~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (63)

A superb video on the history and mathematics of options pricing from Veritasium. The post The Black-Scholes-Merton Options Pricing Equation appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to rsm. It didn't at first. Customers started ... by JoshSo when the good professor says that derivatives are many ... by rsmIn reply to EdR. Does it say anywhere that Black thought ... by rsmIn...

Yesterday, someone asked me to elaborate on talent picking and why “narrowing the subset” matters. It’s easier to pick the best talent from a subset of 10 versus 100 or 1000. You’d think seeing 1000 candidates would mean you have a greater chance of finding a unicorn genius but it takes longer and gives more […] The post Very good sentences appeared first on...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript, we recorded in NYC.  Here is the episode summary: A conductor, harpsichordist, and organist, Masaaki Suzuki stands as a towering figure in Baroque music, renowned for his comprehensive and top-tier recordings of Bach’s works, including all of Bach’s sacred and secular cantatas. Suzuki’s unparalleled dedication extends beyond Bach, […] The post My Conversation with the very excellent...

Here is my episode with @patrickc We discuss: – what it takes to process $1 trillion/year– how to build multi-decade APIs, companies, and relationships– what's next for Stripe (increasing the GDP of the internet is an open ended task, and the Collison brothers are just… pic.twitter.com/Wx52cJI9Ve — Dwarkesh Patel (@dwarkesh_sp) February 21, 2024 The post Dwarkesh Patel with Patrick Collison appeared first on Marginal...

In the political economy chapter of our textbook, Modern Principles of Economics, Tyler and I discuss how voters appear especially responsive to economic conditions in the year of an election. Politicians who want to be reelected, therefore, are wise to do whatever they can to increase personal disposable income and reduce inflation in the year […] The post Nixonian Politics and Student Debt Cancellations...

Jon Klick, Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (and a distinguished GMU econ grad), argues that Penn should “abandon the fiction that holistic evaluation is anything more than a way to hide discretion.” Instead, Penn should set a standardized test score floor and then randomly choose its admittees from the pool […] The post Random Admissions Above the Bar appeared...

Anson Yu, Waterloo, telemetry devices that can detect compromised hardware devices to protect our electrical grid and other critical infrastructure. Anshul Kashyap, Berkeley, neurotech and vision, to visit the Netherlands for work and research reasons. Kieran Lucid, Dublin, Irish videos about YIMBY and aesthetics, at the site Polysee. Matin Amiri, Antwerp, Afghanistan, and San Francisco […] The post Emergent Ventures winners, 32nd cohort appeared...

Many people think “I will do […], AI will not anytime soon do [….] as well as I will.”  That may or may not be true. But keep in mind many of us are locked into a competition for attention.  AI can beat you without competing against you in your task directly.  What AI produces […] The post A periodic reminder of your pending...

Nash won the Nobel prize in Economics for his 2-page proof of Nash equilibrium, among the slightest of his achievements. Nash’s truly staggering contributions were in his embedding theorems, according to Gromov “one of the main achievements of mathematics of the twentieth century”. In this excellent talk, Cédric Villani gives an accessible guide to these […] The post Nash’s Contributions to Mathematics appeared first...

I will be doing a Conversation with him.  No description of Michael quite does him justice, but here is Wikipedia: Michael Aaron Nielsen (born January 4, 1974) is a quantum physicist, science writer, and computer programming researcher living in San Francisco. In 1998, Nielsen received his PhD in physics from the University of New Mexico. In 2004, he was recognized as […] The post What should I ask Michael Nielsen?...

I will be doing a Conversation with him, based in part around his new book The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America.  On Coleman more generally, here is Wikipedia: Coleman Cruz Hughes (born February 25, 1996) is an American writer and podcast host. He was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and […] The post What should I ask Coleman Hughes?...

Using a quantitative heterogeneous-agent model calibrated to Korea, we find that fertility would be 28% higher in the absence of the status externality and that childlessness in the poorest quintile would fall from five to less than one percent. We then explore the effects of various government policies. A pro-natal transfer or an education tax […] The post How much does status competition lower...

Why does schooling in much of the developing world not result in much in the way of increased skills? Maybe because education bureaucrats in these counties want obedient citizens more than literate, numerate, informed citizens. In a discrete choice experiment in which bureaucrats in education were asked to make trade-offs between foundational literacy, completion of secondary […] The post Literacy or Loyalty? appeared first on...

We measure college graduate quality—the average human capital of a college’s graduates—for graduates from 2,800 colleges in 48 countries. Graduates of colleges in the richest countries have 50% more human capital than graduates of colleges in the poorest countries. Migration reinforces these differences: emigrants from poorer countries are highly positively selected on human capital. Finally, […] The post The Global Distribution of College Graduate...

From a recent Jacob Light paper: In an era of rapid technological and social change, do universities adapt enough to play their important role in creating knowledge? To examine university adaptation, I extracted the information contained in the course catalogs of over 450 US universities spanning two decades (2000-2022). When there are changes in student […] The post Student Demand and the Supply of...

You need your harvard ‘key’ account to vote. If you need help getting access to your harvard key account we have been given the following feedback: 1. Visit https://key.harvard.edu/ and click the link “Claim Your HarvardKey.” 2. On the “Select User Type” page, click on the tab that reads “Alumni.” Then click “Continue.” 3. Enter […] The post What would Anthony Downs say? appeared...

We discussed how the insights of Hayek, Keynes, Smith, and other great economists help us make sense of AI, growth, risk, human nature, anarchy, central planning, and much more. Dwarkesh is one of the very best interviewers around, here are the links.  If Twitter is blocked to you, here is the transcript, here is Spotify, […] The post My new podcast with Dwarkesh Patel...

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when […] The post In Praise of Non-conformity appeared first...

“I suggest, Men and women tend to think alike in societies where there is Close-knit interdependence, religosity and authoritarianism, or Shared cultural production and mixed gendered offline socialising. Gendered ideological polarisation appears encouraged by: Feminised public culture Economic resentment Social media filter bubbles Cultural entrepreneurs.” Here is the full piece, currently the best piece on […] The post Alice Evans on the ideological gender...

That is the focus of my latest Bloomberg column, 2x the normal length.  I cannot cover all the points, but here is one excerpt: The larger theme is becoming evident: AI will radically disrupt power relations in society. AI may severely limit, for instance, the status and earnings of the so-called “wordcel” class. It will […] The post What are the actual dangers of...

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with her.  Here is from Wikipedia: Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson […] The post What should I ask Marilynne Robinson?...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript, here is the episode summary: Rebecca F. Kuang just might change the way you think about fantasy and science fiction. Known for her best-selling books Babel and The Poppy War trilogy, Kuang combines a unique blend of historical richness and imaginative storytelling. At just 27, she’s already published five novels, and her […] The post My Conversation with Rebecca F. Kuang...

Let us say you favor policy X, and take steps to see that policy X comes about. Under many conditions, people who favor non-X will take additional countervailing steps to oppose X.  And in that case your actions in favor of X, on average, will lead to nothing.  In the meantime, you and also your […] The post Social improvements that don’t create countervailing...

I am pleased to have spoken at their yearly conference yesterday.  If I understand them correctly (here is their web site), it is for elite college students — grad and undergrad — at Harvard, MIT, Stanford and the rest of the Ivies.  No other schools.  The group is explicitly religious (across religions and denominations) and […] The post The David Network appeared first on...