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Marginal Revolution

Marginal Revolution

Newsletter | United States | Centre-Right
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Economics blog by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok covering economics, culture, and ideas.

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Discussions from Marginal Revolution

Education

AI cheating on math econ at Brown

The temptation to use artificial intelligence (AI) to cheat is shaking up elite universities in the United States. Professor Roberto Serrano, who is the Harrison S. Kravis University Professor of Economics at Brown University, has detected a massive fraud in one of the classes he teaches, ECON 1170, an advanced undergraduate course in mathematical economics. He has […] The post AI cheating on math econ at Brown appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to Wayfaring Stranger. To ...

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Culture

Jackson Dahl podcasts with me and Nabeel on aesthetics

Filmed at home, this ran about two hours, and yes that is Nabeel Qureshi, with a cameo from Spinoza toward the very end. From Jackson: Links Transcript/links Twitter Spotify Apple YouTube LinkedIn From the episode summary: Tyler and Nabeel are good friends, and given how prolific Tyler is, I decided to use Nabeel as an […] The post Jackson Dahl podcasts with me and Nabeel on aesthetics appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesMy Conversation with Joanne PaulMy excellent Conversat...

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Economy

Typewriters and fertility

Workplace technological changes were instrumental in creating new tasks for women over the last century. This paper studies the adoption of the typewriter into US workplaces. Exploiting exogenous variation in typist demand across sectors, I document that the typewriter increased women’s labor force participation, leading to lower rates of marriage and fertility. These developments stemmed […] The post Typewriters and fertility appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsBefore typewriters,...

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Healthcare

Will future biomedical advances be low marginal cost?

Most pharmaceuticals involve high upfront costs, to discover and test the drug, and very low marginal costs. Another pill can be printed almost for free. That cost structure favors health systems, such as that of Britain, that try to pay lower for services. They can end up getting a relatively good deal from price discrimination. […] The post Will future biomedical advances be low marginal cost? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesMy ARC talk on AI and jobsAzeem Azhar (and o...

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Culture

Blackpool fact of the day, observations on northern England

Blackpool Central was the world’s busiest station in 1911. It was the station with the most platforms to close in UK in the Beeching cuts of 1964. That is from the recent fun book Lancashire: Exploring the Historic County that Made the Modern World, by Chris Moss. And I enjoyed this paragraph: I’ve never felt […] The post Blackpool fact of the day, observations on northern England appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to inacaféonspiridonov. reddit comment, or maybe we . by ...

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Economy

Renationalising British utilities

There is talk of this with the pending change in PM, but I would not do it. I am quite aware that a) not all of the privatisations went well, and b) American data indicate that state-owned utilities do not seem very economically different than, or less efficient than, privately-owned utilities. Especially for water, where […] The post Renationalising British utilities appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

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Economy

Azeem Azhar (and others) on the state of the AI economy

Due to travel I have not had time to read this detailed report, but it is getting very good reviews The post Azeem Azhar (and others) on the state of the AI economy appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to rayward. What is the deal with you obsession with . by SnowyIn reply to Vaquero. See Slide 37: Gross rental yields . by RADIn reply to rayward. Compress every layer, and consumers . by RADThe potential investment numbers are huge – which suggests . by EngineerAssuming a si...

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Culture

My Conversation with Joanne Paul

Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary: Joanne Paul is a historian at the University of Sussex, author, and a go-to Tudor expert on YouTube. She tells Tyler she’s drawn to the 16th century because it sits between the medieval and the modern, and because its paths not taken are […] The post My Conversation with Joanne Paul appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesThe Migrants: A Memoir with ManuscriptsMy aesthetics podcast with Benjamin LimaThe Fre...

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Culture

Cricket and the railways

Railways are a golden thread in the history of cricket, making national competition possible in every current Test-playing nation (with the exceptino of the West Indies and Afghanistan). In later years, we will see railway workers as exporters of cricket to Scotland and Wales and beyond to Britain’s formal and informal commercial empires. We will […] The post Cricket and the railways appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsDo the aboriginies count as 'Australians' in that quote? by Qua...

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Healthcare

Does fasting harm cognitive performance?

More than 2 billion people participate annually in Ramadan fasting, making its potential effects on cognitive performance important for workplaces, education and high-stakes decision-making. We study these effects in tournament chess, an incentivised, real-world cognitive task in which move quality can be evaluated objectively by a strong chess engine. We analyse nearly 300,000 games and more […] The post Does fasting harm cognitive performance? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Comments...

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Technology

Aaron Levie on current implicit AI regulation

We now have de facto AI regulation. It’s not obvious why from here on out models that have certain levels of capability or are trained on certain compute sizes won’t have to be reviewed by the government before release. Realistically, as AI models became more and more powerful this was going to be inevitable (I […] The post Aaron Levie on current implicit AI regulation appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesCalifornia’s Gay Certification ProgramBastiat’s telephone?My Conversati...

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