I know you've missed these. But if you've been pining for pool, here you go. This is a clearance that a grown professional could be proud of...by a 9-year-old! Enjoy. Mike P.S. I hope you noticed that I put this... Related Stories Two Failures | Continue reading

A German newspaper asked for my take on the nomination of RFK Jr. to head HHS. Here’s what I said: Operation Warp Speed stands as the crowning achievement of the first Trump administration, exemplifying the impact of a bold public-private partnership. OWS accelerated vaccine deve … | Continue reading

By Wolfgang Münchau, this book is the best and most detailed account of the German economic decline to date. Excerpt: In 2018, the federal government promised that Germany would become a world leader in artificial intelligence. As if they don’t understand that such efforts are mo … | Continue reading

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. We should tax on the basis of residency, not citizenship. Only Eritrea shares with us the practice of doing the latter. Here is one excerpt: There is another possible gain, one which may have more appeal to the incoming administrat … | Continue reading

By Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber, a new Stripe Press book. The post *Bubbles and the End of Stagnation* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related Stories My Conversation with the excellent Neal Stephenson Austrian economics and AI scaling Tariff sentences to ponder | Continue reading

I'm generally a cheapskate, but this time I decided to splurge. I solved the M4 Mac Mini's dearth of USB-A ports by buying a Caldigit TS4. It's got 18 connections, including two card slots and three audio jacks. Eight effingteen.... Related Stories Fast Fast Fast Back in Business … | Continue reading

1. Dwarkesh podcast with Gwern, self-recommending. 2. Gila monster venom (NYT). 3. ChatGPT says “okie-dokie.” 4. Magnus on chess. 5. Ukraine bonds surging. 6. The Dean Ball pro-active regulatory agenda for AI. 7. Two sea creatures fused into a single animal (WSJ). The post Thursd … | Continue reading

As many of you know, I grew up reading (on knowledge) Hayek, Michael Polanyi, Ludwig Lachmann, Mario Rizzo, and others in that tradition. For these Austrian and Austrian-related thinkers, knowledge is about how different parts of a system fit together, rather than being a homegen … | Continue reading

Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is part of the episode summary: In Neal’s second appearance, Tyler asks him why he sometimes shifts from envisioning the future to illustrating the past, the rise of history autodidacts, the implications of leaked secrets from the at … | Continue reading

A couple of Sundays ago I voyaged to remote rural Dansville, New York, a village of 4,433 souls, to visit my friend Geoff Wittig. He deserves to be called "our" friend too, because you might know of him—he's been commenting... Related Stories A Day With the Dogs Rafa Nadal Retire … | Continue reading

1. The Indonesian energy trajectory. A new Substack. 2. Emily Oster on fluoride, vaccines, and raw milk (NYT). 3. Why didn’t people smile in old photos? 4. Fukuyama on how to make government more efficient. 5. Did a New Zealand start-up in a Wellington apartment just make major p … | Continue reading

Using a descriptive decomposition and data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we show that, in gross terms, fertility decline can explain almost one-quarter of gender pay convergence from 1980 to 2018. Even net of a host of controls for human capital and job characteristics … | Continue reading

My latest paper, Signaling Quality: How Refund Bonuses Can Overcome Information Asymmetries in Crowdfunding (with the excellent Tim Cason and Robertas Zubrickas) is just published in Management Science. Many promising crowdfunding projects fail due to a fundamental issue: trust. … | Continue reading

An excellent post, one of the best things written this year in economics. Here is part of the bottom line: Inflation did make the median voter poorer during Biden’s term. In no part of the income distribution did wages grow faster while Biden was President than they did 2012-2020 … | Continue reading

We characterize optimal product market policy in an unequal economy in which firm ownership is concentrated and markups increase with firm market shares. We study the problem of a utilitarian regulator who designs revenue-neutral interventions in the product market. We show that … | Continue reading

This is the Steve McQueen movie about the Nazi blitz against London. I found it visually superb, countering clichés (mostly), showing a different and more varied side of civilian life in wartime, and perhaps the best screen treatment (ever?) of what life was like in the earlier “ … | Continue reading

I meant to post these on Sunday, and I'm sorry I didn't. They're perfect little videos for a lazy Sunday afternoon. But better late than never. Are you a color lover? Some people rank "5" on the 1-to-5 How Much... Related Stories Is It True That Photographs Have Always Been Manip … | Continue reading

1. LDS on AI. And likely AI policy under Trump. 2. The Zvi on sports gambling. 3. Thoughts on limiting the administrative state. 4. “Today, Astera is opening a call for its first major science residency program, a one-year, fully funded program centered on the creation of public … | Continue reading

Tyler and I wrap up our series of podcasts on the 1970s with The 1970s Crime Wave. Here’s one bit: TABARROK: …people think that mass incarceration is a peculiarly American phenomena, or that it came out of nowhere, or was due solely to racism. Michelle Alexander’s, The New Jim Cr … | Continue reading

Eh: How well does bar exam performance predict lawyering effectiveness? Is performance on some components of the bar exam more predictive? The current study, the first of its kind to measure the relationship between bar exam scores and a new lawyer’s effectiveness, evaluates thes … | Continue reading

We combine societal-level institutional measures from 51 countries between 1996 and 2017 with individual decision-making outcome data from 1,126 laboratory experiments in six meta-analyses to evaluate the effects of within-country institutional change on pro-social and Nash behav … | Continue reading

From my email, here is your Switzerland fact of the day: The media is awash with stories about western countries incumbent parties losing elections in the last two years: https://www.semafor.com/article/11/08/2024/the-democrats-join-a-long-list-of-global-parties-wrecked-by-post-p … | Continue reading

I just uploaded a couple of new images. There were a lot of duds on my last card. Pictures I thought were pictures but weren't. Want to hear a funny one? Everybody is making a big deal about the power... Related Stories Back in Business (Update) Bad Timing! (Computers) To Demo Is … | Continue reading

Yay! It's here. With a fork for scale. I don't know that I needed it to be smaller, but it's smaller. In place and in action! I'm very happy to have my computer back. Many thanks to Hugh Crawford. I... Related Stories Bad Timing! (Computers) To Demo Is to Desire: Strange Mac Fact … | Continue reading

I’m old enough that passing time has become a breeze. If something’s going to happen a week from now I just think, it’ll be here soon enough—time flies. But I’ve had a hard time waiting for my new computer to... | Continue reading

Market up like crazy (especially small caps), 1. Freddie Mac (FMCC) and Fannie Mae (FNMA) stocks just gained 35% and 30% respectively on the 2024 election news https://x.com/Jon_Hartley_/status/1854278771546968569 2. Retail, solar and cannibis stocks all down. https://x.com/Jon_H … | Continue reading

1. Edwin Frank, Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel. Very good short portraits of various classic novels, including Machado de Assis, Mann’s Magic Mountain, Dr. Moreau, Carpentier, Perec, and others. At this point I am usually sick of such books but this o … | Continue reading

I want to thank everybody who came up with nominations for “most interesting photographer.” There was little concordance, though—and most of the names that were mentioned, I could relate to as being genuinely interesting in some way. I'm not going... Related Stories A Short Tour … | Continue reading

Political post. Please avoid it if you don’t wish to read it. The comments are hidden—I’ll see them, but no one else will. I may Feature a few, or I may not. I don’t want to dwell on this. “When... | Continue reading

The dollar surged by its most in two years and Wall Street was poised for big gains as Donald Trump’s historic US election victory sent investors around the world scrambling to price in a new regime of trade tariffs and tax cuts. The US currency raced higher against the euro, the … | Continue reading

The economy is strong and Trump has a significant opportunity to simply take credit for that if he avoids major disruptions. While he must fulfill some of his campaign promises, people voted for Trump not for his policies per se. Trump has leeway. No one will accuse him of flip-f … | Continue reading

1. Prediction markets 2. Competitive primary elections 3. Elon 4. French whales 5. The integrity of the American electoral system 6. J.D. Vance 7. The word “trifecta” 8. Twitter 9. Podcasts 10. Long podcasts 11. The Amish 12. Men What else? You don’t have to like all of those out … | Continue reading

That is the central topic of the job market paper of Sahil Chinoy from Harvard University. Here is the abstract: We study political sorting in the labor market and examine its sources. Merging voter file data and online résumés to create a panel of 34.5 million people, we show th … | Continue reading

This paper studies the impact of artificial intelligence on innovation, exploiting the randomized introduction of a new materials discovery technology to 1,018 scientists in the R&Dlab of a large U.S. firm. AI-assisted researchers discover 44% more materials, resulting in a 39% i … | Continue reading

You can re-read it here. Much-maligned at the time, I might add. The post Reupping my post on the vibe shift appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Comments robin hanson claims the electoral vibe shift is random this ... by cornpopsrustyrazor In reply to Anti-Gnostic. I'm sure yo … | Continue reading

Here is the link. The post Track your ballot measure appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Comments In reply to Dave T. Over 20 million fewer votes, and it's not ... by Anti-Gnostic In reply to Anti-Gnostic. Because the 2024 total is well less ... by Dave T It appears that the r … | Continue reading