
Singapore sentences of the day
Singapore has developed a “globally inter-operable” standard based on blockchain technology to facilitate cross-border verification of...

Saturday assorted links
1. Douglas Murray on Greg Clark. By no means do I agree with Greg on everything,...

Single-Shot and First Doses First
The FDA panel voted unanimously to authorize the J&J vaccine. Good. Note, however, that the single-shot...

Is all that extra money trapped in high asset prices? (no)
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. Here is one bit: The hypothesis is...

UK to fast track drug trials
Drugmakers will be offered fast-tracked approvals for innovative medicines in the UK as ministers seek to...

Vaccine markets in everything
The German national carrier Lufthansa plans to set up a first class “Corona Lounge” in a Moscow airport...

Friday assorted links
1. How much is the Tuskegee history still a factor? 2. Biggest archaeological findings of 2020?...

Market Design to Accelerate Vaccine Supply
Market design to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine supply is my new paper in Science, co-authored with Camilo...

My Caribbean podcast with the excellent Rasheed Griffith
One hour, fifteen minutes, almost all of it about the history and culture and economic future...

What I’ve been reading
1. Kevin Donnelly, Adolphe Quetelet, Social Physics, & the Average Men of Science, 1796-1874. The Belgian...

The energy optimism of Austin Vernon
I’m pretty convinced that even with business as usual carbon emissions will drop like an anvil...

Thursday assorted links
1. The writing of philosophy. And what is up in chess yes the world is really...

My Conversation with Patricia Fara
The last chat was with Brian Armstrong about bitcoin, this one started with Isaac Newton and...

Potential yet still thwarted Filipino nurse vaccine barter markets in everything?
The Philippines will let thousands of its health care workers, mostly nurses, take up jobs in...

Wednesday assorted links
1. Robin Hanson: Is Status-Seeking A Context-Neglecting-Value? 2. UFO skeptic West has not in fact debunked...

A Majority of Doses are Now Second Doses
As of Feb. 18 (last day of full data) we gave out 817,708 second doses and...

Duke is a Trademark Bully!
Duke University has gone to incredibly and absurd lengths to contest other people’s trademark applications. For...

Texas utilities should have had more dynamic pricing
But there was also a missed opportunity on the demand side. Texas has retail choice for...

“Beeple is an artist”
Beeple is an artist. He makes digital art—pixels on screens depicting bizarre, hilarious, disturbing, and sometimes...

Tuesday assorted links
1. Thwarted markets in everything: “Indianapolis Colts WR Michael Pittman Jr. says he won’t give up...

The AstraZeneca Vaccine Works Well
A new study looking at essentially the entirety of the Scottish population finds that both the...

Cool, green Britannia
Over the summer of 2020, as coronavirus cases fell and life in Britain felt briefly normal,...

Clementine Jacoby, Emergent Ventures winner
More than 2 million people are imprisoned in the U.S., among them hundreds of thousands who...

The new world of digital art on the blockchain
In the 10 years since Chris Torres created Nyan Cat, an animated flying cat with a Pop-Tart...

Monday assorted links
1. When it came to actual human affairs, John Rawls was in fact a mediocre, ordinary...

Hungary’s Vaccine Approval Rule
AP: Hungarian health authorities were the first in the EU to approve the Sinopharm jab for...

My days as a teenage chess teacher
I’ve already blogged my earlier job working in the supermarket, so I thought I would add...

Sunday assorted links
1. Rohit Krishnan reviews Stubborn Attachments. 2. “South Korea was the only country in the Organization...

The equitization of human labor, Fernando Tatis Jr. edition
Fernando Tatís Jr. was 18 years old, just a low-level prospect from the Dominican Republic trying...

From the Comments, On FDF
Sure and Tom Meadowcroft have been hitting it out of the ballpark in the comments sections....

Venezuelan relative price fact of the day
As Venezuela enters its eighth year of economic crisis, a deeply personal drama is playing out...

Should unemployment benefits be taxed?
A number of people on Twitter were mocking this earlier idea of Martin Feldstein’s, now a...

Saturday assorted links
1. Do birth subsidies lead to more babies? (NYT) 2. Heartland visas will be part of...

Medical ethics? (model this)
Steven Joffe, MD, MPH, a medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said he doesn’t believe...

The First Dose is Good
WSJ: The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE generates robust immunity after one...

British real wealth is rising
Sterling climbed to $1.40 for the first time in almost three years as investors looked past...

Profile of Youyang Gu, data scientist
In mid-April, while he was living with his parents in Santa Clara, Calif., Gu spent a...

Friday assorted links
1. Some relative optimism from YouYang Gu. And from Trevor Bedford. 2. Working for Zuckerberg and...

The demand for crypto
Here is an email from a loyal MR reader: I’ve been importing a few things for...

Personnel economics working in the supermarket
Yesterday I outlined my supermarket job from ages 16-18 in suburban New Jersey. I did know...

Texas power cut bleg
What should I read and follow on this topic? The post Texas power cut bleg appeared...

Thursday assorted links
1. “Work on things that aren’t prestigious.” 2. Patricia Lockwood on Ferrante. 3. How to get...

Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy
Do voters effectively hold elected officials accountable for policy decisions? Using data on natural disasters, government...

Canada and First Doses First
…With such a highly protective first dose, the benefits derived from a scarce supply of vaccine...

Diem is getting underway
Diem has been through several iterations since it was first announced in June 2019, with adjustments...

My history of manual labor
Here is another request: What is the hardest manual labor you’ve ever done? I love intellectual...

Political economy matters
Schools in Oregon, Washington, and much of the west coast are slow to reopen, even with...

Wednesday assorted links
1. Arnold Kling on feminized culture. 2. SSC on vitamin D. He is fairly skeptical, I...

Canada and Novavax
Canada has made some smart moves with the Novavax vaccine. First, they initiated a rolling review...

The problem with rapid testing was always on the demand side
The U.S. government distributed millions of fast-acting tests for diagnosing coronavirus infections at the end of...