~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (557)

Stanford Review: …Several freshmen I have talked to have bemoaned their mandatory COLLEGE classes that are contract graded, meaning that students will receive an A if their work is turned in on time regardless of quality. One frosh even told me that all of her first quarter classes are contract graded. How does this set students up […] The post Interview with Jonathan Levin, economist and...

1. Are humble scientists trusted more? 2. I thought this was hilarious (you won’t), that just shows how far gone I am. 3. The labor market regulatory culture that is Belgium. 4. FBI markets in everything. 5. Without weight loss drugs, Danish gdp growth would be about zero. 6. Chicago’s state capacity crisis. 7. The […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Today on the MR Podcast Tyler and I discuss the “New Monetary Economics”. Here’s the opening TABARROK: Today we’re going to be talking about the new monetary economics. Now, perhaps the first thing to say is that it’s not new anymore. The new monetary economics refers to a set of claims and ideas about monetary economics […] The post Marginal Revolution Podcast–The New Monetary Economics!...

Definitive, this is by far the best biography of Mondrian we have or are likely to get.  I am a longstanding Mondrian fan, and have read much about him, but learned new things on virtually every page.  The book is also fun, here is one excerpt: Initially Mondrian did not respond at all [to a […] The post The Nicholas Fox Weber biography of...

Poor Things The Delinquents [Los Delincuentes], from Argentina, tragicomedy The Teacher’s Lounge All of Us Strangers Anselm The Zone of Interest Smoke Sauna Sisterhood You Can Call Me Bill Lynch/Oz Miracle Worker, that is a very old Arthur Penn movie, about Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan.  Interesting throughout, and some parts were stupendously good, especially […] The post Best movies of 2024 appeared first...

The most dismal stockpickers in the cabinet included the minister for health, labour and welfare, the arm of government ultimately responsible for the $1.45tn Government Pension Investment Fund, the world’s largest pool of retirement savings. Here is more from the FT, via the excellent Samir Varma. The post Japan fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to EdR. How...

1. I am usually loathe to turn MR space over to negative attacks on others, but every now and then I feel there is a real contribution to be made.  I have been saying for years that Michael Pettis flat out does not understand international economics, and yet somehow he is treated as an authority […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

The case is straightforward: Google pays firms like Apple billions of dollars to make its search engine the default. (N.B. I would rephrase this as Apple charges Google billions of dollars to make its search engine the default–a phrasing which matters if you want to understand what is really going on. But set that aside […] The post Some Simple Economics of the Google...

After six games the match is tied.  Observers agree that the games have been of low quality and mostly not very interesting.  Both players have been reluctant to exploit potential opportunities.  If you don’t already know, Ding has been suffering from some version of “mental illness” (by his own account), and Gukesh, while extremely talented, […] The post The show so far, Ding vs....

John Ma, Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity.  I didn’t read much of this book, mostly because it is too good for me to understand just how good it is.  Que triste!  It is like those GPT “advanced reasoning” answers that also […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

What to see, what to do, and where to eat?  I thank you all in advance for your suggestions… The post Cochin (Kochi) bleg appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsI have nostalgia of the great coffee I had at the canteen ... by VictorIn reply to commentor. As of August 2024, news reported that ... by SalimVisit Vallarpadathamma (the Basilica), which celebrated its...

Worries about the economy, conflicts abroad and uncertainty over the election pushed readers toward the publication in droves. Bible sales are up 22% in the U.S. through the end of October, compared with the same period last year, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. By contrast, total U.S. print book sales were up less than […] The post Sales of Bibles are booming appeared...

Zeynep Tufekci writing in the NYTimes hits the nail on the head: The H5N1 avian flu, having mutated its way across species, is raging out of control among the nation’s cattle, infecting roughly a third of the dairy herds in California alone. Farmworkers have so far avoided tragedy, as the virus has not yet acquired […] The post A Bird Flu Pandemic Would Be...

I would say that overall I am more suspicious of “assisted dying” policies than are many of my libertarian friends.  I am fine with legalizing suicide, but I get nervous when a state — especially a less than fully competent, fiscally strapped state — enters the picture with so much influence over the proceedings.  In […] The post Assisted dying in the UK appeared...

For reasons you can guess at, debanking has been the topic du jour in my Twitter feed. I will only report the following.  On this last Friday, both Alex and I (coincidentally) each wanted to send money through the U.S. banking system.  For each of us it was a major pain, and for no good […] The post Debankings appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION....

I will be doing a Conversation with him.  So what should I ask? The post What should I ask Scott Sumner? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Ben G. When TV became a writer's medium the ... by So Much For SubtletyThe obvious question is what is left for Tyler to ask if Sumner ... by So Much For Subtlety1. Who...

1. Hypotheses as to why fentanyl deaths are declining (FT).  Interestingly, the decline is spreading from east to west. 2. How to convince a bot to send you 47k. 3. An early warning system to detect geoengineering (NYT). 4. Using LLMs to learn Indian classical music. 5. The new Notre Dame what do you think? […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Max T. at Maximum Progress shows that between 1992 and 2003 US literacy rates fell dramatically within every single educational category but the aggregate literacy rate didn’t budge.  A great example of Simpson’s Paradox! The easiest way to see how this is possible is just to imagine that no one’s literacy level changes but everyone moves […] The post Literacy Rates and Simpson’s Paradox appeared...

Here is the link, “Prohibits fraudulently taking money by “pretended fortune telling.”” Seen referenced somewhere on Twitter. The post Massachusetts has occupational licensing for fortune tellers appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Tommy. Great suggestion for the eucharist. by stickup boySo are macro forecasters in violation of this or no by JJIn reply to Tommy. “A scam is quite different.” And...

This paper examines how unauthorized immigration affects the fiscal health of local governments in the United States. Using detailed data on unauthorized immigrants’ countries of origin and arrival dates from the Syracuse TRAC database, we isolate immigration flows driven by social, economic, and political conditions in source countries. We predict local immigration patterns using a […] The post Unauthorized Immigration and Local Government Finances...

China’s long-term bond yields have fallen below Japan’s for the first time, as investors bet that the world’s second-biggest economy will become bogged down by the deflation that has long afflicted its neighbour. A rally in 30-year Chinese government bonds has pushed their yield down from 4 per cent in late 2020 to 2.21 per […] The post China (Japan) fact of the day...

1. Norway Shrugged (note also that Magnus is moving to Spain). 2. Megan McArdle podcast on food and other matters, with Razib Khan. 3. A funny kind of futarchy (this is in jest and is not true): “Mr. Putin just declared a new Red Line. If the Russian Ruble falls to 115.00 is considered escalation […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

That is the subtitle of a new paper by Karol J. Borowiecki, Yichu Wang, and Marc T. Law.  Here is the abstract: How do financial constraints affect individual innovation and creativity? Understanding this relationship is essential, especially when innovation and creativity rely on the capacity to take risks. To investigate this, we focus on Western […] The post Does Money Affect Creativity in the...

Overall it has been a very good listening year for me.  I spent a good bit of time relearning the Shostakovich String Quartets in various recordings, most of all the Fitzwilliam String Quartet.  I made more of a concerted attempt to learn the musics of Carl Nielsen and Kalevi Aho and Kurt Weill.  Here are […] The post Classical music listening for the year...