~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (551)

1. Bob Solow, father of RCTs? 2. Hungarian birth rates now falling again? 3. Anna Meredith: Nautilus. 4. Bill Gates memoir, about his early years, coming out soon.  Would gladly do a CWT podcast on this book, if you are reading!  Just have someone contact me. 5. 1955 was a good year. 6. Christopher Balding […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce” and materially change the output of companies. …We are beginning to turn our aim beyond that, to superintelligence in the true sense of the word. We love our current products, but we are here for the glorious future. With superintelligence, […] The post The Intelligence Revolution appeared first on...

Singh was excellent at identifying young talent, most famously Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Before Montek and Isher Judge would go on to marry, they met Manmohan Singh in Delhi in 1970. At the time, Singh was a professor at the Delhi School of Economics, known for his work on India’s exports. He seemed too soft-spoken and […] The post Manmohan Singh: India’s Finest Talent Scout...

Chen Jinping, 60, of New York, New York, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to act as an illegal agent of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in connection with opening and operating an undeclared overseas police station, located in lower Manhattan, for the PRC’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS). “Today’s guilty plea […] The post China Second Fact of the Day...

China is loosening its visa policy and allowing some travelers to stay in the country for up to 10 days without obtaining the document. The United States is among the dozens of countries eligible for the more lenient measure, part of a movement to ease restrictions and welcome back foreigners. The National Immigration Administration announced the […] The post China fact of the day appeared...

1. Nabeel also endorses Solenoid; that means the book will take off.  Here are the Nobel odds. 2. Okie-dokie, Open AI edition. 3. How did the English Reformation happen? 4. Elon tweeting against Farage is, among other things, a test of whether the rest of the Anglosphere still has semi-autonomous media ecosystems of its own. […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

You may worry about cultural change or other things, but a single Jensen Huang or Elon Musk can carry a lot of dead weight. As of October, Nvidia’s market cap was around $3.5 trillion. By way of comparison, all US spending on federal welfare programs was $1.2 trillion in 2022. Nothing in Huang’s family background indicates that they would have been […] The post Simple points on immigration appeared first...

Indian Americans own about half of all motels in the United States. Of them, 70% have the last name Patel. And: In the 1990s, then-leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-ll, and current leader Kim Jong-Un got fake Brazilian passports and went to Disneyland in Tokyo (probably). And: Waymo self-driving taxis generate 88% fewer property damage […] The post 52 more things Kent Hendricks learned...

Tirthankar Roy and K. Ravi Raman, Kerala: 1956 to the Present.  Short, nonetheless the best book I have read on why Kerala is (somewhat) special in the Indian context.  Stresses Kerala as part of a larger set of positive South Indian developments.  Overpriced though at $40, given the short length. Richard Franklin Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

South Korea in 2024 saw 242,334 babies born, marking the first increase in the annual figure since 2015, as the country struggles to improve its plummeting birth rate that is among the worst in the world. The official figure for childbirths rose by 7,295 from 235,039 in 2023, a 3.1 percent increase, according to the […] The post South Korea fact of the day...

In a justified resurgence of interest in the topic, The Telegraph covers the Rotherham scandals.  Liz Truss has spoken up too.  This is not a welcome issue for Starmer, to say the least.  No matter what you think he did/did not do wrong in this matter, he cannot come out ahead.  One implication is that […] The post Updates appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION....

In the comments to my post, India has Too Few Tourists, many people worried about the food, the touts and the poverty. Many of these comments are mistaken or apply only if you are traveling to India on the cheap as an adolescent backpacker (nothing wrong with that but I suspect the MR audience is […] The post How to Visit India for Normies...

1. How much of content are advertisers reluctant to be next to? (WSJ) 2. An intellectual’s travel guide to Madrid. 3. Plans to live under the ocean. 4. Top (architectural) hotels of 2024. 5. Cliff Asness, allocator. 6. Having read The Faerie Queene. 7. Greenland Prime Minister declares an interest in independence. The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn...

Consumption of red wine in France has fallen by about 90 per cent since the 1970s, according to Conseil Interprofessionnel du vin de Bordeaux (CIVB), an industry association. Total wine consumption, spanning reds, whites and rosés, is down more than 80 per cent in France since 1945, according to survey data from Nielsen, and the […] The post France fact of the day appeared...

1. Facts about Sudan. 2. Does Romeo love Juliet? 3. Scott Sumner movie reviews, plus Scott confirms that Solenoid is a classic. 4. “So if you’re nostalgic, as Trump and many of his supporters are, for the old days when the U.S. economy was dominated by heavy industry, you should know that it was Reagan, […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

He was one of the fathers of “happiness economics,” here is a NYT obituary.  Via John Chamberlin. The post Richard A. Easterlin, RIP appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to It's like India. Don't poo in the loo! by Tyler CowenIn reply to ShatGPT. Is that the sound of a mood being ... by rsm“happiness economics” is bullshit by ShatGPTIn reply to...

In 2017, I wrote an article on India’s underperformance in tourism: India is one of the most desirable tourist destinations in the world. Thirty-five [now 43, AT!] UNESCO World Heritage sites–among them the Taj Mahal, one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World”—attract a global audience. India’s many food, dance and religious cultures are […] The post India has Too Few Tourists appeared...

Here goes: Ex po st, the Manhattan audience swung thirty (!) points in my favor, compared to the pre-debate poll.  This was a fun event for me. The post My 92nd St. Y debate with Robert Kuttner on income inequality appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsThis debate made me wonder whether the underlying issues, that ... by EmceeIn reply to BC. I agree...

The subtitle is New Estimates of Productivity Growth in England from 1250 to 1870, and the authors are Paul Bouscasse, Emi Nakamura, and Jón Steinsson.  Abstract: We estimate productivity growth in England from 1250 to 1870. Real wages over this period were heavily influenced by plague-induced swings in the population. Our estimates account for these […] The post When did sustained economic growth begin?...

Today we launched our second Asimov Press book…The book’s theme is “technology,” and so we encoded a complete copy of the book into DNA, and are making those DNA copies available to consumers for the first time. We worked with three companies (CATALOG, Plasmidsaurus, and Imagene) to make 1,000 copies of the DNA and package them […] The post Asimov Press has a new kind...

1. Disequilibrium play in tennis. 2. Tax cuts are expansionary even at the zero lower bound. 3. Art museum openings in 2025. 4. Teaching data analytics with generative AI. 5. Mercatus ideas for DOGE. 6. The two states without Chick-Fil-A.  And why. 7. Life without stars? Stellar, not celebrities. 8. Abba appreciation. 9. Very good […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

Excellent clip from longer interview.   The post Marc Andreessen on Atlas Shrugged appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Click the icon below to watch.         CommentsIn reply to Stephen Wiley. This site contains midnight-drone ... by Wiley JamokaIn reply to Kekius Imitatorius. Would be, if guys like ... by Suikek 420In reply to Bob. Tyler was trying to con him, get him to ......

Yes, I will be having a Conversation with him.  Here is Wikipedia on Carl: Carl Zimmer (born 1966) is a popular science writer, blogger, columnist, and journalist who specializes in the topics of evolution, parasites, and heredity. The author of many books, he contributes science essays to publications such as The New York Times, Discover, and National Geographic. He is a fellow at Yale University‘s Morse College and adjunct professor of […] The post What should I ask Carl Zimmer?...

This paper investigates the effect of media coverage on immigration attitudes. It combines data on immigration coverage in French television with individual panel data from 2013 to 2017 that records respondents’ preferred television channel and attitudes toward immigration. The analysis focuses on within-individual variations over time, addressing ideological self-selection into channels. We find that increased […] The post Covering immigration is a mixed bag...