~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (545)

Bob Lawson and I have an op-ed in Barrons with a new perspective on inequality. Kamala Harris has said inequality is “the defining economic challenge of our time.” Indeed, the Gini coefficient for the United States is 0.4, one of the highest among developed nations, and Senator Bernie Sanders says US inequality is “obscene.” But […] The post Go for the Gold! appeared first...

The author is Harald Jähner, and the subtitle is The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany 1918-1933.  I quite enjoyed this book, which focuses on elements such as the dance, or the growing prominence of the automobile, as essential elements of Weimar.  Here is one good passage: In the early 1920s most people didn’t go […] The post *Vertigo* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION....

That is the theme of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: Consider business. For decades now, big businesses have been on the rise in the US, which means employment in large corporations that use a team approach is increasingly likely. One effect of this is that individual outputs are harder to measure. If a product […] The post Does increasing division of labor lead...

The author is Cormac Ó Gráda, the renowned Irish economic historian, and the subtitle is Civilian Casualties of the Two World Wars.  This is a first-rate and also horrifying of a still underdiscussed topic.  Here is one excerpt: The death rate from famine in Greece was probably higher than in any other European country with […] The post *The Hidden Victims* appeared first on...

In the year to June, 80,200 New Zealand citizens moved abroad, almost double the numbers prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, just 24,900 returned, according to Stats NZ — the country’s official data agency. The net loss of 55,300 citizens (which follows a net loss of 56,500 in the year to April) smashed the previous record […] The post New Zealand fact of the day...

1. Warren Coats memoir is now published. 2. There is a Hamnet movie. 3. Jon Hartley podcast with Greg Mankiw. 4. According to NYT, the government still employs Elizondo as a consultant. 5. Why is the Norwegian Krone weakening so much? (FT) 6. Best post-Beatle Macca moments? 7. Will Rebind make reading sexy and tragic […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

In 2014 fewer than 10,000 migrants crossed the gap. Last year more than 500,000 did. Another surge is expected as a result of Venezuela’s presidential election on July 28th, which was stolen by the ruling autocrat, Nicolás Maduro. Here is more from The Economist.  One lesson here is that supply is elastic, even under very […] The post Darien gap fact of the day...

A large body of literature in economics and political science examines the impact of democracy and political freedoms on various outcomes using cross-country comparisons. This paper explores the possibility that any positive impact of democracy observed in these studies might be attributed to powerful democratic nations, their allies, and international organizations treating democracies more favorably […] The post Democratic favor channel appeared first on...

1. Eyes-only chat. 2. NYT on Helsinki. 3. Insider trading by other means. 4. Geoffrey Manne on the Google decision. 5. Longlegs, with Nicholas Cage, is a very good movie, probably one of the best horror movies ever?  But it is difficult to watch. 6. Peter Marshall of Hollywood Squares, RIP (NYT).  I don’t think […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Results show that from 2003 to 2022, average time spent at home among American adults has risen by one hour and 39 minutes in a typical day. Time at home has risen for every subset of the population and for virtually all activities. Preliminary analysis indicates that time at home is associated with lower levels […] The post USA fact of the day appeared...

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is crucial for college admissions but its effectiveness and relevance are increasingly questioned. This paper enhances Synthetic Control methods by introducing Transformed Control, a novel method that employs Large Language Models (LLMs) powered by Artificial Intelligence to generate control groups. We utilize OpenAI’s API to generate a control group where GPT-4, […] The post Math SAT scores may be doing...

1. “Employer willingness to pay for an advantaged caste is as large as that for a full standard deviation increase in college GPA.”  And a good Twitter thread on a related paper. 2. Essays on UFOs and related conjectures. 3. Are women tougher judges on other women? 4. The Neolithic era had more long distance […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

Here is the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell on Harris’s price control policy: It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is. It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Some far-off Washington bureaucrats […] The post Rampell On Harris’s Economic Policy appeared...

On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.  It is great fun, and has something real or interesting on every page.  If I haven’t covered it more, that is because I have a CWT coming with Nate, 100% on the book itself (alas no Paul McCartney or “which is the best white creme in Central […] The post The new Nate Silver book appeared...

Lay beliefs about human trait heritability are consequential for cooperation and social cohesion, yet there has been no global characterisation of these beliefs. Participants from 30 countries (N = 6128) reported heritability beliefs for intelligence, personality, body weight and criminality, and transnational factors that could influence these beliefs were explored using public nation-level data. Globally, mean […] The post A 30-nation investigation of lay heritability...

What generates the observed differences in economic outcomes by health? How costly it is to be unhealthy? We show that health dynamics are largely driven by ex-ante fixed heterogeneity, or health types, even when controlling for one’s past health history. In fact, health types are the key driver of long spells of bad health. We […] The post The Lifetime Costs of Bad Health...

No, the idea doesn’t make sense, in part because too much current wage income would, one way or another, end up reclassified as “tips.” But there is a deeper problem with the Democratic Party version of the idea.  As you likely know, the Democrats, and to some extent the Republicans, favor hikes in the minimum […] The post Tax-free tips appeared first on Marginal...

1. De Soto got his wish in Haiti. 2. Do fewer people want to stand out in public? 3. Lyman Stone on TFR. 4. Arguments against labor unions. 5. Germany ponders its lack of medal success. 6. The Nordstream pipeline destruction story. 7. Agnes Callard, Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, now available […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

The Economist has a good piece on India’s cities. Mumbai has done a great job in recent years at building more infrastructure but infrastructure alone is not enough: …An overly prescriptive, 2,200-page National Building Code and a surfeit of local rules prevent developers from making optimal use of pricey urban land. Mumbai has some of […] The post India’s Cities appeared first on Marginal...

One of the grand challenges of artificial general intelligence is developing agents capable of conducting scientific research and discovering new knowledge. While frontier models have already been used as aids to human scientists, e.g. for brainstorming ideas, writing code, or prediction tasks, they still conduct only a small part of the scientific process. This paper […] The post Okie-dokie, solve for the equilibrium appeared...

Does the Alchian and Allen theorem apply as much to shipping the tourists as it does to shipping the goods? [notice how little context is in that prompt] The Alchian and Allen theorem, often summarized by the phrase “shipping the good apples out,” postulates that when a fixed cost (such as shipping) is added to […] The post The new version of GPT-4 does...

1. Good news on the fertility front. 2. Failed markets in everything, Joseph Goebbels edition (NYT). 3. That was then, this is now. 4. Do land use regulations limit construction productivity? 5. Why does Ozempic help with so many maladies? 6. Does capitalism make you lonely? 7. Common sense from Richard Ngo on AI safety. The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal...

Installing air conditioning in Switzerland is often subject to rules set at the cantonal level. Geneva is the strictest canton. To qualify, a home owner must prove they have a legitimate need, for example, by producing a medical certificate, and install systems that capture some of the heat emissions and condensation produced. Other cantons require […] The post Why doesn’t Switzerland have more air...

I was very pleased to appear on Safegraph CEO Auren Hoffman’s World of DAAS podcast. We covered lots of material including this (lightly edited) bit on China. Auren Hoffman (23:06.518): Now, you’ve thought a lot about things like reshoring, building manufacturing capacity. How do you think we could be thinking about that differently? Alex (23:24.058) […] The post Tabarrok on China: World of DAAS...