Marginal Revolution Media Bias

Excess All-Cause Mortality in China After Ending the Zero COVID Policy

In this cohort study across all regions in mainland China, an estimated 1.87 million excess deaths occurred among individuals 30 years and older during the first 2 months after the end of China’s zero COVID policy. Excess deaths predominantly occurred among older individuals and were observed across all provinces in mainland China, with the exception of Tibet.

Marginal Revolution Aug 27, 2023

El Salvador and the elasticity of supply

Many of you have written in and asked what I think of president Bukele throwing all those gang members (and possibly others) in jail without much due process. I do hope to learn more about this, including possibly with a trip to El Salvador later this year. In the meantime, I say let’s put aside the moralizing — in either direction — and try to think of this in terms of what is the appropriate economic model.

Marginal Revolution Aug 27, 2023

SpaceX Versus the Department of Justice

Marginal Revolution Aug 26, 2023

Why are Gender Pay Gaps so Large in Japan and South Korea?

Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are closing gender gaps in pay, seniority and parliamentary representation. Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, have the largest gender pay gaps in the OECD. Management remains 85% male. Female graduates are treated like secretaries, expected to pour the tea and run errands.

Marginal Revolution Aug 26, 2023

The Real UFO Story

Erik Hoel writes that the “the UFO craze was created by government nepotism and incompetent journalism” which makes a lot more sense to me than the other explanation. Here’s a key bit:

Marginal Revolution Aug 25, 2023

That was then, this is now, concentration of notables edition

[John] Napier’s continental sojourn had embraced the years 1564 to 1571, the year of the Ridolfi Plot. During his absence Galileo, Shakespeare, Caravaggio and Kepler had been born, Michelangelo, Calvin, Nostradamus and Stifel had died, Pope Pius V had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, had been forced to abdicate and was under comfortable house arrest in England, her infant son, James VI, had been made king, Edinburgh had suffered a terrible plague, his father had remarried, and Scotland had been thrown into civil war, with Merchiston playing a pivotal role.

Marginal Revolution Aug 25, 2023

Did the U.S. Really Grow Out of Its World War II Debt?

The fall in the U.S. public debt/GDP ratio from 106% in 1946 to 23% in 1974 is often attributed to high rates of economic growth. This paper examines the roles of three other factors: primary budget surpluses, surprise inflation, and pegged interest rates before the Fed-Treasury Accord of 1951. Our central result is a simulation of the path that the debt/GDP ratio would have followed with primary budget balance and without the distortions in real interest rates caused by surprise inflation and the pre-Accord peg. In this counterfactual, debt/GDP declines only to 74% in 1974, not 23% as in actual history.

Marginal Revolution Aug 25, 2023

The Mother Church of the Common Law

The Temple Church is a small church in London built in 1185 by the Knights Templar. It’s now hidden behind Fleet Street amid the Middle and Inner Temple, two of the four “Inns of Court”, the educational institutions and professional associations for common law barristers and judges. The Temple Church is known as the Mother Church of the Common Law both for its role in the creation of the Magna Carta and because of its location amid the Temple area.

Marginal Revolution Aug 24, 2023

The Ramaswamy plan for a commodity-backed dollar

Ramaswamy has called for the US Federal Reserve to stabilize the dollar in relation to the price of commodities, rather than to the consumer price index. That formula is unlikely to bring monetary stability (or tame business cycles) in part because commodity prices themselves are notoriously unstable.

Marginal Revolution Aug 24, 2023

Twenty Years of Marginal Revolution!

Who would have guessed that after twenty years Tyler and I would still be writing Marginal Revolution! Thanks especially to Tyler, we have had multiple new posts every single day for twenty years! Incredible.

Marginal Revolution Aug 23, 2023

Landscape with Invisible Hand

Despite its only middling at best reviews, I found this one of the most original and intriguing movies of the year. The formula “African-American family movie plus Only Fans for space aliens” isn’t exactly exhausted, or for that matter even plausible as the basis for anything. Yet the whole production comes off surprisingly well once you accept the absurdist premise, and it feels freshly cinematic. The movie also has a lot of economics, and self-consciously so, though not exactly in a free market direction. Here is the trailer.

Marginal Revolution Aug 23, 2023

In which sector are the top performers stupidest?

One of my core views is that the most successful performers in most (not all) areas are extremely smart and talented. So if you are one of the (let’s say) top fifty global performers in an area, you are likely to be one sharp cookie, even if the form of your intelligence is quite different from that in say academia or the tech world.

Marginal Revolution Aug 22, 2023

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