~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (560)

Here is a new paper from Doron Shiffer-Sebba, I found this most amusing but yes tragic too: How do wealthy families preserve their fortunes across generations? A historic peak in wealth inequality in the United States has inspired research on how economic elites benefit from markets, tax rates, and legal entities. However, the ongoing practices […] The post How Bureaucratic Practices Preserve Elite Multigenerational...

Thanks to a very generous donor, we now will be starting a Taiwan cohort in Emergent Ventures.  If you are in Taiwan, or know anyone in Taiwan who might be a good choice, of course consider applying or recommending as such.  Thank you! The post Emergent Ventures, Taiwan cohort appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to ×. Jiminy Crickett, Loess-stuffed diet! I've...

Highlights from the article: The coach’s gender has a sizable and significant effect on the team’s risk-taking, a finding that is robust to an instrumental variable approach. Women’s teams with a male head coach make risky attempts 6 percentage points more often than women’s teams with a female head coach. The difference is persistent within […] The post Male coaches increase the risk-taking of...

1. Increased (Platform) Competition Reduces (Seller) Competition. 2. GPT 4.5 on Bernard Williams.  It is quite funny on the AI skeptics, I might add. 3. AI bookmarks.  And AI-generated sheet music for classical music.  And the Luddites they ain’t. 4. 2005 redux, my idea of how to clean up the house. 5. I never knew […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

Stripe’s Annual Letter is eminently quotable and insightful. As a payments company, Stripe has a unique data on the entire business landscape. But who else about the Collison brothers would cite the O-ring model in their annual report? Businesses on Stripe generated $1.4 trillion in total payment volume in 2024, up 38% from the prior […] The post Stripe’s Annual Letter appeared first on...

1. Eric Topol, Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity.  Longevity research goes mainstream!  Very clearly written, well argued, and focused on the science.  I cannot pretend to evaluate the details of the material, but this seems a step ahead of the other, typically less serious books on the same topic. 2. Daniel Dain, A […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

1. A guy who doesn’t understand Paul Verhoeven. 2. Context is that which is scarce, AI edition.  And the most rapid change in human communication ever.  And the power of DeepSeek? Big if true. 3. “…male students are averse to majors with more female faculty but prefer those with more female students…” 4. Partial liberation […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

A reader requests that in the comments, but it is exactly the kind of topic I can tire of.  Nonetheless I will jot down a few quick pointers on how I think about it: 1. Downweight almost every opinion you read on Twitter, instead check the Ukrainian bond market.  If need be, query with Grok […] The post “What do I think of the...

This paper reports results from a survey experiment comparing the effect of (the same) opinions expressed by visibly senior, female versus male experts. Members of the public were asked for their opinion on topical issues and shown the opinion of either a named male or a named female economist, all professors at leading US universities. […] The post Do female experts face an authority...

1. I feel that writing about the topic will make me stupider. 2. I believe that you reading more about the topic will make you stupider. 3. I believe that performative outrage usually brings low or negative returns.  Matt Yglesias has had some good writing on this lately. 4. I don’t have anything to add […] The post Some reasons why I do not...

This paper examines the effects of the Big Five personality traits on labor market outcomes and gender wage gaps using a job search and bargaining model with parameters that vary at the individual level. The analysis, based on German panel data, reveals that both cognitive and noncognitive traits significantly influence wages and employment outcomes. Higher […] The post Personality traits and gender gaps appeared...

1. The $19 strawberry. 2. Writing for the AI is paying off. 3. You’ve quoted Gerhard Richter as saying that a good picture “takes away our certainty,” and suggested (Philip Guston) that doing so enables us to “begin to see the push and pull of impulse, recanting, and reconfiguration that constitute painting and, by extension, life itself.” From […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

After years of decline, the Christian population in the United States has been stable for several years, a shift fueled in part by young adults, according to a major new survey from the Pew Research Center. And the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans, which had grown steadily for years, has also leveled off. Here is […] The post USA fact of the day appeared...

I believe you can get through the gate by registering.  A very good and accurate piece, first-rate photos as well, including of Spinoza too, here is the link.  Here is one excerpt: I asked Cowen – it is the kind of question you come to ask him – what were the criteria for a perfect […] The post The Economist 1843 magazine does a...

1. Insightful Bob McGrew tweet on GPT 4.5.  And Andrej.  My remark from a group chat: “I am more positive on 4.5 than almost anyone else I have read. I view it as a model that attempts to improve on the dimension of aesthetics only. As we know from Kant’s third Critique, that is about […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: As usual, however, the devil is in the details. There is a good chance Trump’s proposal could work out well — and a chance it could severely damage the nation. One worry is selection effects. The $5 million fee means the program […] The post A $5 million gold card for...

I do broadly align with utilitarian/consequentialist ideas, and I particularly like the formulation Richard Y Chappell calls Beneficentrism, which is simply the claim that one very important thing in life is to try to help others, including those who are very different or distant from ourselves. I think that in that formulation, you address in one […] The post Matt Yglesias on morality appeared first...

Street lighting is often believed to influence street crime, but most prior studies have examined small-scale interventions in limited areas. The effect of large-scale lighting enhancements on public safety remains uncertain. This study evaluates the impact of Philadelphia’s citywide rollout of enhanced street lighting, which began in August 2023. Over 10 months, 34,374 streetlights were […] The post Can Enhanced Street Lighting Improve Public...

In Leningrad’s embrace, midwinter’s chill, A prodigy was born with iron will. The chessboard’s call, a siren to his mind, Young Boris Spassky left his peers behind. A crown he claimed in nineteen sixty-nine, Against Petrosian’s force, his star did shine. Yet Reykjavik’s cold winds would soon conspire, With Fischer’s challenge, stoking global fire. The […] The post Boris Spassky, RIP appeared first on...

This paper examines the spatial and temporal dynamics of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in the United States, leveraging county-level data on AI-related job postings from 2014 to 2023. We document significant variation in AI intensity across counties with tech hubs like Santa Clara, CA, leading in adoption, but rapid growth occurring in unexpected, suburban, and […] The post The uneven spread of AI appeared...

1. Paul McCartney will be publishing a history of Wings. 2. Trump and his lawyers. 3. Dean Karlan resigns from US AID, and tells his side of the story. 4. AIs are turning some people sane. 5. David Perell + Dana Gioia, three hour conversation on writing. 6. Tax increase pending on Harvard? 7. New […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

The Trump administration is targeting universities for embracing racist and woke ideologies, but its aim is off. The problem is that the disciplines leading the woke charge—English, history, and sociology—don’t receive much government funding. So the administration is going after science funding, particularly the so-called “overhead” costs that support university research. This will backfire for […] The post The Trump Administration’s Attack on Science...

Alain Mabanckou, Dealing with the Dead.  Most African fiction does not connect with me, and there is a tendency for the reviews to be untrustworthy.  This “cemetery memoir,” from the Congo (via UCLA), connected with me and held my interest throughout. Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

Across all of history, which human being has been seen, in-person, by the greatest number of people? Pope John Paul II?  Mick Jagger?  A baseball player with extreme longevity?  (Cal Ripken?)  Here is o1 pro, top guess is PJPII. The post Nick Freiling asks appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsPele by carlosplnBetter question is who has rocked the most faces. Clearly Jon ......