Take any two two-digit numbers. Let's start with a simple example: 30 and 10. How do you multiply them? Now, I wouldn't blame you if you rolled your eyes and said that you don't really "do" multiplication here, and you just "know" that the answer is 300. OK, what about 28 and 12? How do you multiply them? In fact, if you would please oblige me: try and answer this question without using pen and paper.

What is success in an examination? I give you two choices: scoring well, or scoring better than everybody else in the examination. If you could choose only one of these, which would you choose? Say you're waiting at a signal, and you realize that the signal that allows you to turn to the right will turn green later, while the signal that allows you to go straight is already green.

Tyler Cowen has a fun little question for us to think about: There is an enormous and growing discussion on AI alignment, but very little on capitalizing AIs, and what effects that might have.  By capitalizing AIs, I mean simply requiring them to hold some wealth, in whichever form they might care about, so they have proverbial “skin in the game” (can we still call it that?).

... is now available for you to generate, whenever and wherever you are: We've seen incredible excitement around Audio Overview in NotebookLM, which helps people make sense of complex information. Today, we're making Audio Overview available in Gemini. Audio Overview transforms your documents, slides and even Deep Research reports into engaging, podcast-style audio discussions. Gemini will create a podcast style discussion between two AI hosts who, with just a click, launch into a lively deep-dive conversation based on your uploaded files.

Sumanth had a nice fun tweet out yesterday, just begging to be drilled down into: Source: For better or for worse, almost all of the reading I do these days is about AI, but of a very non-technical variety. I am far more interested in the philosophical, economic, social and cultural impacts of AI, and almost all of this list is stuff I know nothing about.

Kevin Bryan asks a fun little question in a nice thread over on Twitter: Now, if you're plugged into developments in this part of the world, you might think Kevin is talking about Deep Research. But as he goes on to explain in the thread, that is "only a dollar of compute". What he is talking about is something very different.

Here's a thought experiment for you: Imagine that twenty-five years ago, everybody on earth played a sport called tennis. This is the same sport tennis as we play it today - the same equipment, the same rules, the same dimensions for the court, but with one crucial difference. The accepted convention of playing a double handed backhand has been turned into a rule.

The Alchian-Allen theorem, referenced in this tweet, is a favorite of mine to bring up whenever we Punekars lament the non-availability of Alphonso mangoes in the summer (IYKYK), and we have of course covered it on these pages. But back then, in July of 2019, the way I covered these abstruse theorems was by thinking about which theorems would be fun to include, and then looking up the relevant Wikipedia article and sharing it.

This essay was written by ChatGPT (4.5), based on a rather detailed prompt (and follow-up conversations). The problem being discussed is taken from a book published by Microsoft, authored by Wayne Winston. I have made minor edits for clarity, but I am not the author of this essay. I also asked ChatGPT to write (in italics) about how to start to think about writing good prompts.

Every year, without fail, I get asked about what books to read to understand key ideas in <insert field of choice here>. Because I teach Principles of Economics at the Gokhale Institute, it is usually a question related to economics - in micro, macro, international trade, and the like. Five Books, the website, is a genuinely great resource to get started, and…

For the last six months, I have struggled to write on EFE. There have been plenty of days in the past where I have not felt like writing. But that's different from saying that I have struggled to write on EFE. If you ask me, laziness is not just fine, but a welcome thing (as with everything else, in moderation, of course).

In this blog series, we’re alternating between understanding the basics of India’s power sector and diving into emerging trends that are reshaping its future. Today, let’s take a detour into one of the most exciting (and slightly worrying) trends: why tech companies are sweating about electricity. To set the stage, consider this mind-boggling stat. Imagine adding a Japan to the world—not in people, but in electricity demand.

Imagine four very different lives across India. There's Ramesh, a middle-class professional working from home in Bhopal. He needs a stable internet connection and a constant power supply for his remote job. In Delhi, Rekha runs a small grocery store in a small slum in Delhi, trying to make ends meet while dealing with frequent power cuts that threaten her income.

I loved reading this article by Miheer Karandikar, given my long-held conviction that India simply cannot develop without developing her cities. Urban India is where the action is. Consider these collection of statistics that Miheer cites: our cities house 36% of the population and generate 60% of our GDP, but municipal corporations are responsible for a measly 0.6% of the GDP as revenue receipts.

Back in September, the Federal Reserve broke my heart: The Federal Reserve broke my heart recently. Now you might think that today’s post is about something to do with monetary policy, or the taper, or something high falutin’ like that. Nope. It’s about a game. The Fed Chairman game, to be specific. And I’m heartbroken because the Federal Reserve took it down…

In the early 1960s, South Korea was not the economic powerhouse we know today. It was a country grappling with poverty, struggling to find a path to growth. When General Park Chung-hee came to power in 1962, he promised to weed out cronyism and lead the nation towards economic rejuvenation. His first step was drastic: he threw the leading industrialists of South Korea in jail.

David Brooks recently wrote a great column discussing how Trumpism represents an alternative value system. That is putting it mildly. Trumpism is not just a different political approach, it’s an entirely new value system that explicitly, loudly, and sometimes rudely rejects the existing establishment. It thrives on the idea that the very institutions regarded as symbols of legitimacy are, in fact, unworthy.

In Gulzar Natarajan's recent blog post, he shares an insightful diagram that illustrates the complexities of India's power sector bailouts. The diagram itself is intricate, with various entities and relationships woven together in a repeating cycle. There is certainly nothing to disagree with in the portrayal—it's a well-drawn map of the state of affairs. But for me, as an economist, there's another way to look at this story.