Regulation adds “clutter” to an economy, sort of akin to creating an obstacle course that workers and businesses have to navigate in order to be productive. In other words, red tape makes it harder to be profitable. And that reduces incentives to invest. And every economic theory agrees that less investment means less prosperity. That’s […]
How much redistribution will AI require? A common scenario is that AI raises output enormously, but labor’s share of income collapses. GDP per capita goes up but workers get poorer, and making workers whole requires massive redistribution. In my latest paper, I run the numbers and conclude that this is probably incorrect. The idea is…
The wealth and technological sophistication of modern society are readily apparent. Less visible, but no less remarkable, is its ability to coordinate the actions of billions of people who know almost nothing about one another’s circumstances. Every day we make decisions without possessing most of the information on which those decisions ultimately depend. We purchase…
FAA moves to ensure regulatory processes serve genuine environmental interests rather than becoming a legal mechanism for undermining American space competitiveness. The post FAA Moves to Exempt Commercial Rocket Launches From Key Environmental Reviews appeared first on Watts Up With That?.
Terzi & Nicoli have a fascinating new paper analyzing over 4,400 orbital launches since 1960 to estimate “Wright’s Law.” This law states that a new technology’s unit costs fall in proportion to cumulative experience. Essentially, it is an expression of learning-by-doing. They show:… that the average cost of sending a kilogram to orbit has dropped…
Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria, is best known for her work as a Hollywood actress during the Golden Age of cinema. However, her contributions to science and technology, particularly her co-invention of a technology that laid the groundwork for WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS, have garnered increasing recognition. Lamarr’s […]
Socialism has always possessed considerable moral appeal. Its advocates commonly appeal to equality of opportunity, social justice, fairness and the desire to prevent poverty and exploitation. Those are legitimate moral concerns. But there is an important distinction between socialism as an ethical aspiration and socialism as an economic system. There is also an important distinction between socialism and […]
Brussels has found a new way to punish success. Today, the European Commission fined Google €890 million under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for two familiar business practices—featuring its own products and charging for customers its platform helps attract. The Commission imposed €460 million for “self-preferencing,” or giving Google’s services prominent placement in search results,…
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services that a firm without market power in photocopiers might still possess market power in photocopier parts and service. The Court’s logic turned on opportunistic hold-up: Kodak could profit by trading short-run exploitation of locked-in customers for long-run losses in equipment…
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
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