Marginal Revolution

Wednesday assorted links

Tyler Cowen — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:35:40 +0000

1. A catalog of past AI predictions.

2. Jasmine Sun on why people do not want data centers. And Jasmine Sun on Ezra Klein, on data centers (NYT).

3. A bot running an SF retail boutique? (NYT)

4. Elise Cawley, RIP.

5. On the NYC grocery store plan.

6. New credit card gives you tokens instead of miles.

7. Does AI mean the end of math heroes? Some other heroes too?

The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Comments

In reply to Naveen_K. IMO the current apparent “zero ... by Wayfaring Stranger
In reply to Naveen_K. The fundamentals of American government ... by Wayfaring Stranger
In reply to rayward. I agree that the interview is good. I ... by Bill Benzon
In reply to Jumfrey Tuckins, President of Texas. I'm also one ... by Dylan
In reply to Scott H. Great comment. And if one looks at how ... by rayward
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Dominant Assurance Contract aka Refund Bonus Explainer

Alex Tabarrok — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:16:55 +0000

I created the dominant assurance contract aka the refund bonus mechanism in 1998–it’s a mechanism capable of producing some types of public goods privately–in recent years working with Tim Cason and Robertas Zubrickas I’ve put refund bonuses to the test in lab experiments and they work! I’ve written an accessible Refund Bonus Explainer that covers this body of work. Here’s one bit:

The dike is a public good. Once it stands, it protects everyone nearby, and a neighbor who contributed nothing cannot easily be excluded. That property is what makes it hard to finance.

Paul Samuelson defined public goods in 1954, and he was pessimistic about them. Each person does better by understating what the good is worth to him, so it is, in Samuelson’s words, “in the selfish interest of each person to give false signals, to pretend to have less interest in a given collective consumption activity than he really has.” From this he concluded that “no decentralized pricing system can serve to determine optimally these levels of collective consumption.” Public goods, on this view, are what governments are for. Refund bonuses challenge that conclusion.

Read the whole thing and here is my Rent Control Explainer.

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Comments

In reply to Brian Villanueva. It's a good question. NAP is ... by Gilligan
By adding this kind of consensus requirement, you hand veto ... by Logan
In reply to Brian Villanueva. “The evidence: roads, parks, ... by r_r
Some people will do just about anything to avoid paying their ... by Some people…
In reply to Brian Villanueva. “Working” means neither too ... by BC
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Is this why China finds it so hard to inflate producer prices?

Tyler Cowen — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 07:20:41 +0000

This paper investigates why China’s recurrent credit expansions have coincided with persistently weak inflation. We argue that this pattern reflects the country’s production-oriented monetary regime. At the aggregate level, faster monetary-financial expansion temporarily raises PPI inflation but depresses it over longer horizons. At the sectoral level, liability growth among listed industrial firms is followed by weaker producer prices, lower profitability, higher leverage, rising inventories, and reduced capacity utilization. We also find asymmetric supply-chain transmission: downstream liability growth raises upstream PPI inflation, while upstream liability growth does not generate a corresponding downstream price response. These findings indicate that credit expansion in China tends to sustain production and balance sheets rather than stimulate final demand. As a result, monetary policy operates less as a conventional tool for demand management and durable reflation, and more as a mechanism for preserving production capacity and supporting growth.

That is from a new paper by Jeffery (Jinfan) Chang & Wei Xiong. I have to say I understand the result but not exactly the mechanism. I am reminded of Milton Friedman’s dictum not to focus too much on the first-order effects of an increase in money supply.

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Comments

In reply to rayward. “the enormous sum of government relief ... by rsm
In reply to Kaz Stanczak. “But this cannot continue ... by rsm
In reply to Scott Sumner. China doesn't need to inflate ... by Kaleberg
The party's goal in China is not to maximize profits. The goal ... by Kaleberg
In reply to Todd Ramsey. Credit policies are almost never ... by Scott Sumner
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Victor Niederhoffer, RIP

Tyler Cowen — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 06:04:51 +0000

In addition to his well-known public roles, he worked very hard to help and befriend me when I was younger. Here are the Google searches for Victor. Less well known about Victor is that he had one of the world’s best collections of private letters. He also once gave me a very nice small painting by Jack Savitzky, for which I remain grateful.

The post Victor Niederhoffer, RIP appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Comments

“Weather maps were invented by the ingenious English ... by Deke DaSilva
In reply to rayward. For a time he was mostly a systematic ... by Brent Buckner
Clearly an interesting individual who danced to his own tune, ... by gimmeabreak
The first time I heard of Tyler Cowen was when he was a speaker ... by Doubtful
He went to my high school (Lincoln) and left Harvard trailing ... by Stickler Boy
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The Value of Behavioral Policies

Tyler Cowen — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 04:51:59 +0000

Behavioral interventions have become central to modern public policy, but their empirical promise remains contested because estimated treatment effects often appear small. We argue that a policy response is economically meaningful only relative to the response generated by alternative policies. We assemble more than 1,200 estimates from over 600 studies comparing “nudges” and traditional price interventions in the markets for cigarettes, alcohol, influenza vaccination, electricity, and residential water. Translating nudge effects into equivalent price changes, we find that behavioral interventions often correspond to enormous fiscal interventions, from an 11% tax on electricity to a 100% subsidy on influenza vaccinations. Nudges are also more cost-effective than price instruments in all markets, but cost-effectiveness does not predict the welfare ranking of policies. Using a behavioral extension of the Marginal Value of Public Funds, we show that nudges have high welfare returns at the margin, while price instruments often generate larger total surplus at scale.

That is from a new NBER working paper by John A. List, Matthias Rodemeier, Sutanuka Roy & Gregory K. Sun.

The post The Value of Behavioral Policies appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Comments

In reply to MikeP. it was an just example, there are many ... by JM
In reply to JM. It is hard to conceive of a worse paper from ... by MikeP
In reply to JM. It is hard to conceive of a worse paper from ... by MikeP
In reply to Stephen. ” it isn't peer reviewed, isn't ... by Wayfaring Stranger
In reply to MikeP. I went to the effort to read the paper ... by Stephen
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Estimating the Economic Value of Zoning Reform

Tyler Cowen — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 18:51:23 +0000

We estimate the economic value of zoning reform in São Paulo, which altered maximum permitted construction along transportation corridors. Developers increased filings for multifamily construction in blocks affected by the reform, leading to more housing supply and lower housing prices in neighborhoods that allow more densification. Our equilibrium model of housing markets estimates an aggregate 1.6 percent increase in housing stock and a 0.4 percent reduction in prices, resulting in large housing wealth transfers from current to future homeowners. The reform produced welfare gains of 0.65 percent of city GDP, mostly due to developer profits and consumer gains from the newly built environment.

That is from the AEA policy journal, by Santosh Anagol, Fernando Ferreira, and Jonah Rexer.

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Comments

In reply to TMC. Not just contract but also property rights; ... by Property Lawyer
In reply to rsm. Economists toe the liberal line, which is ... by Anti-Gnostic
In reply to Mactoul. Whatever. If you want to build an ... by Anti-Gnostic
In reply to Sure. SF is a weird case. To a weirdly large ... by Old Programmer
In reply to Mactoul. Thus HOAs. Contractual rights. by TMC
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Tuesday assorted links

Tyler Cowen — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:29:06 +0000

1. Selecting innovation funding mechanisms.

2. Helen Andrews on race.

3. Famous radio station goes all-automated.

4. On Stefanie Stantcheva.

5. ChinaTalk submission hiring contest.

6. New Hamilton faculty at University of Florida, 21 of them.

7. Battery in your backyard? (WSJ)

8. How Americans are talking to Claude about politics.

The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Comments

Re: #2: She writes: It will no longer work for a country where ... by Victor
I prefer Heinlein's formulation. “I am free because I know ... by Bernard Guerrero
In reply to Hazel Meade. These comments miss Andrews' most ... by Kent Guida
In reply to Hazel Meade. Perfect libertarian sentence. ... by Naveen_K
In reply to Dismalist. Thanks! The Cato analysis was ... by qetzal
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The economics of H-1B immigration

Tyler Cowen — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 06:23:41 +0000

We study the effects of H-1B immigration on U.S. industries that employ H-1B workers and their trading partners. Using a novel cross-industry design and the 1999–2003 expansion of the H-1B visa cap for identification, we find that H-1B exposure raised incomes for natives and pre-existing immigrants, with gains concentrated in non-STEM occupations. Income gains propagate forward through supply chains to downstream industries but not backward to upstream industries, consistent with a productivity shock rather than a labor supply shock. We find no direct effect on patenting, suggesting that productivity gains arise from better task execution rather than patentable invention.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Ran Abramitzky, Leah Platt Boustan, Ahmet Gulek & Jens Hainmueller.

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Comments

In reply to Hazel Meade. “What makes you think US colleges ... by SamChevre
In reply to Sure. Mactoul: Property rights themselves are a ... by Sure
In reply to hash872. //The idea that they're locked to 1 ... by Dr. Cornelius
In reply to Sure. There is nothing wrong in changing zoning, ... by Mactoul
In reply to BC. I could be convinced of tradeability. Of ... by Sure
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Emergent Ventures winners, 57th cohort

Tyler Cowen — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 05:16:58 +0000

Oisin O’Gorman, 15, Dublin, misinformation and fakes.

Karsen Lee Wahal, Stanford, is AI killing the web?, and measuring media slant.

Davy Deng, with Claire Wang (previous winner), whole brain emulation, MIT.

Enej Grmek, 16, Ljubljana, privacy.

Vladimir Shmelev, Ukraine, Ukrainian children for relief trips to Montenegro.

Nik Verma, Chicago, a legal framework for AI agents.

Emirhan Demir and Çınar Yıldırım, Istanbul area, 19, protection against AI agents.

Midhat Doruk, 14, Ankara, longevity, biology, and skin cosmetics.

Burak Yilmaz, 17, Diyarbarkir, Turkey, browser-native authentication.

Lloyd Strickland, London, to publish the remaining Leibniz papers, including on computation.

Abdul Quyum, 15, Perth, organizing information and data.

Catharine Young, podcast on women in science, science communication tranche, Cambridge/DC.

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Comments

In reply to mkt42. Near San Jose there are many fewer 70mm, ... by MikeP
In reply to MikeP. Evidently people in Portland are favoring ... by mkt42
In reply to mkt42. My kid, who saw it in IMAX before seeing ... by MikeP
In reply to Action Figure. I attended a talk yesterday where ... by mkt42
In reply to Rahul. The web is already full of AI-generated ... by Action Figure
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How does the market regard stablecoins?

Tyler Cowen — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:32:18 +0000

We study the demand for safety and liquidity in the crypto ecosystem. We do so under a framework in which a representative investor allocates liquidity across stablecoin deposits in lending pools and traditional safe assets (e.g., MMF shares). Our model delivers three main predictions: (i) the stablecoin deposit premium co-moves with the Treasury premium when investors value the safety and liquidity services of stablecoins; (ii) increases in Treasury supply reduce the stablecoin deposit premium; and (iii) drops in the perceived safety and liquidity of stablecoin deposits (e.g., due to de-pegs or hacker attacks) reduce their premium. Using granular data from hundreds of DeFi pools spanning multiple protocols, tokens, and blockchains, we find evidence supporting these predictions. Investors treat stablecoin deposits as money-like instruments that are borderless and permissionless, yet as fragile as other forms of privately produced safe assets.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Murillo Campello, Angela Gallo, Lira Mota & Tammaro Terracciano.

The post How does the market regard stablecoins? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Comments

Come on, the real crypto news of the day is the most popular ... by Bob
Well if you can't sell your stable coin to investors, just ... by Wayfaring Stranger
How does the market regard stablecoins? They were the only ... by MikeP
How does the market regard stablecoins? As substitutes for ... by Dismalist
Are tokens like stablecoins, an opaque way to impose a user ... by rayward

Monday assorted links

Tyler Cowen — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 15:43:56 +0000

1. A new simulation argument?

2. PC on aesthetics.

3. An interview with Yiyang Zhuge.

4. The truth and aesthetics of going to church?

5. Some forms of math cope? And a different view.

6. At the demolition derby.

The post Monday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Comments

In reply to Dennis Duffy. >way too many words spilled over an ... by JWC
In reply to Dennis Duffy. This individual decision is a ... by ohwilleke
In reply to steve. Fanny Crosby wrote 8000 hymns, the ... by anonprof
In reply to ElsieT. Many of the tunes we associate with ... by anonprof
As a former pure mathematician who still keeps in touch with ... by Sidd
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What should I ask Nick Bostrom?

Tyler Cowen — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:20:26 +0000

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

If you need them, here are various Bostrom links.

The post What should I ask Nick Bostrom? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Comments

In reply to Dispatching from the Global South. I also ... by john
In reply to John from London. Hmmm. Maybe so. For that line ... by Jumfrey Tuckins, President of Texas
If the VWH is true, then accelerating the development of ... by Eli
In reply to Mark Bahner. My kingdom for an editing button. ... by Mark Bahner
In reply to Moral Panic. I'm going to take a wild guess, and ... by Mark Bahner
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On infinite ethics

Tyler Cowen — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 07:11:06 +0000

Infinite numbers have long troubled utilitarian ethicists: if the universe is boundless, then there is infinite positive utility and infinite negative utility, and we can’t even define our current state, let alone affect it. Oxford philosopher Toby Ord proposes a solution: use hyperreal numbers, a mathematical construct in which infinite sums behave more like finite ones (for example, the sum of infinitely many twos is twice as big as the sum of infinitely many ones). As with so many philosophical ideas, this solves some existing problems while creating some new ones (pinpointing some hyperreals requires choosing something called an “ultrafilter”, but this choice is underdetermined). Still, Elias Schmied calls this a real philosophical advance, of the sort which comes along only rarely and makes genuine headway into a previously-hopeless-seeming problem. I’m just surprised there’s a way of thinking about infinities under which they behave logically. Why didn’t we start with this one, instead of being told that infinity + infinity = infinity and we should just accept it? Claude tries to answer my questions.

That is from Scott Alexander (many more links at the link, many on AI safety).

The post On infinite ethics appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Comments

I have a picture of Scott Alexander donning a green eyeshade ... by Brian Donohue
In reply to Jim. Yes, maths can be abstract. But if you use a ... by JM
In reply to Daniel Muñoz. Daniel, thanks for your answer. ... by Action Figure
In reply to Kevin. Incidentally, in Pascal's Wager fails for ... by Guy
In reply to Action Figure. Great question. My take is that ... by Daniel Muñoz
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Rome’s Age of Revolution

Tyler Cowen — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 04:33:37 +0000

The author is Tim Whitmarsh and the subtitle is Augustus, Empire and the Making of Christianity. This is the most important book on the history of Christianity I have read in a long time, and it is also an important work in Roman history. Yet also fun and extremely readable. Excerpt:

The story I have told so far has emphasised the fit between Christianity and the Greek world of the early Roman Empire; I have given relatively little space to conflict. That has been quite deliberate. One of the commonest misconceptions about the early Roman Empire is that it was a time of ceaseless and inevitable suppression of virtuous Christians by a brutal governmental machine. This is a myth that has roots in antiquity itself, and has been pumped systematically into western popular culture since the nineteenth centuury. It is a remarkably durable myth, because it is both emotionally seductive and ideologically powerful. The idea that virtuous Christians were engaged in endless conflict with the Roman state makes for great narrative. But the reality is more banal: most Christians were fully integrated into Roman society, and no more or less harassed than anyone else…

My argument has been, rather, that Christianity could not have come into being in anything like the form we know it without the revolutionary impact of Augustus’ political reforms. It was this seismic change that fundamentally transformed Mediterranean thought…The most dramatic effect of the Augustan swirl was Christianity itself: a breakaway Judaean sect led by brilliant entrepreneurs who understood the opportunities offered by the new political dispensation, and rapidly reshaped their ideas to suit new audiences.

Definitely recommended, and not only to Christians and Romans.

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