~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (545)

The post Optimus personal assistant robot appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Dinwar. I think you're conflating invention and ... by DylanIn reply to EVCoyote. SpaceX is about to launch a massive ... by It Ain't Necessarily SoIn reply to Hazel Meade. Circa 2019, I came back to the ... by Mark BahnerLOL. Elon has gone all in on Trump so...

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation minority staff (Committee), which oversees federal science agencies including NSF, analyzed 32,198 Prime Award grants NSF awarded to 2,443 different entities with project start dates between January 2021 and April 2024. Committee analysis found 3,483 grants, more than ten percent of all NSF grants and totaling […] The post U.S.A. facts of the day appeared...

Starting today: Kalshi will pay you 4.05% interest on both your cash and open positions. Here is the link. The post Arbitrage! (at multiple levels) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to rsm. We are now in the zombie Rayward era. by NoIn reply to rayward. So, were the rumors of your death by ... by rsmAnother indication that the NGDP gap...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: First, whenever possible it is better to use private insurance, such as homeowner’s insurance and flood insurance, to protect against loss. One of the functions of insurance is to make losers at least partially whole after the fact, but another is to […] The post How economists think about victims of...

1. “The average [Nobel] laureate grew up in an 87–90th percentile household.” 2. Scriabin. 3. Is lack of automation the problem with U.S. ports? 4. The conflict of interest discount in the marketplace of ideas. 5. Does a sense of beauty emerge spontaneously in AI? The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Stephen Cooper. “That being said”...

The Council for German Orthography (RdR) caused a stir amongst grammar perfectionists on Monday when it announced that as of 2025, an apostrophe used to indicate possession will be considered correct. Since 2004, the RdR has been considered the leading source on Standard High German spelling and grammar, and is relied on for school textbooks in Germany, […] The post “Das was damals, das ist jetzt”...

In 2009, 2010, and 2011 respectively, Greek government interest payments as a share of revenues were 13.4%, 14.7%, and 16.8% respectively, based on a 2012 IMF report.1 If one removes “Social Contributions” linked to government programs from the revenue measure, the ratio peaked at 24.1% in 2011. Of course, since Greece had adopted the euro it […] The post Joshua Rauh on fiscal sustainability appeared...

Here is one link, I am watching it now.  And possibly with the aid of Adam Back?  No opinion of my own on this one! The post HBO film says Bitcoin creator is Peter Todd appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Jimmy. Sorry, *Back. by JimmyIn reply to Anoniemoose. I have no dog in this fight, but are ... by JimmyThe...

We use a controlled experiment to show that ability and belief calibration jointly determine the benefits of working with Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI improves performance more for people with low baseline ability. However, holding ability constant, AI assistance is more valuable for people who are calibrated, meaning they have accurate beliefs about their own ability. […] The post Who benefits from working with AI?...

1. “…slowing life history speed increases maternal investment (MI) into offspring…”  A new look at the Flynn Effect. 2. David Beckworth podcast with Jonathon Hazell. 3. Not the worst “Top books of the century” list. 4. J. Zachary Mazlish on capital income taxation. 5. Scott Sumner on my first podcast with Alex T. 6. 30k […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

We interrupt our regularly scheduled series of podcasts on the 1970s–first one here on inflation and monetary policy–to bring you a new podcast in honor of next week’s Nobel Prize in economics. Who will win? Who should win? Who should have won but didn’t? Who won but shouldn’t have? Here’s one bit: COWEN: I would […] The post The Marginal Revolution Podcast: The Nobel...

Bryan Caplan will feel vindicated: This paper asks whether universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) raises parents’ earnings and how much these earnings effects matter for evaluating the economic returns to UPK programs. Using a randomized lottery design, we estimate the effects of enrolling in a full-day UPK program in New Haven, Connecticut on parents’ labor market outcomes […] The post Further evidence for the babysitting theory...

1. What drove the Nashville housing boom? 2. One major Korean ISP flags us as “harmful.” 3. Changes in Chinese art museums. 4. “We find that the fade-out effect is critically-linked to the share of classroom peers assigned to preschool access—with enough treated peers the classic fade-out effect is muted.” 5. Jason Brennan is now […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

It is steeper than I had thought: The final labor market trend we uncovered was a very rapid decline in retail sales jobs, show in the figure below. Retail sales hovered at around 7.5 percent of employment from 2003 to 2013 but has since fallen to only 5.7 percent of employment, a decline about 25 […] The post The decline in retail sales jobs...

The NHS in Northern Ireland is the worst in the UK.  During the quarter April/June 2021, over 349,000 people were waiting for a first appointment, 53 percent for over a year, an increase of 39,000 for the same period in 2020.  Adjusted for population size, waiting lists in Northern Ireland are 100 times greater than […] The post Northern Ireland fact of the day...

Fiona Maddocks, Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in Exile.  Captures the spirit of the man and his music, and a good addition to the growing literature on European cultural exiles in America.  Readable and to the point. Kurt Weyland, Democracy’s Resilience to Populism’s Threat.  This book has useful data, and perhaps it is a useful corrective to […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

In addition, there were no textbooks to be found, except in libraries, where the numbers who tried to get in were so immense that readers could only access the building for one hour, according to surname. An enterprising Shanghai publisher began reprinting textbooks from the early 1960s, which soon were worth their weight in gold. […] The post The value of books on tractors...

1. Do people exposed to generative AI become more pessimistic about inequality? 2. The economics of WordPress?  I don’t understand this well at all. 3. But who is Andrea Sikora? 4. James Broughel and I debate sovereign wealth funds on NPR. 5. A revisionist defense of recent Knausgaard. 6. California is banning “sell by” food […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

One disgruntled veteran at a FF annual meeting in 2016 was heard to complain, ‘They’re all fucking schoolteachers now.’ He was partly right. In the thirtieth Dáil in 2007 there were 3 university lecturers, 14 primary school teachers and 14 secondary school teachers; there were also 16 lawyers, 5 doctors, 3 nurses and 14 farmers; […] The post A country run by schoolteachers? appeared...

Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, is working on a law that aims to ban so-called child-free ideology which it sees as harmful to traditional values. Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, announced recently that fines for “propaganda of childlessness” will amount to up to 400,000 rubles ($4,300; €3,879) for individuals and up […] The post The polity that is Russia appeared...

Monthly inflation went from 25% to about 4%. This is obviously great, but there are two small notes of concern. First, the 25% number was just one really bad month. Inflation had been at a baseline of about 4% for most of the last five years. The immediately-pre-Milei government really cranked up the money printer […] The post Scott Alexander on Milei appeared first...

1. Another meta-study on smart phone use and mental illness. 2. Ross Douthat has a serialized fantasy novel. 3. Movie Gen, on Meta. 4. “Home to only around four percent of the world’s automobiles, Africa accounted for 19 percent of road deaths last year.” 5. Why is “the Silent Generation” so well-cited in philosophy? 6. […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: Economists from Princeton, Vanderbilt and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis have estimated just how much hard work contributes to inequality in lifetime earnings. While the answer depends on context, they arrived at an average for the US workforce: About 20% of […] The post How much does hard work matter?...

Donald J. Trump’s presidency broke the mold in many ways, including how to think about judicial appointments. Unlike other recent presidents, Trump was open about how “his” judges could be depended on to rule in particular ways on key issues important to voters he was courting (e.g., on issues such as guns, religion, and abortion). […] The post How different are Trump judges? appeared...