~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (61)

Economics research has largely overlooked non-binary individuals. We aim to jump-start the literature by providing data on several economically-important beliefs and preferences. Among many results, non-binary individuals report more gender-based discrimination and express different career and life aspirations, including less desire for children. Anti-non-binary sentiment is stronger than anti-LGBT sentiment, and strongest among men. Non-binary […] The post Non-binary gender economics appeared first on...

China’s admission into the WTO in 2001 heralded a new era of globalization, increasing both import competition in domestic markets and foreign opportunities for US firms. In the aggregate, the average annual profitability of US public firms during the post globalization period (2003-2019) increased by 11.5% of the corresponding pre-globalization period (1984-2002) profitability. This increase […] The post Which U.S. firms have grown in...

419 Swedish economists were asked which economics concepts are most important to understand and manage economics "for an individual" and "for a citizen", respectively. Opportunity cost was the most popular answer to both questions.https://t.co/wGQNdmzyrI pic.twitter.com/OoPK2xEMrX — Stefan Schubert (@StefanFSchubert) March 4, 2024 The post Swedish economists seem to be doing OK appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to mkt42. What is the...

Between January 2016 and December 2022, the monthly antidepressant dispensing rate increased 66.3%, from 2575.9 to 4284.8. Before March 2020, this rate increased by 17.0 per month (95% confidence interval: 15.2 to 18.8). The COVID-19 outbreak was not associated with a level change but was associated with a slope increase of 10.8 per month (95% […] The post U.S.A. yikes fact of the day...

This paper provides the first long-run assessment of adolescent alcohol control policies on later-life health and labor market outcomes. Our analysis exploits cross-state variation in the rollout of “Zero Tolerance” (ZT) Laws, which set strict alcohol limits for drivers under age 21 and led to sharp reductions in youth binge drinking. We adopt a difference-in-differences […] The post Further data on alcohol use amongst...

Here is the link, via the wisdom of Garett Jones.  And OK, which nations have the cultural inferiority complexes?  The ones that rate themselves highly, or the converse? The post Which nations have cultural inferiority complexes? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Tzar Simeon. They still have slavery in Bulgaria ... by RobPIn reply to Anti-Gnostic. They think they have it...

We investigate how the gender gap in confidence affects the views that evaluators (e.g., employers) hold about men and women. We find the confidence gap is contagious, causing evaluators to form overly pessimistic beliefs about women. This result arises even though the confidence gap is expected and even though the confidence gap shouldn’t be contagious […] The post The Gender Gap in Confidence: Expected...

This is one of the most fascinating charts I’ve ever seen. Been staring at it all morning trying to draw assumptions from it pic.twitter.com/vG01VRNExu — Ben Little (@TRUmav) February 19, 2024 The post Map of the day model this mother distance what else besides population density appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Sure. So they’re about average, as I expected by...

Both rightists and leftists assume that the U.S. spends far lower to combat social problems (poverty, healthcare, education) than peer nations, but that is not true. pic.twitter.com/CXdVDNWb6p — David (@Data_David1) February 18, 2024 Here Robin Hanson notes that social spending as a percent of gdp tends to rise almost universally: Key question: will these trends […] The post I am tired of making this...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: The human and economic costs of recessions are deep and well-documented. They can also have real health benefits, however, and seldom are they expressed so starkly as in this sentence in a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research: “The Great Recession provided one in twenty-five 55-year-olds […] The post Do recessions benefit our health? appeared...

WEF 2002: The world could face lithium shortages by 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says, while Credit Suisse thinks demand could treble between 2020 and 2025, meaning “supply would be stretched”. Reuters 2023:  Lithium producers are growing anxious that delays in mine permitting, staffing shortages and inflation may hinder their ability to supply enough […] The post Lithium appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION....

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit: California’s highest income tax rate is 13.3%. That is in addition to a top federal tax rate of 37%. California also has a state sales tax rate of 7.25%, and many localities impose a smaller sales tax. So if a wealthy person earns and […] The post The California tax burden is driving...

Shanhong Luo, a professor at Fayetteville State University, studies the factors behind attraction between romantic partners, including the norms that govern relationships. In a paper published in 2023 in Psychological Reports, a peer-reviewed journal, Dr. Luo and a team of researchers surveyed 552 heterosexual college students in Wilmington, N.C., and asked them whether they expected men or […] The post Sticky norms appeared first on Marginal...

Correlations between spouses Extraversion: r= .005Neuroticism: .082Height: .227Weight: .154Education: .5Political party: .6 "Mates tend to be positively but weakly concordant on personality and physical traits, but concordance of political attitudes is extremely high" pic.twitter.com/BmdpySfakh — Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) February 10, 2024 The post Correlations between spouses appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to joan. “Women don't change their beliefs or ... by...

Science seems like a public good; in theory, ideas are non-rivalrous and non-excludable. But the closer we look at how ideas actually spread and are used in the world, the less they seem like public goods. As I am fond of pointing out, Thomas Keller wrote a literal recipe book for the dishes he served […] The post Is Science a Public Good? appeared...

We measure college graduate quality—the average human capital of a college’s graduates—for graduates from 2,800 colleges in 48 countries. Graduates of colleges in the richest countries have 50% more human capital than graduates of colleges in the poorest countries. Migration reinforces these differences: emigrants from poorer countries are highly positively selected on human capital. Finally, […] The post The Global Distribution of College Graduate...

In this study, we propose a novel approach to detect supply-side media bias, independent of external factors like ownership or editors’ ideological leanings. Analyzing over 100,000 articles from The New York Times (NYT) and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), complemented by data from 22 million tweets, we assess the factors influencing article duration on their […] The post New data on media bias appeared...

From a recent Jacob Light paper: In an era of rapid technological and social change, do universities adapt enough to play their important role in creating knowledge? To examine university adaptation, I extracted the information contained in the course catalogs of over 450 US universities spanning two decades (2000-2022). When there are changes in student […] The post Student Demand and the Supply of...

The key insight is that women have always been more [economically] left-wing than men, but that women were also more religious (both vs today and vs men) and that this was a moderating force against those left-wing views. With religion in retreat, those views now take voice. pic.twitter.com/Ed3GJyHhap — John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) February 2, 2024 The post Religion and the ideological gender gap appeared...

Greg Clark may well be the most important social scientist of the 21st century. His use of historical data informed by evolutionary theory and genetics is a unique contribution to social science with important and challenging results. Clark’s latest paper (with Neil Cummins) makes a simple but striking point. If the primary systematic determinant of […] The post Matriline versus Patriline: Social Mobility in...

No, but they did get him some votes there: We study the economic and political consequences of the 2018-2019 trade war between the United States, China and other US trade partners at the detailed geographic level, exploiting measures of local exposure to US import tariffs, foreign retaliatory tariffs, and US compensation programs. The trade-war has […] The post Did the Trump tariffs help the...

Since the mapping of the human genome in 2004, biologists have demonstrated genetic links to the expression of several income-enhancing physical traits. To illustrate how heredity produces intergenerational economic effects, this study uses one trait, beauty, to infer the extent to which parents’ physical characteristics transmit inequality across generations. Analyses of a large-scale longitudinal dataset […] The post Hot parents, richer kids? appeared first...

“I suggest, Men and women tend to think alike in societies where there is Close-knit interdependence, religosity and authoritarianism, or Shared cultural production and mixed gendered offline socialising. Gendered ideological polarisation appears encouraged by: Feminised public culture Economic resentment Social media filter bubbles Cultural entrepreneurs.” Here is the full piece, currently the best piece on […] The post Alice Evans on the ideological gender...

Published in the journal Conflict and Health last April, the report suggests that the world’s deadliest humanitarian crisis in 2022 was not in Afghanistan, Ukraine, or other places featured regularly in the news — but in CAR. The Central African Republic has neither reliable birth and death registries nor regular censuses. To figure out how […] The post Central African Republic estimate of the...