~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (567)

For a brief moment in the mid-1950s, it seemed as if Liverpool’s transportation system was about to be revolutionised, not by cars, trams, buses or ferries, but instead by helicopters.  As strange as it may seem, Liverpool was at the forefront of a flurry of interest from planners and politicians who imagined that an age […] The post That was then, this is now...

Here is a new set of results, by Laura Lemahieu, et.al.: Abstaining from social media has become a popular digital disconnection strategy of individuals to enhance their well-being. To date, it is unclear whether social media abstinences are truly effective in improving well-being, however, as studies produce inconsistent outcomes. This preregistered systematic review and meta-analysis […] The post Social media and well-being appeared first...

1. Richard Ngo on AI safety. 2. Owen Hatherley interview on Central European emigres to Britain. 3. AGI and the future of warfare. 4. 42 new words added to the OED (NYT). 5. Okie-dokie. 6. Argentina nearing new $20 billion loan from the IMF (FT).  “He said the central bank’s gross reserves, which include a […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Peter Marks was key to President Trump’s greatest first-term achievement: Operation Warp Speed. In an emergency, he pushed the FDA to move faster—against every cultural and institutional incentive to go slow. He fought the system and won. I had some hope that FDA commissioner Mary Makary would team with Marks at CBER. Makary understands that […] The post Peter Marks Forced Out at FDA...

Mexico’s economy is slowing sharply and will soon fall into recession, several economists predict, as Donald Trump’s changing tariff plans cast uncertainty over the relationship with its largest trading partner. Mexico is one of the countries most vulnerable to the US president’s drive to reshore investment and close trade deficits. The country’s economy was already […] The post Is Mexico falling into recession? appeared...

David Sheff, Yoko: A Biography.  An excellent work, I view Yoko as a quite good visual and conceptual artist, a sometimes quite interesting but hard to listen to in any volume musical creator, and overall a pretty stunning woman.  Sheff has known Yoko well for decades, so you get a real sense of her from […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

Here is the YouTube link.  Here is part of the episode summary: I had a wonderful conversation with Professor Tyler Cowen. We discussed his view of economic growth, the chase for GDP growth, the most underrated risks to global economic stability, and whether capitalism will survive the next century. Other topics included universal basic income, behavioral […] The post Science podcast with Hrvoje Kukina appeared...

1. Guess why Utah has so few restaurants. 2. Invisible College, August, for 18-22 year olds, Cambridge UK. 3. How did Kerala become relatively wealthy? 4. Sharks make clicking sounds? (NYT) 5. Digital Delacroix (NYT). 6. Bari Weiss interviews Leonard Leo. 7. Speculative. 8. Anthropic on how the AIs think.  Blog post here. 9. Trump […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

The economics of AI remains surprisingly understudied, even as technical progress in artificial intelligence continues rapidly. The Stripe Economics of AI Fellowship aims to help fill that gap by supporting foundational academic research in the area. We invite graduate students and early-career researchers who are interested in studying the economics of AI to apply, regardless […] The post Stripe economics of AI fellowship appeared...

Here is a good post by Brian Albrecht, he works through the logic.  A VAT, properly understood, does not favor say European producers over American producers.  Work through his example if you don’t see this right away.  In this sense the pro-tariff “fairness” arguments are quite wrong.  Yet I am not entirely convinced by the […] The post Is a VAT an export subsidy?...

Here is a new and sure to be controversial piece from the JPE: Why does the stock market rise and fall? From 1989 to 2017, the real per capita value of corporate equity increased at a 7.2% annual rate. We estimate that 40% of this increase was attributable to a reallocation of rewards to shareholders […] The post Where do stock market returns come...

Your daily life will feel more controllable and legible than it does now. Nearly everything will feel more personalized to you, ready for you whenever you need it, in just the way you like it. This won’t be because of one big thing, but because of unfathomable numbers of intelligent actions taken by computers that […] The post Dean Ball on “how it will...

This year is likely to be remembered for the Covid-19 pandemic and for a significant presidential election, but there is a new contender for the most spectacularly newsworthy happening of 2020: the unveiling of GPT-3. As a very rough description, think of GPT-3 as giving computers a facility with words that they have had with numbers […] The post That was then, this is now...

1. The people who still use typewriters. 2. “Vaccine skeptic hired to head federal study of immunizations and autism.” 3. David Perell on AI and writing. 4. Paralysed man stands again after receiving ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells. 5. Modeling how the military and the media interact.  An underdiscussed topic. 6. How baseball analytics are keeping pitchers from […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

In Collaborating with AI Agents: Field Experiments on Teamwork, Productivity, and Performance Harang Ju and Sinan Aral (both at MIT) paired humans and AIs in a set of marketing tasks to generate some 11,138 ads for a large think tank. The basic story is that working with the AIs increased productivity substantially. Important, but not […] The post The Madmen and the AIs appeared...

Here is the link, via Alex T. The post Men watch women’s sports more than women do appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsTo me, the illogical thing is that men like to watch men's ... by FloccinaWomen have to do more of the housework, so that leaves less ... by KalebergIn reply to Sashoir. A friend of mine preferred women's ... by KalebergIn...

A few thoughts on the new ChatGPT image release. (1) This changes filters. Instagram filters required custom code; now all you need are a few keywords like “Studio Ghibli” or Dr. Seuss or South Park. (2) This changes online ads. Much of the workflow of ad unit generation can now be automated, as per QT […] The post Balaji on the new image release...

I can think of a few reasons: At least for the time being, even very good LLMs cannot be counted on for originality.  And at least for the time being, good economic reasoning does not require originality, quite the contrary. Good chains of reasoning in economics are not too long and complicated.  If they run […] The post Why LLMs are so good at...

1. Inaccurate beliefs about skill decay.  George Loewenstein papers have been quite good historically… 2. New Dwarkesh book with Stripe Press, an oral history of AI. 3. New Alice Evans paper on the global Islamic revival. 4. Waymo is coming to WDC. 5. 2025 color stats. 6. Bhattacharya now confirmed at NIH. The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn...

On November 4, 1979, a mob of radical university students and supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, surged over the wall and occupied the US Embassy in Tehran. Fifty two Americans were taken hostage but six evaded capture. Hiding out for days, the escapees managed to contact Canadian diplomat John Sheardown and Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor and […] The post Canada and America in Better Times...

Regulatory fragmentation occurs when multiple federal agencies oversee a single issue. Using the full text of the Federal Register, the government’s official daily publication, we provide the first systematic evidence on the extent and costs of regulatory fragmentation. Fragmentation increases the firm’s costs while lowering its productivity, profitability, and growth. Moreover, it deters entry into […] The post Rethinking regulatory fragmentation appeared first on...

1. 23 Australians sent to the hospital by red ant stings. 2. Maurice Obstfeld on the trade deficit. 3. William Vollmann update, good piece. 4. The State Capacity crisis, and a popular version here. 5. On the underground economy. 6. Iguanas rafted from North America to Fiji. The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         Comments#2 can’t be any more clear...

You recently mentioned the Alpha School and their claims about AI tutoring. I share the skepticism expressed in your comments section regarding selection bias and the lack of validated academic benchmarks. I wanted to highlight a more rigorously evaluated project called Tutor CoPilot, conducted jointly by Stanford’s NSSA and the online tutoring firm FEVTutor (sadly […] The post Jonathan Bechtel on AI tutoring (from...

Cato has a good summary of Deregulation in Argentina: The end of Argentina’s extensive rent controls has resulted in a tripling of the supply of rental apartments in Buenos Aires and a 30 percent drop in price. The new open-skies policy and the permission for small airplane owners to provide transportation services within Argentina has […] The post Argentina’s DOGE appeared first on Marginal...