longitudinal follows
Feed URLA river of articles from this list.
Articles from 9 followed author(s) of this list.
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Capitalizing untethered AI agents
That is my latest piece of writing, co-authored with Sonia Farrell Pearson of Harvard. Here is the opening premise: As early as 2017, the European Parliament floated “electronic personhood”
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Some fertility and AI forecasts
The 2024 forecast is particularly pessimistic about China’s fertility prospects. Both projections produce very substantial global aging, a major global capital glut producing very low long-run real
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Tuesday assorted links
1. AI is helping patients to solve their medical mysteries (WSJ). 2. History of economic thought in one paragraph. 3. Becca Rothfeld on Rachel Cusk. 4. “Since ChatGPT, the number of new economics
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Why Aren’t Modernist Bridges Awful?
The public dislikes modern architecture but, generally speaking, they do not dislike modern bridges. Lists of the most awesome, most stunning, most beautiful bridges in the world will mention
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Morocco facts of the day, Morocco is not hopeless
For decades, South Africa was the great success story of African industrialization. Last year, Morocco took the lead, emerging as the African Development Bank’s top-ranked industrial economy in
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How economics is changing
As a proportion of the literature, research about econometric theory, monetary policy and corporate governance has slumped. Meanwhile, papers on development, crime and gender are on the up. This
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Monday assorted links
1. Where do the great American comedians hail from? 2. General thoughts on biosafety. 3. “Violet Hensley Dies at 109; Ozarks Fiddler Made Opry Debut at 99” (NYT). She also handcrafted 73
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What should I ask Roman Mars?
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him. Most of all he is obsessed with design, here is Wikipedia: Roman Mars is an American radio producer. He is the host and producer of 99% Invisible, a
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Somalia facts of the day
The fruits of better security are plain to see. “Business is booming,” says Gamal Hassan, the commerce minister. New buildings are going up at a frenetic pace. The district around the airport, in
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What I’ve been reading
1. Gerald Martin, Mario Vargas Llosa: A Life. A good book if you wish to read about his strange sex life, starting early in his years. But if you are more interested in the history of ideas,
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Things you cannot buy in America?
3. Exterior roller shutters (Rollladen) In much of Europe, homes feature heavy shutters integrated into the exterior of the window, enabling total blackout and better insulation. Sleeping in true,
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Sunday assorted links
1. Ken Opalo on the evolution of post-post-apartheid South Africa. 2. Reasonable recommendations for AI policy over at Noah’s. 3. JFV recommends some economics articles. 4. William Vollmann update.
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The end of an era for China's economy
Zhu Rongji's formula won't work anymore. But that doesn't mean Xi Jinping's will work either.
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Another rationale for sticky prices?
…what can be predicted, Dabis said, is that a recent policy change by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority requiring drivers to verbally quote the $2.25 fare to passengers may make
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Adolfo Bioy Cesares delay
My Amazon shipment is postponed from this fall until April 11, 2028 (!). Will it ever come? Of course this is the fantastic, and long, Bioy Cesares book Borges, his memoir of their friendship. How
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Saturday assorted links
1. Speculative Chinese claims about Alzheimer’s. 2. Very interesting Anthropic piece on why multi-agentic systems seem to show more herd behavior and collusion than human systems. And a comment
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A Conservative Case for Liberal Immigration
That is the title of my latest Free Press piece, here is one excerpt: Or look at the AI revolution, another area where America is leading the world and also using its AI models to exert soft power.
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That was then, this is now
I very much like the new Michael Khodarkovsky book The Steppe and its Empires: The Russian Empire & its Eurasian Counterparts. Excerpt: Russia presented the most remarkable contrast to both
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Friday assorted links
1. What sort of maths are LLMs good at? 2. “People think the superrich are unhappy,” she said. “They’re not.” (NYT) 3. Trailer for a Celibadache biopic. 4. Good Joshua Saxe post on the need
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Adding to the barrel of finance fallacies
“I should note also that many (most? almost all?) of the bad scenarios have intermediate points of great worry and catastrophe” Not on my model. By the time any humans start worrying about a
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Regulated Markets Are Slow to Handle Change
Gowrisankaran, Langer and Reguant have an excellent paper, Energy Transitions in Regulated Markets (WP), in the latest AER. The basic idea is that regulation designed to prevent utilities from
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The Economics of a Shrinking World
From Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde and Patrick Norrick: As of 2026, humanity is likely below replacement fertility. That has never happened before, not in wars or pandemics. But the real surprise is
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Intergenerational mobility of immigrants in 15 destination countries
We estimate intergenerational mobility of children of immigrants in fifteen receiving countries. Children of immigrants have somewhat lower income than children of local-born parents. Around half of
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23 low-regret recommendations for AI policy
A guest post by Tim Fist and Saif Khan, with Tao Burga, Arthur Tellis, Ben Schifman, Jonah Weinbaum, and Olivia Scharfman
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