seem to spread in construction at roughly similar rates to other industries, like car manufacturing or agriculture. Single family […] The post Brian Potter on what he has...

From a Czech newspaper: Recruitment of new recruits in Russia is skyrocketing. With the prospect of a ceasefire, they want to ‘jump on the last train’ The number of Russians who have decided to join the army has multiplied in recent weeks. Regardless of their health, recruitment centres are taking anyone who expresses an interest. […] The post Intertemporal substitution (from my email) appeared...

1. Pluto vs. Australia. 2. Moose migration: the television culture that isSweden. 3. October Progress conference in Berkeley. 4. James Meek on Greenland. 5. Can you give “LSD” to your LLM? 6. “People In Iceland Are Collecting Baby Puffins In The Streets And Throwing Them Back Into The Ocean.” The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Kieran....

The Kanye West and Jay-Z song “No Church in the Wild,” for instance, sampled a single instrumental line from a failed solo album recorded in the late 1970s by the Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera; the licensing proceeds provided Mr. Manzanera with “the biggest payday he had in the course of his entire career.” Or […] The post Music compensation fact of the day...

“S.F. auto glass shops suffering as car break-ins drop” Here is the San Francisco Chronicle link, via Air Genius Gary Leff. The post Bastiat’s revenge appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Biggles f’Tang. Google is now paying $300 to ... by Kaitlin RushIn reply to Flex. JOIN US Everybody can earn 250/h Dollar + ... by Ana SellersIn reply to Flex....

1. Florian Illies, The Magic of Silence: Caspar David Friedrich’s Journey Through Time.  An excellent book, usually I am allergic to art history books that attempt to charm, but this one works.  Excerpt: “A question posed to the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk: ‘What makes the Monk by the Seashore so unprecedented?’ His answer: “It is the […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

By Roger Chickering, this is so far the best book I have read this year, and I knew that within the first fifty pages (or less).  It is everything one could want from a book on this very important country and time period.  Likely I will report more on it as I read more, for […] The post *The German Empire, 1871-1918* appeared first...

1. Jerome Powell on stablecoins. 2. Hollis Robbins on o3 and higher education. 3. Google has started hiring for “post-AGI research.”  If you want one, here is a straightforward definition of AGI.  I believe o3 passes that test, including for the one hour of human labor mark.  I hear lots of complaining, but I don’t […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

Basically it wipes the floor with the humans, pretty much across the board. Try, following Nabeel, why Bolaño’s prose is so electrifying. Or my query why early David Burliuk works cost more in the marketplace than do late Burliuk works. Or how Trump’s trade policy will affect Knoxville, Tennessee.  (Or try this link if the […] The post A note on o3 and AGI...

I loved his new book on John and Paul, of the Beatles, and I am delighted to see it doing so well on the UK bestseller lists, and now also on the US lists.  Here is my audio, video, and transcript with him.  Here is the episode summary: In this deep dive into one of […] The post My Conversation with the excellent Ian...

I think it is AGI, seriously.  Try asking it lots of questions, and then ask yourself: just how much smarter was I expecting AGI to be? As I’ve argued in the past, AGI, however you define it, is not much of a social event per se.  It still will take us a long time to […] The post o3 and AGI, is April 16th...

1. Uh oh. 2. Very good list of bottlenecks to progress. 3. NYT on seasteading (an oddly undercontextualized article). 4. Shruti makes the Forward Thinkers list. 5. More on risk and business cycles. 6. How is a Costco in France different? The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Bob. The US freight rail system is very good....

“Based on everything I’ve ever asked you, what do you think my biggest blind spots are?” ChatGPT replies: Here’s a speculative, analytical take based on your past questions and style of interaction: 1. Underestimating Non-Market Frictions in Implementation You’re extremely sharp on incentives, regulation, and institutional design, especially in economic theory and historical analysis. But […] The post My Blind Spots appeared first on...

But the fact that it’s commonplace is precisely why Earth’s subsurface biosphere is so compelling.  Mud is everywhere, which means it is important.  If you add up the total amount of mud underneath all the worlds’s oceans, you come up with a volume equivalent to about the entire Atlantic Ocean.  And, per cubic meter, there […] The post Subterranean sentences to ponder appeared first...

With a Trump-induced decline of American alliances n the works, is Chinese global ascendancy going to result? It would seem so. Matt Yglesias tweeted that “America may be cooked and it’s gonna be the Chinese century.” Thomas Friedman recently wrote a column suggesting that the future is to be found in China, not America. In […] The post Is China the ultimate free-rider? appeared...

Times of London that is: The post My interview with Times Radio appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to LivelyClock. Yes, Prof here, I still like him, ... by AnoniIn reply to Matt2. “I'm Sure you can't be serious.” ... by mkt42In reply to LivelyClock. The finest part-time income ... by Cherie SingletonIn reply to Bob. What would you call the profiteering...

1. Scott Sumner on who is rising and falling in status.  Mostly I agree. 2. New personalized dating form for STEM men and women, here is the link for women.  The previous link I put up for men already is generating matches and perhaps a marriage as well. 3. Michael Nielsen wants to reconsider AI […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that the circulations of banned books increased by 12%, on average, compared with comparable nonbanned titles after the ban. We also find that banning a book in a state leads to increased circulation in states without bans. We show that the increase in consumption is driven by books […] The post Book ban sentences to ponder appeared...

Look at the incredible decline of manufacturing across a wide variety of industries in the figure below. Nearly 7.5 million jobs lost, just since 2011. Devastated communities. Factories shuttered. Millions of older, lower-skilled workers out of work. A rise in inequality. Jobs going overseas. “The future is bleak and hopeless if we continue like this,” […] The post The Decline of Manufacturing appeared first...

That is the theme of my latest Free Press column, here is one bit from it: …for all the differences across the models, they are remarkably similar. That’s because they all have souls rooted in the ideals of Western civilization. They reflect Western notions of rationality, discourse, and objectivity—even if they sometimes fall short in […] The post Will American soft power triumph through...

Harvard University said on Monday that it had rejected policy changes requested by the Trump administration, becoming the first university to directly refuse to comply with the administration’s demands and setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university. Other universities have pushed back against the Trump administration’s interference in higher […] The post Harvard says no appeared first on...

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him.  John might be the smartest person I know about the energy sector and also about philanthropy.  Here is the opening of his Wikipedia entry: John Douglas Arnold (born 1974) is an American philanthropist, former Enron executive, and founder of Arnold Ventures LLC, formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. In 2007, […] The post What should I ask John Arnold?...

1. ADHD diagnosis is a mess (NYT). 2. John Cochrane on tariffs, savings, and investment. 3. More on low productivity growth in construction. 4. Ken Rogoff is now on Substack. 5. DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication. 6. Russian birth rates hit new low. 7. Out of date (a lot will be happening […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

An estimated 80 percent [of U.S: gun shootings] seem to instead be crimes of passion — including rage.  They’re arguments that could be defused but aren’t, then end in tragedy because someone has a gun.  Most violent crimes are the result of human behavior gone temporarily haywire, not premeditated acts for financial benefit. That is […] The post The roots of gun violence appeared...

“Philip Howard here.  I enjoyed your discussion with Jen Pahlka.  Here are a few notes: 1. This current system needs disrupting, but I fear DOGEs indiscriminate cuts are making the status quo look good.    Here’s Peter Drucker, criticizing Gore’s reinventing got:  “patching.  It always fails.  The next step is to rush into downsizing.  Management picks […] The post How to do regulatory reform (from...

Here is one article in Spanish, my favorite novel by him is War of the End of the World.  Aunt Julia and the Scripwriter is a wonderful introduction, and there are many other fine works. The post Muere Mario Vargas Llosa, RIP appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsRIP There are so many novels by him to cherish, but the book ... by RebesFrom...

1. 2013 paper on the economics of a “sudden stop” in lending to the United States.  Not what I think is going on now, but fyi. 2. Richer Swedes are getting healthier more quickly. 3. Incredible AI thread from Steve Jurvetson. 4. Lottery arbitrage? (WSJ) 5. What does a House of Representatives member do all […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

Eventually, Smith declared himself a candidate for the White House.  His proposed platform was an awkward conglomeration of popular, though incongruent, principles including restoring the national bank, cutting Congress members’ salaries, annexing Texas, and instituting the gradual abolition of slavery.  Hundreds of Mormon men, including Brigham Young, swarmed the nation campaigning for their prophet to […] The post I never knew Joseph Smith ran...

How does a start-up founder hire a software engineer or a tech worker find a date in 2025? They could share a job posting on LinkedIn, log on to a dating app — or leave a handwritten note in a Waymo. That’s what Influur CEO Alessandra Angelini was thinking when she and Jennifer Lo Chan, […] The post Markets expand to fill empty spaces...

Max writes to me: “Hope you’re doing well. And the craziness in the world hasn’t been affecting you too much. I know I’ve written to you about cash-treasury basis a couple of times over the years. The situation has unfortunately become somewhat more acute and has started to get wider media attention. There are some good accounts […] The post Problems in Treasury markets (from my...

1. New Knausgaard novel coming. 2. Unsecured penguin caused helicopter crash in South Africa. 3. Why does pre-training work? 4. Opinion polling from Poland. 5. Survey measures of the natural rate of interest.  Thread is here. 6. Cass Sunstein reports on the social neuroticism of the Right.  And Balaji is correct. 7. The conservative legal […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

If you are willing to pay $250 or so, you can watch it in The Sphere.  From Wikipedia: Postcard from Earth is a 2023 film directed by Darren Aronofsky, starring Brandon Santana and Zaya Ribeiro. Created specifically to be screened at Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley on the venue’s 160,000 square-foot video screen, the film was shot in an 18K […] The post *Postcard from Earth* appeared first on...

That is the topic of my recent essay for The Free Press.  Excerpt: Ideologically, the English 17th century was weird above all else. Millenarianism blossomed, and the occult and witchcraft became stronger obsessions. This was an age of religious and economic upheaval; King James I even wrote a book partly about witches called Daemonologie. The greater […] The post Parallels between our current time and...

The National Institutes of Health told employees Thursday it was rolling back directives from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to probe worker productivity and limit purchases and travel on company cards, according to messages obtained by POLITICO. It’s a possible sign that the agency’s recently confirmed director, Jay Bhattacharya, is willing to break with […] The post It seems DOGE is dwindling? appeared...

1. Website on distinguished Indian economists. 2. The science of making coffee stronger. 3. How Dean Ball works. 4. David Salle and AI painting. 5. The culture that is the North Bergen (NJ) police department. 6. New Helen Dewitt novel. 7. “Micro-retirement”? (NYT) The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Ai. That’s not exactly true. Higher agitation...

Every year, American tourists pour billions of dollars into France, wandering the Louvre, sipping overpriced espresso in Montmartre, and snapping selfies along the Seine—while far fewer French tourists bother making the reverse pilgrimage to admire, say, Disney World. The result? A massive tourism deficit. On paper, this reflects wealth differentials and revealed preferences – Americans, […] The post America’s Tourism Deficit: How the French...

Tariffs don’t just alter trade flows — they redirect resources and reshape industrial structures. If Trump’s goal was to curb China’s technological progress, he would keep tariffs low on the bulk of Chinese exports to the US, locking the country into low-margin basic manufacturing. He would encourage high-tech exports to China, making sure that progress […] The post Claims about China appeared first on...