Skip to main content
Marginal Revolution

Marginal Revolution

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

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

Engagement Insights

7.97 score
306
Discussions
5
Participants
6
Total Votes
455
Articles

Discussions from Marginal Revolution

Culture

Richard Feynman’s formula for the best holiday restaurant

According to Feynman’s approach, in this context, people should try a different restaurant each night until they find one that exceeds a particular threshold that reflects a desired quality. In Feynman’s equations this threshold is not fixed. Instead it declines more and more rapidly as the number of days left in the city reduces. In […] The post Richard Feynman’s formula for the best holiday restaurant appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesCampo Grande bleg, BrazilWhat else i...

Global
Join Discussion
Education

Law professors prefer AI over peer answers

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly promoted as educational tutors, yet most evaluations focus on domains with a single ground truth. Many disciplines, however, hinge on judgment: reasoning, weighing ambiguity, and reaching defensible conclusions. Law provides a sharp test. We conducted a blinded evaluation of short-answer tutoring in contracts courses with sixteen U.S. law professors. […] The post Law professors prefer AI over peer answers appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Rel...

United States
Join Discussion
Economy

The US Exports Intelligence

Most Americans work in the service sector so it’s not surprising that most export-related jobs are in the service sector (The U.S. exports about $2.2 trillion of goods and $1.2 trillion of services, but services are more labor intensive than manufacturing so they support more export jobs per dollar.) Richard Baldwin writes: In 2022, US […] The post The US Exports Intelligence appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related Stories80,000 Hours: The BookSupply is elastic, installment #1637Why ar...

United States
Join Discussion
Society

Consent-based laws and aggregate fertility

This paper examines how expanding the legal definition of sexual assault affects fertility and sexual behavior, using a panel of European countries. I find that switching to tacit consent-based legislation reduces fertility by about 4% relative to the mean. This effect is driven by a decrease in couple formation and an increase in abortion rates. […] The post Consent-based laws and aggregate fertility appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsWhy don't you make a post about how 60 minute...

European countries
Join Discussion
Healthcare

The chimera of universal coverage in a large, diverse country

Our findings suggest that policies intended to subsidize health insurance of higher income groups, for example, the enhanced premium subsidies, are far less efficient than policies intended to further expand public insurance to low-income groups, for example, in non-expansion states. That is from a new NBER working paper by Anuj Gangopadhyaya & Robert Kaestner. The post The chimera of universal coverage in a large, diverse country appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to Dis...

United States
Join Discussion
Culture

*The Republic of Love*

The author is Martha C. Nussbaum, and the subtitle is Opera & Political Freedom. Martha decided she did not wish to do a podcast after all, so since I put some real prep time in I thought I would offer some thoughts on the book directly, in part because it is not receiving substantive reviews […] The post The Republic of Love appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related Stories80,000 Hours: The BookMy excellent Conversation with Toby WilkinsonWhat should I ask Richard Hanania?

United States
Join Discussion
Education

80,000 Hours: The Book

Forty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, forty years: a career is about 80,000 hours. Yet it’s striking how little serious thought goes into career decisions relative to, say, choosing a mortgage. Indeed, you are almost supposed to tell a story about how a random incident changed your life. One summer a circus came […] The post 80,000 Hours: The Book appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesSupply is elastic, installment #1637Why are Murders Down in Baltimore?Are we undermeasuring...

United States
Join Discussion
Society

Lifestyle and living standards arbitrage

Since the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. hasn’t collected comprehensive statistics on the number of citizens leaving. Yet data on residence permits, foreign home purchases, student enrollments and other metrics from more than 50 countries show that Americans are voting with their feet to an unprecedented degree. A millions-strong diaspora is studying, telecommuting and retiring overseas. […] The post Lifestyle and living standards arbitrage appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related ...

Global
Join Discussion
Culture

What I have been learning doing New Aesthetics

Patrick offered his observations here, I will add a few points of my own. I very often think in terms of regions and geographic places. Currently, artistic movements (of most sorts, not just “New Aesthetics”) seem to lack a centrality of place. New York City is no longer the center of the art world, high […] The post What I have been learning doing New Aesthetics appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesNew Aesthetics awardsRoss Douthat on what AI money should learn from the gold...

Global
Join Discussion
Politics

Supply is elastic, installment #1637

With deadly precision, the Trump administration has launched dozens of attacks on small boats in the waters off South America, killing nearly 200 people in a campaign U.S. officials say is meant to curb the flow of illicit drugs to the United States. But almost nine months into the operation, epidemiologists, addiction scientists and public […] The post Supply is elastic, installment #1637 appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIs the implication European airlines are snuggling cocain...

United States
Join Discussion
Geopolitics

Those new service sector economics jobs?

Russia has passed a law authorizing its central bank and other financial institutions to repel drone attacks with their own defense systems, as the country struggles to defend against Ukrainian strikes. The law, passed by Russia’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday, will allow staff at Russia’s central bank to be armed and to operate […] The post Those new service sector economics jobs? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. CommentsIn reply to Calvin Hobbes. “Escalating” HOW, exactly? By ....

Russia
Join Discussion
Economy

How Much Has Shale Gas Saved U.S. Consumers?

It may seem like a distant memory now, but as of the mid-2000s, U.S. natural gas production had been flat for a decade, and the U.S. was importing liquefied natural gas (LNG), with plans to import much more. Then shale gas happened. Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling caused U.S. natural gas production to […] The post How Much Has Shale Gas Saved U.S. Consumers? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Related StoriesAI in gdpSeven ways to avoid losing your job to AI*How to...

United States
Join Discussion