~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (573)

Here is one link.  And more.  And some CNN coverage.  One of the few conspiracy theories I believe in. And hey people, do you know why this, if it is true, is a real crime?  Because the vaccines worked and saved many, many lives. Talk to some vaccine scientists if you are still confused about […] The post “New Information Suggests Senior Pfizer Executives...

Tim Vanable: I wonder about the tenability of ascribing a policy like extended school closures to a “laptop class.” Support for school reopenings did not fall neatly along educational lines. The parents most reluctant to send their kids back to school in blue cities in the spring of 2021 were black and Hispanic, research has […] The post Covid sentences to ponder appeared first...

1. One version of the AI teddy bear? 2. It seems the FDA and NIH will phase out animal experimentation? 3. Apple to support brain implant control of its devices. 4. Second Voice, a new Zohar Atkins Substack. 5. “Half of Africa’s surface water is packed into one country: the DRC”  o3 supports the claim. […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

Excellent piece by Gary Winslett in the Washington Post. As I pointed out in my piece on Manufacturing and Trade, the US is a manufacturing powerhouse. So why did the rust belt rust? Because manufacturing went South. The Rust Belt’s manufacturing decline isn’t primarily about jobs going to Mexico. It’s about jobs going to Alabama, […] The post Manufacturing Went South appeared first on...

Here is part of the abstract: Using a multi-method approach, we first identify heterogeneous adoption patterns, perceived benefits, and key concerns through panel survey data from 277 accountants. We then formalize these survey-based insights using a stylized theoretical model to generate corroborating predictions. Finally, partnering with a technology firm that provides AI-based accounting software, we […] The post Early evidence on human + Ai...

Fast-forward to the 2020s, and the artistic community has been largely disintermediated. If you want to be a successful commercial creator, the way to get started now is not first to struggle to prove yourself in the closed and cosseted artistic community — it’s to simply throw your work up online and see if it […] The post Noah on cultural stagnation appeared first...

I am greatly honored to have received an honorary professorship in social science at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin, in Guatemala City (there are branches in Panama and Madrid as well). The Guatemala City branch is an excellent, highly selective school with about 3,000 students.  It is also explicitly classical liberal in orientation.  One interesting feature […] The post My honorary degree at Francisco Marroquin...

1. Fighting overcriminalization in federal regulations. 2. The evolution of voting rules in the Conclave. 3. “Republicans have inserted language into the budget reconciliation bill that would ban states from regulating AI in any capacity for 10 years.” 4. New results on male labor force participation. 5. Airbnb matching markets in everything. 6. Drink more […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

I love these glow-in-the-dark petunias. Aside from the novelty, they speak to science and progress! The petunias were genetically modified to incorporate genes from a bioluminescent mushroom. The post Glow in the Dark Flowers! appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsSo long ad they don't sing. by LysenkasIn reply to RAD. A psyche without the capacity to think that ... by Follow the science™Important...

Maybe not, isn’t that a form of double counting?  After all, defense spending is there to enable the production of other goods and services, it is not useful per se.  Chandler S. Reilly and Vincent Geloso recalculate the history of U.S. economic growth using this new method: In fact, our corrections applied to the entire […] The post Should gdp include defense spending? appeared...

That is the topic of my latest piece at The Free Press, co-authored with Avital Balwit.  Here is a segment written by Avital: I was Claude pre-Claude. I once prided myself on how quickly I could write well. Memos, strategy documents, talking points—you name it. I could churn out 2,000 words an hour. That skill […] The post How will AI change what it...

1. “On Thursday, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University unveiled LegoGPT, an AI model that creates physically stable Lego structures from text prompts.”  Link here. 2. Learn all about New York’s judges. 3. Abi Olvera on limiting U.S. traffic fatalities. 4. In defense of YIMBY estimates. 5. No mass shootings so far this year in America. […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

From Andrey Fradkin: Seth Benzell and I have been working on a podcast about the economics of AI called Justified Posteriors, which may be of interest to you and your readers. We have episodes on topics such as the “The Simple Macroeconomics of AI” and the Anthropic Economic Index. The format is that we state our priors, read a paper, […] The post New AI and economics podcast appeared...

Econ 101 is often dismissed as too simplistic. Yet recent events suggest that Econ 101 is underrated. Take the tariff debate: understanding that a tariff is a tax, that prices represent opportunity costs, that a bilateral trade deficit is largely meaningless, that a so-called trade “deficit” is equally a goods surplus or an investment surplus—these […] The post Econ 101 is Underrated: Pharma Price...

Here is one extra bit from my chat with Jack Clark of Anthropic: COWEN: For the ongoing AI revolution, what’s the worst age to be? CLARK: Ooh. COWEN: Say the best age is just to have been born if you’re going to live to maybe 130. If you’re very old and retired, it probably isn’t […] The post What is the best age to...

…in recent years…Mississippi has become the fastest-improving school system in the country. You read that right. Mississippi is taking names. In 2003, only the District of Columbia had more fourth graders in the lowest achievement level on our national reading test (NAEP) than Mississippi. By 2024, only four states had fewer. When the Urban Institute adjusted national […] The post Mississippi schools are pretty good appeared...

In fact, it was the Obama administration that paused funding for high-risk GoF studies in 2014. The ban was lifted by none other than Donald Trump in 2017. At the time, outlets like Scientific American and Science covered the decision, in articles that quoted scientists talking about what could go wrong. Remind yourself of this the next time you see rightists trumpeting some […] The post Sentences to ponder appeared first on...

The subtitle of the piece is Investigating Determinants of Preferences for Impartiality in 40 Countries, and the authors are Camila Mont’Alverne, Amy Ross A. Arguedas, Sumitra Badrinathan, Benjamin Toff, Richard Fletcher, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.  Here is part of the abstract: This article draws on survey data across 40 markets to investigate the factors shaping […] The post Who wants impartial news? appeared first...

1. The tyranny of last year’s budget. 2. Should Britain have an Exceptional Talent Office? 3. The Pope is AI-pilled.  And what is the tax status of the Pope? 4. China facts of the day: which are the most widespread global restaurant chains? 5. What would an ambitious Australia look like? 6. Milei’s party did […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

Numerous empirical studies show a relationship between a drug’s expected market size and the magnitude of research and development investments. Early studies focused on changes to market size resulting from the demographics of disease burden (Acemoglu and Linn 2004) and policy changes influencing market demand (Finkelstein 2004). These findings have largely been confirmed by more […] The post Supply is elastic, installment #6437 appeared...

Now that the dust has settled at least temporarily, a few readers have asked me for comment on the recent clash.  The events are difficult to understand, in part because of rampant misinformation and also because of genuine continuing uncertainty as to what happened. Nonetheless we do know two things: 1. The two sides whacked […] The post The game theory of India and...

1. ” These findings suggest that IRS officials possess, and trade on, material tax-related information and that these trades are associated with future tax enforcement outcomes for firms.” 2. New centrist movement seeking to swing the House by winning a few seats. 3. “Doubling-back aversion” is distinct from the sunk cost fallacy. 4. Papal production […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

ChatGPT: Adam Smith strongly criticized mercantilism in The Wealth of Nations (1776), arguing that it was a flawed and self-defeating economic doctrine. His main points: Wealth is not gold: Mercantilists equated national wealth with the accumulation of gold and silver (bullion). Smith rejected this, emphasizing instead that real wealth lies in a nation’s productive capacity—its […] The post Adam Smith on Mercantilism appeared first...

You will find it here, along with a transcript.  Interesting throughout, here is one excerpt from me: The AI is your smartest reader. It’s your most sympathetic reader. It will remember what you tell it. So I think humans should sit down and ask, what does the AI need to know? And also, what is […] The post Eric Topol invites me to his...