Marginal Revolution https://marginalrevolution.com/ Small Steps Toward A Much Better World Tue, 19 May 2026 10:47:53 +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/2026/05/repugnant-economics.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=repugnant-economics Repugnant Economics https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956651057/0/marginalrevolution~Repugnant-Economics.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/repugnant-economics.html#comments Tue, 19 May 2026 11:18:25 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93025 I spoke on a panel at AEI with Nobelist Al Roth about his new book, Moral Economics, which covers “repugnant markets,” from prostitution to surrogacy to kidney exchange. A fun book! My case study was acting. Acting was considered repugnant for over 2,000 years. In Rome, actors could not vote, hold office, or be trusted […]

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]]> I spoke on a panel at AEI with Nobelist Al Roth about his new book, Moral Economics, which covers “repugnant markets,” from prostitution to surrogacy to kidney exchange. A fun book!

My case study was acting. Acting was considered repugnant for over 2,000 years. In Rome, actors could not vote, hold office, or be trusted to give an oath in legal proceedings. So why don’t we find acting repugnant today?

One lesson: weighing costs and benefits is not enough. Roth discusses empirical research showing that legalizing prostitution cut STDs and sexual assaults—against prostitutes and others. But evidence alone won’t shift a repugnance norm. You also have to reframe the activity. Acting, for example was reframed from body rental to a skill requiring intelligence, training and ability. So I went out of my way to say that I am a fan of Aella—though not her only fan—and that I see no reason why escorting should not be considered a skill, requiring intelligence, training, and ability. I can think of few better ways of raising social welfare than making sex 10% better!

I also spoke on human challenge trials. Roth and I agree: challenge trials could have sped up COVID vaccines and saved tens of thousands of lives. We should be angry this didn’t happen. Why didn’t it? Even though most people think human challenge trials are a good idea, there was a repugnance bottleneck because the minority who did find human challenge trials repugnant were in charge. I discuss how to change this.

Al leads the discussion. My comments start at 25:15.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/repugnant-economics.html/feed 16 93025 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/wokeness-has-peaked-what-followed-is-worse.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wokeness-has-peaked-what-followed-is-worse “Wokeness has peaked. What followed is worse.” https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956620850/0/marginalrevolution~Wokeness-has-peaked-What-followed-is-worse.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/wokeness-has-peaked-what-followed-is-worse.html#comments Tue, 19 May 2026 05:12:07 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93034 That is the topic of my latest column for The Free Press.  Excerpt: It is important to distinguish between the positive side of wokeism and the unreasonable side. The positive side supported gay rights and discouraged racism in the public sphere. The unreasonable side brought us cancel culture, stifled discussion, insisted on very particular views […]

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]]> That is the topic of my latest column for The Free Press.  Excerpt:

It is important to distinguish between the positive side of wokeism and the unreasonable side. The positive side supported gay rights and discouraged racism in the public sphere. The unreasonable side brought us cancel culture, stifled discussion, insisted on very particular views of race and gender identity, boosted DEI and other race-discriminatory policies, and generally made America a more intolerant place. It was most of all about who had the right to steer the agenda of public discourse, and who had the right to push out dissenters.

The unreasonable side, since it was about power and control, had negative vibes built into its core. Fortunately, American society pushed back against many of the most objectionable manifestations of those negative vibes, but did we get rid of the negative vibes themselves? I do not think so. The American people still seem pretty low in trust, unhappy with America’s position in the world, glum about the economy and cost of living, and increasingly skeptical of both AI and billionaires. That is all happening at a time when the American economic situation, while mixed, is by no means as terrible as it was in, say, 2009. Happiness and mental health seem to be lagging behind the country’s actual achievements.

So what has been happening? The forces behind wokeism no longer command so much public attention and respect when they argue about terms and pronouns. Instead, left-adjacent movements have arisen with a contrasting emphasis on action, and often action of a terrible sort. California is considering, for instance, an unworkable tax on billionaires in the state, one that even most left-leaning Democratic politicians do not support. It might nevertheless pass through via referendum…

What’s more, it is possible we are entering an era with a new culture of assassinations. There have been assassinations of Charlie Kirk, of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and several attempts on the life of President Trump. It can be debated how many of these killers had direct connections to the political left, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that left-wing rhetoric about democracy destruction helped make such actions conceivable.

The social energies of the American left have moved away from the realm of speech and into plans for concrete action, whether in politics, through attempted wealth confiscations, or through organizing violence. In retrospect, wokeism, for all its problems, was a relatively harmless way of distracting activists and keeping them  Negative busy with wars over words—a less-bad allocation of social energies than what we are now seeing. So while I would not say I long for the return of high wokeism, I recognize it has been replaced by a left-adjacent movement that is worse.

Worth a ponder, do read the whole thing.  I should note I do not let the right off the hook either, though the column is mainly about what has succeeded Wokeism.  Negative emotional contagion has affected both the left and right wings today.  Here is one simple case in point.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/wokeness-has-peaked-what-followed-is-worse.html/feed 73 93034 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/monday-assorted-links-560.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=monday-assorted-links-560 Monday assorted links https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956564573/0/marginalrevolution~Monday-assorted-links.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/monday-assorted-links-560.html#comments Mon, 18 May 2026 17:49:04 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93026 1. New newsletter: AI and agentic coding, filtered for economists. 2. Can AI replace Richard Hanania? 3. Predictions for Singapore. 4. Four ways of being seen, one of which is imaginary. 5. HOPE, preview of forthcoming Korean movie.

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]]> 1. New newsletter: AI and agentic coding, filtered for economists.

2. Can AI replace Richard Hanania?

3. Predictions for Singapore.

4. Four ways of being seen, one of which is imaginary.

5. HOPE, preview of forthcoming Korean movie.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/monday-assorted-links-560.html/feed 47 93026 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/who-is-losing-out-in-marriage-market-competition.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=who-is-losing-out-in-marriage-market-competition Who is losing out in marriage market competition? https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956554208/0/marginalrevolution~Who-is-losing-out-in-marriage-market-competition.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/who-is-losing-out-in-marriage-market-competition.html#comments Mon, 18 May 2026 15:53:25 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93029 Over the past half-century, U.S. four-year colleges have shifted from enrolling mostly men to enrolling mostly women, while the economic position of non-college men has weakened markedly. We examine how these changes correspond with the evolving structure of marriage markets across cohorts and places. As college men have become increasingly scarce, college women have maintained […]

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Over the past half-century, U.S. four-year colleges have shifted from enrolling mostly men to enrolling mostly women, while the economic position of non-college men has weakened markedly. We examine how these changes correspond with the evolving structure of marriage markets across cohorts and places. As college men have become increasingly scarce, college women have maintained stable marriage rates by marrying high-earning non-college men. This shift—combined with the broader economic decline of non-college men—has sharply reduced the pool of economically stable partners available to non-college women: the share of non-college men who earn above the national median and are not married to college women has fallen by more than 50%. Cross-area evidence shows that education gaps in marriage are smaller where non-college men face lower rates of joblessness and incarceration. Taken together, the evidence suggests that deteriorating outcomes for men have primarily undermined the marriage prospects of non-college women.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Clara Chambers, Benjamin Goldman & Joseph Winkelmann.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/who-is-losing-out-in-marriage-market-competition.html/feed 75 93029 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/what-else-is-special-about-southeastern-michigan-from-my-email.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-else-is-special-about-southeastern-michigan-from-my-email What else is special about southeastern Michigan? (from my email) https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956498246/0/marginalrevolution~What-else-is-special-about-southeastern-Michigan-from-my-email.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/what-else-is-special-about-southeastern-michigan-from-my-email.html#comments Mon, 18 May 2026 06:40:57 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93027 Thanks for swinging by Southeastern Michigan. He are two things other things that this area continues to produce and export at scale that don’t get as much notice: * Mortgages – The two largest residential mortgage lenders are located in Detroit: United Wholesale Mortgage ($164B of mortgage originations for 2025) and Rocket Mortgages ($113B). It’s a fragmented […]

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]]>

Thanks for swinging by Southeastern Michigan. He are two things other things that this area continues to produce and export at scale that don’t get as much notice:

* Mortgages – The two largest residential mortgage lenders are located in Detroit: United Wholesale Mortgage ($164B of mortgage originations for 2025) and Rocket Mortgages ($113B). It’s a fragmented industry, but to give you a sense of their comparative scale, Chase is #3 lender @ $66B in originations. Detroit continues to be the home of financial services for many Americans’ largest purchase.

* Food – Michigan, not NY or Italy, is responsible for the scaling of pizza. Domino’s, Little Caesar’s, and Jet’s were all founded in Southeastern Michigan. Domino’s is the largest pizza company in the world, and in many global markets, Domino’s defines “pizza.” For instance, Domino’s market share of pizza in the UK is over 50%. So, the UK has adopted Michigan’s, not Italy’s, understanding of pizza.

One narrative for Michigan should be that it has continued to shape global culture, through scaled production of mortgages and pizza. It doesn’t get more American than cars + mortgages + pizza, does it?

That is from Jeff Withington.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/what-else-is-special-about-southeastern-michigan-from-my-email.html/feed 65 93027 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/why-i-am-skeptical-on-the-relationship-between-smart-phones-and-fertility.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-i-am-skeptical-on-the-relationship-between-smart-phones-and-fertility Why I am skeptical on the relationship between smart phones and fertility https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956483966/0/marginalrevolution~Why-I-am-skeptical-on-the-relationship-between-smart-phones-and-fertility.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/why-i-am-skeptical-on-the-relationship-between-smart-phones-and-fertility.html#comments Mon, 18 May 2026 04:34:18 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93028 That is from Alex Nowrasteh.  And for some country by country graphs: Here is that link.  There might be some connection to smart phones, but it just does not seem that strong?  Perhaps the phones give a fillip and a modest acceleration to an already in place trend?  And are Kenya’s phones really all that […]

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]]> Image

That is from Alex Nowrasteh.  And for some country by country graphs:

Image

Here is that link.  There might be some connection to smart phones, but it just does not seem that strong?  Perhaps the phones give a fillip and a modest acceleration to an already in place trend?  And are Kenya’s phones really all that “smart,” even today?

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/why-i-am-skeptical-on-the-relationship-between-smart-phones-and-fertility.html/feed 96 93028 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/sunday-assorted-links-567.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sunday-assorted-links-567 Sunday assorted links https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956405165/0/marginalrevolution~Sunday-assorted-links.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/sunday-assorted-links-567.html#comments Sun, 17 May 2026 15:56:48 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93014 1. University of Vermont enrollments expected to fall fifteen percent this year. 2, New NSF initiative, which seems set to bypass universities? 3. Are firms migrating from the US to Europe, or vice versa? 4. Soft tissue star injuries in the NBA are getting worse. 5. NY high school has 21 valedictorians all with A+ […]

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]]> 1. University of Vermont enrollments expected to fall fifteen percent this year.

2, New NSF initiative, which seems set to bypass universities?

3. Are firms migrating from the US to Europe, or vice versa?

4. Soft tissue star injuries in the NBA are getting worse.

5. NY high school has 21 valedictorians all with A+ averages.

6. How to drink more water.

7. Are smartphones behind the decline in birth rates? (FT)

8. Patrick Collison on Detroit.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/sunday-assorted-links-567.html/feed 113 93014 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/dwarkesh-in-the-datacenter.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dwarkesh-in-the-datacenter Dwarkesh in the Datacenter https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956375543/0/marginalrevolution~Dwarkesh-in-the-Datacenter.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/dwarkesh-in-the-datacenter.html#comments Sun, 17 May 2026 11:18:04 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93024 Dwarkesh tours one of Jane Street’s datacenters. It’s extraordinary how much compute goes into finance. (I once predicted that the finance AIs would be the first to become conscious, since they have the most compute.) More generally, however, this is a peek inside the remarkable economics, technology and physics of a datacenter. Did you know the […]

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]]> Dwarkesh tours one of Jane Street’s datacenters. It’s extraordinary how much compute goes into finance. (I once predicted that the finance AIs would be the first to become conscious, since they have the most compute.) More generally, however, this is a peek inside the remarkable economics, technology and physics of a datacenter. Did you know the electrical signal in a copper wire can travel faster than light in fiber…and that matters! Amazing.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/dwarkesh-in-the-datacenter.html/feed 53 93024 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/is-the-scientific-enterprise-too-risk-averse.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-the-scientific-enterprise-too-risk-averse “Is the scientific enterprise too risk-averse?” https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956348891/0/marginalrevolution~Is-the-scientific-enterprise-too-riskaverse.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/is-the-scientific-enterprise-too-risk-averse.html#comments Sun, 17 May 2026 06:35:41 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93019 I participated in an Open to Debate debate at Johns Hopkins not too long ago, argued yes, and my side saw a twelve-point shift in our favor.  Here are some links: Links to the full debate: YouTube: https://youtu.be/AuPz09dpLSc Substack: https://opentodebate.substack.com/p/the-hopkins-forum-is-the-scientific Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2g54DD8v68vII771VdxlDC?si=d7c1c3b67de84901 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-to-debate/id216713308?i=1000767731431 Also to be broadcast over NPR.

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]]> I participated in an Open to Debate debate at Johns Hopkins not too long ago, argued yes, and my side saw a twelve-point shift in our favor.  Here are some links:

Links to the full debate:

Also to be broadcast over NPR.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/is-the-scientific-enterprise-too-risk-averse.html/feed 11 93019 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/south-korea-facts-of-the-day.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=south-korea-facts-of-the-day South Korea facts of the day https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956332220/0/marginalrevolution~South-Korea-facts-of-the-day.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/south-korea-facts-of-the-day.html#comments Sun, 17 May 2026 04:01:17 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93016 When I was young, the South Korean model was generally lumped in with places like Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong as a case of “export-led growth”. Even in the early 1970s, South Korea was still poorer than the North. There was no consensus that East Asia would do better than Latin America (or indeed that […]

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]]>

When I was young, the South Korean model was generally lumped in with places like Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong as a case of “export-led growth”. Even in the early 1970s, South Korea was still poorer than the North. There was no consensus that East Asia would do better than Latin America (or indeed that America would do better than the Soviet Union.)

I hate the term “export-led growth”, as on its face it would seem to imply that South Korea got rich by running trade surpluses. But exactly the opposite is true. During the three and a half decades of near double-digit growth (roughly 1963-97), Korea ran almost nonstop trade deficits, apart from a few years in the 1980s. This graph is from an excellent Doug Irwin paper that discusses the Korean reforms of 1964-65…

Here is more from Scott Sumner.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/south-korea-facts-of-the-day.html/feed 31 93016 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/revealing-life-preferences-through-llms.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=revealing-life-preferences-through-llms Revealing Life Preferences Through LLMs https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956278517/0/marginalrevolution~Revealing-Life-Preferences-Through-LLMs.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/revealing-life-preferences-through-llms.html#comments Sat, 16 May 2026 18:57:22 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93015 Here is some Weberian verstehen (or is it?), but from unexpected quarters: Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on a prodigious corpus of human writing and may reveal human preferences over characteristics of life courses, such as income, longevity, and working conditions. We present OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 and a broadly representative sample of Americans with pairs […]

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]]> Here is some Weberian verstehen (or is it?), but from unexpected quarters:

Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on a prodigious corpus of human writing and may reveal human preferences over characteristics of life courses, such as income, longevity, and working conditions. We present OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 and a broadly representative sample of Americans with pairs of life stories and ask them to choose the life they would prefer for themselves. A person’s choice is better predicted by the LLM’s choice than by another person’s choice over the same stories, and LLM valuations of several life attributes are similar to those derived from human responses. Our results suggest that LLM responses offer a scalable and cost-effective complement to existing methods for studying human preferences.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Omar Abdel Haq, Amitabh Chandra, Tomáš Jagelka, Erzo F.P. Luttmer & Joshua Schwartzstein.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/revealing-life-preferences-through-llms.html/feed 13 93015 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/saturday-assorted-links-561.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=saturday-assorted-links-561 Saturday assorted links https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956264837/0/marginalrevolution~Saturday-assorted-links.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/saturday-assorted-links-561.html#comments Sat, 16 May 2026 16:38:13 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93012 1. Can opportunities for tax evasion increase tax revenue? 2. Auren Hoffman on the new jobs market. 3. Using AI agents for economic precommitment. 4. The progress against pancreatic cancer. 5. Christian philosophies of technology.  The full (new) Substack is here. 6. Economic graduate program enrollments are falling.

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]]> 1. Can opportunities for tax evasion increase tax revenue?

2. Auren Hoffman on the new jobs market.

3. Using AI agents for economic precommitment.

4. The progress against pancreatic cancer.

5. Christian philosophies of technology.  The full (new) Substack is here.

6. Economic graduate program enrollments are falling.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/saturday-assorted-links-561.html/feed 44 93012 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/ned-phelps-rip.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ned-phelps-rip Ned Phelps, RIP https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956233454/0/marginalrevolution~Ned-Phelps-RIP.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/ned-phelps-rip.html#comments Sat, 16 May 2026 12:10:51 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93021 Here is a brief appreciation from Olivier Blanchard, link now corrected.

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]]> Here is a brief appreciation from Olivier Blanchard, link now corrected.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/ned-phelps-rip.html/feed 3 93021 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/hayek-in-jacobin.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hayek-in-jacobin Hayek in Jacobin https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956229275/0/marginalrevolution~Hayek-in-Jacobin.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/hayek-in-jacobin.html#comments Sat, 16 May 2026 11:18:54 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93018 Here’s something I never expected to write: Jacobin, the magazine of the DSA-aligned left, has a good article on central planning. In an interview, Vivek Chibber lays out essentially the Mises–Hayek–Kornai critique of central planning. Information problems, incentive problems and the consequent failures are laid bare. Moreover, Chibber refuses to lay the blame at the […]

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]]> Here’s something I never expected to write: Jacobin, the magazine of the DSA-aligned left, has a good article on central planning. In an interview, Vivek Chibber lays out essentially the Mises–Hayek–Kornai critique of central planning. Information problems, incentive problems and the consequent failures are laid bare. Moreover, Chibber refuses to lay the blame at the feet of Stalin, poverty, or the Russians. Nor does he wave hopefully at supercomputers and AI, as is fashionable today on the planning-curious left:

The dilemma is this. There is a problem of information. Supercomputers will in fact help process information better. But if the information coming in is junk, and if that junk is built into the system because of the incentives that operators have in workplaces to lie, you will not have a planning system that can be put on its feet through the advent of computers or artificial intelligence or anything like that. I don’t see any reason to think that that strategic misalignment of incentives is simply there because of Russian backwardness or poverty.

Even the pedestrian is shocking coming from Jacobin:

Normally in capitalism, what do managers do? They want to make profits. The way to make a profit is by trying to sell, at the lowest price possible, the best-quality good that you can.

A vivid conclusion:

Melissa Naschek: What do you think leftists should learn from the failure of fully planned economies?

Vivek Chibber: What they should learn is that the burden of proof is on us, on the Left, if we want to continue with this slogan of replacing the market with the plan. The burden of proof is on us to show that it can work. You might say that along with this ought to come a kind of humility about facts and about the world.…it would be criminally negligent to ignore the experience of decades upon decades of planning and say to yourself, “Well, that wasn’t what my vision of socialism is, so I’m going to ignore it.” Because if you do that, I can guarantee 100 percent you will end up repeating many of the mistakes and falling into the same dilemmas that the planners did.

I could offer critiques. Stalin was not an impediment to central planning but a consequence of it. And to warn that ignoring the experience of central planning risks repeating “the same dilemmas that the planners did” is a bloodless way to describe dictatorship, famine, and mass murder. But that would be churlish. Let me end instead by saying that I agree with this:

If we’re actually serious about changing the world, people on the Left … should be the most remorseless and the most merciless when it comes to facts.

Replace “people on the Left” with “we” and the line is exactly right.

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]]> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/hayek-in-jacobin.html/feed 72 93018 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/detroit-notes.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=detroit-notes Detroit notes https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/956207096/0/marginalrevolution~Detroit-notes.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/05/detroit-notes.html#comments Sat, 16 May 2026 07:54:07 +0000 https://marginalrevolution.com/?p=93013 It remains one of America’s most interesting cities, and now it is seeing a continuing comeback.  Downtown remains mostly empty of foot traffic, but I was stunned to see new office buildings and signs of budding prosperity.  It did not feel abandoned or hopeless. Detroit Institute of Art is one of America’s best art museums, […]

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]]> It remains one of America’s most interesting cities, and now it is seeing a continuing comeback.  Downtown remains mostly empty of foot traffic, but I was stunned to see new office buildings and signs of budding prosperity.  It did not feel abandoned or hopeless.

Detroit Institute of Art is one of America’s best art museums, showing impeccable taste, though it is notable how much the picture donations simply disappear after some point in time.  This is a temple for those are skeptical about modern art, as you will not find it reprensented much here.  The American art, the Rembrandt Visitation, the Poussin Holy Family, the Breughel, and the huge Diego Rivera murals are all to die for.  The average quality of painting is high as well.

Baobab Fare, not too far from the museum, is a good Burundian (!) restaurant in town.

I was lucky enough to visit the General Motors research and development complex in Cranbrook, mostly designed by Eero Saarinen, due to the ingenuity of Dan Wang (it is mostly not open to the public).  Around 20,000 people work there, and it remains a temple of modernist architecture, perhaps anachronistic in effect but beautiful nonetheless.  I had not realized how strong the colors were, as that does not come through in the photos.

The Saarinen (papa Saarinen!) house in the Cranbrook Art Museum is perhaps the best Art Deco design I have seen.  The museum itself has excellent architecture, sculptures, and gardens, rather than being much of an art museum proper.

Here are good NYT photos of that part of the joy ride.

Overall a trip to the Detroit area is one of the very best American visits you can do, highly recommended, automobile required of course that is why they call it the Motor City.

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