Marginal Revolution
@marginalrev.blogsky.venki.dev
Small steps towards a much better world.
Automated feed of https://marginalrevolution.com/, find more feeds at @blogsky.venki.dev
Automated feed of https://marginalrevolution.com/, find more feeds at @blogsky.venki.dev
Old school workplace feminization - Marginal REVOLUTION
Old school workplace feminization - Marginal REVOLUTION
We investigate whether consequential decisions made by judges are impacted by the gender composition of these judges’ peer group. Using the universe of decisions on juvenile defendants in each courthouse in a Southern state over 15 years, we estimate two-way fixed effects models leveraging random assignment of cases to judges and variations in judge peer […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 11, 2025 at 6:01 AM
Old school workplace feminization - Marginal REVOLUTION
*Marked by Time* - Marginal REVOLUTION
*Marked by Time* - Marginal REVOLUTION
The author is Robert J, Sampson, and the subtitle is How Social Change has Transformed Crime and the Life Trajectories of Young Americans, from Harvard University Press. Excerpt: …[for part of Chicago]..the chance of being arrested in life among people born in the mid-1980s is more than double that of those born just a decade […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 10, 2025 at 8:10 PM
*Marked by Time* - Marginal REVOLUTION
Monday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
Monday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. “We find that likely-unplanned C-sections reduce the probability of subsequent childbirth within four years by 28 to 34%, while planned procedures have small and statistically insignificant effects.” 2. “Risk of myocarditis is higher after Covid infection than after vaccine.” For young people, yup. 3. Claims about Tokyo’s train system. Princeton job market paper. 4. […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Monday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
More From Less: Optimizing Vaccine Doses - Marginal REVOLUTION
More From Less: Optimizing Vaccine Doses - Marginal REVOLUTION
During COVID, I argued strongly that we should cut the Moderna dose in order to expand supply. In a paper co-authored with Witold Więcek, Michael Kremer and others, we showed that a half dose of Moderna was more effective than a full dose of AstraZenecs and that doubling the effective Moderna supply could have saved many […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 10, 2025 at 12:35 PM
More From Less: Optimizing Vaccine Doses - Marginal REVOLUTION
How has Japan managed its debt ratio? - Marginal REVOLUTION
How has Japan managed its debt ratio? - Marginal REVOLUTION
They have been using an implicit sovereign wealth fund, even in light of rising debt levels: Since 2012, the social security fund has increased its exposure to riskier assets. In 2013, a government panel recommended a major reallocation of government-run pension funds into higher-yield investments (Hoshi and Yasuda 2015). Following this shift, three-quarters of public […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:45 AM
How has Japan managed its debt ratio? - Marginal REVOLUTION
In defense of Schumpeter - Marginal REVOLUTION
In defense of Schumpeter - Marginal REVOLUTION
Factories of Ideas? Big Business and the Golden Age of American Innovation (Job Market Paper) [PDF] This paper studies the Great Merger Wave (GMW) of 1895-1904—the largest consolidation event in U.S. history—to identify how Big Business affected American innovation. Between 1880 and 1940, the U.S. experienced a golden age of breakthrough discoveries in chemistry, electronics, and […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:10 AM
In defense of Schumpeter - Marginal REVOLUTION
*Violent Saviors* - Marginal REVOLUTION
*Violent Saviors* - Marginal REVOLUTION
That is the new William Easterly book, and the subtitle is The West’s Conquest of the Rest. I liked this book very much, but found the title and also book jacket and descriptions misleading. I think of this work as a full-throated examination and study of the classical liberal anti-imperialist tradition. We have been needing […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 9, 2025 at 8:45 PM
*Violent Saviors* - Marginal REVOLUTION
Sunday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
Sunday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Farmers’ Almanac will cease publication. 2. Econ history job candidates this year, a list. 3. How an econ job market candidate should maximize his or her LinkedIn profile. 4. “Mamdani is under fire for charging people $13 per beer at his ‘victory party’.” 5. Burn-Murdoch covers Noy and Rao on polarizing media (FT). 6. […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Sunday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
Educational for-profit charter schools do worse in Sweden - Marginal REVOLUTION
Educational for-profit charter schools do worse in Sweden - Marginal REVOLUTION
I estimate the long-run earnings impacts of for-profit and non-profit charter high schools in Sweden. Since the 1990s, privately managed schools have expanded dramatically—driven entirely by for-profit providers—and now enroll nearly half of urban high school students. Unlike in many other settings, there are no schools operating outside of the public system: all schools rely […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 9, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Educational for-profit charter schools do worse in Sweden - Marginal REVOLUTION
Housing costs and fertility - Marginal REVOLUTION
Housing costs and fertility - Marginal REVOLUTION
Many developed countries face low and falling birthrates, potentially affected by rising costs of housing. Existing evidence on the fertility-housing cost relationship typically uses geographic variation (raising selection issues), neglects unit size, and says little about policy. To progress on these fronts, I first specify a dynamic model of the joint housing-fertility choice allowing choices […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:36 AM
Housing costs and fertility - Marginal REVOLUTION
Should USG support a 50-year mortgage? - Marginal REVOLUTION
Should USG support a 50-year mortgage? - Marginal REVOLUTION
More “affordability” from Trump!? From GPT-5: Broad, government‑backed 50‑year mortgages would likely lower monthly payments but raise house prices, slow equity build‑up (and raise default risk in downturns), and increase interest‑rate risk in the financial system. As a general affordability policy for the U.S., that’s a poor trade‑off. If used at all, a 50‑year term […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 8, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Should USG support a 50-year mortgage? - Marginal REVOLUTION
The first human arrivals in the New World may have sailed from northeast Asia - Marginal REVOLUTION
The first human arrivals in the New World may have sailed from northeast Asia - Marginal REVOLUTION
The first people to migrate to North America may have sailed from north-east Asia around 20,000 years ago. Experts have argued that prehistoric people in Hokkaido, Japan, used similar stone tools to those later found in North America, and suggest that seafarers may have travelled to the continent during the last ice age, bringing this […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 8, 2025 at 6:05 PM
The first human arrivals in the New World may have sailed from northeast Asia - Marginal REVOLUTION
Saturday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
Saturday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Zvi (NN) on my podcast with Sam Altman. I will note that GPT-5 is very good at picking out restaurants for me in northern Spain, and Neruda you have to read in Spanish, otherwise it is lame. 2. Peter Thiel on young people and socialism (Free Press). 3. Is the Heritage Foundation imploding? 4. […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Saturday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
My podcast with Deutsche Bank - Marginal REVOLUTION
My podcast with Deutsche Bank - Marginal REVOLUTION
This was at first for a recent private event, now they have released the session. First I am interviewed, and then there is audience Q&A. Here is the Spotify link.
marginalrevolution.com
November 8, 2025 at 8:00 AM
My podcast with Deutsche Bank - Marginal REVOLUTION
Emergent Ventures India, 12th cohort - Marginal REVOLUTION
Emergent Ventures India, 12th cohort - Marginal REVOLUTION
Harish Ashok, 16, received his grant to build a multi-purpose rover. Dev Patel, economist, received his grant to expand his method combining machine learning and geophysics to detect and forecast floods across Indian villages. Saurabh Chandra, Pranay Kotasthane, and Khyati Pathak received their grant for Puliyabaazi Hindi Podcast, to expand and develop articles and video formats […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 8, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Emergent Ventures India, 12th cohort - Marginal REVOLUTION
Affordability sentences to ponder - Marginal REVOLUTION
Affordability sentences to ponder - Marginal REVOLUTION
marginalrevolution.com
November 8, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Affordability sentences to ponder - Marginal REVOLUTION
Two books I hope you do not mood affiliate against - Marginal REVOLUTION
Two books I hope you do not mood affiliate against - Marginal REVOLUTION
The firtst is Laura K. Field, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right. The author chronicles the history of the “New Right” from a left-wing perspective, and often in ways that non-Trumpers also will find objectionable. Still, the book has plenty of facts and substance, and it is the best history of this […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Two books I hope you do not mood affiliate against - Marginal REVOLUTION
Friday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
Friday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Private rooms in a nursing home do not seem to help individuals. 2. “We find that the height of Americans began to decline among those born around or before the early 1980s in parallel with the diminution in the rate of increase of life expectancy. The decline in adult height ranged from 0·68 ± […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 7, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Friday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
Very good sentences - Marginal REVOLUTION
Very good sentences - Marginal REVOLUTION
TL;DR: AI now solves university assignments perfectly in minutes. Students often use LLMs as a crutch rather than as a tutor, getting answers without understanding. To address these problems, I propose a barbell strategy: pure fundamentals (no AI) on one end, full-on AI projects on the other, with no mushy middle. Universities should focus on fundamentals. That […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Very good sentences - Marginal REVOLUTION
What I've been reading - Marginal REVOLUTION
What I've been reading - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Robert Fishman, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier. There are a variety of books on these figures and this topic, but after buying and perusing a whole bunch of them, this is the one I found useful. 2. Meryle Secrest, Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 7, 2025 at 6:00 AM
What I've been reading - Marginal REVOLUTION
Thursday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
Thursday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
1. Those new service sector jobs. 2. Optimism is correlated with exceptional longevity. 3. “Kosmos has made 7 discoveries so far, which we are releasing today, in areas ranging from neuroscience to material science and clinical genetics, in collaboration with our academic beta testers. Three of these discoveries reproduced unpublished findings; four are net new, […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 6, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Thursday assorted links - Marginal REVOLUTION
Creative Stagnation - Marginal REVOLUTION
Creative Stagnation - Marginal REVOLUTION
This is insane: Legislation requiring cars and trucks, including electric vehicles, to have AM radios easily cleared a House committee Wednesday, although it could run into opposition going forward. H.R. 979, the “AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act,” would require the Department of Transportation to enforce the mandate through a rulemaking. It passed the Energy […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Creative Stagnation - Marginal REVOLUTION
Here Comes the Sun—If We Let It: Cutting Tariffs and Red Tape for Rooftop Solar - Marginal REVOLUTION
Here Comes the Sun—If We Let It: Cutting Tariffs and Red Tape for Rooftop Solar - Marginal REVOLUTION
Australia has so much rooftop solar power that some states are offering free electricity during peak hours: TechCrunch: For years, Australians have been been installing solar panels at a rapid clip. Now that investment is paying off. The Australian government announced this week that electricity customers in three states will get free electricity for up […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 6, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Here Comes the Sun—If We Let It: Cutting Tariffs and Red Tape for Rooftop Solar - Marginal REVOLUTION
The geopolitical determinants of economic growth, 1960-2019 - Marginal REVOLUTION
The geopolitical determinants of economic growth, 1960-2019 - Marginal REVOLUTION
This paper establishes geopolitical relations as a first-order determinant of economic growth. We construct a novel event-based measure of bilateral geopolitical alignment by employing large language models with web search capabilities to analyze over 440,000 political events across 196 countries from 1960 to 2019. This comprehensive measure enables us to identify the precise timing and […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 6, 2025 at 6:05 AM
The geopolitical determinants of economic growth, 1960-2019 - Marginal REVOLUTION
I worry about "affordability politics" - Marginal REVOLUTION
I worry about "affordability politics" - Marginal REVOLUTION
It focuses the listener’s attention on price rather than quantity. To many people it sounds better than “economic growth,” though often for the wrong reasons. I cover related points in my latest Free Press article: Rather than suggesting beneficial economic reforms, the affordability mantra too often leads to “free lunch” thinking and political giveaways. It […]
marginalrevolution.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:20 AM
I worry about "affordability politics" - Marginal REVOLUTION