Marginal Revolution https://marginalrevolution.com/ Small Steps Toward A Much Better World Sat, 04 Apr 2026 11:33:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://marginalrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/cropped-MR-logo-thumbnail-32x32.png Marginal REVOLUTION https://marginalrevolution.com/ 32 32 42693868 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/economic-growth-and-the-rise-of-large-firms.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=economic-growth-and-the-rise-of-large-firms Economic growth and the rise of large firms https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953266298/0/marginalrevolution~Economic-growth-and-the-rise-of-large-firms.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/economic-growth-and-the-rise-of-large-firms.html#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2026 18:18:49 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92738 Rich and poor countries differ in the size distribution of business firms. This paper shows that the right tail of the firm size distribution systematically grows thicker with economic development, both within countries over time and across countries. The author develops a simple idea search model with both endogenous growth and an endogenous firm size […]

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Rich and poor countries differ in the size distribution of business firms. This paper shows that the right tail of the firm size distribution systematically grows thicker with economic development, both within countries over time and across countries. The author develops a simple idea search model with both endogenous growth and an endogenous firm size distribution. The economy features an asymptotic balanced growth path. Along the transition, Gibrat’s law holds at each date, and the right tail of the firm size distribution becomes monotonically thicker. The firm size distribution converges to Zipf’s distribution. The model also implies that policies favouring large firms can improve welfare due to the externality associated with idea search. Finally, the author extends the results obtained in the simple model to a general class of idea search models. Under common functional form assumptions, this model stands out as the only model within that class that is consistent with both Gibrat’s law and a thickening right tail.

That is by Zhang Chen, and a revised version will be appearing in Econometrica.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/economic-growth-and-the-rise-of-large-firms.html/feed 11 92738 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/saturday-assorted-links-555.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=saturday-assorted-links-555 Saturday assorted links https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953259419/0/marginalrevolution~Saturday-assorted-links.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/saturday-assorted-links-555.html#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2026 16:14:47 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92752 1. Nyege Nyege Tapes. 2. Does it help poets to be religious? 3. Martin Jay on Habermas. 4. U.S. prime age employment rate is near an all-time high.  For a different perspective, here is NYT on AI and the job market.  And new measures of AI task performance from MIT. 5. China’s AI education experiment. […]

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]]> 1. Nyege Nyege Tapes.

2. Does it help poets to be religious?

3. Martin Jay on Habermas.

4. U.S. prime age employment rate is near an all-time high.  For a different perspective, here is NYT on AI and the job market.  And new measures of AI task performance from MIT.

5. China’s AI education experiment.

6. Real retail U.S. electricity prices have fallen since 2010.

7. Compare ride-share prices.

8. Is Mandarin being Europeanized?

9. 2000 or so additional pages of Leibniz will be published.

10. The game theory of the NCAA EO.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/saturday-assorted-links-555.html/feed 50 92752 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/advice-for-economics-graduate-students-and-faculty-vis-a-vis-ai.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=advice-for-economics-graduate-students-and-faculty-vis-a-vis-ai Advice for economics graduate students (and faculty?) vis-a-vis AI https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953228912/0/marginalrevolution~Advice-for-economics-graduate-students-and-faculty-visavis-AI.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/advice-for-economics-graduate-students-and-faculty-vis-a-vis-ai.html#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2026 07:03:17 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92760 From Isiah Andrews, via Emily Oster and the excellent Samir Varma.  A good piece, though I think it needs to more explicitly consider the most likely case, namely that the models are better at all intellectual tasks, including “taste,” or whatever else might be knockin’ around in your noggin…I am still seeing massive copium.  But […]

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]]> From Isiah Andrews, via Emily Oster and the excellent Samir Varma.  A good piece, though I think it needs to more explicitly consider the most likely case, namely that the models are better at all intellectual tasks, including “taste,” or whatever else might be knockin’ around in your noggin…I am still seeing massive copium.  But the models still are not able to “operate in the actual world as a being.”  Those are the complementarities you need to be looking for, namely how you as a physical entity can enhance the superpowers of your model, or should I express that the other way around?  That might include gathering data in the field, persuading a politician, or raising money.  I am sure you can think of examples on your own.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/advice-for-economics-graduate-students-and-faculty-vis-a-vis-ai.html/feed 27 92760 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/how-should-you-change-your-life-decisions-if-we-are-being-watched-by-alien-drone-probes.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-should-you-change-your-life-decisions-if-we-are-being-watched-by-alien-drone-probes How should you change your life decisions if we are being watched by alien drone probes? https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953224091/0/marginalrevolution~How-should-you-change-your-life-decisions-if-we-are-being-watched-by-alien-drone-probes.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/how-should-you-change-your-life-decisions-if-we-are-being-watched-by-alien-drone-probes.html#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2026 05:10:58 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92757 I’ve asked a few people that question lately, and get either no answer or very exaggerated answers. Rep. Burchett recently raised the possibility of being terrified and not sleeping at night if UAPs are aliens.  But even if that is your immediate response, you need a more constructive medium-term adjustment to the new situation. One […]

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]]> I’ve asked a few people that question lately, and get either no answer or very exaggerated answers.

Rep. Burchett recently raised the possibility of being terrified and not sleeping at night if UAPs are aliens.  But even if that is your immediate response, you need a more constructive medium-term adjustment to the new situation.

One option would be to pray to the aliens as gods, but I do not recommend that.

Another option is to not change anything, on the grounds that the aliens (probably?) have not been interfering in earthly affairs.  Or if they have been interfering, they might be interfering in steady ways which are compatible with you continuing your previous life course.

That is mostly a defensible stance, but it hardly seems a true marginalist should make zero adjustments in light of the new and very radical piece of information.  If nothing else, you need to consider that other people will in time respond, and you will in turn want a response to their choices.

A third option is to write more about the aliens, so that when their presence is (partially?) revealed, you will rise in status and influence.

Should you buy more insurance?  But against what exactly?

Hold more defense stocks in your portfolio, if you anticipate more defense spending as the pending human reaction to the revelations?

Consume more?  Maybe.

The most plausible decision however is to slightly lower your level of ambition.  Consider a few of the core scenarios.

If the aliens go rogue on us and end it all, the efforts you might be making now will have been for naught.

If the aliens are here to cap the level of human achievement, for instance to keep us on Earth and prevent us from exploring the galaxy, yet without harm, you also can scale back your ambition a bit.  You do not need to invest so much capital in supporting the space program.  Most of your more local ambitions however should remain untouched.  You might even become more ambitious in keeping the Earth a safe place, since escape hatches are now less likely.  Alternatively, you might think the aliens are our “saviors of last resort,” but that too probably makes you less ambitious.

A more general Bayesian update is simply that human efforts, in the broader scheme of things, have lower relative marginal products than you might have thought.  The aliens apparently have lots of powers, at least if they managed to get here.  That too militates in favor of lowering your ambitions.  Conversely, if you start believing we are the only intelligent, agentic beings in the galaxy, arguably you should increase your ambitions.  There will be fewer outside forces to stop, limit, or reverse your efforts.

To be clear, in this Bayesian update large numbers of people still should increase their ambitions, since they were not optimizing in the first place.  But they should increase those ambitions slightly less than one used to think.  And in some areas, perhaps they should not increase their ambitions at all.

Finally, you should not decrease your ambitions a lot.  For one thing, you may need an ongoing high level of energy and ambition to deal with the changes that aliens — or even the perceptions of alien presence — will bring to earthly civilization.  Furthermore, since any alien-induced uncertainty about the future is very hard to model, most people will do best by simply continuing on their current tracks.  It makes no sense to start waving around a sword to scare off the alien drone probes.

Nonetheless, some of your more extreme ambitions should be carved back just a wee bit.  Sorry about that.

I guess it is a good thing nobody is watching then.

Addendum: For this post I am indebted to a useful lunch conversation with Robin Hanson, Bryan Caplan, and Alex T.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/how-should-you-change-your-life-decisions-if-we-are-being-watched-by-alien-drone-probes.html/feed 63 92757 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/nsf-update.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nsf-update NSF update https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953216225/0/marginalrevolution~NSF-update.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/nsf-update.html#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2026 02:15:50 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92761 The White House seeks to slash the NSF budget by nearly 55%, to $4 billion. The proposal also cuts all funding for the NSF division that funds research on the social sciences and economics. At an internal all-hands meeting on Friday, NSF leaders announced that they would dissolve the agency’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences […]

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The White House seeks to slash the NSF budget by nearly 55%, to $4 billion. The proposal also cuts all funding for the NSF division that funds research on the social sciences and economics. At an internal all-hands meeting on Friday, NSF leaders announced that they would dissolve the agency’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate based on the budget request, according to two NSF staff members who shared information anonymously in order to speak freely.

Here is the full story.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/nsf-update.html/feed 52 92761 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/my-email-on-nba-anti-tanking-rules.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-email-on-nba-anti-tanking-rules My email on NBA anti-tanking rules https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953191388/0/marginalrevolution~My-email-on-NBA-antitanking-rules.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/my-email-on-nba-anti-tanking-rules.html#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:55:29 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92755 I fear that bad management is a recurring problem with those teams. So perhaps no system of incentives can fix that. I am not sure that bidding and superstar teams are so unpopular with the fans, especially as the NBA has become more international. Maybe ten superstars sell the league in any case, and you […]

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I fear that bad management is a recurring problem with those teams. So perhaps no system of incentives can fix that.

I am not sure that bidding and superstar teams are so unpopular with the fans, especially as the NBA has become more international. Maybe ten superstars sell the league in any case, and you want them to be on very good teams.

…The incentives system also has to be palatable and explicable to the very casual fan, which I think rules out some of the more complex options. If the fans are asking “is my team trying to win or to lose now?” the system is maybe already broken.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/my-email-on-nba-anti-tanking-rules.html/feed 40 92755 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/friday-assorted-links-566.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=friday-assorted-links-566 Friday assorted links https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953181995/0/marginalrevolution~Friday-assorted-links.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/friday-assorted-links-566.html#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:28:49 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92747 1. Ben Yeoh on Measure for Measure. 2. How much is a badly damaged Gentileschi worth? 3. Sabine Hossenfelder on UAP evidence.  And a bit more. 4. New record as Indian painting auctions for $17.9 million. 5. On African urbanization. 6. South Africa banned TV until 1976. 7. Ping Pong Park, in France. 8. How […]

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]]> 1. Ben Yeoh on Measure for Measure.

2. How much is a badly damaged Gentileschi worth?

3. Sabine Hossenfelder on UAP evidence.  And a bit more.

4. New record as Indian painting auctions for $17.9 million.

5. On African urbanization.

6. South Africa banned TV until 1976.

7. Ping Pong Park, in France.

8. How do AI models respond to direct authoritarian requests?

9. Lynne Kiesling on which parts of economics will be repriced, as a result of AI.

10. How replaceable am I?  An agent takes on that question.  And another Karpathy idea.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/friday-assorted-links-566.html/feed 28 92747 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/the-presidents-fought-the-law-and-the-law-won.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-presidents-fought-the-law-and-the-law-won The President(s) Fought the Law and the Law Won https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953165276/0/marginalrevolution~The-Presidents-Fought-the-Law-and-the-Law-Won.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/the-presidents-fought-the-law-and-the-law-won.html#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:21:49 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92753 In our textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I emphasize that Congress and the President are subject to a higher law, the law of supply and demand. In an excellent column, Jason Furman gives a clear example of how difficult it is to fight the law of inelastic demand: …Today a given number of autoworkers can […]

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]]> In our textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I emphasize that Congress and the President are subject to a higher law, the law of supply and demand. In an excellent column, Jason Furman gives a clear example of how difficult it is to fight the law of inelastic demand:

…Today a given number of autoworkers can make, according to my calculations, three times as many cars in a year as they could 50 years ago.

The problem is that consumers do not want three times as many cars. Even as people get richer, they increase their spending on manufactured goods only modestly, preferring instead to spend more on services like travel, health care and dining out. There are only so many cars a family can own, but that’s not the case for expensive vacations or fancy meals. As a result we have fewer people working in auto factories and more people working in luxury resorts and the like.

These forces — rising productivity but steady demand — explain why the United States was losing manufacturing job share as far back as the 1950s and 1960s, long before trade became a major factor.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/the-presidents-fought-the-law-and-the-law-won.html/feed 74 92753 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/the-happiness-crash-of-2020.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-happiness-crash-of-2020 The Happiness Crash of 2020 https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953148554/0/marginalrevolution~The-Happiness-Crash-of.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/the-happiness-crash-of-2020.html#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2026 06:35:12 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92732 From the still-active Sam Peltzman: I document a sudden, sharp and historically unprecedented decline in self-reported happiness in the US population. It occurred during 2020, the year of the Covid pandemic, and mainly persists through 2024. This happiness crash spread across nearly all typical demographics and geographies. The happiest groups pre-Covid (e.g., whites, high income, […]

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]]> From the still-active Sam Peltzman:

I document a sudden, sharp and historically unprecedented decline in self-reported happiness in the US population. It occurred during 2020, the year of the Covid pandemic, and mainly persists through 2024. This happiness crash spread across nearly all typical demographics and geographies. The happiest groups pre-Covid (e.g., whites, high income, well-educated and politically/ideologically right-leaning) tend to show the largest happiness reductions. The glaring exception is marital status, which has consistently been an important marker for happiness. The already wide happiness premium for marriage has, if anything, become slightly wider. With both married and unmarried reporting large declines in happiness the country has become segregated: slightly over half-the married adults-remain happy on balance; the unmarried, nearly half, are now distinctly unhappy. I also show that across a number of aspects of personal and social capital post-Covid deterioration is the norm, including a collapse of belief in the fairness of others and of trust in the US Supreme Court.

Here is the paper, via the excellent Kevin Lewis.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/the-happiness-crash-of-2020.html/feed 54 92732 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/what-ive-been-reading-285.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-ive-been-reading-285 What I’ve been reading https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953143010/0/marginalrevolution~What-Ive-been-reading.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/what-ive-been-reading-285.html#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2026 04:38:47 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92662 1. Allister Sparks, The Mind of South Africa: The Story of the Rise and Fall of Apartheid.  This history book actually tries to explain to the reader how things were.  Oh such books are so rare!  (Why is that?)  Definitely recommended, written at the very end of the apartheid era which gives it yet another […]

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]]> 1. Allister Sparks, The Mind of South Africa: The Story of the Rise and Fall of Apartheid.  This history book actually tries to explain to the reader how things were.  Oh such books are so rare!  (Why is that?)  Definitely recommended, written at the very end of the apartheid era which gives it yet another angle of interest.

2. Nic von Wielligh and Lydia von Wielligh-Steyn, The Bomb: South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme.  I had been looking for a book on this topic for a long time, and finally I found the right one in a South African bookshop.  They did build six atomic bombs, almost seven, and this is the story of how that started and was later reversed.  Hundreds of pages of substantive detail, and I had not realized how much the conflict in Angola, and Cuban/Soviet involvement, was a major factor in the whole episode.

3. David Stuart, The Four Heavens: A New History of the Ancient Maya.  We keep on learning lots about the Maya, and this is the best book to follow what has been going on.  Well-written and clear, and it does not numb your mind with details you may not care about.

4. Mark B. Smith, Exit Stalin: The Soviet Union as a Civilization 1953-1991.  I am seeing an increasing number of excellent books on what the Soviet Union really was.  This one is well written, broad in scope, and yet rich in detail, treating the covered era as a living, breathing time in human history.  It makes the time and place imaginable.  The book also goes a long way toward disaggregating different Soviet eras, rather than just the end of Stalinism.

5. Kevin Hartnett, The Proof is in the Code: How a Truth Machine is Transforming Math and AI.  A very useful book about the history of proving math theorems by computer.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/what-ive-been-reading-285.html/feed 15 92662 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/thursday-assorted-links-546.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=thursday-assorted-links-546 Thursday assorted links https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953084276/0/marginalrevolution~Thursday-assorted-links.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/thursday-assorted-links-546.html#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92740 1. The most important woman in Kant’s life. 2. Incentives matter?  Dealing with Iranian scientists (New Yorker). 3. “In the months that followed, US tariff policy changed more than 50 times, spanning rate increases, rate decreases, new product exemptions, and new product inclusions.” 4. The British minimum wage. 5. The next generation of books and […]

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]]> 1. The most important woman in Kant’s life.

2. Incentives matter?  Dealing with Iranian scientists (New Yorker).

3. “In the months that followed, US tariff policy changed more than 50 times, spanning rate increases, rate decreases, new product exemptions, and new product inclusions.”

4. The British minimum wage.

5. The next generation of books and publishing?

6. More Scott Sumner movie reviews.

7. How people actually use ChatGPT.  A massive new dataset from OpenAI.

8. They added a baby to the end of Tristan!???

9. Results on reproducibility.  And a simple visual, comparing different fields.  “Education” does not do great.  And the Nature link.  None of this should come as a surprise.

10. Resilient societies: a Mercatus call for proposals.

11. “There are now ten toilets in space.” (And the aliens?)

12. The anti-data center coalitions and their squabbles.

Lots to read and ponder in today’s links…

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/thursday-assorted-links-546.html/feed 73 92740 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/sam-altmans-prediction-has-come-through.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sam-altmans-prediction-has-come-through Sam Altman’s prediction has come through https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953069414/0/marginalrevolution~Sam-Altmans-prediction-has-come-through.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/sam-altmans-prediction-has-come-through.html#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:35:01 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92751 From his house in Los Angeles, Mr. Gallagher, 41, used A.I. to write the code for the software that powers his company, produce the website copy, generate the images and videos for ads and handle customer service. He created A.I. systems to analyze his business’s performance. And he outsourced the other stuff he couldn’t do […]

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From his house in Los Angeles, Mr. Gallagher, 41, used A.I. to write the code for the software that powers his company, produce the website copy, generate the images and videos for ads and handle customer service. He created A.I. systems to analyze his business’s performance. And he outsourced the other stuff he couldn’t do himself.

His start-up, Medvi, a telehealth provider of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, got 300 customers in its first month. In its second month, it gained 1,000 more. In 2025, Medvi’s first full year in business, the company generated $401 million in sales.

Mr. Gallagher then hired his only employee, his younger brother, Elliot. This year, they are on track to do $1.8 billion in sales.

Here is more from Erin Griffith at the NYT.   Maybe Sam said “one person” running a billion dollar company, but if the two are closely genetically related still I will count this.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/sam-altmans-prediction-has-come-through.html/feed 42 92751 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/china-shock-fact-of-the-day.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=china-shock-fact-of-the-day China shock fact of the day https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953059508/0/marginalrevolution~China-shock-fact-of-the-day.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/china-shock-fact-of-the-day.html#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:38:39 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92749 China’s share in US imports at 9% is back down to what it was right before China joined the WTO (2001). From Gita Gopinath. Addendum: If you are curious, here is GPT on how much is now shipped through third countries.

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China’s share in US imports at 9% is back down to what it was right before China joined the WTO (2001).

From Gita Gopinath.

Addendum: If you are curious, here is GPT on how much is now shipped through third countries.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/china-shock-fact-of-the-day.html/feed 43 92749 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/u-s-a-fact-of-the-day-23.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=u-s-a-fact-of-the-day-23 U.S.A. fact of the day https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/953046767/0/marginalrevolution~USA-fact-of-the-day.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/u-s-a-fact-of-the-day-23.html#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:16:13 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92748 New Penn-Wharton study shows per-capita federal spending on each age group: Seniors: $43,700 Children and young adults: $4,300. Here is more from Jessica Riedl.

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New Penn-Wharton study shows per-capita federal spending on each age group:

Seniors: $43,700

Children and young adults: $4,300.

Here is more from Jessica Riedl.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/u-s-a-fact-of-the-day-23.html/feed 76 92748 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/my-very-interesting-conversation-with-arthur-c-brooks.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-very-interesting-conversation-with-arthur-c-brooks My very interesting Conversation with Arthur C. Brooks https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/952972955/0/marginalrevolution~My-very-interesting-Conversation-with-Arthur-C-Brooks.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/04/my-very-interesting-conversation-with-arthur-c-brooks.html#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2026 04:56:24 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=92742 Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is part of the episode summary: Tyler and Arthur cover how scarcity makes savoring possible and why knowing you’ll die young sharpens the mind, what twin studies tell us about the genetics of well-being and why that’s not actually depressing, the four habits of the genuinely happy, […]

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]]> Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is part of the episode summary:

Tyler and Arthur cover how scarcity makes savoring possible and why knowing you’ll die young sharpens the mind, what twin studies tell us about the genetics of well-being and why that’s not actually depressing, the four habits of the genuinely happy, the placebo theory of happiness books, curiosity as an evolved positive emotion, the optimal degree of self-deception, why Arthur chose Catholicism rather than Orthodoxy, what the research says about accepting death, how he became an economist via correspondence school, AI’s effect on think tanks, the future of classical music, whether Trumpism or Reaganism is the equilibrium state of American conservatism, whether his views on immigration have changed, what he and Oprah actually agree on, which president from his lifetime he most admires, Barcelona versus Madrid, what 60-year-olds are especially good at, why he’s reading Josef Pieper, how he’ll face death, and much more.

Excerpt:

COWEN: What do you think of the view that books on happiness or the meaning of life, they’re a kind of placebo? They don’t help directly, but you feel you’ve done something to become happier, and the placebo is somewhat effective.

BROOKS: I think that there’s probably something to that, although there’s some pretty interesting new research that shows that the placebo effect is actually not real. Have you seen some of that new research?

COWEN: Yes, but I don’t believe it. Nocebos also seem to work in many situations.

BROOKS: I know. I take your broader point. I take your broader point. I think that the reason for that is that when people read most of the self-improvement literature, not just happiness literature, what happens is that they get a flush of epiphany, a new way of thinking. That feels really good. That feels really inspirational. The problem is it doesn’t take root.

It’s like the seeds that are thrown on a path in the biblical parable. They don’t go through the algorithm that I just talked about, and so not all of these things can be compared. I would not have gotten into this line of research and this line of teaching if I thought that it was just going to add another book to a long line of self-improvement books that make people feel good but don’t ultimately change their lives.

COWEN: Say a person reads a new and different book on happiness once a year at the beginning of the year. Now, under the placebo view, that’s a fine thing to do. It’ll get you a bit happier each year. Under your view, it seems there’s something wrong. Isn’t the placebo view doing a bit better there? You should read a book on happiness every year, a different one. It’ll revitalize you a bit. Whether or not it’s new only matters a little.

BROOKS: Yes. It might remind you of some things that you knew to be the truth that you had fallen away from. One of the things that I like to do is I like to read a good book by one of the church fathers, for example. They’re more or less saying the same thing. It reminds me of something that I learned as a boy and that I’ve forgotten as an adult. It might actually remind me to come back to many of these practices and many of these views.

I think that there are real insights. There’s real value that can come from science-based knowledge about how to live a better life. I think that you and I are both dedicated to science in the public interest and also science in the private interest as well. I think there is some good to be gotten through many of these ideas. Not all. Once again, not all happiness literature is created equal.

And:

COWEN: Why not cram all that contemplation of death into your last three months rather than your last 18 months? Do intertemporal substitution, right? Accelerate it. Ben Sasse probably is facing a pretty short timeline, but he’s done a remarkable job, even publicly, of coming to terms with what’s happening. Isn’t that better than two years of the same?

And:

COWEN: I think it’s fair to say what we call the right wing in America, it’s become much, much more Trumpy. Does this shift you to the left or make you question what the right wing was to begin with, or do you just feel lost and confused, or do you say, that’s great, I’m more Trumpy, too? How have you dealt with that emotionally and intellectually?

BROOKS: Yes. I’ll answer, but you’re going to have to answer after me, will you?

COWEN: Sure.

Interesting throughout.

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