Notes:

Latest blog posts from Marginal Revolution

Good sentences
"We originally wrote this article in Word, but then we converted it to Latex to make it look more like science." The link is here.  It is the best analysis of zombification I have seen to date.  For the pointer I thank John Chilton.
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

Assorted links about influential books
1. Peter Suderman's "most influential" book list. 2. E.D. Kain's book list. 3. Arnold Kling's book list. 4. Michael Martin's book list. 5. Niklas Blanchard's book list. 6. EconJeff's book list. 7. Bryan Caplan's book list. If you've tried this, and I missed you, my apologies -- please leave the...
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

See the Tragedy of the Commons
In 2000 Zimbabwe began to forcibly redistribute land from private but predominantly white-owned commercial farms to much poorer black farmers who toiled on communal lands.  Stunning pictures from Google Earth collected by Craig Richardson show the result.    Take a look at the Before...
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

The Harvard thesis that everyone is talking about
You can find it here, described here, and hat tip to Greg Mankiw and Scott Cunningham.
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

How much of the world is in a liquidity trap?
Presumably in response to Scott Sumner, Paul Krugman writes: And by that criterion, how much of the world is currently in a liquidity trap? Almost all advanced countries. The US, obviously; Japan, even more obviously; the eurozone, because the ECB probably couldn’t engage in Fed-style...
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

Assorted links
1. OMB greenlights more awards and prizes. 2. Reading Uwe Johnson. 3. Game show of torture and Milgram. 4. Markets in everything: pre-owned cryogenic equipment. 5. Very good new Tony Judt interview (and more on Judt here).
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

China fact of the day
This is from Scott Sumner: I’d like to point out that there are many commonalities between China and 5 other East Asian economies; Japan, Taiwan, HK, Singapore and South Korea.  One of those similarities is that they all have huge stocks of foreign reserves.  In per capita terms China’s CA...
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

Temporary Marriage in Shiite Islam
ON A DUSTY MORNING in the holy city of Qom, I went looking for a shrine in a walled cemetery of martyrs known as Sheikhan. The graveyard's walls are lined with glass cases containing the framed photos of soldiers felled by the Iran-Iraq war. The shrine, I'd been told, is a hangout for women...
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

Assorted links
1. The Swedish right. 2. The economy of Gaza. 3. Markets in everything. 4. The rational rejection of security advice, such as changing passwords. 5. Shamrock shortage in Ireland. 6. Some schools are allowing mixed-gender dorm rooms.
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

Sentences to ponder
On the new Dodd proposal, Steven Pearlstein writes: There are so many political accommodations involving carve-outs and size limits and overlapping responsibilities that it creates exactly the kind of complexity, the opportunities for regulatory arbitrage and the lack of accountability that got...
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

*The Big Short*, by Michael Lewis
The big fear of the 1980s mortgage bond investor was that he would be repaid too quickly, not that he would fail to be repaid at all. That's one good sentence from the book, which you can order here.  There is an excerpt from the book, on Michael Burry, here.  Here is a Felix Salmon review of...
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published

Why did it take so long for humans to have the Industrial Revolution?
That's a reader request from the especially loyal Harrison Brookie.  First, you might wish to go back and read the MR reviews and debates of Greg Clark's Farewell to Alms, More generally, extended periods of economic growth require that technologies of defense outweigh technologies of...
Click here to read more at Marginal Revolution...
Published