~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (167)

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...

We find that standard population growth projections imply larger reductions in [per capita] income than even the most extreme widely-adopted climate change scenario. Note these results are referring to population growth, not shrinkage.  Of course those of you who remember Paul Ehrlich and his “population bomb” campaign may be skeptical.  Still, if you think there […] The post Sentences to ponder appeared first on...

Elizabeth Currid-Halkett writing in the NYTimes discusses her son’s muscular dystrophy and his treatment with the controversial gene-therapy Elevidys. Currid-Halkett, like many parents whose children have been treated with Elevidys, reports much better results than appear in the statistics. On Aug. 29, [my son] finally received the one-time infusion. Three weeks later, he was marching […] The post Give Innovation a Chance appeared first...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column: The worldwide dominance of US equities is increasingly obvious. Of the top 10 components of the MSCI global stocks index — which itself now consists of about 70% US stocks — eight are US technology companies. The S&P 500 has breached the 5,000 level. On most days, Apple or Microsoft alone is […] The post U.S. equity market dominance appeared first...

Works in Progress has a good review of the state of compensating organ donors, especially doing so with nudges or non-price factors to avoid backlash from those who find mixing money and organs to be repugnant. My own idea for this, first expressed in Entrepreneurial Economics, but many times since is a no-give, no-take rule. […] The post Avoiding Repugnance appeared first on Marginal...

T-Mobile’s takeover of Sprint was controversial among analysts. “If this merger is not anticompetitive,” Eleanor Fox, a trade regulation and antitrust law professor at New York University, told reporters in 2020, “it is hard to know what is.” Yale economist and antitrust scholar Fiona Scott Morton delivered her verdict on the deal in a co-authored 2021 article: “The era […] The post Revisiting the T-Mobile-Sprint Merger appeared first...

Early French moralists, some of them Jansenists: Pierre Nicole, La Rochefoucauld, etc. Invisible hand, idea of “mechanism” Pascal, Pensées, 1669, probability and expected value 17th century mercantilism, Louis XIV, Colbert 18th century, Galiani (Italian), French debates on bread and bread prices 1748, Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, analysis of commerce Diderot, Voltaire, Encyclopedia, rationalism Beccaria […] The post Early French economics, my lecture notes...

WEF 2002: The world could face lithium shortages by 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says, while Credit Suisse thinks demand could treble between 2020 and 2025, meaning “supply would be stretched”. Reuters 2023:  Lithium producers are growing anxious that delays in mine permitting, staffing shortages and inflation may hinder their ability to supply enough […] The post Lithium appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION....

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit: California’s highest income tax rate is 13.3%. That is in addition to a top federal tax rate of 37%. California also has a state sales tax rate of 7.25%, and many localities impose a smaller sales tax. So if a wealthy person earns and […] The post The California tax burden is driving...

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...

From Scott Sumner: Matt Yglesias directed me to a new CBO report, which confirms that immigration explains the recent GDP boom: In our projections, the deficit is also smaller than it was last year because economic output is greater, partly as a result of more people working. The labor force in 2033 is larger by […] The post How much of our boom has...

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...

1650s, wars with England, invasions, Cromwell repels the Scots 1690s – Darien Scheme in Panama, Scots more generally grow interested in empire 1707 – Union with England Scotland keeps its Presbyterian church and laws Scotland never settled by Rome, for a long time closer to France Post Glorious Revolution, many Scots still loyal to the […] The post My notes/outline on the rise of...

That is the topic of my Bloomberg column.  Maybe they should try it for federalism/discovery purposes, but overall I am skeptical.  Here is one excerpt: The history of “enterprise zones,” which are specially designated areas (usually urban) with lower taxes and fewer regulations, offers a cautionary tale. Enterprise zones have at best mixed results in revitalizing declining areas. Could […] The post Might a Georgist land tax help...

Science seems like a public good; in theory, ideas are non-rivalrous and non-excludable. But the closer we look at how ideas actually spread and are used in the world, the less they seem like public goods. As I am fond of pointing out, Thomas Keller wrote a literal recipe book for the dishes he served […] The post Is Science a Public Good? appeared...

Maybe so: Milei’s austerity is biting hard in La Rioja, an olive and wine region home to 384,000 people — out of a population of 46mn — where intense heat pushes many businesses to take a siesta from 1 to 6pm. Almost 75 per cent of the province’s budget comes from redistributed taxes collected by […] The post Will the Argentina province of La...

From a new and important paper by Xiwen Bai, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, Yiliang Li, and Francesco Zanetti: Our analysis shows that supply chain disruptions generate stagflation, accompanied by an increase in spare capacity for producers. This higher spare capacity curtails the supply of goods to retailers and results in a surge in prices, leading to a […] The post One reason why the disinflation proved...

New GPT4 prompt engineering tip: If you're tipping your GPT4, it's better to promise to tip it $20 or $100,000+; those amounts will give the longest answers pic.twitter.com/2f5fmtRuIM — Denis Shiryaev 💙💛 (@literallydenis) January 31, 2024 The post The GPT-4 imaginary lie-based supply curve appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to AW. Cultural? or just practical. The so-called ... by Trina HalppeIs...

It is very long, very detailed, and very good.  Interesting throughout!  Excerpt: Dealing with the third conversation is harder. There is place where I feel Tyler is misinterpreting a few statements, in ways I find extremely frustrating and that I do not see him do in other contexts, and I pause to set the record […] The post Zvi Mowshowitz covers my podcast with...

Here is the link, I am reviewing a bad book on the Clinton administration (A Fabulous Failure, by Lichtenstein and Stern).  Here is one excerpt: Clinton-era welfare reform is another area where many commentators go astray, and Lichtenstein and Stein are no exception. The Clinton pronouncement “I have a plan to end welfare as we […] The post My TLS essay on the Clinton...

Like the heat in the austral summer, inflation in Argentina is high and showing no sign of meaningful relief anytime soon. It rose from a monthly 13% in November to 25% in December and, according to the latest central bank survey, may come in at around 20% in both January and February… Argentina’s central bank in […] The post Why it is difficult for Milei...

100 pp. or so, comprehensive, by Matthias Doepkea, Anne Hannusch, Fabian Kindermannd, and Michèle Tertilt. Via Bruce Lambert. The post Economics of fertility chapter appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Ai. Student loans, rather explicitly, have been ... by SureIn reply to Sure. Since having more children is correlated ... by AiIn reply to SpeculativeDiction. The government has a ... by...