~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (547)

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him. Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. He is a columnist for The Guardian and his writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, among other publications. […] The post What should I ask Musa al-Gharbi?...

1. This DVD/Blu-Ray of Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt is one of the best performances I have seen, ever. 2. Houston is turning its back on bicycles. 3. Ethiopia vs. Somalia? (NYT)  And Juleanna Glover on where Republican donations go (NYT). 4. “However, since most crypto investors owe little in crypto-related taxes, enforcement strategies need to […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

This paper studies the long-run effects of slavery and restrictive Jim Crow institutions on Black Americans’ economic outcomes. We track individual-level census records of each Black family from 1850 to 1940, and extend our analysis to neighborhood-level outcomes in 2000 and surname-based outcomes in 2023. We show that Black families whose ancestors were enslaved until […] The post Jim Crow and Black Economic Progress...

I have noticed repeatedly, over the course of many restaurant visits, that my servers want to take away my plates, my glasses, my cutlery, and indeed almost anything else — before I really want to give it up. The ratio of “they want to take it away too soon” to “they take it away too […] The post Why do the servers always want...

1. Crafting AI-complementary skills. 2. Rhino vs. elephant.  And they work for less than minimum wage. 3. Some evidence that wage disclosure leads to wage suppression. 4. Lotte Lenya singing Weill’s Alabama Song. 5. High-tech ice packs for the summer heat (WSJ). 6. The new tech arms race. 7. Chicago School of Economics canon.  And […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

I asked Claude to read my post, Go for the Gold! on using inequality in the NFL and NBA to get a different perspective on income inequality. I then asked Claude, “Which are the best comments showing they understood the op-ed and responded in a productive and reasonable way either critically or positively?” And following […] The post Claude Reviews You! appeared first on...

That is from Elad Gil. The post The falling cost of tokens appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Ignorant. A token is a word, of input or ... by JimSorry for the dumb question, but what’s a “token” in this ... by IgnorantI've no doubt there were many who in March 2023 believed that ... by NeuroticIn reply to rayward. Jesus...

Unmol Sharma, Ontario, for work on purple sulfur bacteria to make hydrogen. Andrew Gau, Stanford, robotics for the science lab. James Edward Dillard, Atlanta area, AI and local reporting. Jim Larsen, Farmington, New Mexico, energy, geothermal energy, and Indonesia, Mohit Deepak Agarwal, Stanford, LLMs and ancient texts, through Perseus. Rohit Krishnan, San Francisco, to run […] The post Emergent Ventures 36th cohort appeared first...

1. Intertemporal empathy decline. 2. When do LLMs harm educational outcomes? 3. “Data from the Current Employment Statistics survey suggests that average hourly pay in manufacturing relative to the rest of the private sector has been falling for decades, and in May 2018 finally sank below. Among production workers the premium vanished in September 2006.”  […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

There is a new paper on that topic by Daniel Winkler, Nils Wlömert, and Jura Liaukonyte. Here is the abstract: This paper investigates how the consumption of an artist’s creative work is impacted when there’s a movement to “cancel” the artist on social media due to their misconduct. Unlike product brands, human brands are particularly vulnerable to reputation […] The post How do musical artists end up...

1. Anna Bogutskaya, Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold on Us.  A fun read about the importance of horror movies in contemporary culture, and a lament that we underrate them. 2. Daniel Tammet, Nine Minds: Inner Lives on the Spectrum.  This is probably the best book of profiles of high-achieving autistics, with the […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

Capital: Critique of Political Economy, volume 1.  Translated by Paul Reitter, published by Princeton, promises to be an event.  Just arrived on my doorstep. And here is my post, from twenty years ago, on what is valid in Marx. The post The new Karl Marx translation appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Josh Lemer. Wayback link: ... by Josh LemerBrad Delong's...

1. Which books, papers, and blogs are in the Bayesian canon? 2. “All fields, EXCEPT FOR ECONOMICS, exhibit a low and decreasing concentration, which suggests a trend toward decentralized knowledge production.”  Link here. 3. David Perell interviews Ben Thompson. 4. Boudreaux and McKenzie on price controls (WSJ).  And most climate policies are ineffective in cutting […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

Except for the tank tops, this could be a bunch of professionals on a boisterous equity trading floor. In fact, it’s a cohort of 15- to 18-year-old students at a two-day free seminar getting a taste of high finance. The session ended with a simulation in which they each ran fictitious $20 million portfolios for […] The post Yes, strong talent is getting younger...

American history is much more about rapid and cheap transport than about extremes of population density.  Even New York, our densest major city by far, became dense relatively late in American history.  To this day, the United States is not extremely dense, not say by European or East Asian standards. But in American history, themes […] The post Mobility vs. density in American history...

The title is Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs.  This is a difficult book to review.  For instance, it has passages like the following: In one particular instance, a senior CIA official and his wife had a terrifying UAP experience in the backyard of their own home.  When they awoke lying on the ground […] The post The new Elizondo book appeared first...

1. India Canada Naveen fact of the day. 2. New announcements on tax hikes supported by Harris.  Most of these plans are not serious, and now is a good time to see who is a Democrat first, and an economist second.  And vice versa.  Here is some relevant commentary. 3. “An examination of two decades […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

At the Democratic National Convention former President Obama came out strongly in favor of  housing deregulation saying “we need to build more homes and clear away some of the outdated laws and regulations that make it harder to build homes”. Robert Kwasny asks on X, “What are the intellectual roots of present-day YIMBYism?” Looking at […] The post The Intellectual Roots of YIMBYism appeared...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is the episode summary: In his second appearance, Nate Silver joins the show to cover the intersections of predictions, politics, and poker with Tyler. They tackle how coin flips solve status quo bias, gambling’s origins in divination, what kinds of betting Nate would ban, why he’s been […] The post My excellent Conversation with Nate Silver...

In no other OECD country do workers spend less time on the job. With labour input shrinking by some 1 per cent a year, labour productivity would need to rise by an equal amount for the economy to stand still. Unfortunately, productivity increases per hour worked have stood well below 1 per cent in recent […] The post Germany analysis of the day appeared...

1. Zvi on the revised version of SB 1047.  And Dean Ball on the same. 2. Transcript of Greg Mankiw with Jon Hartley. 3. New FOIA release. 4. Ireland as literary powerhouse. 5. The world’s largest renewable and storage project.  Australia to Singapore is some umbilical cord… 6. Uber drivers in Kenya are trying to […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

An excellent essay by John Cochrane: Uber surge pricing was an important lesson to me. I loved it. I could always get a car if I really needed one, and I could see how much extra I was paying and decide if I didn’t need it. I was grateful that Uber let me pay other […] The post Moms Against Price Gouging appeared first...

I’ve been using one for a few months now, since I had to replace a kaput computer in Stockholm on short notice.  Mostly it is fine.  But why do they make it so hard to use the “@” sign?  You have to press Control and Alt together and then tap the key for 2.  Do […] The post The Swedish keyboard appeared first on...

By Yaroslav Hrytsak, I found this to be one of the very best overviews of Ukrainian history and certainly the most conceptual.  This passage concerns the 1914-1945 period and the frequency of change: In Lviv — eight [the nature of the regime changed eight times].  In Kyiv, the government changed hands eleven times and at […] The post *Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation*...