The Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder
Alex Tabarrok
In my post Equality Act 2010 I discussed the UK’s absolutely insane wage policy:In short, supply and demand have been replaced by judges and labor boards with the authority to deem which jobs are “equal” and therefore should be paid equally….No one is alleging that male and female warehouse workers were paid unequally or that male and female retail workers were paid unequally or that there was any direct or indirect discrimination. The only claim is that warehouse workers, who are less likely to be female than retail workers, earn more than retail workers. And since these jobs have been judged “equal,” the company has violated Equality Act 2010.…The warehouse workers were almost 50% female (47.25%). So females were not barred from the higher paying jobs. The fact that 77.5% of the retail workers were female suggests that retail work has special appeal to females relative to males and thus that there are compensating differentials. Any of the three female plaintiffs could have taken jobs in the warehouse. If the jobs are equal and the warehouse jobs pay more this is, on the plaintiffs’ theory, “puzzling”. [Or, as Ayn Rand would say, blank out.]In fact, the court case reveals that Next was struggling to fill the warehouse positions and offered any retail employee—including the plaintiffs—the opportunity to switch to warehouse work. On cross-examination, one of the plaintiffs admitted that, given the unpleasant conditions in the warehouse—described by the court as “the drone of machinery,…vibration, alarm sirens and the screeching of machinery, wheels and rollers, continuously present in all areas”—the warehouse job “did not seem particularly attractive” compared to the greater autonomy and more appealing environment of the retail job. The plaintiff added that she would only have considered the warehouse job if it paid “a lot more money.”Well, here is the update. The outgoing Keir Starmer government is trying to massively expand these laws. The “equal value” framework previously applied only to sex discrimination; under the proposed law, employees could also bring equal-value claims based on race and disability. Remember, these laws have nothing to do with discrimination—they are about demanding, at the point of a gun, that apples and oranges sell for the same price because they’re both fruit.The new law would also establish an Equal Pay Regulation and Enforcement Unit. As I said, Orwellian.See also my post, How Britain Become as Poor as Mississippi.The post The Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media Comments🎶 Their tears are filling up their glasses No expression, ... by RADI wonder what kind of large classes of occupational difference ... by MCiting Ayn Rand reduces your credibility to near zero. Calling ... by ElsieTOh gosh, rich American white guy is offended by other people's ... by MartinnedRelated StoriesSpreading AI to the rest of the worldToward a theory of uni-contextMy GOAT book now has updated software/AI
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/9KOk2V0
Alex Tabarrok
In my post Equality Act 2010 I discussed the UK’s absolutely insane wage policy:In short, supply and demand have been replaced by judges and labor boards with the authority to deem which jobs are “equal” and therefore should be paid equally….No one is alleging that male and female warehouse workers were paid unequally or that male and female retail workers were paid unequally or that there was any direct or indirect discrimination. The only claim is that warehouse workers, who are less likely to be female than retail workers, earn more than retail workers. And since these jobs have been judged “equal,” the company has violated Equality Act 2010.…The warehouse workers were almost 50% female (47.25%). So females were not barred from the higher paying jobs. The fact that 77.5% of the retail workers were female suggests that retail work has special appeal to females relative to males and thus that there are compensating differentials. Any of the three female plaintiffs could have taken jobs in the warehouse. If the jobs are equal and the warehouse jobs pay more this is, on the plaintiffs’ theory, “puzzling”. [Or, as Ayn Rand would say, blank out.]In fact, the court case reveals that Next was struggling to fill the warehouse positions and offered any retail employee—including the plaintiffs—the opportunity to switch to warehouse work. On cross-examination, one of the plaintiffs admitted that, given the unpleasant conditions in the warehouse—described by the court as “the drone of machinery,…vibration, alarm sirens and the screeching of machinery, wheels and rollers, continuously present in all areas”—the warehouse job “did not seem particularly attractive” compared to the greater autonomy and more appealing environment of the retail job. The plaintiff added that she would only have considered the warehouse job if it paid “a lot more money.”Well, here is the update. The outgoing Keir Starmer government is trying to massively expand these laws. The “equal value” framework previously applied only to sex discrimination; under the proposed law, employees could also bring equal-value claims based on race and disability. Remember, these laws have nothing to do with discrimination—they are about demanding, at the point of a gun, that apples and oranges sell for the same price because they’re both fruit.The new law would also establish an Equal Pay Regulation and Enforcement Unit. As I said, Orwellian.See also my post, How Britain Become as Poor as Mississippi.The post The Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media Comments🎶 Their tears are filling up their glasses No expression, ... by RADI wonder what kind of large classes of occupational difference ... by MCiting Ayn Rand reduces your credibility to near zero. Calling ... by ElsieTOh gosh, rich American white guy is offended by other people's ... by MartinnedRelated StoriesSpreading AI to the rest of the worldToward a theory of uni-contextMy GOAT book now has updated software/AI
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/9KOk2V0
Thursday assorted links
Tyler Cowen
1. On the decline of sumptuousness in cinema, part II.2. Funding canonical visions.3. Thiel and Wolfe on the Pope and the Antichrist.4. Claims about blue eyes.5. Are the world’s best counterfeit artists in Colombia? (NYT)6. Britain nationalizes its last major steel mill (NYT).7. “Expected working life is 11 years shorter (3/4 as long) in Italy than in the Netherlands, in spite of Italians living longer.”8. The public choice of AI regulation.9. Why is it so expensive to fly within Africa?The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media Comments#6 in fairness, steel is important for national security. ... by Gilligan
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/Q3or5ve
Tyler Cowen
1. On the decline of sumptuousness in cinema, part II.2. Funding canonical visions.3. Thiel and Wolfe on the Pope and the Antichrist.4. Claims about blue eyes.5. Are the world’s best counterfeit artists in Colombia? (NYT)6. Britain nationalizes its last major steel mill (NYT).7. “Expected working life is 11 years shorter (3/4 as long) in Italy than in the Netherlands, in spite of Italians living longer.”8. The public choice of AI regulation.9. Why is it so expensive to fly within Africa?The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media Comments#6 in fairness, steel is important for national security. ... by Gilligan
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/Q3or5ve
Governing agentic AI
Tyler Cowen
From a new paper by Shruti Rajagopalan:AI agents now transact, publish, and act on external systems without contemporaneous human approval, creating new regulatory challenges. A growing literature has responded with proposals for legal personhood. This Article argues that personhood is neither necessary nor sufficient, shifting the question from status to enforcement. The Article first shows that for two millennia, nonhuman legal personality, from the Roman universitas to the corporation, the Hindu idol, the waqf, and the river, has operated through human officeholders the law can locate, question, prosecute, and replace. Agentic AI inverts that design, exercising practical agency without legal status, sometimes with no identifiable human in the responsibility-bearing role. The Article then sorts deployments into three categories: first, where one firm builds and deploys the agent; second, where the developer and deployer are separate but known; and third, where there is no identifiable developer or deployer. The Article stress tests each agent deployment category against five liability doctrines: agency law, products liability, enterprise liability, negligence, and strict liability. It demonstrates that each fails at different points in the third category for the same reason: the absent responsibility-bearer. Bare personhood would supply a caption without a representative, assets, or a mechanism for cessation. Finally, the Article assembles an alternative from regimes governing aircraft, ships, drones, driverless cars, and motor carriers. It develops a six-layer stack—registration, identification, verification, financial responsibility, lifecycle traceability, and suspension—so a responsibility-bearer can be identified, liability imposed, and the activity suspended. These layers place the human back at the end of the chain.I would say that social science now has new frontiers, let us hope it blossoms in response.The post Governing agentic AI appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesSpreading AI to the rest of the worldMy GOAT book now has updated software/AIOccupational Licensing Around the World
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/MtfpqVN
Tyler Cowen
From a new paper by Shruti Rajagopalan:AI agents now transact, publish, and act on external systems without contemporaneous human approval, creating new regulatory challenges. A growing literature has responded with proposals for legal personhood. This Article argues that personhood is neither necessary nor sufficient, shifting the question from status to enforcement. The Article first shows that for two millennia, nonhuman legal personality, from the Roman universitas to the corporation, the Hindu idol, the waqf, and the river, has operated through human officeholders the law can locate, question, prosecute, and replace. Agentic AI inverts that design, exercising practical agency without legal status, sometimes with no identifiable human in the responsibility-bearing role. The Article then sorts deployments into three categories: first, where one firm builds and deploys the agent; second, where the developer and deployer are separate but known; and third, where there is no identifiable developer or deployer. The Article stress tests each agent deployment category against five liability doctrines: agency law, products liability, enterprise liability, negligence, and strict liability. It demonstrates that each fails at different points in the third category for the same reason: the absent responsibility-bearer. Bare personhood would supply a caption without a representative, assets, or a mechanism for cessation. Finally, the Article assembles an alternative from regimes governing aircraft, ships, drones, driverless cars, and motor carriers. It develops a six-layer stack—registration, identification, verification, financial responsibility, lifecycle traceability, and suspension—so a responsibility-bearer can be identified, liability imposed, and the activity suspended. These layers place the human back at the end of the chain.I would say that social science now has new frontiers, let us hope it blossoms in response.The post Governing agentic AI appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesSpreading AI to the rest of the worldMy GOAT book now has updated software/AIOccupational Licensing Around the World
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/MtfpqVN
The future belongs to AI maniacs
Tyler Cowen
That is the theme of my latest Free Press column, excerpt:An AI maniac is someone who is obsessed with working with the latest AI models. They try out new models as soon as they can, they spend hours and hours trying to master them, and they use them to regulate both their workflows and their personal lives. I know one person who has his AI agent text him if he is not drinking enough water, for which he’s placed cameras around his house. One online anecdote tells of a man who canceled a date to spend more time playing around with Claude Fable 5 after Anthropic (where I am a member of the economic advisory board) extended the model’s availability for a few days.Many AI maniacs are using AI tools to start companies of smaller size, and thus of smaller expense, than ever before. For those companies, the humans must set in motion and then monitor a large number of AI tools and agents. Those individuals then stand to reap outsize profits as their companies grow and succeed. Stripe, the payments company, recently issued customer data showing that the number of single-person companies earning $10 million or more has doubled in the past two years. There is no firm estimate how much of that improvement is due to AI, but it stands to reason that AI is a main driver of the trend…Anecdotally, I observe that AI maniacs tend to be young, as with participants in so many other cultural trends. They tend to lack standard manners and graces, as they just want to “get right to it.” They are able to imagine a future that is very different from our present. Many of them also are kind, as they see the potential for new AI services, in areas such as biomedicine, to help other people. Their obsessiveness is a small price to pay for all of those virtues, and it is usually part of their charm and vibe.The AI maniacs also are skeptical of credentials, as they should be. If you wish to learn how to manipulate AI tools, Harvard and Yale are not the places to go. You need to teach yourself, with assistance from other AI maniacs and also with help from the AI tools themselves. There are some AI maniacs in the Ivy League, but too often those individuals have invested their energies into other, more established ways to succeed.I also believe that immigrants are especially likely to be AI maniacs. Immigrants have fewer channels to rise through credentials, family connections, and establishment modes of thinking and doing. They are more willing to try something new, they tend to be younger than average, and, because they were willing to switch countries, they tend to have higher levels of energy, courage, and ambition.Worth a ponder.The post The future belongs to AI maniacs appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesGoverning agentic AISpreading AI to the rest of the worldMy excellent Conversation with Chase Koch
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/P7SEhyA
Tyler Cowen
That is the theme of my latest Free Press column, excerpt:An AI maniac is someone who is obsessed with working with the latest AI models. They try out new models as soon as they can, they spend hours and hours trying to master them, and they use them to regulate both their workflows and their personal lives. I know one person who has his AI agent text him if he is not drinking enough water, for which he’s placed cameras around his house. One online anecdote tells of a man who canceled a date to spend more time playing around with Claude Fable 5 after Anthropic (where I am a member of the economic advisory board) extended the model’s availability for a few days.Many AI maniacs are using AI tools to start companies of smaller size, and thus of smaller expense, than ever before. For those companies, the humans must set in motion and then monitor a large number of AI tools and agents. Those individuals then stand to reap outsize profits as their companies grow and succeed. Stripe, the payments company, recently issued customer data showing that the number of single-person companies earning $10 million or more has doubled in the past two years. There is no firm estimate how much of that improvement is due to AI, but it stands to reason that AI is a main driver of the trend…Anecdotally, I observe that AI maniacs tend to be young, as with participants in so many other cultural trends. They tend to lack standard manners and graces, as they just want to “get right to it.” They are able to imagine a future that is very different from our present. Many of them also are kind, as they see the potential for new AI services, in areas such as biomedicine, to help other people. Their obsessiveness is a small price to pay for all of those virtues, and it is usually part of their charm and vibe.The AI maniacs also are skeptical of credentials, as they should be. If you wish to learn how to manipulate AI tools, Harvard and Yale are not the places to go. You need to teach yourself, with assistance from other AI maniacs and also with help from the AI tools themselves. There are some AI maniacs in the Ivy League, but too often those individuals have invested their energies into other, more established ways to succeed.I also believe that immigrants are especially likely to be AI maniacs. Immigrants have fewer channels to rise through credentials, family connections, and establishment modes of thinking and doing. They are more willing to try something new, they tend to be younger than average, and, because they were willing to switch countries, they tend to have higher levels of energy, courage, and ambition.Worth a ponder.The post The future belongs to AI maniacs appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesGoverning agentic AISpreading AI to the rest of the worldMy excellent Conversation with Chase Koch
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/P7SEhyA
Why crime will decline in (most of) Brazil
Tyler Cowen
The system, introduced in 2024, uses facial recognition to spot people wanted by police on São Paulo’s streets. It issues alerts and officers are dispatched to pick them up. The system can also locate people who have been reported missing, identify stolen vehicles and provide footage to police investigations. Streamed to its control room in the city centre, information flows not just from lenses on street corners but in health centres, on buses and mounted on police motorbikes. By 2028 the number of cameras in the network is supposed to double, to 100,000.São Paulo is one of many Brazilian cities spending big on crime-fighting technology. As in other countries, police are investing in body-worn cameras and networks of microphones that detect the sound of gunshots. What sets Brazil apart from many democracies is its enthusiasm for face-spotting tech. Researchers for O Panóptico, a watchdog, count 560 active facial-recognition projects in more than 20 Brazilian states. These include police-run initiatives but also experiments in schools, for example, where cameras are increasingly being used to take attendance. They gaze upon some 99m people, more than 47% of Brazil’s population.Here is more from The Economist.The post Why crime will decline in (most of) Brazil appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media CommentsStreet crime, that is. by ArthurRelated StoriesGoverning agentic AIThe future belongs to AI maniacsSpreading AI to the rest of the world
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/RUMoplg
Tyler Cowen
The system, introduced in 2024, uses facial recognition to spot people wanted by police on São Paulo’s streets. It issues alerts and officers are dispatched to pick them up. The system can also locate people who have been reported missing, identify stolen vehicles and provide footage to police investigations. Streamed to its control room in the city centre, information flows not just from lenses on street corners but in health centres, on buses and mounted on police motorbikes. By 2028 the number of cameras in the network is supposed to double, to 100,000.São Paulo is one of many Brazilian cities spending big on crime-fighting technology. As in other countries, police are investing in body-worn cameras and networks of microphones that detect the sound of gunshots. What sets Brazil apart from many democracies is its enthusiasm for face-spotting tech. Researchers for O Panóptico, a watchdog, count 560 active facial-recognition projects in more than 20 Brazilian states. These include police-run initiatives but also experiments in schools, for example, where cameras are increasingly being used to take attendance. They gaze upon some 99m people, more than 47% of Brazil’s population.Here is more from The Economist.The post Why crime will decline in (most of) Brazil appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media CommentsStreet crime, that is. by ArthurRelated StoriesGoverning agentic AIThe future belongs to AI maniacsSpreading AI to the rest of the world
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/RUMoplg
A Phone is a Cow
Alex Tabarrok
MediaPhilip Auerswald’s A Phone is a Cow is three books in one, it’s a history of the mobile phone, it’s a business biography of Iqbal Quadir, who brought the cell phone to Bangladesh at at time when that seemed quixotic and doomed to fail, and it’s a theory of economic growth. It succeeds on all three levels.…relatively few technologies have managed to reach the majority of the world’s people. Fire. Writing. The cookpot. The portable radio. These all succeeded. Yet most people in the world have never flown in an airplane. Most do not own a car or a bicycle. And, until recently, most still did not have access to a safe, sanitary toilet in their home. The list goes on.The mobile phone reached the global majority more rapidly than any technology that had come before. How did this happen?The title, by the way, comes from Quadir’s insight that just as Grameen Bank lent to villagers so they could purchase productive assets like a cow, Grameenphone could lend villagers the money to buy a phone—which then became a revenue-generating asset in its own right.The post A Phone is a Cow appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesMy GOAT book now has updated software/AIGoverning agentic AIThe Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/j8CbBs6
Alex Tabarrok
MediaPhilip Auerswald’s A Phone is a Cow is three books in one, it’s a history of the mobile phone, it’s a business biography of Iqbal Quadir, who brought the cell phone to Bangladesh at at time when that seemed quixotic and doomed to fail, and it’s a theory of economic growth. It succeeds on all three levels.…relatively few technologies have managed to reach the majority of the world’s people. Fire. Writing. The cookpot. The portable radio. These all succeeded. Yet most people in the world have never flown in an airplane. Most do not own a car or a bicycle. And, until recently, most still did not have access to a safe, sanitary toilet in their home. The list goes on.The mobile phone reached the global majority more rapidly than any technology that had come before. How did this happen?The title, by the way, comes from Quadir’s insight that just as Grameen Bank lent to villagers so they could purchase productive assets like a cow, Grameenphone could lend villagers the money to buy a phone—which then became a revenue-generating asset in its own right.The post A Phone is a Cow appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesMy GOAT book now has updated software/AIGoverning agentic AIThe Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/j8CbBs6
Cataloging Growth: A Re-Evaluation of 1900–1990
Tyler Cowen
From Verónica Bäcker-Peral and Benjamin Wittenbrink of MIT:Measuring real GDP growth requires distinguishing changes in prices from changes in product quality and composition, yet systematic quality adjustment of price indexes is unavailable for much of the twentieth century. We construct a new quality-adjusted price index for U.S. consumer goods using 5.1 million product listings from Sears catalogs, 1900–1990. We use large language models to extract product information and estimate hedonic price schedules from high-dimensional text embeddings, allowing us to infer annual changes in the cost of living. The resulting cost-of-living index implies substantially lower goods inflation than conventional deflators, and consequently implies much faster real economic growth: between 1900 and 1990, real goods consumption grew by a factor of 39 using our index, compared with a factor of 10.3 using standard goods deflators. The gap between our index and canonical ones is largest before World War II, reversing the conventional view that goods consumption growth was slower before 1945 than in the post-war decades.Here is a useful tweet storm on the paper, important work.The post Cataloging Growth: A Re-Evaluation of 1900–1990 appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/OPJE4io
Tyler Cowen
From Verónica Bäcker-Peral and Benjamin Wittenbrink of MIT:Measuring real GDP growth requires distinguishing changes in prices from changes in product quality and composition, yet systematic quality adjustment of price indexes is unavailable for much of the twentieth century. We construct a new quality-adjusted price index for U.S. consumer goods using 5.1 million product listings from Sears catalogs, 1900–1990. We use large language models to extract product information and estimate hedonic price schedules from high-dimensional text embeddings, allowing us to infer annual changes in the cost of living. The resulting cost-of-living index implies substantially lower goods inflation than conventional deflators, and consequently implies much faster real economic growth: between 1900 and 1990, real goods consumption grew by a factor of 39 using our index, compared with a factor of 10.3 using standard goods deflators. The gap between our index and canonical ones is largest before World War II, reversing the conventional view that goods consumption growth was slower before 1945 than in the post-war decades.Here is a useful tweet storm on the paper, important work.The post Cataloging Growth: A Re-Evaluation of 1900–1990 appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/OPJE4io
Friday assorted links
Tyler Cowen
1. David Wallace-Wells on the status of reading (NYT).2. Very good, very positive Kimi ad.3. Balaji update.4. An eighth-century Mayan mathematician.5. Yet another balloon.6. Nearby planet with helium-rich atmosphere (NYT).7. Henry Oliver did not like The Movie.The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/SLtci3K
Tyler Cowen
1. David Wallace-Wells on the status of reading (NYT).2. Very good, very positive Kimi ad.3. Balaji update.4. An eighth-century Mayan mathematician.5. Yet another balloon.6. Nearby planet with helium-rich atmosphere (NYT).7. Henry Oliver did not like The Movie.The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/SLtci3K
*The Odyssey*, the movie (no real spoilers)
Tyler Cowen
I can’t say I loved it. The Circe scene was excellent, Cyclops was good, and the battles in Troy were well done. But most of the roles were miscast. I like Matt Damon, but he is too “Good Will Hunting” to play Odysseus. The character did not cohere. (Compare to Ralph Fiennes in the superior The Return.) Zendaya’s role was superfluous. Worst of all was Calypso, who reminded me of the kind of chick you might meet at a Tupperware party in the Hamptons. At least half of the dialogue was lame and contrary to the spirit of the Mycenaean world. Some of the sea and boat footage was good. I strongly disliked the changes made to the ending.There is enough energy, effort, and money put into the thing to make it eminently watchable on the big screen. And if this were a new director, you would think he had great promise. But relative to both the reviews and where most expectations were placed, this has to count as a disappointment.The post *The Odyssey*, the movie (no real spoilers) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media CommentsIt has turned into a culture war issue so the reviews will be ... by AjaxRelated StoriesMy GOAT book now has updated software/AI*A Tale of Three Cities*Redux of my Homer’s Odyssey essay
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/wD6dZAX
Tyler Cowen
I can’t say I loved it. The Circe scene was excellent, Cyclops was good, and the battles in Troy were well done. But most of the roles were miscast. I like Matt Damon, but he is too “Good Will Hunting” to play Odysseus. The character did not cohere. (Compare to Ralph Fiennes in the superior The Return.) Zendaya’s role was superfluous. Worst of all was Calypso, who reminded me of the kind of chick you might meet at a Tupperware party in the Hamptons. At least half of the dialogue was lame and contrary to the spirit of the Mycenaean world. Some of the sea and boat footage was good. I strongly disliked the changes made to the ending.There is enough energy, effort, and money put into the thing to make it eminently watchable on the big screen. And if this were a new director, you would think he had great promise. But relative to both the reviews and where most expectations were placed, this has to count as a disappointment.The post *The Odyssey*, the movie (no real spoilers) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media CommentsIt has turned into a culture war issue so the reviews will be ... by AjaxRelated StoriesMy GOAT book now has updated software/AI*A Tale of Three Cities*Redux of my Homer’s Odyssey essay
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/wD6dZAX
The small business boom
Tyler Cowen
Across the country, founders like Ms. Winkler are powering an entrepreneurial renaissance.Jump-started by the pandemic, when a confluence of factors including mass layoffs and remote work led to a flood of business creation, and supercharged by the rise of artificial intelligence, start-up activity is booming after a decades-long slump.Americans filed 5.7 million applications last year to start new businesses, according to the Census Bureau, the most in the two decades the government has kept track. New business applications through the first half of this year continued to climb…More recently, there are signals that A.I. is adding fuel.A recent paper from economists at the University of British Columbia and the Stockholm School of Economics found that generative A.I. was “spurring entrepreneurial activity” in the United States, both by giving rise to new ventures built around the technology and by making it cheaper to start enterprises.“A.I. tools can do very many different things very well,” said Jan Bena, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia and one of the study’s authors. “That’s the reason why you see so much entry.”According to a recent report from Gusto, a small-business payroll and benefits service, nearly 60 percent of founders on its platform who started businesses last year said they used A.I., and half said the technology made it cheaper and faster.Here is more from Sydney Ember at the NYT. Via Josef.The post The small business boom appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesThe wisdom of Conor SenGoverning agentic AIThe Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/T1PcAI8
Tyler Cowen
Across the country, founders like Ms. Winkler are powering an entrepreneurial renaissance.Jump-started by the pandemic, when a confluence of factors including mass layoffs and remote work led to a flood of business creation, and supercharged by the rise of artificial intelligence, start-up activity is booming after a decades-long slump.Americans filed 5.7 million applications last year to start new businesses, according to the Census Bureau, the most in the two decades the government has kept track. New business applications through the first half of this year continued to climb…More recently, there are signals that A.I. is adding fuel.A recent paper from economists at the University of British Columbia and the Stockholm School of Economics found that generative A.I. was “spurring entrepreneurial activity” in the United States, both by giving rise to new ventures built around the technology and by making it cheaper to start enterprises.“A.I. tools can do very many different things very well,” said Jan Bena, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia and one of the study’s authors. “That’s the reason why you see so much entry.”According to a recent report from Gusto, a small-business payroll and benefits service, nearly 60 percent of founders on its platform who started businesses last year said they used A.I., and half said the technology made it cheaper and faster.Here is more from Sydney Ember at the NYT. Via Josef.The post The small business boom appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesThe wisdom of Conor SenGoverning agentic AIThe Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/T1PcAI8
What should I ask Luis Garicano?
Tyler Cowen
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him. From Wikipedia:Luis Garicano Gabilondo (pronounced [ˈlwis ɣaɾiˈkano]; born 1967) is a Spanish economist and politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2022. He was also vice president of Renew Europe and vice president of the European political party Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE Party). Before entering politics, he was a professor of strategy and economics at IE Business School in Madrid and at the London School of Economics (LSE). After leaving the European Parliament he has returned to academia as a visiting professor at Columbia Business School and at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In 2023, returned to LSE as full professor at the School of Public Policy.He is one of the leading European economic liberals, here is his home page. Here is his Google scholar page. Here is Luis on Twitter. he also has a very good book coming out called Messy Jobs, co-authored with Jim Li and Yanhui Wu. So what should I ask him?The post What should I ask Luis Garicano? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesA Phone is a CowGoverning agentic AIMy GOAT book now has updated software/AI
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/zjwPca8
Tyler Cowen
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him. From Wikipedia:Luis Garicano Gabilondo (pronounced [ˈlwis ɣaɾiˈkano]; born 1967) is a Spanish economist and politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2022. He was also vice president of Renew Europe and vice president of the European political party Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE Party). Before entering politics, he was a professor of strategy and economics at IE Business School in Madrid and at the London School of Economics (LSE). After leaving the European Parliament he has returned to academia as a visiting professor at Columbia Business School and at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In 2023, returned to LSE as full professor at the School of Public Policy.He is one of the leading European economic liberals, here is his home page. Here is his Google scholar page. Here is Luis on Twitter. he also has a very good book coming out called Messy Jobs, co-authored with Jim Li and Yanhui Wu. So what should I ask him?The post What should I ask Luis Garicano? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesA Phone is a CowGoverning agentic AIMy GOAT book now has updated software/AI
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/zjwPca8
Trial Lawyers Lobby Against Autonomous Vehicles
Alex Tabarrok
Roughly 37,000–40,000 Americans die in auto accidents every year. We now have large‑scale, real‑world evidence—from Waymo and a joint analysis with Swiss Re—that driverless operations can be substantially safer than matched human driving within their current operating domains. The latest data show that over 220 million miles driven, Waymo vehicles–in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta–have 94% fewer serious injuries, 82% fewer air bag deployments, and 93% fewer pedestrian injuries. The evidence is not fully independent, but it is unusually transparent, large‑scale evidence.So with thousands of lives annually in the balance who is against autonomous vehicles (AVs)? Trial lawyers. Remarkably the trial lawyers saw the writing on the wall very early and the have been lobbying against AVs for nearly a decade! The American Association for Justice, the trial lawyers’ lobby, has been a prominent opponent to AV legislation (see also reports here). (They have been joined by Democrats worried about labor and demanding that heavy trucks be excluded).The trial lawyers earn a huge amount litigating ordinary auto accidents–Annual U.S. auto insurance payouts (liability + PIP/MedPay) are on the order of $180–220B and trial lawyers are very eager to retain the right to sue car manufacturers for product liability. In my view, product liability isn’t useful as a safety device in this field. Instead, the solution is simple. Every car should be required to be insured, regardless of driver. Indeed, Waymo vehicles are already insured at $5 million liability coverage per vehicle, far higher levels than most human drivers are covered.The UK’s Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 does basically this–a single motor insurer covers the vehicle whether the human or the automated system is driving; the victim is compensated directly by the insurer, no need to establish product defect; the insurer then subrogates against the manufacturer if the software was at fault. Victims get paid fast, manufacturers face the cost of their defects through recoveries and premiums, and the high-transaction costs (i.e. lawyer fees!) and messy manufacturer-versus-victim litigation is replaced by insurer-versus-manufacturer bargaining between repeat players who settle efficiently.The great thing about this system is that insurance almost certainly deters better than tort: fleets generate data that makes experience rating precise, so insurers become continuous safety regulators, whereas litigation delivers a noisy, lagged, lottery like signal depending on safety-irrelevant factors of the jury and the locale.We have the best data on Waymo, Tesla data is murkier but note how well this works with the insurance system. Let the insurers decide how much to charge Tesla robotaxis and FSD drivers–they will internalize the externality far better than tort lawyers. In short, insurance works great for accident victims but not for trial lawyers. Indeed, if the trial lawyers have their way accident victims will continue to be buried in an invisible graveyard.Hat tip: Andy Hall and Jon Slotkin.The post Trial Lawyers Lobby Against Autonomous Vehicles appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesWhat should I ask Luis Garicano?The small business boomA Phone is a Cow
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/vmyO3hk
Alex Tabarrok
Roughly 37,000–40,000 Americans die in auto accidents every year. We now have large‑scale, real‑world evidence—from Waymo and a joint analysis with Swiss Re—that driverless operations can be substantially safer than matched human driving within their current operating domains. The latest data show that over 220 million miles driven, Waymo vehicles–in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta–have 94% fewer serious injuries, 82% fewer air bag deployments, and 93% fewer pedestrian injuries. The evidence is not fully independent, but it is unusually transparent, large‑scale evidence.So with thousands of lives annually in the balance who is against autonomous vehicles (AVs)? Trial lawyers. Remarkably the trial lawyers saw the writing on the wall very early and the have been lobbying against AVs for nearly a decade! The American Association for Justice, the trial lawyers’ lobby, has been a prominent opponent to AV legislation (see also reports here). (They have been joined by Democrats worried about labor and demanding that heavy trucks be excluded).The trial lawyers earn a huge amount litigating ordinary auto accidents–Annual U.S. auto insurance payouts (liability + PIP/MedPay) are on the order of $180–220B and trial lawyers are very eager to retain the right to sue car manufacturers for product liability. In my view, product liability isn’t useful as a safety device in this field. Instead, the solution is simple. Every car should be required to be insured, regardless of driver. Indeed, Waymo vehicles are already insured at $5 million liability coverage per vehicle, far higher levels than most human drivers are covered.The UK’s Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 does basically this–a single motor insurer covers the vehicle whether the human or the automated system is driving; the victim is compensated directly by the insurer, no need to establish product defect; the insurer then subrogates against the manufacturer if the software was at fault. Victims get paid fast, manufacturers face the cost of their defects through recoveries and premiums, and the high-transaction costs (i.e. lawyer fees!) and messy manufacturer-versus-victim litigation is replaced by insurer-versus-manufacturer bargaining between repeat players who settle efficiently.The great thing about this system is that insurance almost certainly deters better than tort: fleets generate data that makes experience rating precise, so insurers become continuous safety regulators, whereas litigation delivers a noisy, lagged, lottery like signal depending on safety-irrelevant factors of the jury and the locale.We have the best data on Waymo, Tesla data is murkier but note how well this works with the insurance system. Let the insurers decide how much to charge Tesla robotaxis and FSD drivers–they will internalize the externality far better than tort lawyers. In short, insurance works great for accident victims but not for trial lawyers. Indeed, if the trial lawyers have their way accident victims will continue to be buried in an invisible graveyard.Hat tip: Andy Hall and Jon Slotkin.The post Trial Lawyers Lobby Against Autonomous Vehicles appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesWhat should I ask Luis Garicano?The small business boomA Phone is a Cow
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/vmyO3hk
Saturday assorted links
Tyler Cowen
1. How Roman concrete lasted for so long.2. All restaurants in Germany are worthy of five stars?3. They are making improvements to Refine.4. New limits on graduate student visas? Should we/can we make the PhD three years only?5.”I need him to make a decision.”6. Vesuvius scrolls update.7. “Where will we be next year?”The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/9yPQBsU
Tyler Cowen
1. How Roman concrete lasted for so long.2. All restaurants in Germany are worthy of five stars?3. They are making improvements to Refine.4. New limits on graduate student visas? Should we/can we make the PhD three years only?5.”I need him to make a decision.”6. Vesuvius scrolls update.7. “Where will we be next year?”The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/9yPQBsU
How does social media change people?
Tyler Cowen
I would not trust the results of this (or any) paper on this topic very much, but it is good to see some inquiry along different dimensions than the usual:Past research explored the beneficial and harmful effects of social media (SM), but no study has investigated how SM might change people’s identities. Authors suggest that SM is a catalyst for a shift in two individual values, achievement and conformity, transforming the fabric of our societies. A difference-in-differences analysis found that countries with higher SM adoption compared to their culturally similar country show an increase in achievement and conformity orientation. Next, authors manipulated SM use and established a causal link between SM use and the activation of achievement and conformity values in Facebook users. These findings were replicated with objective SM usage data, and the pertinent mechanism was explored: people’s SM use increases achievement and conformity orientation through an increased need for approval, particularly for those who self-ruminate. Findings suggest that SM use contributes to the emergence of a societal culture that places an emphasis on achievement-seeking and conformity.That is by Ertugrul Uysal, Sascha Alavi, and Valéry Bezençon. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.The post How does social media change people? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesThe small business boomWhy crime will decline in (most of) BrazilThe future belongs to AI maniacs
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/7R8IWpc
Tyler Cowen
I would not trust the results of this (or any) paper on this topic very much, but it is good to see some inquiry along different dimensions than the usual:Past research explored the beneficial and harmful effects of social media (SM), but no study has investigated how SM might change people’s identities. Authors suggest that SM is a catalyst for a shift in two individual values, achievement and conformity, transforming the fabric of our societies. A difference-in-differences analysis found that countries with higher SM adoption compared to their culturally similar country show an increase in achievement and conformity orientation. Next, authors manipulated SM use and established a causal link between SM use and the activation of achievement and conformity values in Facebook users. These findings were replicated with objective SM usage data, and the pertinent mechanism was explored: people’s SM use increases achievement and conformity orientation through an increased need for approval, particularly for those who self-ruminate. Findings suggest that SM use contributes to the emergence of a societal culture that places an emphasis on achievement-seeking and conformity.That is by Ertugrul Uysal, Sascha Alavi, and Valéry Bezençon. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.The post How does social media change people? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesThe small business boomWhy crime will decline in (most of) BrazilThe future belongs to AI maniacs
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/7R8IWpc
Cross-ethnic casting
Tyler Cowen
I complained about the casting of The Odyssey per se (the blind beggar was best), but in general I do not mind cross-ethnic casting. I am glad Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra, Dev Patel played David Copperfield, Denzel Washington played Macbeth, black and Latino actors play white parts in Hamilton, and that Morgan Freeman can play God well (God himself would not be “white,” but God as black is nonetheless a conscious choice), and there was Jessye Norman (among others) singing and playing many traditionally white roles on the opera stage.Recently in a private conversation I suggested that Nabeel Qureshi be cast as the next James Bond. He has a British accent, was born in (northern!) England, is tall and is good-looking. He does not remind anyone of Roger Moore. He is old enough where you could believe he has some experience as a spy, and at the baccarat table, but young enough where he could do those stunts without it seeming ridiculous.I recall the talk of a black Bond, a notion which likely would end up dull and cliched. But a Bond of Pakistani ethnic origin? Now that would occasion some debate.I am not saying it always works. I likely would object to a remake of Zulu with an all-Chinese cast. Or there can be major cultural mistakes which are not cross-ethnic, such as casting a Liverpudlian in the role of a London elite. Everyone in The Sopranos should at least be pretending to fit their roles, and indeed Tony himself grew up in New Jersey. I would have done fine in a cameo role.The post Cross-ethnic casting appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media CommentsAre the commenters mad about a black Helen protesting reverse ... by rsmRelated StoriesJackson Dahl podcasts with me and Nabeel on aestheticsMy excellent Conversation with Chase KochWhat to Watch and Not
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/gdHPRzF
Tyler Cowen
I complained about the casting of The Odyssey per se (the blind beggar was best), but in general I do not mind cross-ethnic casting. I am glad Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra, Dev Patel played David Copperfield, Denzel Washington played Macbeth, black and Latino actors play white parts in Hamilton, and that Morgan Freeman can play God well (God himself would not be “white,” but God as black is nonetheless a conscious choice), and there was Jessye Norman (among others) singing and playing many traditionally white roles on the opera stage.Recently in a private conversation I suggested that Nabeel Qureshi be cast as the next James Bond. He has a British accent, was born in (northern!) England, is tall and is good-looking. He does not remind anyone of Roger Moore. He is old enough where you could believe he has some experience as a spy, and at the baccarat table, but young enough where he could do those stunts without it seeming ridiculous.I recall the talk of a black Bond, a notion which likely would end up dull and cliched. But a Bond of Pakistani ethnic origin? Now that would occasion some debate.I am not saying it always works. I likely would object to a remake of Zulu with an all-Chinese cast. Or there can be major cultural mistakes which are not cross-ethnic, such as casting a Liverpudlian in the role of a London elite. Everyone in The Sopranos should at least be pretending to fit their roles, and indeed Tony himself grew up in New Jersey. I would have done fine in a cameo role.The post Cross-ethnic casting appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media CommentsAre the commenters mad about a black Helen protesting reverse ... by rsmRelated StoriesJackson Dahl podcasts with me and Nabeel on aestheticsMy excellent Conversation with Chase KochWhat to Watch and Not
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/gdHPRzF
Building luxury homes is good for the poor
Alex Tabarrok
Tej Parikh writing in the FT:…high-end developments unlock long housing chains. As higher-income households move into newly built units, they free up older properties, raising supply and slashing prices for middle- and lower-end housing through a process known as filtering. Numerous international studies underscore this positive ripple effect.One published last year tracked households that moved into a newly built 512-unit condominium tower in Honolulu, Hawaii. It found that the building created at least 557 vacancies in older and cheaper apartments across the city in just three years, with market-rate units more likely to release the largest chains.Filtering can also be widespread. A 2021 study in Helsinki using geo-coded population data found that every 100 new market-rate units in the city centre led to around 60 units becoming available in the city’s bottom half of neighbourhoods by income. An analysis across all homes in Sweden over several decades concluded that “new homes, even those initially primarily inhabited by rich people, lead to substantial trickle-down effects that also benefit the poor”.Other US studies highlight how market-rate developments benefit less well-to-do local residents by lowering housing costs. In San Francisco, a 2021 paper found new developments lowered the risk of eviction notices for residents in rent-stabilised housing. Even “luxury” developments in New York City — which Mamdani has criticised — have been shown to contribute to lower local rents and sales prices.or David Attenborough:The post Building luxury homes is good for the poor appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesWhat should I ask Luis Garicano?Governing agentic AITrial Lawyers Lobby Against Autonomous Vehicles
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/ucwLP3x
Alex Tabarrok
Tej Parikh writing in the FT:…high-end developments unlock long housing chains. As higher-income households move into newly built units, they free up older properties, raising supply and slashing prices for middle- and lower-end housing through a process known as filtering. Numerous international studies underscore this positive ripple effect.One published last year tracked households that moved into a newly built 512-unit condominium tower in Honolulu, Hawaii. It found that the building created at least 557 vacancies in older and cheaper apartments across the city in just three years, with market-rate units more likely to release the largest chains.Filtering can also be widespread. A 2021 study in Helsinki using geo-coded population data found that every 100 new market-rate units in the city centre led to around 60 units becoming available in the city’s bottom half of neighbourhoods by income. An analysis across all homes in Sweden over several decades concluded that “new homes, even those initially primarily inhabited by rich people, lead to substantial trickle-down effects that also benefit the poor”.Other US studies highlight how market-rate developments benefit less well-to-do local residents by lowering housing costs. In San Francisco, a 2021 paper found new developments lowered the risk of eviction notices for residents in rent-stabilised housing. Even “luxury” developments in New York City — which Mamdani has criticised — have been shown to contribute to lower local rents and sales prices.or David Attenborough:The post Building luxury homes is good for the poor appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesWhat should I ask Luis Garicano?Governing agentic AITrial Lawyers Lobby Against Autonomous Vehicles
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/ucwLP3x
Sunday assorted links
Tyler Cowen
1. Female promotions and the academic pipeline.2. NEW MONKEYS.3. Those new service sector jobs — “One nanny isn’t cutting it anymore. Some parents are spending upward of $250,000 on teams for their children. Luxury services offer potty-training, baby chefs and bike-riding lessons.” (WSJ).4. There some English people with the name “Ralph” who simply have decided to pronounce it like “Rafe.”5. In praise of interns and open research ecosystems.The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/yAsJ4CP
Tyler Cowen
1. Female promotions and the academic pipeline.2. NEW MONKEYS.3. Those new service sector jobs — “One nanny isn’t cutting it anymore. Some parents are spending upward of $250,000 on teams for their children. Luxury services offer potty-training, baby chefs and bike-riding lessons.” (WSJ).4. There some English people with the name “Ralph” who simply have decided to pronounce it like “Rafe.”5. In praise of interns and open research ecosystems.The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media Media
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/yAsJ4CP
Markets in everything?
Tyler Cowen
Peter Brook‘s five-hour-plus film adaptation of “The Mahabharata” is set for a BFI Blu-ray release on Aug. 10, presented in high definition from a new 4K restoration of the 1989 production.The release centres on the triptych version of the film, running 332 minutes, which sits between Brook’s three-hour cinema cut and the six-hour television version he shot concurrently. Based on the ancient Hindu epic, the film was originally produced by Brook with screenwriters Jean-Claude Carrière and Marie-Hélène Estienne, and features an international cast drawn from 16 nationalities.Here is the Variety article, but will there be a version suitable for U.S. players? The work is highly recommended, real genius. For the pointer I thank Sam Mendelsohn.The post Markets in everything? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesCross-ethnic castingJackson Dahl podcasts with me and Nabeel on aesthetics*The Odyssey*, the movie (no real spoilers)
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/lN2pc7J
Tyler Cowen
Peter Brook‘s five-hour-plus film adaptation of “The Mahabharata” is set for a BFI Blu-ray release on Aug. 10, presented in high definition from a new 4K restoration of the 1989 production.The release centres on the triptych version of the film, running 332 minutes, which sits between Brook’s three-hour cinema cut and the six-hour television version he shot concurrently. Based on the ancient Hindu epic, the film was originally produced by Brook with screenwriters Jean-Claude Carrière and Marie-Hélène Estienne, and features an international cast drawn from 16 nationalities.Here is the Variety article, but will there be a version suitable for U.S. players? The work is highly recommended, real genius. For the pointer I thank Sam Mendelsohn.The post Markets in everything? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesCross-ethnic castingJackson Dahl podcasts with me and Nabeel on aesthetics*The Odyssey*, the movie (no real spoilers)
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/lN2pc7J
Emergent Ventures winners, 56th cohort
Tyler Cowen
Audrey London, Los Angeles, to write a book on water in California.Seyi Oluwasanmi, London, to bring Brits to SF to learn tech.Thomas Haferlach, Berlin, payments and compute layer for the long tail of AI apps.Juan Ramón Egea Fernández, Andalusia, tech.Teo Spiro, Israel, AI and biology.Amitav Krishna, suburban Ontario, 14, quantum.Jake Prokopets, 18, Orlando, AI and labor markets.Wendi Yan, NYC, science and the visual arts.Luke Peoples, 15, Sydney, to edit the UI directly.Malwina Lewera, Poland, orbital space debris.Wilhelm Hedenskog, 18, Gothenburg, Sweden, AI evaluations.Alex Petropoulos and Max Reddel, Brussels, Preparing Europe for Transformative AI.Giovanni De Lillo, 17, Naples, multi-agent AI orchestration for regulated enterprise (Hypereum).The post Emergent Ventures winners, 56th cohort appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesMy excellent Conversation with Chase Koch*Who Thinks Like an Economist?*From Prediction Markets to Decision Markets and Beyond!
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/bAYTLBn
Tyler Cowen
Audrey London, Los Angeles, to write a book on water in California.Seyi Oluwasanmi, London, to bring Brits to SF to learn tech.Thomas Haferlach, Berlin, payments and compute layer for the long tail of AI apps.Juan Ramón Egea Fernández, Andalusia, tech.Teo Spiro, Israel, AI and biology.Amitav Krishna, suburban Ontario, 14, quantum.Jake Prokopets, 18, Orlando, AI and labor markets.Wendi Yan, NYC, science and the visual arts.Luke Peoples, 15, Sydney, to edit the UI directly.Malwina Lewera, Poland, orbital space debris.Wilhelm Hedenskog, 18, Gothenburg, Sweden, AI evaluations.Alex Petropoulos and Max Reddel, Brussels, Preparing Europe for Transformative AI.Giovanni De Lillo, 17, Naples, multi-agent AI orchestration for regulated enterprise (Hypereum).The post Emergent Ventures winners, 56th cohort appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesMy excellent Conversation with Chase Koch*Who Thinks Like an Economist?*From Prediction Markets to Decision Markets and Beyond!
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/bAYTLBn
Democrats are more politically segregated than are Republicans
Tyler Cowen
We estimate the extent of workplace political segregation in the United States by merging data covering over 45 million workers. We present four main findings. First, partisans are segregated by workplace. The average Democrat’s coworkers are 11.7 percentage points (pp; 95% confidence interval (CI) [10.6, 12.8]) more Democratic than the average Republican’s. After controlling for geography, industry and occupation, segregation is 2.9 pp [2.7, 3.1], comparable to analogously estimated gender segregation (2.8 pp [2.6, 3.0]). Second, segregation is largest among the politically active (political donors: 14.8 pp [13.2, 16.4] versus non-donors: 11.6 pp [10.5, 12.7]) and those with more market power (senior executives: 14.7 pp [13.4, 16.1]). Third, Republicans experience higher exposure to Democrats than vice versa: the average Republican’s coworkers are 50% Democratic versus 32% Republican for the average Democrat. Fourth, political segregation has changed little over time (2012: 11.1 pp [10.0, 12.2] versus 2024: 11.0 pp [10.0, 12.0]).That is from a recent paper by Justin Frake, Reuben Hurst, and Max Kagan. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.The post Democrats are more politically segregated than are Republicans appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesHow does social media change people?What should I ask Luis Garicano?The small business boom
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/PAviwY8
Tyler Cowen
We estimate the extent of workplace political segregation in the United States by merging data covering over 45 million workers. We present four main findings. First, partisans are segregated by workplace. The average Democrat’s coworkers are 11.7 percentage points (pp; 95% confidence interval (CI) [10.6, 12.8]) more Democratic than the average Republican’s. After controlling for geography, industry and occupation, segregation is 2.9 pp [2.7, 3.1], comparable to analogously estimated gender segregation (2.8 pp [2.6, 3.0]). Second, segregation is largest among the politically active (political donors: 14.8 pp [13.2, 16.4] versus non-donors: 11.6 pp [10.5, 12.7]) and those with more market power (senior executives: 14.7 pp [13.4, 16.1]). Third, Republicans experience higher exposure to Democrats than vice versa: the average Republican’s coworkers are 50% Democratic versus 32% Republican for the average Democrat. Fourth, political segregation has changed little over time (2012: 11.1 pp [10.0, 12.2] versus 2024: 11.0 pp [10.0, 12.0]).That is from a recent paper by Justin Frake, Reuben Hurst, and Max Kagan. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.The post Democrats are more politically segregated than are Republicans appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.MediaMedia Media Media Media Media Media MediaRelated StoriesHow does social media change people?What should I ask Luis Garicano?The small business boom
via Marginal Revolution https://ift.tt/PAviwY8