Bookmarks (2616)

1. https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/sep/23/how-to-cook-the-perfect-dosa-recipe-felicity-cloake 2. The Supreme Court will not wreck Obamacare. 3. Some guy something to do with golf something or other something. 4. New survey on pre-existing immunity.  And yet some additional results. 5. NYT on cases vs. deaths in Europe.  And the FT on the Finnish success.  And FT on the Madrid second wave, […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

From the FT: London is to host the world’s first Covid-19 human challenge trials — in which healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with coronavirus to assess the effectiveness of experimental vaccines. The UK government-funded studies are expected to begin in January at a secure quarantine facility in east London, according to several people involved in […] The post Challenge Trials in Britain! appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Do you have good intuition for the time path of per capita (million) deaths from COVID in different countries? Try this Storyline to test yourself. When you are done, Our World in Data has all the data in a single graph. The post The COVID Storyline appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Despite the conventional wisdom that Trump would surely nominate a judge to secure a conservative majority that would ultimately overturn Roe v. Wade, getting that judge successfully confirmed would diminish Trump’s reelection prospects (by energizing the Democratic base to vote for leaders who would pack the court or ratify PR and DC as states). But […] The post The game theory of SCOTUS nominations appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. Russian billionaire wants to buy cancelled Confederate statues. 2. “Nursing homes have new COVID-19 tests that are fast and cheap. So why won’t N.J. allow them to be used?” 3. Where are the missing right-wing firms?  And Arnold. 4. The vaccine protocols. 5. The world forager elite. 6. An evidence-based return to work plan. […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Here is the video, audio, and transcript.  Of course Alex has a new book out Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, which explores the complicated legacy of Wagner and music more generally.  We learn Alex’s nomination for the greatest pop album ever made, but many of my questions focused on progress in […] The post My Conversation with Alex Ross appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

What if I told you that a cheap, effective and painless method of stopping tooth decay had just been invented! You’d be pretty happy. What if I told you that a cheap, effective and painless method of stopping tooth decay was invented over 100 years ago and has been available in other countries for decades […] The post The Great Forgetting: How to Stop Tooth Decay appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Once upon a time, there were some herd immunity theorists.  They claimed that once a certain percentage of the population had been infected, the R for Covid would fall below one and the disease would become far less common and less significant.  Since these analysts were especially aware of heterogeneity issues (though common in the […] The post Cases vs. deaths in the Covid debates appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

We study how two of the world’s largest gangs—MS-13 and 18th Street—affect economic development in El Salvador. We exploit the fact that the emergence of these gangs was the consequence of an exogenous shift in American immigration policy that led to the deportation of gang leaders from the United States to El Salvador. Using a […] The post Gangs, Labor Mobility and Development appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. What is the marginal cost curve like for gravediggers? 2. 66% herd immunity in the Brazilian Amazon? 3. An Uber-like service for hiring an eviction crew. 4. Jonathan Dancy on Parfit. 5. MIE: discontinued photographic film. 6. Matt Y. on the Biden economic team. The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Distributing a COVID vaccine to billions of people will be challenging. We will require vials, needles, cold storage, air travel, trained health care professionals and much more. The challenge of distributing a smallpox vaccine in the 19th century was even greater because aside from fewer resources the vaccine, cowpox, was geographically rare and infected humans […] The post The Distribution of Vaccines in the 19th Century appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

I say focus on data protection but let them keep the algorithm.  From my new Bloomberg column here is one excerpt: A second principle for good policy is that the U.S. government should not cut off the U.S. — including of course Chinese Americans and visiting Chinese — from the Chinese internet. Let’s say TikTok […] The post How should America regulate TikTok and other Chinese tech companies? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

We examine the impact of criminalizing sex work, exploiting an event in which local officials unexpectedly criminalized sex work in one district in East Java, Indonesia, but not in neighboring districts. We collect data from female sex workers and their clients before and after the change. We find that criminalization increases sexually transmitted infections among […] The post Unintended Consequences of Criminalizing Sex Work appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. More detail on the Venus phosphine discovery. 2. Wes Pegden on herd immunity and transmission rates. 3. Ross Douthat on the Ginsburg seat (NYT). 4. “In short, academic institutions systemically promote exactly the sort of short-term optimization of which, ironically, the private sector is often accused. Is entrepreneurship a trap? No; right now, it’s […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

I will be doing a Conversation with Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang, so what should I ask?  Here is Wikipedia with further information.  I am looking forward to this one. The post What should I ask Audrey Tang? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Tata group has received approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for the commercial launch of the country’s first CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) coronavirus test ‘Feluda’, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said on Saturday. This test uses an indigenously developed, cutting-edge CRISPR technology for detection of the genomic sequence of […] The post America, meet India appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

This is perhaps a bit whacky, but along similar-ish lines to the uniqueness theory, I have been wondering whether QAnon’s big differentiator is it’s comparative defensibility, powered by its complexity. If you accept that social movements need their legitimacy-granting myths and “narratives” to hold up for at least as long as they are niche or otherwise unacceptable […] The post From my email, on QAnon appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

…according to recent polls from Quinnipiac and Monmouth, 38 percent of registered Hispanic voters in 10 battleground states may be ambivalent about even voting… Progressives commonly categorize Latinos as people of color, no doubt partly because progressive Latinos see the group that way and encourage others to do so as well. Certainly, we both once took that perspective […] The post America fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. More American soft power: it seems BLM is one reason why Barbados might cast off its ties to Queen Elizabeth (NYT). 2. Would you settle for one billion horses? 3. Stephen F. Cohen, historian of Russia, has passed away (NYT). 4. They want to rename the town named Asbestos, but can’t come up with […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Here is my Bloomberg column on that question.  This is not my central point, but it is the excerpt I have decided to give you: There is the related possibility that QAnon’s main appeal is in the sheer complexity of the conspiracy itself, rather than the details. QAnon is often described often as a rabbit […] The post What does QAnon stand for? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Buggert’s study in Sweden seems to support this position. Investigating close family members of patients with confirmed covid-19, he found T cell responses in those who were seronegative or asymptomatic. While around 60% of family members produced antibodies, 90% had T cell responses. (Other studies have reported similar results.) “So many people got infected and didn’t […] The post Claims about antibodies and T-cells and Sweden appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. New York Film Festival looks strong this year. 2. Tattoo artists in Japan no longer need medical licenses. 3. “The RCMP in Alberta have charged a 20-year-old British Columbia man with speeding while he was asleep at the wheel of a Tesla electric car.” 4. Messi vs. Massi: “Footballer Lionel Messi can register his […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

In 2013 ago I wrote, Our DNA, Our Selves, arguing against the FDA’s crackdown on genetic readouts from firms like 23andMe. The FDA, however, proved succesful in its crackdown and that is why rapid at-home antigen tests are not available today and why tens of thousands of people are dying from COVID unnecessarily. Regulations have […] The post Our Antigens, Our Selves appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Here is a non-complete list.  I am reluctant to speculate on what I see as some very positive reports, but in due time I will be discussing the results of the research in more detail.  Here is one earlier post on SalivaDirect. The post Papers that have come from Fast Grants appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

But Congress did ultimately chop off a leg when it repealed the mandate penalties in 2017 — and, despite these predictions, the Affordable Care Act still stands. New federal data and economic research show the law hasn’t collapsed or entered the “death spiral” that economists and health insurers projected. Many experts now view the individual mandate as […] The post What happened to the mandate, the third leg of the stool? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

The author is Tim Harford, and the subtitle is Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers.  My copy just arrived and I am just about to leave town, but I thought I should give you notice. And here is my CWT with Tim, a really fun one. The post *How to Make the World Add Up* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. German soccer team thrashed 37-0 after socially distancing from opponent. 2. AT&T wants to put ads on your smartphone in exchange for $5 discount. 3. “What I think I am nearly certain about,” redux of a 2008 post. 4. New van Morrison protest song against lockdowns. 5. The hardware lottery. 6. Model this Charles […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

“The email sent by Penn SAS Deans last Tuesday needs to be interpreted with some care. In particular, notice the words “school-funded Ph.D. programs.” There is a lot of institutional background that is lost when the email is read from the outside, especially because the Economics Ph.D. program has its own funding structure that differs […] The post University of Pennsylvania update and correction appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. Leonard Mlodinow, Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics.  One man’s version of “the real Stephen Hawking story,” including the marital arrangements and rearrangements, told by a former good friend.  I am not sure that books such as this should be written (or read), but…this one is pretty good.  It also gives Hawking’s […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Academics should not be forced to squeeze their research into weekends and holidays, according to the Dutch education minister, who admitted that pressure on some researchers had become intolerable and that professional competition had gone “too far.” Ingrid van Engelshoven wants to reduce stress and time pressure in academe by tipping the balance away from […] The post The educational culture that is Dutch appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

The School of Arts and Sciences will pause admissions for school-funded Ph.D. programs for the 2021-2022 academic year. SAS Dean Steven J. Fluharty and Associate Dean for Graduate Students Beth Wenger wrote in an email to SAS standing faculty and graduate students on Tuesday that the decision was made as a result of the COVID-19 […] The post No economics Ph.D admissions for U Penn next year appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. Did Covid-19 trigger nostalgic taste in music? 2. The philanthropy of Chuck Feeney who gave it all away (link fixed now). 3. Claims about North Korea and nuclear war. 4. Kanye to the NYT: “He also expressed anguish about abortion, said he didn’t reflexively support Democrats, and asked, “Does anyone at your magazine believe […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: Ideally, a government will wish to publicize the announcement of a vaccine while slow-walking the actual distribution. That way, if there is something wrong with the brew, it can stop distribution before too many of its citizens experience adverse side effects. In […] The post The international game theory of vaccines appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

The proportion of the US population in extreme distress rose from 3.6% in 1993 to 6.4% in 2019. Among low-education midlife White persons, the percentage more than doubled, from 4.8% to 11.5%. Regression analysis revealed that (1) at the personal level, the strongest statistical predictor of extreme distress was “I am unable to work,” and […] The post American distress (average is over) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Here is an excellent conceptual survey article by K. Paige Harden, it goes well beyond the usual.  Hard to summarize, but here are two good bits: An early study using a DNA-based method estimated the heritability of height to be∼80%,and it noted that this result was “consistent with results from independent twin and family studies […] The post What is new in behavioral genetics? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

For a transfer student to be immediately eligible under Georgia High School Association rules, he or she must make a “bona fide move,” in which the “student moved simultaneously with the entire parental unit or persons he/she resided with at the former school, and the student and parent(s) or persons residing with the student live […] The post Incentives matter, high school college football divorce edition appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. Warsaw Ghetto state capacity. 2. Anger increases susceptibility to misinformation. When I see all you “pro-science” types getting mad at the wrongdoers, mostly I get sad and think you are turning your back on your cause. 3. Speculative thread on seroprevalence. 4. What kind of euro-based arbitrage scheme is this!?  Sorry W.S. Jevons! 5. […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Not well. MPR News: The meeting was slated as a Minneapolis City Council study session on police reform. But for much of the two-hour meeting, council members told police Chief Medaria Arradondo that their constituents are seeing and hearing street racing which sometimes results in crashes, brazen daylight carjackings, robberies, assaults and shootings. And they […] The post How is Defunding the Police Going in Minneapolis? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Fans of horror films exhibit less psychological distress during COVID-19. Fans of “prepper” films reported being more prepared for the pandemic. Morbidly curious people exhibit greater positive resilience during COVID-19. Morbidly curious people are more interested in pandemic films during the pandemic. Speculative, and yes replication crisis, but consistent with my intuitions, and in any […] The post Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

On Monday, scientists announced the astonishing discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. This chemical could have been produced by a biological source, but scientists won’t know for sure without sending a spacecraft to the planet. As luck would have it, Rocket Lab, the private small rocket company founded in New Zealand, has been […] The post Kiwi start-up to the Venus rescue appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

An Australian mining firm wants to turn a Nevada valley into a quarry for lithium and boron – key elements for green technologies – but a rare plant may stand in its way. Researchers say that biodiversity and clean energy should not be in opposition. The company, Ioneer, says the quarry in Rhyolite Ridge valley […] The post Green vs. green: whose side are you on? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. UAE announces emergency approval use for vaccine. 2. Doubts about the duration of protective immunity. 3. You people are so embarrassing.  But apparently not embarrassed. 4. John Cochrane on Fintech. 5. The Sturgis Bike Rally paper does seem quite wrong, and perhaps the authors and the NBER should withdraw it? 6. Harold Morowitz and […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

…our results suggest that the [instrumental variables] and, to a lesser extent, [difference-in-difference] research bodies have substantially more p-hacking and/or selective publication than those based on [randomized controlled trials] and [regression-discontinuity]… (p.3) And: We find no evidence that: (1) Papers published in the ‘Top 5’ journals are different to others; (2) The journal ‘revise and […] The post Which economic methods are in practice statistically more honest than others? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Life expectancy in the US increased 3.3 years between 1990 and 2015, but the drivers of this increase are not well understood. We used vital statistics data and cause-deletion analysis to identify the conditions most responsible for changing life expectancy and quantified how public health, pharmaceuticals, other (nonpharmaceutical) medical care, and other/unknown factors contributed to […] The post Determinants of life expectancy appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Here is the closing part of my introduction to what will be a forthcoming Taiwanese, classical Chinese character edition of my earlier book Discover Your Inner Economist: Finally, hidden in Discover Your Inner Economist is an implied revision of how economics should be done in the university. Most economic theory starts with the notion of […] The post Reconstructing microeconomics as a kind of anthropology appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. Gottlieb and McClellan, both former FDA heads, call for accelerated vaccine approval for designated groups, without relaxation of broader standards (WSJ). 2. The perfection premium. 3. A time-lapse map of every nuclear explosion through 1998. 4. “We find no evidence of manipulation of Chinese COVID-19 data using Benford’s Law.” 5. “We conclude that the […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

There is plenty of relevant psychological advice, here is some more narrowly economic advice from my latest Bloomberg column.  Start with this key point: …it is a common result in empirical economics that consumption habits are slow to adjust to changing circumstances, especially unprecedented circumstances. It is not enough for you to develop new spending habits — […] The post How to make yourself happier during the pandemic appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

…regimes founded in violent social revolution are especially durable. Revolutionary regimes, such as those in Russia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam, endured for more than half a century in the face of strong external pressure, poor economic performance, and large-scale policy failures. The authors develop and test a theory that accounts for such durability using a […] The post The durability of violent revolution appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

I have not applied further indentation: “…this is seemingly starting to be a big deal in OK, but flying under the radar. Background: 10-15 years ago Oklahoma passed a law allowing online-only charter schools with a separate regulatory structure from physical charter schools. Critically, the unions did not think to push for an enrollment cap. There are 5-10 schools, […] The post On-line education in Oklahoma, from my email box appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

1. The culture that is Singapore golf club script theft punishment. 2. Very good thread on some Matt Rognlie results, paper here.  The whole “market power lowering the returns to labor” bit really doesn’t seem to be holding up. 3. The Viewer (recommended videos, affiliated with The Browser). 4. ABBA outfits, and their story as […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.