~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (546)

1. FT lunch with Abhijit Banerjee.  And his new book. 2. It seems Niall Ferguson has converted to Christianity? 3. Irish video warning California about its housing policies. 4. “Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and Tanzania, for example, are projected to grow by at least 6%.” 5. All We Imagine as Light is an excellent movie. […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

As you likely know, we have sent money to quite a few different individuals in different countries around the world.  And one thing I have learned is that there really are legitimate payments uses for crypto.  Very often international payments simply do not work that well.  We do not use crypto for this purpose, but […] The post One thing I have learned doing...

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to fundamentally reshape the knowledge economy by solving problems at scale. This paper introduces a framework to study this transformation, incorporating AI into an economy where humans form hierarchical firms: Less knowledgeable individuals become “workers” solving routine problems, while more knowledgeable individuals become “solvers,” assisting workers […] The post Artificial Intelligence in the Knowledge Economy...

Round one is over, and so far no progress and indeed steps backwards: President-elect Donald Trump’s last-minute demands for a congressional funding package were rejected by dozens of Republicans this week, foreshadowing the legislative challenges he could face next year — even with unified GOP control. The Republicans also revealed they are not willing to […] The post The show so far, DOGE edition...

1. Good overview on DOGE. 2. The impact of new products on ethical beliefs. 3. Speculative claims about the new economics of open source AI. 4. BBC interviews me about Milei. 5. Grok rates the top economists on X.  This seems better than AGI, right?  Four of the top tier are GMU-affiliated. 6. A lengthy […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

After 25.3 million fully autonomous miles a new study from Waymo and Swiss Re concludes: [T]he Waymo ADS significantly outperformed both the overall driving population (88% reduction in property damage claims, 92% in bodily injury claims), and outperformed the more stringent latest-generation HDV benchmark (86% reduction in property damage claims and 90% in bodily injury […] The post AI is Not Slowing Down, Except...

My analysis reveals a significant change in political beliefs since being incarcerated. There is an increased effect of changing political beliefs for women and people of color incarcerated. The effect reveals that people of color are becoming, either for the first time or further aligned, with the Republican Party since being incarcerated. That is from […] The post Incarceration sentences to ponder appeared first...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one hypothesis: The NBA has a salary cap, which prevents teams in major markets, such as the Los Angeles Lakers or New York Knicks, from snapping up all the talent.1 An unfortunate side effect it that is harder for all teams to bid for additional […] The post What is wrong with the NBA?...

The ACR metrics: Some more results. And this: Yupsie-dupsie, delivery of this: Happy holidays people, hope you are enjoying the presents! The post The new o3 model from OpenAI appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsCommentsRelated StoriesWhy you should be talking with gpt about philosophyThomas Storrs on elastic data supply (from my email)The Effects of Gender Integration on Men 

Hidden above the stone vaults of Notre-Dame de Paris, the 13th-century timber structure that once supported the cathedral’s steep lead roof was so extensive it was known as “the forest”. When the cathedral caught fire in 2019, the flames spread quickly through the lattice of oak beams, each one hewn from an individual tree by […] The post Recreating the past isn’t easy (but...

1. Andrew Batson reading from 2024. 2. On how to test more drugs (DOGE take note). 3. America is suddenly getting healthier.  Very much an overlooked point.  And: “Higher labor supply in the US accounts for 2 to 3 percentage points in extra health expenditure as a share of GDP and between 10% and one-third […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

From this post on chip export bans: Didn’t we have a conversation where you said Chinese AI was so terrifying that we couldn’t consider any AI slowing or pause, because all of our efforts had to be put into preventing China from beating us in AI? And when I discussed reasons that this might not […] The post Scott Alexander on chips (from the...

Bob Sagers was walking around an indie music festival in Salt Lake City when a friendly stranger approached and asked for his number. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a Jesus look to you?” the man asked, according to Sagers, a 25-year-old who works as a cheesemonger at a grocery store. It wasn’t […] The post Those new service sector jobs, LDS...

I rarely like adaptations of classics on the big screen, but I give this one (trailer) high marks.  Ralph Fiennes plays Odysseus and Juliette Binoche has the role of Penelope — you cannot imagine better castings.  The film is fully serious, and understands the classic text extremely well, without being slavish to it.  It understands […] The post *The Return* appeared first on Marginal...

1. “First, female innovators are less connected than men. Second, at short network distances, researchers (especially men) adopt women’s ideas less.” 2. China coal consumption fact of the day uh oh. 3. John Cochrane on Bob Hall and consumption. 4. Are high stock prices and tech stagnation compatible? 5. OECD on the macro productivity gains […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

What are your top indicators of national aspiration? Percentage of GDP devoted to R&D would be a good conventional indicator. What about some unconventional indicators? My top five: 1) Top marginal tax rate 2) Space Program 3) Distance to travel to mother’s home 4) Tallest statue 5) Cultural exports On these, the US and India […] The post Unconventional Indicators of National Aspiration appeared...

Harvard magazine has an excellent interview with three scientists, Michael Mina, Douglas Melton and Stuart Schreiber, all highly regarded in their fields of life sciences, who have recently left Harvard for the private sector. Why did they leave? Mina tells an incredible story of what happened during the pandemic. At the time Mina was a […] The post Why are Top Scientists Leaving Harvard?...

In the UK, more than half of crimes are estimated to be caused by alcohol consumption. From Yuri, here are 51 others, not mainly about the UK: “More countries have produced a nuclear bomb than mass-produced a jet engine.” The post UK fact of the day (52 snippets from 2024) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsComments 

From my latest Bloomberg column: Why is the food so good? I have several overlapping hypotheses, most of them coming from my background as an economist. Interestingly, India’s culinary advantages can be traced to some good and some not-so-good aspects of Indian society. First, food supply chains here are typically very short. Trucking, refrigeration and […] The post Is Indian food the world’s best?...

The author is David A. Stockman, and the subtitle is Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.  This is for me a re-read, all DOGErs and aspiring DOGErs should give this book an initial read, as it covers why the Reagan attempts to pare back government largely failed.  Excerpt: But I hadn’t recoked that there would be […] The post *The Triumph of Politics* appeared first...

1. Scott Sumner on ngdp guardrails.  o1 pro responds. 2. Michael Grunwald on factory farming and its economics and environmental impact (NYT). 3. 100 economists who signed a petition against Milei. 4. More stablecoin progress. 5. Using AI to diagnose disease through retinal images. 6. Why did the Industrial Revolution happen? 7. Zvi on Gemini 2.0. […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

A company pioneering the use of fusion for commercial energy plans to build the nation’s first grid-scale fusion power plant in Virginia by the early 2030s, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and other state and company officials said Tuesday. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), based in Massachusetts, said it will invest billions of dollars to build the unique facility, […] The post A nuclear fusion plant in Virginia?...

I’ve talked with Gpt (as I like to call it) about Putnam and Quine on conceptual schemes. I’ve talked with it about Ζeno’s paradoxes. I’ve talked with it about behaviourism, causality, skepticism, supervenience, knowledge, humour, catastrophic moral horror, the container theory of time, and the relation between different conceptions of modes and tropes. I tried […] The post Why you should be talking with...

Karina Bao, San Francisco, to translate the autobiography of Morris Chang. Theodor Grether-Murray and Marta Bernardino, high school in Montreal, Portugal, noise cancelling technologies for the ocean. Jim Larsen, Denver, electricity and infrastructure and geothermal energy in Indonesia, Substack. Sunir Manandhar, San Francisco/Kathmandu, ports and transportation, and better automation in industrial vehicles. Ahad Hassan, NYC, […] The post Emergent Ventures 39th cohort appeared first...