~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (570)

Not anytime soon, as I argue in my Bloomberg column, here is one of the arguments: The desire to diversify is another limiting force. Once you have a considerable sum of money, it makes sense to spread your assets widely. Gates, for example, sold a good deal of Microsoft stock early on, presumably with diversification […] The post When will the world have its...

Ryan Bourne has a good rundown on rent controls in Argentina. In 2020 Argentina introduced a relatively mild form of rent control; rent increases during tenancy were capped at a weighted average of inflation and wage growth, tenancy was a minimum of 3 years and it became very difficult to end a tenancy. In ordinary […] The post Rent Controls appeared first on Marginal...

I won’t double indent, but this is not by me, though I agree with it: “I agree with your read re Argentina’s history of fiscal stability. From this paper (unclear if the data is accurate), here is Argentina’s deficit from 1960 to 2016 or so: [See Figure 3 here] Notice 2003-2009 is the only time […] The post Quick tour of Argentina’s fiscal deficit...

By Coleman Hughes, coming soon! The post *The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Publius. Pat Buchanan authored the phrase. If ... by Anti-GnosticIn reply to Vulcidian. Revealed preferences: fair-skinned ... by Anti-GnosticIn reply to kavu. “A single racial group granting 90% of ... by PubliusIn reply to asdf. When Democrats say...

1. Noah Smith on the California Forever Project. 2. Corporations defending DEI. 3. More on ice deposits on Mars? (speculative) 4. Larry speaks the truth about Harvard. 5. “A rich literature explores gender differences between men and women, but an increasing share of the population identifies their gender in some other way. Analyzing data on […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

During the pandemic, when vaccines doses were scarce, I argued for fractional dosing to speed vaccination and maximize social benefits. But what dose? In my latest paper, just published in PNAS, with Phillip Boonstra and Garth Strohbehn, I look at optimal trial design when you want to quickly discover a fractional dose with good properties […] The post Dose Optimization Trials Enable Fractional Dosing...

Barro, CPI rate correlation with covid spending in 37 countries pic.twitter.com/AD47gPTbYb — 161phi (@161phi) January 21, 2024 A year or so ago I recall telling Bari Weiss in a podcast that the inflation was perhaps half real shocks, half an aggregate demand problem.  Don’t let the revisionists talk you into the hardcore RBC view! The post No, Covid spending wasn’t the only factor, but…...

Let us say you favor policy X, and take steps to see that policy X comes about. Under many conditions, people who favor non-X will take additional countervailing steps to oppose X.  And in that case your actions in favor of X, on average, will lead to nothing.  In the meantime, you and also your […] The post Social improvements that don’t create countervailing...

There is: Poor Things The Delinquents [Los Delincuentes], from Argentina, tragicomedy. The Teacher’s Lounge All of Us Strangers Anselm 3-D The Zone of Interest Of course many of those came out in their respective foreign markets before 2024, but that is not the point.  Rather it seems cinema has turned a corner and is vital […] The post 2024 is already an incredible year...

I am pleased to have spoken at their yearly conference yesterday.  If I understand them correctly (here is their web site), it is for elite college students — grad and undergrad — at Harvard, MIT, Stanford and the rest of the Ivies.  No other schools.  The group is explicitly religious (across religions and denominations) and […] The post The David Network appeared first on...

I give him a 30-40% chance, which is perhaps generous because I am rooting for him.  Bryan Caplan, who is more optimistic, offers some analysis and estimates that Milei needs to close a fiscal gap of about five percent of gdp. I have two major worries.  First, if Milei approaches fiscal success, the opposing parties […] The post Will Milei succeed in Argentina? appeared...

From Vidya Mahambare: Several countries have grappled with a longstanding dilemma – how to reverse the trend of falling fertility rates. In 2019, eighty-one countries had fertility rates below the population replacement threshold. The replacement fertility rate, estimated at 2.1 births per woman, represents the level required to sustain a stable population over the long […] The post Boosting fertility by subsidizing child-bearing for...

Adrian Wooldridge has an excellent Bloomberg column on this topic, promoting the relevance of Thomas Mann, and here is one excerpt: In the book [Magic Mountain], Castorp falls in with two intellectuals who live in the village of Davos below his sanitorium: an Italian humanist called Lodovico Settembrini and a Jewish-born cosmopolitan called Leo Naphta […] The post Settembrini and the continuing relevance of...

1. Did proxenia grants help ancient Greece grow? 2. Bob Lawson tribute to Jim Gwartney. 3. Puffin walking on the cliff in Iceland, other good photos too. 4. “Alphafold found thousands of possible psychedelics.” 5. Daniel Gross on AGI trades? 6. Girardian Papuans, circa 1963 (short video). 7. Nabeel on how to use Twitter.  And […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Miss America, Miss United States and Miss USA are three different people. The post Miss Information appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to rsm. Yes. You have to be a very sheltered ... by MikePIn reply to kavu. Kavu. How in the world did you get there ... by JbdIn reply to kavu. Are you saying that the hostility to woke ......

1. Hannah Ritchie, Not the End of the World: How We Can be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet.  An excellent book with sound conclusions, think of it as moderate Julian Simon-like optimism on environmental issues, but with left-coded rhetoric. 2. Colin Elliott, Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.  Think […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

Here is one interesting hypothesis: Despite the persistence of anti-Black racism, White Americans report feeling worse off than Black Americans. We suggest that some White Americans may report low well-being despite high group-level status because of perceptions that they are falling behind their in-group. Using census-based quota sampling, we measured status comparisons and health among […] The post Who feels the pinch of status...

1. Are some Latin American countries “quiet quitting” the war on drugs? 2. “We find that in the United States, enslaved workers were responsible for somewhere between 12.49 per cent and 18.0 per cent of the increase in output per capita between 1839 and 1859.” 3. Some much-needed perspective on the “Chinese brain killer virus.” […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology now has almost eight times as many nonfaculty employees as faculty employees. In the University of California system, the number of managers and senior professionals swelled by 60 percent between 2004 and 2014. The number of tenure-track faculty members grew by just 8 percent. The column (NYT) is on the mark throughout, and it […] The post David Brooks on bureaucracy appeared first...

Brazil’s productivity — the output per hour worked, crucial to raising a nation’s prosperity — grew by just 0.5 per cent annually in the four decades to 2022, according to the Getúlio Vargas Institute. Here is more from Michael Pooler and Bryan Harris at the FT. The post Brazil fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Restless carrot....

OpenAI on Thursday announced its first partnership with a higher education institution. Starting in February, Arizona State University will have full access to ChatGPT Enterprise and plans to use it for coursework, tutoring, research and more. The partnership has been in the works for at least six months. ASU plans to build a personalized AI […] The post Open AI will partner with Arizona...

Just in case you don't want to click over to the other sites, Big Zuck update – Open sourcing will continue– Currently training LLama 3– AI + Metaverse– Will have 350,000 H100s and ~600 H100 equivalents of compute 🤯 -Ideal AI formfactor is 🕶️ pic.twitter.com/xJSi7yVzXe — Alex Volkov (Thursd/AI) (@altryne) January 18, 2024 According to […] The post Meta, the forward march of progress...

1. Why doesn’t the Davos set sound more intelligent?  (Only a partial diagnosis) 2. New and lucrative scholarships at University of Austin. 3. “What would an empirical revolution in safety research consist of?” Many would do well to heed this piece. 4. CWT meet-up in NYC Feb.5. 5. Cayalá, Guatemala (NYT). 6. “The Afghan Taliban […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

No one’s family name was changed, altered, shortened, butchered, or “written down wrong” at Ellis Island or any American port. That idea is an urban legend. Many names did get changed as immigrants settled into their new American lives, but those changes were made several years after arrival and were done by choice of someone in […] The post No One’s Name Was Changed at...