~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (560)

1. How much did the modern mortgage support the baby boom? 2. “Over the 2008-2016 period, the global cycle phase, the North accounts for 68% of Southern [bond] spreads’ fluctuations. Over the whole 1994-2024 period, however, Northern shocks account for less than 20% of these fluctuations.” 3. Adam Smith cartoon. 4. Bryan Caplan is telling […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Boom, the supersonic startup, has announced that their new jet reaches supersonic speeds but without creating much of an audible boom. How so? According to CEO Blake Scholl: It’s actually well-known physics called Mach cutoff. When an aircraft breaks the sound barrier at a sufficiently high altitude, the boom refracts in the atmosphere and curls […] The post Lift the Ban on Supersonics: No...

I have some bad news, fellow Earthlings: There is a newly discovered asteroid, called 2024 YR4, headed for our planet. Fortunately, the risk is neither great nor urgent. The chance of impact, which would happen on Dec. 22, 2032, is estimated at only about 2.3%. The worst-case scenario, though not world-ending, is still horrific. The asteroid is estimated […] The post Protection against asteriod strikes appeared first...

We create a novel reign-level data set for European monarchs, covering all major European states between the 10th and 18th centuries. We first document a strong positive relationship between rulers’ cognitive ability and state performance. To address endogeneity issues, we exploit the facts that (i) rulers were appointed according to hereditary succession, independent of their […] The post The Effect of European Monarchs on...

Hat tip: Max The post Greenland Next appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsI assume you are referring to the state of North Maine. by PshrnkGo Trump!! Go Elon!! by MPIn the spirit of Tyler's “N. Y. C. fact and poetry” item a ... by Edward BurkeCan he make Pluto a planet again, too? by rsmRelated StoriesThe exhaustion of rentsDwarkesh’s QuestionUSPS as a failed...

A computer expert who has battled for a decade to recover a £600m bitcoin fortune he believes is buried in a council dump in south Wales is considering buying the site so he can hunt for the missing fortune. James Howells lost a high court case last month to force Newport city council to allow him to search the […] The post The exhaustion of rents appeared first...

1. One way the demand for donkeys and horses might rise (speculative). 2. Is France the anti-frontier? 3. “We found that extreme temperatures and added precipitation each independently amplified social-media activity, effects that persisted within individuals.”  Big effects. 4. AI art at auction, at Christie’s.  The Holly Herndon is a bargain, and will go for […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

One question I had for you while we were talking about the intelligence stuff was, as a scientist yourself, what do you make of the fact that these things have basically the entire corpus of human knowledge memorized and they haven’t been able to make a single new connection that has led to a discovery? […] The post Dwarkesh’s Question appeared first on Marginal...

Worlds collide, as Niall is interviewed (very effectively) in Songlines magazine, and yes I am a loyal subscriber.  Excerpt: As part of the Empire series, Ferguson also went to West Africa and filmed in Sierra Leone and, subsequently, Ghana and Senegal. He regrets not seeing Youssou N’Dour, who wasn’t going to be on stage until 2am, as […] The post Niall Ferguson on world music appeared...

Here is a short essay by Hollis Robbins on AI and education, excerpt: Every faculty member should begin to write a detailed memo specifying the following: “What specific knowledge do I possess that AGI does not? What unique insights or capabilities can I offer that exceed AGI systems? Which students, and in which topics, would […] The post It’s later than you think appeared...

If the coastline of the New York Harbor region were stretched out, it would be longer than the state of California.  New York City’s waterfront is bigger than those of Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston combined.  As vast as it is, the area that is officially known as the New York-New Jersey Harbor […] The post New York City fact and poetic...

1. Quantum technologies for health care? (speculative!) 2. ChatGPT comments on Tanner Greer. 3. Mercatus looking to hire additional AI policy scholars. 4. “Our results suggest that the recent fertility slowdown in the U.S. is not primarily due to higher female incomes.” 5. “The owner of the theatre I’ve performed at a few times invited me […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

Recently Alex raised some doubts, to say the least, about the Card-Krueger view of minimum wage hikes.  Well, it turns out there is more, and a new consensus is on the verge of forming.  Here are David Berger, Kyle Herkenhoff, and Simon Mongey, from a new Econometrica piece: Many argue that minimum wages can prevent efficiency […] The post Minimum Wages, Efficiency, and Welfare appeared...

The U.S. government has a direct stake in natural resource wealth, collecting royalties from the extraction of minerals on federal land. In a good year, these royalties (which are dispersed to states) total around $20 billion, although the historic annual average is closer to $10 billion. These figures pale in comparison to what is arguably America’s […] The post USPS as a failed sovereign wealth...

1. Long-form interview with Cesar Gaviria, Colombia’s reforming president. 2. Among the Post-Feminists. 3. Both AI and I had a role in this time travel research paper story. 4. Knausgaard owns a copy of Parfit, and does not tie his sneaker laces. 5. Shakespeare the economist. 6. “Be it resolved that the California Faculty Association will […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

I review a very good new book on occupational licensing, The Licensing Racket by Rebecca Haw Allensworth in the WSJ. Most people will concede that licensing for hair braiders and interior decorators is excessive while licensing for doctors, nurses and lawyers is essential. Hair braiders pose little to no threat to public safety, but subpar […] The post The Licensing Racket appeared first on...

We use an instrumental-variables estimator reliant on variation in congressional representation to analyze the macroeconomic effects of federal aid to state and local governments across all four major pieces of COVID-19 response legislation. Through December 2022, we estimate that the federal government allocated $603,000 for each state or local government job-year preserved. Our baseline confidence […] The post How effective was pandemic aid? appeared...

The author is David Eltis and the subtitle is Rethinking the Atlantic Slave Trades.  Here is one summary passage: While Europe’s role in the slave trade may have been secondary it can scarcely be described as minor.  The traffic was broadly based, with ninety-six European ports dispatching at least one voyage to Africa.  Almost every […] The post *Atlantic Cataclysm* appeared first on Marginal...

The White House just issued an executive order on South Africa that includes admitting Afrikaner South Africans as refugees to the United States Here is one of many reports.  Let me first say that I am happy to have more Afrikaners in the United States.  It reminds me of my “open borders for Belarus” proposal […] The post The Afrikaner exception appeared first on...

From President Trump: At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture. We will soon announce a new […] The post “By your culture, we shall know...

Robert Armstrong at the FT gives him a chance to respond to Noah and Krugman and me, here are links to the originals: [Armstrong] Cowen argues that intervention in the short term, as you have proposed, is counterproductive because demand shortfalls will resolve themselves as price adjustments. What is your response? Pettis: While I understand […] The post Michael Pettis responds in the FT...

1. Using AI to cut government spending. 2. “I built RPLY to never miss a text again. Staying in touch should be effortless—RPLY finds your unanswered texts, instantly suggests AI-powered drafts, and syncs across all your Apple devices, meeting you where you already are.”  Link here.  Techcrunch article here.  Much more of this on the […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

Here is a redux of our 2016 Journal of Economic Perspectives piece.  Here is the abstract: We can imagine a plausible case for government support of science based on traditional economic reasons of externalities and public goods. Yet when it comes to government support of grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for economic research, […] The post Alex and I consider how to...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  I am very glad Ross flew down from Connecticut to do it, we ended up cutting about 2x the normal length.  Here is part of the episode summary: Ross joined Tyler to discuss what getting routed by Christopher Hitchens taught him about religious debate, why the simulation hypothesis […] The post My excellent Conversation with Ross Douthat...