~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (567)

The cost of child care now exceeds the price of college tuition in 38 states and the District of Columbia, according to a new analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute. The left-leaning think tank, based in Washington, D.C., used 2023 federal and nonprofit data to compare the monthly cost of infant child care to […] The post Model this, child care vs. college...

We document that, after remaining almost constant for almost 30 years, real labor productivity at U.S. restaurants surged over 15% during the COVID pandemic. This surge has persisted even as many conditions have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Using mobile phone data tracking visits and spending at more than 100,000 individual limited service restaurants across the […] The post The Curious Surge of Productivity in...

Check it out here. The post Political markets in everything, Steak ‘n Shake edition appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Ds did enough dissuading on their own, though some ... by KileyIn reply to NotRover. ??? by Be me, be Mdl, be rubeIn reply to Reason. They might be worried about the collapse ... by Mark PynenburgIn reply to Ricardo. A...

1. More on stablecoins going mainstream (FT). 2. Kevin Drum, one of the all-time great bloggers, RIP. 3. Bioethicists, on average, are worse than astrologers.  Much worse. 4, Mark Carney wants to eliminate the consumer carbon tax and replace it with a carbon tax on imports? 5. Scott Sumner reviews George Selgin on the New […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Kevin Drum was one of the OG bloggers. I never met him IRL but we know from Ibelin that that is no bar to being friends. One thing I learned from Ayn Rand is that virtue should be rewarded, not just sin punished. That’s one reason why we shouldn’t wait until someone has passed to […] The post Kevin Drum, RIP appeared first on...

The daughters of immigrants enjoy higher absolute mobility than daughters of locals in most destinations, while immigrant sons primarily enjoy this advantage in countries with long histories of immigration. That is from a new and very interesting paper by Leah Boustan, et.al.  You have pondered the implied policy recommendations, right? The post Sentences to ponder appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to...

Did you know that the rest of the country (world?) calls it “the beach”?  New Jerseyans call it “the shore.”  (Why?) While growing up, my mother would take my sister and me to the New Jersey shore for a week, each summer.  My father would drive down and visit, but he was too much of […] The post Visiting the New Jersey shore appeared...

be mebe Marginal Revolutiondaily links postedcommenters debating obscure economic theoriessomeone mentions Baumol’s cost diseasehalf the commenters triggered, half delightedTyler posts cryptic sentence about food trucks“markets in everything” intensifiesrealize you just spent two hours reading about medieval grain pricesmfw economics was the real marginal revolution all along The post GPT 4.5 on this blog appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Zote. Well...

1. A new and thorough Manus report.  And Manus would be a huge liability risk in the United States.  And yup.  And double yup, when will the NYT cover Manus?  And from the Manus founder. 2. Stephen Kotkin on Trump and Ukraine (New Yorker).  So far one of the best pieces this year. 3. Greg […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID. The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States. In consultation with Congress, we intend for […] The post US AID, current status appeared first...

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him.  Chris is a managing partner at Andreessen-Horowitz, and has recently published Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet.  Here is Chris on Wikipedia.  Here is Chris on Twitter.  Chris has some writings on his home page. So what should I ask him? The post What should I ask Chris Dixon? appeared first...

Published by Liberty Fund, by me, here is the third and final installment.  Excerpt: “Below is a brief and simplified catalog of the major polities described in The Odyssey: • Pylos and Sparta: Visited by Telemachus, superficially seem normal but they seem sadder on reflection and Sparta relies on intoxication to support public order. • Ogygia, or Calypso: An […] The post An Economic Approach to Homer’s Odyssey:...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Excerpt: COWEN: You grew up in Northwest Territories and also Alberta, so western Canada. How do you think that’s shaped your perspective on economies? CARNEY: Well, the big thing I took from my time in Alberta is just, I mean, it made me a market believer because I’ll give you […] The post Redux, my 2021 Conversation with Mark...

Highly controversial plans to revolutionise Whitehall by introducing performance-related pay, an accelerated exit process for under-performing mandarins and more digitalisation will be announced this week in what ministers say is a programme to “reshape the state” so it can respond to a new “era of insecurity”. The proposed changes, to be announced by Cabinet Office […] The post Will there be a British DOGE?...

1. Ezra Klein essay, adapted from his Abundance book with Derek Thompson (NYT). 2. Ancient transport vehicles, without wheels, in New Mexico. 3. Was Victor Hugo also a great visual artist? (Times of London).  Further links here. 4. It turns out Buffy Sainte-Marie isn’t even Canadian? 5. Is brick making a comeback in urban architecture? […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

Early reports are pretty consistent, and they indicate that Manus agentic AI is for real, and ahead of its American counterparts.  I also hear it is still glitchy  Still, it is easy to imagine Chinese agentic AI “getting there” before the American product does.  If so, what does that world look like? The cruder way […] The post The political economy of Manus AI...

1. Salim Furth uses Deep Research. 2. Culture wars in New Zealand. 3. Gdp without g (Bloomberg). 4. “Surprisingly common trait in high agency people is they had heroes and figured out how to meet them all before age 25” Nabeel 5. “We find that Gun Sanctity is highly predictive of different forms of magical […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

1. Manus.  And more.  And Chubby weighs in.  And more Chubby.  Here is Rowan Cheung.  And another report.  Here is background information.  This seems to be some kind of demo?  Here is Manus on Twitter.  Here is their website.  And a new video.  Mind and Hand!  What a day. The post Manus assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsI’m gonna be honest....

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him.  This is Jack Clark the co-founder of Anthropic, rather than Jack Clark the baseball player.  For further background, here is his LinkedIn page.  So what should I ask him? The post What should I ask Jack Clark? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIs Islam right about women? by raywardIn reply to Bob McGrew. More...

Recent evidence indicates that the emergence of stone tool technology occurred before the appearance of the genus Homo1 and may potentially be traced back deep into the primate evolutionary line. Conversely, osseous technologies are apparently exclusive of later hominins from approximately 2 million years ago (Ma), whereas the earliest systematic production of bone tools is currently restricted […] The post Systematic bone tool production at 1.5...

Poland will look at gaining access to nuclear weapons and also ensure that every man undergoes military training as part of an effort to build a 500,000-strong army to face off the threat from Russia, Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the parliament on Friday. Here is the full article. The post Solve for the equilibrium appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to...

1. Brian Potter analyzes Boom and the attempt to build a successful supersonic aircraft. 2. Balaji on tariffs. 3. Max Tabarrok on AI and the economics job market. 4. 50 thoughts on DOGE, an excellent post. 5. Why people don’t like neighborhood density. 6. Starting to get freaky? 7. Rebuilding Addis? (FT) 8. Jean-Claude Saintilus, […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit: The most important factors behind trade balances include savings decisions, fiscal policy, economic growth rates, wealth levels and demographic characteristics such as the age of the population. As economist Joseph Gagnon bluntly put it: “None of the studies found any role for trade barriers.” […] The post Tariffs do not in general help...

I always loved games and card games, and they played a big role in family life.  It was one activity that everyone, including my grandmother, could partake in enthusiastically, and on a more or less equal footing. The big card game was euchre, yes euchre.  It is a trick-taking game with trumps, think of it […] The post Games we played appeared first on...