Marginal Revolution

UK fact of the day - Marginal REVOLUTION

UK panel data, 1991-2019. Couples who support different parties separate more often. The effect is as strong as some other mismatches, like education. Disagreement over Brexit mattered even more than...

Spying makes a comeback - Marginal REVOLUTION

That is the theme of my latest Free Press article, here is one excerpt: It may look like merely the latest story of a wealthy, powerful man making an irresponsible decision. But below the surface, it...

Are RCTs underpowered? - Marginal REVOLUTION

Maybe so: We study the statistical credibility of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in development economics and the optimal allocation of resources to replication. Using 745 principal-hypothesis...

Tuesday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION

1. AI as a normal technology. 2. Hayek for our time, by Cass Sunstein, free download for two weeks. 3. Works in Progress is looking for business and finance writers. 4. Matthew Lilley on Harvard grad...

Checking the AI audit of Saez and Zucman’s research. - Marginal REVOLUTION

From SaneCite: We checked the anonymous AI audit of Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman’s research that Marginal Revolution featured on 28 Oct: all 147 problems it calls serious enough to change a...

*Godzilla: Minus Zero* (no spoilers) - Marginal REVOLUTION

This is a morally serious movie (really).  And Ghidorah stars!  The whole thing is about twenty minutes too long, but mostly very good.  And like many in the Godzilla series, it offers extended and...

*Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets* - Marginal REVOLUTION

That is the new and forthcoming book from Bryan Caplan, University of Chicago Press.  Excerpt: Real-world free markets deliver one broad benefit that flies under the radar of economic theory: They...

Monday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION

1. What WWII looked like, four and a half minute video. 2. Intellectual Deep Web, YouTube channel. 3. Complete works of Schelling, and no I do not mean Thomas. 4. What the French Left is proposing....

End the State Veto on Power Lines - Marginal REVOLUTION

It’s one of the peculiarities of American regulatory history that a natural gas pipeline can cross state lines with a single federal permit, but oil and electricity must run a gauntlet of state...

The economics of honeypots - Marginal REVOLUTION

Of course as an economist I am always wondering what the equilibrium is.  And, in this case, what is the scarce factor? It seems that in the case under current consideration, the returns to honeypo...

The Paraguayan bank story - Marginal REVOLUTION

Despite its weaknesses, Paraguay’s young democracy was still able to deliver under stress. Its free, boisterous press was the first to sound the alarm about Peña’s shenanigans. The Central Bank’s...

Sunday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION

1. Among the Wagner fanatics. 2. Does AI instead commodify jobs? 3. The digital world is making Islam more diverse (The Economist). 4. “An affair with an economist exposed the calculus of modern...

The Pope probably knows this song - Marginal REVOLUTION

What I've been reading - Marginal REVOLUTION

1. Fredrik deBoer, All in Your Head: Illness as Identity, Trauma as Fashion, and the Desire to be Disordered.  A good book, I am happy to see positions laid out so clearly and starkly.  Is this a...

Saturday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION

1. Simon Winchester, RIP (NYT). 2. Pork roll vs. Taylor Ham, a NJ map. 3. Those new service sector jobs, Bradford edition. 4. “New assessment of the greatest of all time: Antarctic blue whales,...

What are the Best MR Posts? - Marginal REVOLUTION

From the Archives–written by ChatGPT. This ranking judges posts on reasoning, originality of framing, explanatory power, intellectual stimulation, timeliness, and how much they accomplish in their...

The Anthropic succession plan? - Marginal REVOLUTION

Anthropic’s version is rather more elaborate. Each of its seven co-founders will maintain a confidential, ranked list of up to ten people who may eventually inherit that founder’s membership and...

Was Mossadegh a liberal, democratizing force? - Marginal REVOLUTION

One reads and hears so many times that Iran was on the path to democracy until a CIA coup installed the Shah in 1953.  It turns out that account is quite wrong, as is detailed by Simon Sebag Montef...

Friday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION

1. What will happen with Texas data centers? And more on that. 2. What is the half life of a claim about LLMs? 3. YouTube video created by AI.  Titled Der Zauberberg. 4. Data centers tend to be put...

Untethered AI agents in Delaware? - Marginal REVOLUTION

A Delaware AIC will be a separate legal entity whose day-to-day affairs are managed by an AI agent rather than a person. At the agent’s direction, the AIC can sue and be sued in its own name, hold and...