Recent articles
February 23, 2026
The Software Upgrade in Chinese Civic Behaviour
I have not been to China recently enough to judge these claims: Behaviour is notoriously harder to engineer than buildings. A recent trip to the Fragrant Hills in western Beijing on a newly constru...
marginalrevolution.com
February 23, 2026
Monday assorted links
1. “Nigeria’s industrialization fails to gather steam after 65 years.” 2. Did Eastern Europe produce that many slaves? 3. Vitalik on AI and governance. 4. Does AI put women at a disadvantage? (FT) ...
marginalrevolution.com
February 23, 2026
Peru’s new President taps Hernando de Soto to be prime minister
Here is the Bloomberg article. Here is previous MR coverage of de Soto. Here is Wikipedia on de Soto.
The post Peru’s new President taps Hernando de Soto to be prime minister appeared first on Ma...
marginalrevolution.com
February 23, 2026
Podcast with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer
Mostly about geopolitics, plenty of fresh content. And here is the transcript. Excerpt: Jon Finer: Should the United States be willing to take military action to defend Taiwan? It’s a thorny ques...
marginalrevolution.com
February 23, 2026
The Alien Conspiracy Hiding in Plain Sight
Trump has ordered the release of the government’s alien files. We’re likely to get more questions, not answers.
www.thefp.com
February 22, 2026
I guess Mexico is solving for the equilibrium?
For some while I have wondered what would happen if the U.S. military sought to assist Mexico in taking out one of the top drug lords. I suppose now we are finding out. A few points: 1. There is ...
marginalrevolution.com
February 22, 2026
Sunday assorted links
1. Sacralized digital authoritarianism. 2. Venezuela update. 3. The flawed paper behind the H-1B 100k fee. 4. Do we misuse our leisure time? 5. Hidden ties and stock returns. 6. Why are American tr...
marginalrevolution.com
February 22, 2026
How to make sense of the U.S. Iran strategy
I am not saying it is a good strategy, I genuinely do not know. But the people behind the scenes, what are they thinking? Did we not just, not too long ago, take out or at least disable some big ...
marginalrevolution.com
February 22, 2026
Gaurav Ahuja interviews me
I very much enjoyed this exchange, print only, here is the link. Excerpt: Gaurav: Going back to Iceland for a moment. I’ve never truly appreciated how old that parliament is. A thousand years is e...
marginalrevolution.com
February 21, 2026
Saturday assorted links
1. Notes on Oman. 2. Colin McGinn on best philosopher ever. 3. Owner wants to give away Green Mountain Campus. 4. More on rising tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea. 5. New review of Studwell on ...
marginalrevolution.com
February 21, 2026
South Africa facts of the day
With the lights back on and freight beginning to move again, in November South Africa won its first credit upgrade in two decades after S&P Global Ratings lifted the sovereign rating by one not...
marginalrevolution.com
February 21, 2026
I podcast on Spain and Latin America
With Rasheed Griffith and Diego Sanchez de la Cruz. Here is one excerpt: Rasheed: Tyler, if El Salvador were to become a success story, what would it likely be a success at first? Manufacturing, m...
marginalrevolution.com
February 20, 2026
The Great Forgetting, a continuing series
On Thursday, the Center for American Progress, a prominent left-leaning think tank that often cultivates policy ideas later adopted by the Democratic Party, proposed a two-year freeze on the prices...
marginalrevolution.com
February 20, 2026
Friday assorted links
1. Firms are replacing freelancers with AI. 2. General disorder does not seem to be increasing. 3. Fei-Fei Li. 4. India does deepfakes of the dead. It is an interesting question which cultures wan...
marginalrevolution.com
February 20, 2026
GPT as a Measurement Tool
We present the GABRIEL software package, which uses GPT to quantify attributes in qualitative data (e.g. how “pro innovation” a speech is). GPT is evaluated on classification and attribute rating p...
marginalrevolution.com
February 20, 2026
Brazil facts of the day
Pensions cost the government 10% of GDP. If no reforms are made by 2050, Brazil will spend more on pensions as a share of GDP than many richer and greyer countries… Though Brazil’s share of young ...
marginalrevolution.com
February 20, 2026
Why don’t American companies hire more in Canada?
In the specific sector I work in (previously law and now tech), I am surprised by how few US companies hire in Canada. The Canadians I know in these fields are typically on par with the Americans, ...
marginalrevolution.com
February 20, 2026
Wuthering Heights, the movie
I liked it very much, noting it is not one for the purists. The visuals and soundtrack added to the general passionate feel. I can recommend the Jonathan Bate review and the Louise Perry review (...
marginalrevolution.com
February 19, 2026
Colin McGinn’s “My Honest Views”
I think David Lewis was off his rocker, I think Donald Davidson was far too impressed by elementary logic and decision theory, I think Willard Quine was a mediocre logician with some philosophical ...
marginalrevolution.com
February 19, 2026
Thursday assorted links
1. On the Saudi-UAE rift. 2. Record low U.S. crime rates are real, not an artifact of data issues. 3. Is the LDS Church suddenly bearish? What do they know? 4. Alcohol death rates in Europe, by co...
marginalrevolution.com
February 19, 2026
My excellent Conversation with Joe Studwell
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. The conversation is based around Joe’s new and very good book How Africa Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Last Developmental Frontier. Here is p...
marginalrevolution.com
February 18, 2026
Germany projection of the day
Germany’s population is projected to shrink by nearly 5 per cent within 25 years — a significantly steeper decline than previously forecast, according to an Ifo study. The German economic think-tan...
marginalrevolution.com
February 18, 2026
The mainstream view
Multiple studies have either shown that smartphone and social media use among teens has minimal effects on their mental health or none at all. As a 2024 review published by an American Psychologica...
marginalrevolution.com
February 18, 2026
Wednesday assorted links
1. “Australian abattoirs are adopting AI to count sheep, allowing farmers and processors to sleep more easily at night after decades of rows over miscounts stoked distrust in the outback.” (FT) 2. ...
marginalrevolution.com
February 18, 2026
A simple test of how immigration really is going
I suggest looking at whether real estate prices in a particular locale have been rising or falling. If immigration is “ruining” a particular city, we would expect homes and other property values in...
marginalrevolution.com
February 18, 2026
Liberal AI
Can AI be liberal? In what sense? One answer points to the liberal insistence on freedom of choice, understood as a product of the commitment to personal autonomy and individual dignity. Mill and H...
marginalrevolution.com
February 17, 2026
The fertility asymptote?
From a recent paper by Sebastian Galiani and Raul A. Sosa: Fertility rates have fallen below replacement in most countries, fueling predictions of demographic collapse. We show these forecasts over...
marginalrevolution.com
February 17, 2026
Tuesday assorted links
1. The separating equilibrium. 2. Can speed revitalize American manufacturing? 3, Malmo real estate prices are doing fine. 4. AI and economics summer institute at University of Chicago. 5. Why tota...
marginalrevolution.com
February 17, 2026
The Journal for AI Generated Papers
“In curiosity we trust.”
The post The Journal for AI Generated Papers appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
marginalrevolution.com
February 17, 2026
Science should be machine-readable
One of the leading tasks of our time: We develop a machine-automated approach for extracting results from papers, which we assess via a comprehensive review of the entire eLife corpus. Our method f...
marginalrevolution.com