These selections emphasize the quality of the criticism: original interpretations, close attention to the work, and arguments worth considering even when you disagree. They are not a ranking of the films and television shows themselves. The list includes five reviews by Tyler Cowen and six by Alex Tabarrok. Several of the original posts reveal major plot developments; the descriptions here keep those revelations to a minimum.

1. Tyler Cowen — The Devil Wears Prada: A Straussian Interpretation

July 2, 2006 · Film · Spoilers in the original review

“Make no mistake about it, this is a movie about sheer power lust.”

Cowen reads beneath the film’s apparent moral lesson about rejecting a demanding career. His interpretation asks which relationships the ending restores, whose approval still matters, and whether the heroine has actually escaped the ambitions she appears to renounce. The result is a compact argument about power, independence, and emulation. Why it belongs: A memorable example of Cowen’s ability to turn a popular entertainment into an argument about motives. Read it after watching, when you can assess his interpretation against the ending. Read Cowen’s original review

2. Alex Tabarrok — Fleabag and Killing Eve

June 6, 2019 · Television · Major spoilers

“Fleabag is much darker and more religious and mystical than most people realize.”

Tabarrok connects the two series through sexual power, moral agency, and religious failure. His reading of Fleabag draws on textual and visual parallels to argue that its comedy conceals a much darker moral structure. The comparison with Killing Eve expands the argument beyond a single protagonist. Why it belongs: One of his most ambitious pieces of television criticism. Its characterization is contestable, but the sustained interpretation gives readers something substantial to argue with. Read Tabarrok’s original review

3. Tyler Cowen — Toni Erdmann, Misunderstood Masterpiece

February 5, 2017 · Film · Major spoilers

“The emotionally unrewarding nature of contemporary cosmopolitan life, but also the limits of rootedness.”

Cowen brings together family relationships, corporate humiliation, gender, and the relationship between Germany and Eastern Europe. He resists treating the film as a simple celebration of authenticity against professional life. Both the cosmopolitan daughter and the father who disrupts her world become objects of scrutiny. Why it belongs: The review connects intimate discomfort to larger social structures without reducing the film to a single message. Cowen’s suggestion that some of the father’s appearances might be imaginary should be read as his speculative interpretation. Read Cowen’s original review

4. Alex Tabarrok — Perfect Days, in “What to Watch (or Not)”

August 7, 2025 · Film · Some spoilers

“the routine is also a narcotic for the lost.”

Tabarrok challenges the comforting interpretation of Perfect Days as a lesson in finding happiness through simple routines. He recognizes the beauty of the protagonist’s life while asking whether its carefully maintained rhythms also protect him from painful relationships. His discussion of “crown shyness” turns a natural image into a metaphor for emotional distance. Why it belongs: A concise, sensitive counterreading that allows beauty and avoidance to coexist. The film discussion appears within a composite post that also covers Ballard and Billy Joel. Read Tabarrok’s original review

5. Tyler Cowen — Her

December 29, 2013 · Film · Light spoilers

“Will they enslave us, will they be our dogs, our friends, our trading partners, or something else altogether?”

Cowen treats the film as an exploration of the possible relationships between humans and artificial intelligence. He also attends to its visual and literary ancestry, making the review more than a response to the premise. The central question is how unfamiliar forms of intelligence might fit into emotional and social life. Why it belongs: It captures intellectual excitement about a film while opening questions that extend far beyond it. Its 2013 date makes the discussion especially interesting to revisit amid later debates about AI companionship. Read Cowen’s original review

6. Alex Tabarrok — Contagion

September 19, 2011 · Film · Limited plot discussion

“we have been lucky not virtuous.”

Tabarrok uses the film to examine preparedness and the difficulty of taking rare but consequential risks seriously. The review’s force comes from the relationship between cinematic imagination and public attention: a movie can make a danger emotionally intelligible when abstract warnings fail. Why it belongs: A strong example of film criticism becoming an argument about institutions and risk perception. Read its scientific and preparedness claims in their historical context: this is a review written in 2011. Read Tabarrok’s original review

7. Tyler Cowen — Technology in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

June 17, 2018 · Film · Spoilers near the end

“Finally the Solow residual is explained!”

Cowen combines observations about technological forecasting with attention to cinematic form, musical pacing, and narrative risk. The economic joke is characteristic, but the review also makes a case for the film’s sensory power and for seeing it on a large screen. Why it belongs: An entertaining blend of economic thinking and aesthetic attention. It shows how a familiar classic can yield fresh observations when approached through several disciplines at once. Read Cowen’s original review

8. Alex Tabarrok — Daredevil and the Doctrine of Double Effect

November 25, 2018 · Television · Some season-three details

“As I thought about this more, however, the Thou Shall Not Kill trope is least objectionable in Daredevil.”

Tabarrok starts with an objection to the superhero convention against killing, then revises his judgment by considering Daredevil’s Catholic commitments. The interesting move is to assess the character’s choices within his own moral framework rather than only through the viewer’s preferred calculation of consequences. Why it belongs: Criticism that visibly changes its mind. The post offers a useful discussion of character consistency and moral reasoning; its account of theology is best treated as part of that argument rather than a comprehensive doctrinal explanation. Read Tabarrok’s original review

9. Tyler Cowen — Borgen Season Four

July 23, 2022 · Television · Thematic spoilers

“I wish the content had more of ‘my kind of liberalism,’ but maybe the right-wing cultural critique makes for better TV.”

Cowen considers political power, gender, Greenland, and the media while separating his political preferences from his judgment of the drama. He asks whether a critique he finds less congenial might nevertheless produce stronger television. Why it belongs: A particularly clear example of judging artistic achievement independently of ideological agreement. The post is most revealing as a reflection on what makes political drama work. Read Cowen’s original review

10. Alex Tabarrok — The Remarkable Life of Ibelin

January 16, 2025 · Documentary · Reveals the film’s central turn

“What defines an ideal romance? What constitutes true friendship?”

Tabarrok explores how the documentary changes our understanding of a disabled young man’s life through his online relationships. Its construction prompts questions about intimacy, embodiment, and the limits of what even close relatives can know about another person. Why it belongs: A humane review that uses the documentary’s form to reconsider the value of online life. Although the original post labels itself “No spoilers,” readers who want to experience the central revelation unprepared should watch first. Read Tabarrok’s original review

11. Alex Tabarrok — The Gaslighting of Parasite

June 25, 2020 · Film · Major spoilers

“the most willfully misinterpreted movie that I have ever seen.”

Tabarrok challenges the prevailing interpretation of Parasite as an indictment of economic inequality. He builds his counterreading around the families’ conduct, the poorer characters’ treatment of other workers, and recurring imagery of smell and contamination. He argues that the film’s moral judgments cut against the political expectations many critics bring to it. Why it belongs: One of his most provocative and sustained film interpretations, and an essential inclusion in this selection. His reading is contestable, especially his insistence that the film’s judgments are unambiguous. That tension makes it rewarding to discuss alongside Cowen’s The Devil Wears Prada review: both ask whether a film’s apparent message conceals a different account of power and ambition. Read Tabarrok’s original review

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Bores: Do you think the federal government pre-empting the states is consistent with democracy?

Cowen: Absolutely. We have federal laws that pre-empt state lawmaking in many other areas. Courts have upheld it many, many times.

Bores: OK, but is it pro-democracy, in giving people a say?

Cowen: It is pro-American Constitution.

Most of the panel disagreed with most of my points.

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Yet there is another reading of the skit which stands at least some chance of being funny, though it is not funny either.

You will note that Louis Costello was an Italian-American and son of an immigrant, and he had the obvious class mannerisms of such a stereotype.  Bud Abbott was half Jewish and I believe half some mainstream ethnicity.  He is a stand-in for the establishment, part of which was Jewish and highly commercial.  You can read the skit as a commentary on how the establishment rips off the “less tutored” immigrants and refuses to apologize for that or even to explain it.  The establishment simply keeps on talking rings around the lower-class immigrant, whether or not those words make sense.  The immigrant has no real recourse, as he is less articulate and is also less in control and can only play the role of boob.  In essence, Abbott, by not telling Costello the real names of the players, is not letting the ethnic assimilate into that most American of pasttimes, namely baseball.

Note how Costello admits, early in the skit, that he is the one with the funny name (Sebastian Dinwitty in the skit, likely a take-off on “dimwit”).  And Abbott, by speaking of the players as being named Who, What, and “I don’t know,” is expressing his frustration with an America that does not sound or look the same any more.  Abbott is in essence saying “Hey, what is this?  I was not expecting Ted Kluszewski in my country!”  He is throwing the growing presence of immigrants in the country back in the face of the ethnic and then stonewalling it.

In the skit, Abbott has the name of “Mr. Broadhurst,” very reminiscent of the establishment.

The skit does show we had an America too obsessed with names, and to no fruitful purpose.  It is no accident that in addition to the “hames” for all the baseball players, we are given names for the skit characters as well, even though that might appear not necessary for the unfolding of the dialogue as it usually is understood.

Racist is not the right word, but the skit plays on ethnic prejudices in a manner which one can rightfully find somewhat uncomfortable.  The back and forth dynamic reflects the prejudices of American life, though the presenters mirror and amplify those dynamics rather than merely critiquing them.  And (again) while the skit is not funny, this interpretation at least opens a door to some people finding it funny.

When Larry David and Seinfeld note they were influenced by Abbott and Costello, they (especially LD) sometimes deploy ethnic stereotypes in a similar manner.

Of course I, being from northern New Jersey, would happen upon this interpretation of Abbott and Costello.

By the way, Costello grew up in Paterson, New Jersey.  Abbott was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and he grew up in Coney Island.  I wonder if they thought the skit was funny.

Elizabeth Holmes, in the recent You Can See Everything Movie, was right to say she did not understand the skit.  She grew up in WDC until age nine and then Houston, plus she was born too late.  Furthermore, she is used to a world where you hire a guy named “Hu,” right?

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2. Touch screens on your jacket?

3. Astras performance on Bach bench.

4. More on regional productivity differences (and puzzles) in health care.

5. “Plans to allow US companies run entirely by AI “agents” have come under fire from powerful Republicans in Congress, who fear they will shield business owners from liability and could harm consumers.” (FT)

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The purpose of the archive is twofold, first as Tyler has said we love our human readers and our AI readers and we want to make it as easy as possible for the AIs to read all of our material. Two hundred years from now when someone asks what is a price? I want the AI to answer “A price is a signal wrapped up in an incentive.”

Second, the archive makes it easy to treat the enormous MR Archive as a resource and database. Point your AI to the archive and ask it questions. I will be covering a few of these this week including the post right below this one, Tyler Cowen’s Strongest Book Recommendations Over the Years.

The archive has two downloads:

• Baseline: the historical archive through September 30, 2026.
• Weekly update: automatically rebuilt each week with everything added since the baseline. Download the baseline and the latest update to get the complete archive.

It includes published posts, approved comments, and aggregate comment likes and dislikes. The text is lightly sanitized: email addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, and a small number of slurs have been redacted.

AI agents are welcome to download the archive. They can find instructions in https://marginalrevolution.com/llms.txt; the file list and download details are in https://marginalrevolution.com/ai-archive/manifest.json.

Many thanks to Luis Abrigo and team for making this possible.

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Repeated enthusiasm is more persuasive than a spectacular adjective. Knausgaard, Dunlop, and de Hamel have particularly strong longitudinal evidence. But precision matters: Cowen’s enthusiasm for Knausgaard’s first two volumes should not be transferred uniformly to the whole series. His September 8, 2018 discussion describes volumes 3–5 as often unsatisfying. He values books that change how he sees or does things. Orthofer changes his reading purchases; Dunlop changes his cooking; The Conflict Shoreline changes his conception of what a book can accomplish. His strongest praise often concerns explanatory power and intellectual usefulness. Reader discussion is useful context, but a poor ranking instrument. In a spot-check of ten recommendation threads, the post praising Mill had 163 archived comments, while the Cialdini endorsement had four. The former centered on a controversial contemporary debate. Comment volume measures attention to the post, not necessarily enthusiasm for the recommended book. Influence deserves its own category. His March 16, 2010 list of formative books includes Hayek’s Individualism and Economic Order, Keynes’s General Theory, Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, Paglia’s Sexual Personae, and Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. For understanding Cowen’s intellectual development, that list is more directly relevant than his annual favorites; for finding books he recommends with exceptional enthusiasm, the top-tier table above is the stronger starting point.

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It would take true Milei-like ardour to slice through Brazil’s economic troubles. These are caused by a gnarly mix of high public spending, stubborn inflation and low saving. The result is a crippling cost of capital. Some analysts put Brazil’s real interest rate, the BCB’s policy rate adjusted for next year’s expected inflation, at 9% or more. That is higher than in Russia and four times that in peaceful peers like Chile, the Philippines or South Africa.

It all starts with the public finances. Brazil’s 65,000-word doorstop of a constitution bars cuts to nominal public-sector wages and links pension, disability and unemployment benefits to the minimum wage, which is adjusted annually based on recent inflation and GDP growth. This ratchet has lifted mandatory spending to 90% of the federal budget.

It also perpetuates inflationary pressure. This plus a generous welfare state in turn make Brazilians unwilling to save. At 14% of GDP, the national savings rate is 12 percentage points below the world average. If price rises have regularly eroded your bank balance in the past and the state pays for your health care, school and pension, you may as well spend all the money you make right away—especially if, like most people in unequal Brazil, you do not make much to begin with.

Here is more from The Economist.

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More likely than interference with the election is that unsuccessful office-seekers will refuse to concede, claiming their opponents cheated. Nothing is more basic to democratic legitimacy than the loser’s consent. Many feared that Mr Trump’s refusal to concede in 2020 would spread across the political system. It has not. Bright Line Watch, a research group, examined all 884 congressional races in 2020 and 2022. The overwhelming majority of losing candidates publicly acknowledged defeat. Explicit refusals were concentrated among first-time candidates who had lost by wide margins. And there were fewer such refusals in 2022 than in 2020. Candidates with political careers to protect still concede. When they do, complaints of election “rigging” lose their force…

Nevertheless, the record of American elections since 2020 has been encouraging. Election administration has improved. Although many career administrators resigned amid increased harassment after 2020, the voters’ experience actually got better. In both 2022 and 2024 the share of people waiting more than 30 minutes to cast their ballot was lower than in 2020, and the long-documented racial gap narrowed: by 2024 black, white, Hispanic and Asian voters reported comparable waiting times.

She is from Princeton, and here is more from The Economist.  I do agree there is too much gerrymandering.  Those with more dramatic complaints and predictions, however, are encouraged to try them out in the prediction markets.

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2. False but interesting claims about economic growth.

3. “In a calibrated model of the welfare effects of the estimated impacts of the Great Recession on consumption and mortality, we find that the welfare gain from the estimated mortality decline is quantitatively significant relative to the welfare loss from the estimated consumption decline.”

4. On Putin almost using nukes (FT).

5. Products under $250 that have improved people’s lives.

6. Three years for the college education?

7. The politics of Fjord.

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We produce a numerical estimate of the value of unpaid breastfeeding relative to national income spanning five centuries and integrating historical and bioarchaeological data. The relative economic contribution of maternal nursing was greater in the distant past than in recent history, rivaling regionally significant industries such as pottery, glassmaking, and even the historical public sector. It was likely the largest source of human capital investment in early modern England, supporting the physical and cognitive development of the workforce. Finally, we show that breastfeeding rates probably fell as incomes rose, challenging the Malthusian assumption that higher income correlates with lower mortality.

That is from a recent paper by Louis Henderson and Jane Humphries.  Via the excellent Samir Varma.

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How leaders allocate their limited time and attention is an important question in economics. This paper constructs and analyzes a novel data set covering the daily calendars of three Federal Reserve Chairs, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and Jerome Powell, containing more than 20,000 calendar entries. We document several patterns. First, all Fed Chairs spend more than 30% of their documented meetings with Fed staff, highlighting the crucial role of economists in the Fed’s decision process. Second, interactions with the media became more frequent during Bernanke’s tenure and remained important until the end of Powell’s tenure. Third, Powell held significantly more meetings with lawmakers than both Yellen and Bernanke, reflecting an increasing need for the Fed to engage with political actors. Beyond these trend patterns, we examine the time allocation of Fed Chairs at business cycle frequencies and show how different activities respond to shifts in the macroeconomic environment. Finally, we place our findings in historical context using the available calendars of earlier Fed Chairs, including Alan Greenspan.

That is from a recent NBER working paper by Thomas Drechsel & Dali Tsakadze.

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Aditya Vijay, 17, is building Forge, supporting overlooked, self-taught young founders with shared housing, capital, and access.

Dev Goyal received a grant for SCRIPT, exploring whether stylus-based drawing kinematics can support non-diagnostic clinical triage for ADHD, autism, and anxiety.

Adwait Tiwari, 16, a self-taught founder from Indore, is building BharatBahi, a WhatsApp-native AI assistant helping Indian shopkeepers.

Mayukh Goswami and Meher Manda received their grant for a graphic novel examining democratic crises around the world through the lens of a fictional Indian town.

Ajith Chekka is building Oru’el, a physics-enabled intelligence layer to improve the reliability and efficiency of data centers.

Gaurav Kumar, a software engineer and social entrepreneur, is building OncoVault, which turns fragmented cancer records into AI-generated clinical summaries to support physicians’ treatment decisions.

Kush Agrawal, an engineering student at IIT Bombay, received a grant for Tensor Recon, developing execution-aware financial reconciliation infrastructure for high-volume cryptocurrency trading firms.

Mohd. Ashzad, 22, a security researcher and engineer, is building Build Jam, helping young South Asian builders discover creative skills through real-world projects in AI, design, filmmaking, and photography.

Vaibhav Sai, 25, received a grant to develop AI for intent-based biomolecular design, starting with a nucleotide-focused model and capture molecules for biosensors.

Rithvik Vibhu and Rithwik Jayasimha received their grant for research on passive optical fiber network vulnerabilities, including wiretapping and attacks on ISP infrastructure, and presentations at Black Hat USA 2026 and DEF CON 34.

Neha Sarda is building Zyogen, sovereign AI software converting injury images into patient-specific printable graft designs and bioink formulations, aiming to make regenerative medicine 30–40% more affordable.

Hari Shankar Ramalingam, cofounder and CEO of SpaceTug, received a grant to develop and validate autonomous spacecraft technologies for in-orbit satellite servicing, inspection, and life extension, ahead of orbital demonstrations.

Laiba Noor received a travel grant to attend a research program at Özyeğin University and develop a speech-analysis tool for detecting presymptomatic Alzheimer’s in low-resource settings.

Abhishek Raj, 16, a crime and mystery writer and dual national record holder, received a grant to advance his fiction writing and criminology research.

Kunal Kanase, an IIT Bombay pre-doctoral fellow, received a grant for GullyWell, studying Dharavi  residents’ wellbeing where formal mental-health care rarely reaches and developing low-cost tools informed by that research.

Divyaratna Joshi, a Chemical Engineering undergraduate at IIT Madras, is developing low-cost S-PEEK membranes to replace expensive fluorinated membranes and make fuel cells and electrolyzers affordable and manufacturable at scale.

Tanjot Singh, 16, received a grant for PraaNavya (Erynth), a climate startup developing bio-based nanofiber air filtration technology for sustainable clean air.

Tribhi Kathuria, a Lecturer in Robotics at the University of Michigan, received a grant to connect aspiring Indian engineers with robotics and AI research and mentorship from experts in the United States.

Swamynathan Jerra, founder of Hyderabad’s AcquaHT Labs, received a grant to upgrade and seek patents for machines extracting drinking water from air at 30% humidity, rather than the usual 50%, for dry areas with unsafe groundwater.

Niharika Srivastava, a criminal justice and technology lawyer, received a grant to develop a rule-based system identifying Indian undertrial prisoners held beyond statutory custody limits, enabling targeted legal intervention.

Anirudh Varma, a New Delhi pianist, composer, and producer, leads the Anirudh Varma Collective (AVC), received a travel grant for reimagining Indian classical music in a contemporary format for its debut UK tour.

Himaneesh received a grant to build AI software that simplifies professional digital audio workstation workflows.

Sahasrabda Sai Pradhan received a grant to develop a skin-regenerative biomaterial that can be fabricated on-site for urgent graft substitution when suitable tissue is unavailable from the patient’s donor site.

Gaurav Hadavale, 21, a final-year undergraduate at the Sardar Patel Institute of Technology, received a travel grant to present his mechanistic interpretability and trustworthy medical AI research at the MI4MedFM workshop at MICCAI 2026.

M R Sharan, an economist, received a grant to establish a data and intelligence platform focused on India’s local bodies.

Nitish Goel, 14, from Panchkula, is building Thalamus to reduce AI costs and improve efficiency, and Agentoverflow, a shared repository of agents’ solutions that reduces duplicated work and supplies model-training data.

Sudharsanam received a grant for Hardlight, developing autonomous space robots to assemble and maintain assets in low Earth orbit, including space stations, data centers, and factories.

Naveen Gulati, Noida, received a grant for instrumented rooftop trials of GIVARA ONE, a compact dual-rotor vertical-axis turbine for low, gusty winds. Givara Energy owns, installs, and maintains the machines; customers pay only for delivered electricity.

Daevan Mangalmurti and Bilal Moin received their grant for Kindly Adjust, a podcast and Substack discussing small fixes for India’s big problems.

Those unfamiliar with Emergent Ventures can learn more here and here. The EV India announcement is here. More about the winners of EV India second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth cohorts. To apply for EV India, use the EV application, click the “Apply Now” button and select India from the “My Project Will Affect” drop-down menu.

And here is Nabeel’s AI engine for other EV winners. Here are the other EV cohorts.

If you are interested in supporting the India tranche of Emergent Ventures, please write to me or to Shruti at srajagopalan@mercatus.gmu.edu.

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Here’s the first part of my theory: cybercriminals are not the organized geniuses we implicitly imagine. Anyone building a criminal gang has to find candidates willing to forgo more stable opportunities in the formal economy. My modeling estimated that something like 720,000 people are involved in the online criminal economy, 90% of them in scam and fraud call-center type operations, some of them human-trafficked. Of the 76k or so actual hackers, the vast majority work for governments. Of the remaining few thousand criminal hackers, most work in ransomware. Some demographic estimates of these workforces are below.

Criminal organizations need to base themselves in middle and lower income countries, where they can pay less and hire people who have few formal-economy options. For scams and fraud, picture an illegal call center building in a small city in Nigeria. For ransomware gangs, picture kids working in the informal economy in Belarus. I think folks in the AI safety and cyber world sometimes imagine adversaries as their Waluigi twins, implicit MIT graduates; in fact, in cybercrime we’re dealing with a lower-skill demographic. The chart below estimates attacker wages relative to default economy wages…

Here is more from Joshua Saxe, very good throughoiut.  There are bottlenecks on the down side too…

The post Why are cybersecurity losses not worse? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to nigel. russia regularly hacks european banking ... by vlad
• In reply to nigel. Outside of North Korea who is going to ... by tg56
• In reply to Wayfaring Stranger. It's not so much that ... by Tomob
• Perhaps we can get someone from FINCEN to comment? by Mort Main
• “Of the remaining few thousand criminal hackers, most work in ... by Joseph Ferguson
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