Bookmarks (548)

That is the topic of a recent Bloomberg column.  Here is the opening bit: One of the longest, most technical and, as it turns out, most inconsequential public-policy debates of the 21st century was about net neutrality. Now that a federal appeals court has effectively ended the debate by striking down the FCC’s net neutrality rules, it’s worth asking what […] The post Net neutrality, we hardly knew ye...

1. “We show that same-sex couples experience lower gains from live-in relationships, a “same-sex penalty”. Absent this penalty, the share of same-sex couples in the U.S. would increase by about 50% (from 1.36% to 2.05% of all couples).”  Link here. 2. Vatsal reviews Stubborn Attachments. 3. Share repurchases do not hurt labor’s share of income. […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Netflix) is one of the best and best-crafted documentaries that I have ever seen. It tells the story of Mats Steen, a Norwegian boy living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. As the disease relentlessly robs him of mobility, Mats turns to the online world, spending much of his time immersed in […] The post The Remarkable Life of Ibelin appeared...

One More Hospitality Restaurants The New York company will refund $9 to diners driving into the city for meals at four of its Greenwich Village restaurants. That includes Italian restaurant Osteria 57, Italian seafood restaurant Alice, Italian cafe Travelers Poets & Friends, and also-Italian seafood restaurant Alaluna. Osteria: 57 West 10th Street near Sixth Avenue; Alice: 126 West 13th Street […] The post Tax incidence theory and congestion tolls...

Well one thing that comes up is the Diego Garcia problem. It appears that Downing Street opted to relinquish sovereignty of an isolated territory remote from major population centers for reasons of domestic politics and perhaps international popularity. As long as we might (continue to) see a major gulf between American and European norms regarding […] The post Thinking about Greenland critically (from the...

That is the new Agnes Callard book, very good, self-recommending. I would say my views on some of these issues are different.  In my vision, Socrates is a weak interlocutor and Plato is the real genius.  Plato also does not identify with Socrates per se, but rather is teaching us how to deal with a […] The post *Open Socrates: The Case for a...

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him.  He is a famous brain surgeon and author of the recent and excellent book Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery. Here is his Wikipedia page, and an opening excerpt: Theodore H. Schwartz (born May 13, 1965) is an American medical scientist, academic physician and neurosurgeon. Schwartz specializes in surgery for brain tumors, pituitary […] The post What should I ask Theodore H....

1. Scenario for an independent Greenland. 2. Gender gaps in the Federal Reserve System. 3. Zvi on congestion pricing in NYC. 4. A short (pronunciation) saga from Kearny, NJ, the place of my birth. 5. Milei is artificially slowing the devaluation of the peso (FT). 6. Henry Farrell on America’s plan to control global AI […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

There is a new paper by Florian Ederer, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Kyle Jensen.  It concerns what happens on EJMR, and abusive rhetoric in on line economic discourse.  I have not yet read it, but very likely it is of interest.  Here is the direct paper link. The post Anonymous Attention and Abuse appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Florian Ederer. Thank...

I do not myself have a position on this issue, but I found this analysis by Ken Opalo interesting: The main argument below is that while the people of Somaliland deserve and have a strong case for international recognition, such a development at this time would very likely take away the very incentives that have set them […] The post Should the U.S. recognize Somaliland? appeared...

It is commonly assumed that the U.S. “acquiring” Greenland, whatever that might mean, will result in greater U.S. control of the territory.  Along some dimensions that is likely.  But it is worth pondering the equilibrium here more seriously. I observe, in many locations around the world, that indigenous groups end up with far more bargaining […] The post Some game theory of Greenland appeared...

1. Stephen Miran makes the case for twenty percent tariffs (WSJ).  You can run this one through o1 pro yourself. 2. The history of export controls on IP. 3. Jacob Trefethen, on reforming science funding. 4. In ex-Soviet States, the mental health of the young seems fine. 5. New Ashlee Vance sci-tech media venture.  Site […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

It’s well known that the voting methods we use are highly defective, as they fail to meet fundamental criteria like positive responsiveness, the Pareto principle, and stability. Positive responsiveness (monotonicity) means that if a candidate improves on some voters’ ballots, this should not reduce the candidate’s chances of winning. Yet, many voting methods, including runoffs […] The post The Borda Count is the Best...

Yes, I will be having a Conversation with him.  Gregory Clark the economist.  Here is his Wikipedia page.  So what should I ask? The post What should I ask Greg Clark? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Atom. Ah, you've listed some thought-provoking ... by Windom EarleIn reply to Atom. is that it's a bunch of junk science. His ... by...

Is the top tail of wealth a set of fixed individuals or is there substantial turnover? We estimate upper-tail wealth dynamics during the Gilded Age and beyond, a time of rapid wealth accumulation and concentration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Using various wealth proxies and data tracking tens of millions of individuals, […] The post The circulation of elites, sort of...

14. You don’t do anyone any favors by lurking, put yourself out there! 15. If you don’t “get” a classic book or movie, 90% of the time it’s your fault. (It might just not be the right time for you to appreciate that thing.) 16. If you find yourself dreading Mondays, quit… 23. Doing things […] The post Principles, from Nabeel appeared first on...

1. Cairo norms and multiple equilibria? 2. Straussian, clever language though not as sharp as the Everly Brothers.  I wish them the best. 3. The declining influence of economists in policy circles (NYT). 4. ChinaTalk on DeepSeek. 5. Weird things going on in Romania, poorly understood. 6. One good way to prompt o1. 7. The […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

Jay Martin writes a provocative post, Has Canada Become a Jamaican Bobsled Team? if Canada were to become a state, it would be the third poorest in the country, right behind Alabama. Everybody talks about the American debt issue, but Canadian households bear more debt relative to their income than any other G7 country. The average Canadian now spends 15% of their […] The post Canada’s Comparative Advantages appeared first on...

Here is Daron Acemoglu’s Project Syndicate piece, mostly critical on high-skilled immigration. Here is the first argument from Acemoglu: …one would expect corporate America’s growing need for skilled STEM workers to translate into advocacy for, and investments in, STEM education. But an overreliance on the H-1B program may have broken this link and made American […] The post The Acemoglu arguments against high-skilled immigration...

I would say we have not yet figured out what is the best U.S. policy toward Greenland, nor have we figured out best stances for either Greenland or Denmark. I am struck however by the low quality of the debate, and I mean on the anti-U.S. side most of all.  This is just one clip, […] The post The Greenland debates appeared first on...

I had fun, and Andrew writes: In this episode, I got a chance to talk with Tyler about quite a few of those topics: the extent of his libertarian ideology, why he’s less pessimistic about social media, what movies have influenced him, etc. Here is the Spotify link. The post My podcast with Andrew Xu appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsComments 

1. Cracks in the silence about Havana Syndrome (Atlantic). 2. “As Rainer Zitelmann, a noted historian of the Third Reich, has pointed out, the AfD has long since abandoned its former economic liberalism for a Right-wing form of anti-capitalism. Its rhetoric is often indistinguishable from that of the far-Left Die Linke, or the Left populist […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

First, the labor market is no longer polarizing— employment in low- and middle-paid occupations has declined, while highly paid employment has grown. Second, employment growth has stalled in low-paid service jobs. Third, the share of employment in STEM jobs has increased by more than 50 percent since 2010, fueled by growth in software and computer-related […] The post Facts about U.S. employment appeared first...

From John Ruffalo. The post Canada’s missing entrepreneurs appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsCommentsRelated StoriesFacts about U.S. employmentThe sick leave culture that is GermanEvolving Returns to Personality 

From Krzysztof Tyszka-Drozdowski: Every weekend, I try to go through interesting articles about Argentina. Here’s something from La Nación that surprised me: it discusses the relatively weak standing of Argentine companies internationally. (https://www.lanacion.com.ar/opinion/las-empresas-argentinas-ante-un-cambio-de-perfil-nid11012025/): – only 3 of the top 50 largest Latin American companies are Argentine (22 are Brazilian, 14 Mexican, and 8 Chilean). Moreover, only […] The post Companies in Argentina (from my email)...

As I kept watching, I was thinking “well, this is pretty good but it isn’t great.”  But by the time the final scene rolled around, I was convinced.  A few points: 1. The Hungarian wife is the best character. 2. The title “The Brutalist” does not refer solely to the architect. 3. The industrial landscapes […] The post *The Brutalist* (no real spoilers) appeared...

With Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmueller: The link here contains the YouTube video, text description, and links to audio versions at reason.com: https://reason.com/podcast/2025/01/10/tyler-cowen-why-do-we-refuse-to-learn-from-history/ Youtube page for embedding is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Kpyg2mFU8 Lots of about libertarianism and state capacity libertarianism, and The Great Forgetting, food at the end…interesting throughout! The post My podcast with Reason appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsCommentsRelated StoriesMarthaOne early report on congestion pricing in...

Great talk from Sendhil Mullainathan. He discusses how machine learning differs from causal inference, how ML can be used to develop new and strikingly original hypotheses, why economists are necessary for the design of recommendation systems and algorithms. Deep but accessible. Provides a very important roadmap for how humans and AI can work together on science. The post Economics in the Age of Algorithms appeared...

1. A report on “killing with applause.” 2. Tacit knowledge videos. 3. Turkish chef recreates 8,600 year old Neolithic bread. 4. Boomerasking (not about Boomers, btw). 5. Peter Thiel publishes the word “struldbrugg” in the FT. 6. Who paid U.S. taxes in 1929? 7. Africa books of 2024, and forthcoming in 2025. 8. Kevin Bryan […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Private companies are staking claims to radio spectrum on the Moon with the aim of exploiting an emerging lunar economy, Financial Times research has found. More than 50 applications have been filed with the International Telecommunication Union since 2010 to use spectrum, the invisible highway of electromagnetic waves that enable all wireless technology, on or […] The post Lunar spectrum markets in everything? appeared...

The best piece I have seen so far, here is one bit: Basically, the lessons I take away from the horrific L.A. fires are: The insurance industry as we know it is in big trouble. Climate change is making wildfires worse, but there’s not much we can do about that right now. Forest management needs […] The post Noah Smith on L.A: fire lessons...

1. Perhaps people do not view love as zero-sum. 2. The growing strategic significance of Greenland. 3. Changing building materials to improve carbon outcomes? 4. “The Danish West Indies—comprising the islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix—were sold by Denmark to the United States in 1917. After decades of on-and-off negotiations between the […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

New York’s new congestion fee appears to be reducing commuting times on key routes (see Tyler and this thread from Michael Ostrovsky). The toll only has two rates, however, on-peak (5 AM to 9 PM on weekdays and 9 AM to 9 PM on weekends) $9 and off-peak ($2.50). I like the way Vitalik Buterin […] The post Congestion Tolls versus Congestion Pricing appeared...

Misha lives in Sydney and works in finance and is very smart.  Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Some bullet points: “[Agency has] one of the most skewed distributions I can think of” “You look like you have kids. I thought you would have kids.” “You’re going to drive Melbourne into the ground and […] The post Podcast with Misha Saul appeared first...

A new, AI-driven hotel is getting set to open in Las Vegas, highlighted by a major presence at CES. Philippe Ziade, CEO and founder of Growth Holdings, developer of the hotel, detailed the concept as we sat at the CES Otonomus booth display to discuss the venture. “This is the first truly AI-powered hotel,” said Ziade. […] The post AI-driven hotel planned for Las Vegas...

Germans are the “world champions in sick leave”, according to the head of the country’s biggest insurer, who was criticised for demanding that workers without a doctor’s note are unpaid for their first day off. With the economy slowing and the welfare system under pressure, Germany can ill afford its average per worker of 20 […] The post The sick leave culture that is...

1. How Japanese architecture adjusted to earthquakes. 2. Was the Berghisel ski jump the most significant building of 2002? 3. How long does it take to get approval for prescribed burns in California? 4. Why the space community should care about Arctic geopolitics: “Any satellite in a polar or sun-synchronous orbit, such as those in […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

Martha (Netflix): A compelling bio on Martha Stewart. Her divorce from Andrew Stewart happened more than 30 years ago so the intensity of her anger and bitterness comes as a surprise. With barely concealed rage, she recounts his affairs and how poorly he treated her. “But didn’t you have an affair before he did?” asks […] The post Martha appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION....

From Isaiah Taylor: In 2007 the Sierra Club successfully sued the Forest Service to prevent them from creating a Categorical Exclusion (CE) to NEPA for controlled burns (the technical term is “fuel reduction”). The CE would have allowed the forest service to conduct burns without having to perform a full EIS (the median time for […] The post Claims about fires? appeared first on...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is the episode summary: Scott joins Tyler to discuss what reading Depression-era newspapers revealed about Hitler’s rise, when fiat currency became viable, why Sweden escaped the worst of the 1930s crash, whether bimetallism ever made sense, where he’d time-travel to witness economic history, what 1920s Hollywood movies […] The post My Conversation with the excellent Scott...

Here is one description: Yascha Mounk and Tyler Cowen discuss the likely economic futures of Europe, Asia, and Africa; how the United States should approach competition with China; and what role young people should ascribe to personal financial advancement in their career choices. Here is the Apple link.  Transcript here. The post My podcast with Yascha Mounk appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsComments 

1. Martin Wolf on India and Singh (FT). 2. Britain has lost about one-third of its hedgehogs since 2000. 3. The woman who repairs the ASML machines (WSJ). 4. Traits that will cease to be valuable — good post, though I do not agree with each and every claim. 5. Canadian throat singing.  And from […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

Nuclear deregulation. Yes, I know how that sounds but bear with me. As Koopman and Dourado write in the WSJ: The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 established a precise framework for nuclear regulation, requiring federal licensing only for facilities that either use nuclear material “in such quantity as to be of significance to the common […] The post Nuclear Deregulation appeared first on Marginal...

Weanalyze trends in labor-market returns to psychological traits using data from half a million Finnish men from 2001 to 2015. Cognitive skills’ value declined, while noncognitive skills’ value increased. Our novel findings show that extraversion drives this rise, while conscientiousness remains stable. Extraversion’s rising returns are most pronounced for lower earners and those on the […] The post Evolving Returns to Personality appeared first...

That is my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit: The core version of the plan stipulates a $9 toll for drivers entering Manhattan below and including 60th Street. Implementation is by E-Z Pass, and the tolls can vary in complex ways. But if you don’t cross the line, you don’t pay. So residents below 60th Street are exempt, […] The post One early report on congestion pricing...

Ross has a new (and very good) book coming out Believe: Why Everyone Should be Religious.  I will be doing a Conversation with him, mostly about the book although not entirely.  Here is my first and second Conversation with Ross.  Here is my earlier exchange with Ross about belief in God, scroll back through the […] The post What should I ask Ross Douthat?...

1. Good Ukraine thread. 2. New Lyman Stone Substack. 3. Abbey Road console markets in everything. 4. Salim Furth and Matt Bruenig on congestion pricing and tax incidence theory.  True or false? 5. Jon Hartley podcast with Myron Scholes. 6. Carl Menger’s granddaughter is still alive, and speaks to us about her grandfather. 7. Surviving […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

I have been reading Coby Lefkowitz’s Building Optimism: Why Our World Looks the Way It Does, and How to Make it Better.  I am most interested in chapter five “Why Does Everywhere Look the Same?”  That is another way of restating the puzzle that, at some point after WWII, the aesthetic quality of a lot […] The post Another hypothesis why building aesthetics have...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit: But Poles did not privatize everything. They generally left water companies and electricity providers in the public sector, for example. This is the second category of privatizations: those that are uncertain in their impact. Water and electricity are two essential services where there is no easy […] The post Should America privatize the postal service?...

1. Bob Solow, father of RCTs? 2. Hungarian birth rates now falling again? 3. Anna Meredith: Nautilus. 4. Bill Gates memoir, about his early years, coming out soon.  Would gladly do a CWT podcast on this book, if you are reading!  Just have someone contact me. 5. 1955 was a good year. 6. Christopher Balding […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...