Recent articles
May 25, 2026
The carousel trade (arbitrage)
Imagine two companies which are secretly controlled by the same people. If company A imported some phones, then sold them to company B, it charged VAT on the deal. If company B then exported the ph...
marginalrevolution.com
May 25, 2026
Emergent Ventures winners, 54th cohort
Kenny Guo, Krish Chhajer, Luthira Abeykoon Mudiyansela, Toronto, quantum computing. Jolie Gan, Calgary/SF, a publication on science and meta-science. Hudson Mitchell-Pullman, 16, San Diego, how use...
marginalrevolution.com
May 25, 2026
Tyler Cowen: Seven Ways to Avoid Losing Your Job to AI
Go into the office, embrace ‘messy jobs,’ and other dos and don’ts for the future workplace in the age of AI, advises Tyler Cowen.
www.thefp.com
May 24, 2026
Sunday assorted links
1. Are “dad books” a dying breed? (WSJ) And are podcasts to blame? 2. Profile of Camille Paglia at age 79 (London Times, gated). 3. Olivier Blanchard: ” I certainly worry about the evolution of US...
marginalrevolution.com
May 24, 2026
*Equality of Permission*
The subtitle is The Politics of Feasible Liberalism, and the author is Deirdre Nansen McCloskey. The author wishes to argue for liberalism as opposed to statism, a very good book. And unlike many...
marginalrevolution.com
May 24, 2026
Robert Wright’s *The God Test*
The subtitle is Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning, due out June 23. In the first chapter, Wright summarizes four of his perspectives, these are my paraphrases of his pp.5-6: 1...
marginalrevolution.com
May 23, 2026
Saturday assorted links
1. Fortune covers my AI talk for Sana in NYC. Plus my NBA predictions, made Thursday a.m. 2. SGA does seem to flop more. 3. Marc Andreessen on AI. 4. Thomas Sargent lectures on YouTube. 5. Why Jap...
marginalrevolution.com
May 23, 2026
Ross Douthat on what AI money should learn from the golden age of philanthropy
This was a great failure of the most recent philanthropic era. At its best, the infrastructure established by figures like Gates delivered effective efforts to reduce poverty and fight disease; at ...
marginalrevolution.com
May 23, 2026
What should I ask Chase Koch?
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him. Chase and Charles Koch have a new book out, namely Becoming a Principle-Driven Leader: 41 Principles to Build an Enduring Business. And for background...
marginalrevolution.com
May 23, 2026
India fertility facts of the day
Ten notable facts from India’s new SRS Statistical Report 2024 published two days ago: 1) India’s total fertility rate (TFR) has dropped to 1.88 (rounded up to 1.9 in the figures) in 2024 from 1.92...
marginalrevolution.com
May 22, 2026
*In the Realm of the Last Man*
As Mark Lilla, a recovering Straussian, once remarked, they [the Straussians] were like craftsmen building a house brick by brick on a foundation that Leo Strauss had laid. But they would never be...
marginalrevolution.com
May 22, 2026
Friday assorted links
1. One reason why child care is so expensive in the U.S. 2. “For the first time in decades, new and recent graduates with at least a bachelor’s degree have consistently higher unemployment rates th...
marginalrevolution.com
May 22, 2026
The new tranche of UAP videos
You can find them here: https://x.com/theblackvault/status/2057800997012197428?s=61
The post The new tranche of UAP videos appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
marginalrevolution.com
May 22, 2026
The archaeology tranche at Emergent Ventures
Benjamin Arbuckle is combining archaeology and ancient DNA analysis to reconstruct entire ecosystems of ancient cities, aiming to show how human societies can thrive in balance with their environme...
marginalrevolution.com
May 22, 2026
Is space warfare offense-dominant or defense-dominant?
The third type of weapons are invasion ships – this is the classic science fiction trope, however actual invasion ships have one fundamental weakness – they need to slow down at the destination gal...
marginalrevolution.com
May 21, 2026
Fertility and financial risk-taking
We examine how fertility expectations influence financial risk-taking using nationally representative data from three countries. Our results indicate that childless adults who do not expect childre...
marginalrevolution.com
May 21, 2026
Thursday assorted links
1. What the university is now for? 2. “The results suggest that the departure of baby boomers from the labor force will have profound implications for economic opportunities of new workers.” 3. No,...
marginalrevolution.com
May 21, 2026
The economics of unions
My best read of the evidence is that a union raises wages by around 7% for currently unionized employees. The wage gains from a redistribution of rents evenly across workers. Wage compression exist...
marginalrevolution.com
May 21, 2026
Robin (it’s happening)
Scientific discovery is driven by the iterative process of observation, hypothesis generation, experimentation, and data analysis. Despite recent advancements in applying artificial intelligence to...
marginalrevolution.com
May 20, 2026
Conscious introspection leads to more self-deception?
It seems, then, that we need another signal that can add precision to our introspection. And that signal is as follows: we are more likely to be lying to ourselves when we are engaging in internal ...
marginalrevolution.com
May 20, 2026
Wednesday assorted links
1. AI robot is now a Buddhist monk. 2. Roon. 3. Do economics and finance assessment for AI models at Mercor. 4. Are we underestimating health care sector productivity? 5. Can AI replace human couns...
marginalrevolution.com
May 20, 2026
John Burn-Murdoch on phones and fertility
From my email: Hi folks, appreciate the discussion of the piece here, as ever. I just wanted to chime in briefly with an analogy that speaks to one of the ways I think about the causal mechanism he...
marginalrevolution.com
May 20, 2026
Tajikistan fact of the day
Tajikistan’s remittances are worth nearly half the country’s GDP— In Tajikistan, remittances — the money sent or brought back by migrants — amounted to 48% of GDP in 2024. The chart places this fig...
marginalrevolution.com
May 19, 2026
Old space policy vs. new space policy
The emergence of firms like SpaceX and Blue Origin has made space a leading example of how private enterprise drives innovation, marking what many see as a sharp break between Old Space and New Spa...
marginalrevolution.com
May 19, 2026
Tuesday assorted links
1. AI-written story published in Granta, wins major literary prize. 2. JFV on smart phones as accelerators of fertility declines. 3. Maryland markets in everything. 4. Polling Chinese on a top one...
marginalrevolution.com
May 19, 2026
“Wokeness has peaked. What followed is worse.”
That is the topic of my latest column for The Free Press. Excerpt: It is important to distinguish between the positive side of wokeism and the unreasonable side. The positive side supported gay ri...
marginalrevolution.com
May 18, 2026
Tyler Cowen: Wokeness Has Peaked. What Followed Is Worse.
Today’s wave of political violence reveals how much of the left has shifted from shaming its opponents to taking more overt action, writes Tyler Cowen.
www.thefp.com
May 18, 2026
Monday assorted links
1. New newsletter: AI and agentic coding, filtered for economists. 2. Can AI replace Richard Hanania? 3. Predictions for Singapore. 4. Four ways of being seen, one of which is imaginary. 5. HOPE, p...
marginalrevolution.com
May 18, 2026
Who is losing out in marriage market competition?
Over the past half-century, U.S. four-year colleges have shifted from enrolling mostly men to enrolling mostly women, while the economic position of non-college men has weakened markedly. We examin...
marginalrevolution.com
May 18, 2026
What else is special about southeastern Michigan? (from my email)
Thanks for swinging by Southeastern Michigan. He are two things other things that this area continues to produce and export at scale that don’t get as much notice: * Mortgages – The two largest res...
marginalrevolution.com