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Marginal Revolution

Marginal Revolution

Newsletter | United States | Centre-Right
marginalrevolution.com/

Economics blog by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok covering economics, culture, and ideas.

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Articles

Discussions from Marginal Revolution

Healthcare

Why I am skeptical on the relationship between smart phones and fertility

That is from Alex Nowrasteh. And for some country by country graphs: Here is that link. There might be some connection to smart phones, but it just does not seem that strong? Perhaps the phones give a fillip and a modest acceleration to an already in place trend? And are Kenya’s phones really all that […] The post Why I am skeptical on the relationship between smart phones and fertility appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to rsm. Definitely controversial politically . by S...

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Economy

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 residential mortgage lenders are located in Detroit: United Wholesale Mortgage ($164B of mortgage originations for 2025) and Rocket Mortgages ($113B). It’s a fragmented […] The post What else is special about southeastern Michigan? (from my email) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesS...

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Technology

Revealing Life Preferences Through LLMs

Here is some Weberian verstehen (or is it?), but from unexpected quarters: Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on a prodigious corpus of human writing and may reveal human preferences over characteristics of life courses, such as income, longevity, and working conditions. We present OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 and a broadly representative sample of Americans with pairs […] The post Revealing Life Preferences Through LLMs appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Comments'Revealing Life Preferences Thr...

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Economy

South Korea facts of the day

When I was young, the South Korean model was generally lumped in with places like Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong as a case of “export-led growth”. Even in the early 1970s, South Korea was still poorer than the North. There was no consensus that East Asia would do better than Latin America (or indeed that […] The post South Korea facts of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsAnyone else read this paper. by rsmRelated StoriesHayek in JacobinData centers are goodUsing agents t...

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Society

“Is the scientific enterprise too risk-averse?”

I participated in an Open to Debate debate at Johns Hopkins not too long ago, argued yes, and my side saw a twelve-point shift in our favor. Here are some links: Links to the full debate: YouTube: https://youtu.be/AuPz09dpLSc Substack: https://opentodebate.substack.com/p/the-hopkins-forum-is-the-scientific Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2g54DD8v68vII771VdxlDC?si=d7c1c3b67de84901 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-to-debate/id216713308?i=1000767731431...

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Geopolitics

Weapons, Wealth, and the Fates of Societies

Why do weapons sustain durable peace in some societies but provoke perpetual violence in others? We develop a theory in which the value of human life and the frequency of violence are jointly determined by weapons technology and economic conditions. Lethal weapons deter conflict but raise mortality, taxing the future returns to investing in one’s […] The post Weapons, Wealth, and the Fates of Societies appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsA shocking assumption of causation in the fi...

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Healthcare

Meta-papers in science (from my email)

From Brennan Plaetzer: Hi Tyler, Your post yesterday argued AI will replace papers with meta-papers that synthesize, re-run, and extend prior work. I built one in oncology last month, before reading your post. I ran my friend Omar Abdel-Wahab’s (MSK) last ten papers through an AI synthesis layer. This came out on top: an integrated, […] The post Meta-papers in science (from my email) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to Marie. “(if) the AI saw an experiment that … . by j...

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Education

One way to benefit adolescents

Have school start later: We examine the impact of California’s Senate Bill 328 (SB 328), the first statewide mandate requiring later school start times for middle and high schools, on adolescent sleep, mental health, and academic outcomes. Using difference-in-differences and eventstudy designs across five data sources, we find that SB 328 increased the share of […] The post One way to benefit adolescents appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsI call bullshit (again!) by ShatGPT proNo ...

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Culture

Xavier, Nick, and Tristan podcast with me

All three are from Queens College, I thought they did a great job, and mostly fresh material. They describe the episode as such: Xavier, Tristan, and Nick talk about everything interesting under the sun, including aesthetic convergence, the probability that Tyler lives for many centuries, if Spain was the most culinarily optimal culture to colonize […] The post Xavier, Nick, and Tristan podcast with me appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to Daniel Muñoz. That is correct, y...

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Culture

My excellent Conversation with Bob Spitz

Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary: Bob Spitz has written major biographies of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and now the Rolling Stones — but also, somehow, Ronald Reagan and Julia Child. In rock, his credentials were hard won: he started out hustling gigs for an unknown Bruce […] The post My excellent Conversation with Bob Spitz appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesWhat should I ask Martha Nussbaum?Capitalism and ModernityIdeas Behi...

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Education

Hollis Robbins on AI and higher education

There’s a growing idea I’ve seen in some circles that college could be replaced by conversations between an A.I. tutor and a student. When I think about your model, I wonder why college even needs to exist. If I can just seek out a tutor, somebody that I like, and they just charge me a […] The post Hollis Robbins on AI and higher education appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to Engineer. I have never understood the connection . by carlosplnIn reply to Blackthorne. When I r...

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Technology

Data centers are good

Data centers are the physical infrastructure behind cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and enterprise software. The rapid diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) is intensifying demand for compute, accelerating investment in data centers, and raising concerns about the local economic and environmental footprint of these facilities. Their expansion creates a local policy tradeoff. A data center can […] The post Data centers are good appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related Stori...

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