~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (577)

From the London Times (gated), he starts from my earlier MR discussion of the topic: Yet, from a policy perspective, identifying what changed after 2008 is less interesting than what could have been done better. Cowen’s question was ignited by a British entrepreneur telling him that the UK’s planning laws explain much of the enduring […] The post Ryan Bourne on the British growth...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is part of the episode summary: Coleman and Tyler explore the implications of colorblindness, including whether jazz would’ve been created in a color-blind society, how easy it is to disentangle race and culture, whether we should also try to be ‘autism-blind’, and Coleman’s personal experience with lookism […] The post My Conversation with the excellent Coleman...

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him.  Here is Wikipedia: Philip Ball (born 1962) is a British science writer. For over twenty years he has been an editor of the journal Nature, for which he continues to write regularly. He is a regular contributor to Prospect magazine and a columnist for Chemistry World, Nature Materials, and BBC Future. Ball holds a […] The post What should I ask Philip Ball?...

Hungary-like fertility policies flatly don't work. Hungary has dedicated major resources to this – no taxes for 3+ kids, debt forgiveness, major subsidies for homes. It's actually equivalent to ~5% of their GDP. The US military is 3.2%, so big spending. Nothing happened. https://t.co/ICmu43cieu pic.twitter.com/VNWRctggwc — Hunter📈🌈 (@StatisticUrban) April 29, 2024 Or is it too […] The post Are Hungarian pro-fertility policies failing? appeared...

1. Roots of Progress blog building fellowship. 2. MIE: buy a decommissioned USG supercomputer. 3. Paul Auster, RIP, here is a recent tweet of mine on Auster and writing. 4. A reconstruction of ancient Greek music. 5. Talent reform for Whitehall? 6. What were the Roman dodecahedrons used for? 7. New paper on housing supply […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit: Trump advisers have been drafting plans to limit significantly the operating autonomy of the Fed. The Trump campaign has disavowed these plans, but the general ideas have been spreading in Republican circles, as evidenced by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 report. Trump himself has called for a weaker […] The post Trump and the Fed appeared first...

Benjamin Nathans, To The Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement.  The definitive book on its topic, consisting largely of profiles of dissidents.  The title is taken from a longstanding dissident toast, and yet they won eventually, sort of.  So your cause isn’t hopeless either. Scott Hodge, Taxocracy: What […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

The odds are against this, and most market prices are well-behaved, noting that the yen was hitting 160 to the dollar.  More importantly, Japanese stocks have bounced back over the last two years, over the same time period that the yen has been weakening.  That is one marker that this is a needed adjustment, rather […] The post Will Japan have a financial crisis...

1. Greenpeace vs. Golden Rice.  And Michael Magoon essays on Progress Studies. 2. Brutalist churches. 3. Good piece on Derek Parfit. 4. The case for permitting reform is stronger than you think. 5. GPT2 speculation. 6. UK metascience research grant call. 7. Scott Alexander now has a proper response to Robin on health care.  And […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Recently, I have seen two innovations in retail, AI cashiers and human cashiers but working remotely from another country such as the Philippines and making much lower wages than domestic workers (examples are below). I fear that the AI cashiers will outcompete the Philippine cashiers leading to the worst of all worlds, AIs doing low-productivity […] The post False Necessity is the Mother of...

In this article we revive, extend and improve the approach used in a series of influential papers written in the 2000s to estimate how changes in the supply of immigrant workers affected natives’ wages in the US. We begin by extending the analysis to include the more recent years 2000-2022. Additionally, we introduce three important […] The post Updated estimates on immigration and wages...

SB 1047 was written, near as I can tell, to satisfy the concerns of a small group of people who believe widespread diffusion of AI constitutes an existential risk to humanity. It contains references to hypothetical models that autonomously engage in illegal activity causing tens of millions in damage and model weights that “escape” from […] The post Dean Ball on the new California...

UK is a finance economy and EU/world ex-US has had terrible stock market performance since then. Germany survived (not thrived) on manufacturing (also better positioned vis-a-vis Eastern Europe), France on luxuries and maybe a bit on tourism, Nordics on oil, Benelux on ??? (not sure, but they’re smart cookies – probably mini-Germanies). UK ceded manufacturing […] The post On deficient British growth (from the...

1. Self-navigating car navigating traffic in India. 2. Do progressive prosecutors lead to higher crime rates? 3. “…we find that consumers form more negative impressions of and are less persuaded by influencers who disable social media comments.” 4. California bill to regulate AI models. 5. “Yann LeCun says in 10 years we won’t have smartphones, […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

There are just a few spots left for the Public Choice Outreach Conference! This is a great opportunity to hear from excellent speakers including Garett Jones, Peter Boettke, Johanna Mollerstrom and more!  The conference is a crash course in public choice. It’s entirely free. Indeed scholarships are available! More details in the poster. Please pass […] The post Public Choice Outreach! appeared first on...

Monthly inflation in Argentina could fall below 10% in April, a sign that the government’s policies are working, President Javier Milei said Sunday in a phone interview with LN+. “Wages are already starting to beat inflation,” Milei said. “The fight against inflation is yielding results.” Argentina’s monthly inflation slowed more than expected in March, cooling for the third consecutive […] The post Progress in Argentina? appeared first on...

These annecdotes do not reflect the data . From (remain leaning) UK in A Changing Europe https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/UKICE-Trade-Tracker-Q1-24.pdf UK trade with the EU, as a per cent of total trade in volume terms in Q3 2023, was at its highest levels since Q2 2008. In Q4 2023, it increased further from 53.4% to 53.6%. This does […] The post Brexit and trade with the EU...

The Catholic advocacy group Catholic Answers released an AI priest called “Father Justin” earlier this week — but quickly defrocked the chatbot after it repeatedly claimed it was a real member of the clergy. Earlier in the week, Futurism engaged in an exchange with the bot, which really committed to the bit: it claimed it was a […] The post Ross Douthat, telephone! (it’s happening) appeared...

1. Lazarus Lake update. 2. Robin Hanson responds to Scott Alexander.  I do not entirely agree with Robin on this one, but his rebuttal beats back the initial critique, which did not much consider overtreatment or medical error.  I might add that studies of Christian Scientists and Amish also dent one’s faith in the very […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

I haven’t been following these countries closely, so I don’t have any “takes,” but I will start paying more attention: 1. Philippines: Growth has been averaging about six percent a year since 2012 (Economist link, gated). 2. Egypt: Has been averaging four percent a year growth, and more recently rising.  The nation also seems to […] The post Forthcoming growth winners? appeared first on...

Take the basic non-growth of the UK economy since 2008 (productivity, real wages, per capita gdp) and compare it to their peer countries (which are those?).  If you had to assign the causes of that shortfall to various factors, how would you do it? Recently I had lunch with a few well-informed Brits, and they […] The post Apportioning the causes of the UK...

Public debt ratios in Portugal and Greece have declined at an unprecedented pace from their pandemic peak. via @DanielKral1 pic.twitter.com/D6Dux8zJsL — Philipp Heimberger (@heimbergecon) April 27, 2024 Greece of course did break the bank, but note the United States is much richer than those countries. The post Why I don’t think the USG will default appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to...

1. NYT obituary for Michael Jensen. 2. Brain-like computer with water and salt? 3. More on the economics of non-compete agreements. 4. Chile is on a path to TFR of 1.0, and soon. 5. Women now author a majority of the U.S. books published. 6. Jail sentence for climate activist who targeted Degas sculpture. 7. […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Challengers is a good and original movie.  Imagine a 2024 rom com, except the behavior and conventions actually are taken from 2024, and with no apologies.  The woman says the word “****ing” a lot, and no one treats this as inappropriate or unusual.  There is bisexuality and poly.  Society is feminized.  Of course opinions will […] The post Culture splat (a few broad spoilers)...