Here is a WaPo obituary.  For the curious, here is my (earlier) Conversation with Daniel Kahneman.  Here are earlier posts on him.

Wiping out 10k in student debt is not the most expensive part of the Biden student loan program. Most Federal student loans are now eligible for an income based repayment plan, under these plans...

In March of 2022 a group of top economists released a paper analyzing the economic effects on Germany of a stop in energy imports from Russia (Bachmann et al. 2022). Using a large multi-sector...

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him.  So what should I ask?

(7) Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in the United States over Two Centuries By Ran Abramitzky, Leah Boustan, Elisa Jacome and Santiago Perez Using millions of father-son pairs spanning more...

In The Student Loan Giveaway is Much Bigger Than You Think I argued that the Biden student loan plan would incentivize students to take on more debt and incentivize schools to raise tuition with most...

Pro-Publica (with Vanity Fair) is putting their reputation on the line with a very damning report suggesting COVID emerged from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The new information...

In texts, both fictional and non-fictional and in English and Spanish, thinking words relating to technology and social organization (experiment, gravity, weigh, cost, contract) become more common...

Here is Megan on that topic, I agree with much or maybe all of what she says, namely that parents are seeking quality peers for their kids rather than school effectiveness per se.  But I’d like to...

The wait times to get an appointment to get a visa to visit the US are absurdly long. To get an appointment for a Visitor Visa in New Delhi, for example, takes 291 days. In Mexico City the wait time...

When Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century first appeared many economists demurred on the theory but heaped praise on the empirical work. “Even if none of Piketty’s theories stands...

Here is Alex’s MRU video on the Solow model, one of the best things Alex has done, on the best thing Solow did.  Here are previous MR mentions of Solow.

One of the privileges of reading Emergent Ventures applications is that I get a cross-sample — admittedly a skewed one — of who and what is actually influencing people. When it comes to smart and...

A number of commentators suggest that the real problem is President Trump, rich people overly concerned with tax cuts, a Republican Party with a deregulatory ideology, and so on. Instead I have been...

I have received multiple confirmations.  Very sad, he was one of the true greats and ended up quite underrated.  Here are some earlier MR posts about Prescott.

Finally the truth is coming out.  A series of new research papers, surveyed in the NYT, present a pretty sobering reality.  Here is just one excerpt: One of the studies was titled “How do social...

Stephen Carter’s great column, written after the killing of Eric Garner who was being arrested for selling loose cigarettes, needs to be read and reread and periodically shouted from the rooftops:...

That is the new Daron Acemoglu paper, and he is skeptical about its overall economic effects.  Here is part of the abstract: Using existing estimates on exposure to AI and productivity improvements...

That is from a reader request, please note I am not saying these are the best (that would be a separate query).  Here goes, noting I am engaging in some bundling of volumes and sequels: 1. Olaf...

What if I told you that there is a method of education which significantly raises achievement, has been shown to work for students of a wide range of abilities, races, and socio-economic levels and...

The authors are Alex Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova, and John Van Reenen, here is the abstract: We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in America by...

Here’s an interesting idea it wouldn’t have occured to me to ask. What is the length of time described in the average 250 words of narration and how has this changed over time? Most famously James...

A key part of The Great Barrington Declaration was the idea of focused protection, “allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through...

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Economics goes to Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson for auction theory and the improvement of auction designs. The Nobel Committee has a popular introduction and good scientific...

I believe it was Dan Wang who loved the Robert Tombs book The English and Their History and asked for more books of that nature.  Another reader wrote in and wanted to know what was the best book...

Who would have guessed that after twenty years Tyler and I would still be writing Marginal Revolution! Thanks especially to Tyler, we have had multiple new posts every single day for twenty years!...

Hardly anyone associated with Future Fund saw the existential risk to…Future Fund, even though they were as close to it as one could possibly be. I am thus skeptical about their ability to predict...

In an important and impressive new paper, Parker Rogers looks at what happens when the FDA deregulates or “down-classifies” a medical device type from a more stringent to a less stringent category....

A new paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy by Bisschop, Kastoryano, and van der Klaauw looks at the opening and closing of prostitution zones (tippelzones) in 25 Dutch cities. Our...

In other words, why don’t they put everything into Atlanta or Los Angeles?  Paul Krugman has a good blog post on that topic, here is one of his points: …once upon a time dispersed agriculture ensured...

In How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe Derek Thompson offers this arresting anecdote: “Between 2003 and 2018, the number of automatic-roller car washes (that is, robots...

Designing electronic marketplaces will be the focus of a new degree to be offered jointly by MIT’s economics and computer science departments. “This area is super-hot commercially,” says David Autor,...

It is hard to do better than Alex’s video on Romer, pretty much definitive and Romer liked it too.  Most importantly, Romer won the Prize for seeing how the non-rival nature of ideas can boost...

Age 99, the reissue of his Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger is due out December 5 from Stripe Press.  And my planned CWT with him will have to be rescheduled…

From the University of Chicago letter welcoming students: …Earning a place in our community of scholars is no small achievement and we are delighted that you selected Chicago to continue your...

…this article applies machine learning and interrupted time series analysis to 54 million social media posts, both pre- and post-drills in 114 schools spanning 33 states. Drill dates and locations...

Once they moved to Indiana University and started the workshop, they were able to return to the initial idea.  Initially, Elinor Ostrom was hired for teaching “Introduction to American Government” on...

Expanding agriculture has been the biggest driver of the destruction of the world’s wilderness. This expansion of agricultural land has now come to an end. After millennia, we have passed the peak,...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is the closing bit: I am struck by the costs of climate change suggested in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, hardly a...

The so-called pink tax is an alleged tendency for products consumed by women to be more expensive than similar products consumed by men. In 2015 NYC put out a study under mayor Bill DeBlasio alleging...

On the topic of income redistribution, if you just ask them how much should happen, on a scale of 1 to 7: Perhaps the most striking evidence of polarization is that in the 1–7 scale, the modal...

It’s well known that people with lower incomes commit more crime. Call this the cross-sectional result. But why? One set of explanations suggests that it’s precisely the lack of financial resources...

A few of you have been demanding this, here are those who come to mind, note that “influence” does not have to mean I agree with them.  And I am sticking with the West, otherwise Uncle Xi wins hands...

When Pfizer representatives met with senior U.S. government health officials on July 12, they laid out why they thought booster shots would soon be necessary in the United States. Data from Israel...

Here is the audio and transcript, Paul was in top form and open throughout.  Yes economic growth, blah blah blah, but we covered many related topics too: COWEN: And you also think we should simplify...

Here is the abstract to The Geography of Poverty and Nutrition: Food Deserts and Food Choices Across the United States (free version) by Allcott, Diamond, and Dubé: We study the causes of “nutritio...

My 18th EconTalk episode with @tylercowen and I think the best of the bunch. Thank you, Tyler. https://t.co/RMriSq2h3f — Russ Roberts (@EconTalker) November 27, 2023 The book of course is here.

Have you noticed that Brussel sprouts are enjoying a renaissance? Once scorned they are now showing up at top-notch restaurants. NPR: Foods go in and out of style. Few of them, though, have gone...

I submitted a public comment on Kalshi’s request to the CFTC to create a prediction market on which political party will be in control of each chamber of the U.S. Congress. Political election markets...

Stephen Rose of the Urban Institute (not exactly a right-wing or libertarian think tank) compares recent studies measuring changes in inequality and finds that although inequality has increased the...

We have vaccine abundance in the United States but not test abundance. Germany has test abundance. Tests are easily available at the supermarket or the corner store and they are cheap, five tests for...

That is a new article by Peter N. Salib, at the University of Chicago, here is the abstract: This Article argues that we should not imprison people who commit crimes. This is true despite the fact...

Here is an Elon Musk-signed petition, with many other luminaries, calling for a pause in “Giant” AI experiments.  Here is one excerpt: In parallel, AI developers must work with policymakers to...

Yes, the Raj Chetty.  Here is the transcript and podcast.  As far as I can tell, this is the only coverage of Chetty that covers his entire life and career, including his upbringing, his early life,...

Here is one remembrance.  I thank several MR readers for the pointer.

The latest relief bill contains another $320 billion in small business relief and $25 billion for testing. Finally, we get some serious money to actually fight the virus. But as Paul Romer pointed...

When it comes to crime, economists focus on deterrence. Deterrence works but it’s not the only thing that works. Simple things like better street lighting can reduce crime as can high-quality early...

The reproduction factor is declining. We need to push it below 1 for the virus to start to fade away and then we can move to safety protocols and mass testing. These estimates are from the Centre for...