~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (365)

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)...

The author is Kathleen Duval, and the subtitle is A Millennium in North America.  This is an excellent book.  Here is one excerpt, strung together by me from three separate pages: By 1400, the cities of Cahokia, Moundville, and the Huhugam were abandoned.  People continued to live nearby and, in many cases, continued to use […] The post *Native Nations* appeared first on Marginal...

1. Nandan Nilekani’s vision for the “Finternet” is to enable individuals to transfer any financial asset, in any amount, at any time, to anyone, anywhere in the world—cheaply, securely, and near-instantaneously.   Andy Mukherjee summarizes it here. 2. Claims about Chinese LLMs.  And LLMs and UK regulatory issues. 3. Stripe will start accepting global payments in […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

Hassan Sayed, a fifth year PhD candidate in economics, it seems was banned from Princeton.  Ostensibly for partaking in illegal demonstrations. I am not saying whether this is justified or not, as I do not know the circumstances.  I can assure you I am fine with “being tough on students,” and I am far from […] The post Hassan Sayed, banned from Princeton? appeared...

From the excellent Doug Irwin: Do trade reforms that significantly reduce import barriers lead to faster economic growth? In the twenty-five years since Rodríguez and Rodrik’s (2000) critical survey of empirical work on this question, new research has tried to overcome the various methodological problems that have plagued previous attempts to provide a convincing answer. […] The post Trade reform and economic growth appeared...

1. Works in Progress will be running an “Invisible College” in Cambridge, UK. 2. How much was Britain already industrializing in the 17th century? 3. Something, something, blah blah blah, but probably interesting? Research article is here. 4. “We find that once the sales of foreign exporters are taken into account, U.S. market concentration in […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

Here is a new paper by Sara Abrahamsson.  Perhaps there is Norwegian exceptionalism at work, but the results reflect my expectations reasonably closely.  The basic setting is that smart phones were banned in middle school, but at varying (and exogenous) rates around the country.  Here are some of the core findings, noting that reading the […] The post The Norwegian ban on smart phones...

Michael Stack writes me: “Hi Tyler – you wrote about preferring current airport procedures to pre-9/11 procedures. Do you plan to elaborate on this? I have a hard time understanding why you’d feel that way. Here is the list I produced – these are guesses as to why you might feel the way you do: […] The post Why do I prefer current airport...

1. U.S. vs. Taiwanese work culture. 2. Albert Wensemius and the rise of Singapore. 3. Unusual questions answered by Megan McArdle. 4. Why Panama dollarized. 5. New open access book on prices and games by Michael Richter and Ariel Rubinstein. 6. Canada now limiting immigration. 7. “In the fiscal year 2023, more than half of […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

By Rohit Krishnan, he and I are both interested in the question of what LLMs cannot do, and why.  Here is one excerpt: It might be best to say that LLMs demonstrate incredible intuition but limited intelligence. It can answer almost any question that can be answered in one intuitive pass. And given sufficient training data […] The post What can LLMs never do? appeared...

1. AI Camera turns your images into poetry. 2. Highly capable model locally on your phone. 3. Clara Piano reviews GOAT.  “Perhaps, in his emphasis on the importance of ideas, Cowen reveals that he is ultimately a Simonian. After all, the human mind is the ultimate resource.” 4. Market liberalism, Chinese style. 5. Red flags for […] The post More Tuesday links appeared first on...

1. A literalist reading of Civil War. 2. Why it is so hard to get a reservation nowadays (New Yorker). 3. “There are currently 682 #AI-related bills (581 of them in the states) on the @MultiStateAssoc legislative tracker.”  Link here. 4. The econometrics of social media and mental health.  And more on the same.  A […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Several common measures — like employing a chief diversity officer, offering diversity training or having a diverse board — were not correlated with decreased discrimination in entry-level hiring, the researchers found. But one thing strongly predicted less discrimination: a centralized H.R. operation. The researchers recorded the voice mail messages that the fake applicants received. When a company’s […] The post Hiring discrimination sentences to ponder appeared...

1. Are Indian women stronger relative supporters of Modi? 2. Apple to build on-device AI? 3. The remarkable economic recovery of Sri Lanka?. 4. “UK alcohol-related deaths up one-third on pre-pandemic levels…” (FT) 5. New Cass Sunstein book on campus free speech. 6. The Straussian approach to the new Taylor Swift. 7. Macro Musings podcast […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

These are usually worth pondering, as at the very least you will learn something.  Here is a hate-worthy paragraph from an earlier Bloomberg column of mine: …note that higher real estate prices, to the extent they result from immigrant demands, largely translate into capital gains for homeowners — most of whom are native-born. To be […] The post Arguments that (almost) everyone hates appeared...

1. Rasheed Griffith reggae playlist. 2. Poland got rid of compulsory homework for grade school. 3. Suicide rate trends for German teen females. 4. Important job ad for finding and cultivating talent in Brazil, no Portuguese required. 5. Plans for the REPO market? 6. Claims about microwave missiles, speculative. 7. Abundance Institute. The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         Comments#6...

The amazing Gukesh (17 years old!)  is half a point ahead with one round remaining today.  Three players — Nakamura, Caruana, and Nepo — trail him by half a point.  Naka is playing Gukesh, and of course Naka will try to win.  But what about Caruana vs. Nepo?  Yes, each must try to win (no […] The post The game theory of the final...

He is one of the greatest of living American historians, here is from Wikipedia: Alan Shaw Taylor (born June 17, 1955) is an American historian and scholar who is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the early history of the United States, Taylor has written extensively about the colonial […] The post What should I ask Alan Taylor?...

That is the new Daron Acemoglu paper, and he is skeptical about its overall economic effects.  Here is part of the abstract: Using existing estimates on exposure to AI and productivity improvements at the task level, these macroeconomic effects appear nontrivial but modest—no more than a 0.71% increase in total factor productivity over 10 years. […] The post “The Simple Macroeconomics of AI” appeared...

1. Ross Douthat on whether the internet is the enemy of progress (NYT). 2. “This year, Sara and Justin Ilse finished building a floor for their home’s 230-square-foot entryway out of 65,507 pennies.” (WSJ) 3. Commentary on Zuck and Dwarkesh. 4. New open access book on Moonshots and the New Industrial Policy. 5. The decline […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Maybe, but maybe not: Amid the current U.S.-China technological race, the U.S. has imposed export controls to deny China access to strategic technologies. We document that these measures prompted a broad-based decoupling of U.S. and Chinese supply chains. Once their Chinese customers are subject to export controls, U.S. suppliers are more likely to terminate relations […] The post Decoupling from China? appeared first on...

I saw the film as having very definite politics, and yes I am aware of the pronouncements of the director — ignore them!  I am writing about the movie, what was on the screen. The seceding states — California, Texas, and Florida — all have substantial Latino population segments.  The core political message is that […] The post The politics of *Civil War* (full...

1. Andrej Karpathy on Llama 3. 2. The PEN awards are on the brink of collapse. 3. These were my fiscal, political and other predictions from 2010. 4. AI is being integrated into social media — now.  Social media will change. 5. New Yorker Music critic Alex Ross cites Fischer Black on noise. 6. How […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...