2025-12-28 03:47:53
We study the macroeconomic effects of tariff policy using U.S. historical data from 1840–2024. We construct a narrative series of plausibly exogenous tariff changes based on major legislative actions, multilateral negotiations, and temporary surcharges– and use it as an instrument to identify a structural tariff shock. Tariff increases are consistently contractionary: imports fall sharply, exports decline with a lag, and output and manufacturing activity drop persistently. The shock transmits through both supply and demand channels. Prices rise in the full sample but fall post-WWII, a pattern consistent with changes in the monetary policy response and with stronger international retaliation and reciprocity in the modern trade regime.
That is from a new paper by Tamar den Besten and Diego R. Känzig. These effects of course do take some while to appear.
The post The Macroeconomic Effects of Tariffs: Evidence From U.S. Historical Data appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2025-12-28 00:36:04
1. Turning a pdf into a short class.
2. Those mid-Atlantics love to fly to Tokyo. Mexico City not good enough for you?
3. Major AI researchers are rapidly turning more bullish for instance here is Roon. And here is Andrej.
4. The boom in Mexican trade (WSJ).
5. Thailand says its bombings in Cambodia are targeting the scam industry (NYT). Here is some commentary, the whole matter is deeply weird. Consider this a new take on Clausewitz!
6. Good Mike Pesca piece on The Free Press.
The post More Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2025-12-27 15:58:23
1. Some observations on immigration and wage effects. The spread of immigrants to incipient high-wage areas may be one rise why the geographic mobility of resident Americans has gone down.
2. No good explanation for why more boys than girls are born after wars.
3. Slides on ticket resale, by Eric Budish.
4. Steven Durlauf recommends five 2025 books in economics.
5. The ongoing rise of YouTube (FT). “The creator economy advertising market is expected to reach $37bn this year, up 26 per cent from a year ago, according to the estimates by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The group expects the market to rise another 18 per cent in 2026.”
The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2025-12-27 14:14:09
A statistical model was used to examine these relationships simultaneously by predicting the likelihood that a girl reports being very happy.
The model includes socioeconomic status, parent–child communication, screen-time limits, and an interaction between limits and communication.
The results reinforce the patterns in the figures. Parent–child communication dominates the model. Girls who report strong communication are about three to four times more likely to report being very happy than those who report none. Socioeconomic status shows a smaller independent association. Screen-time limits contribute little on their own and matter modestly only when strong communication is already present.
If phones were the central problem, limits would emerge as a robust solution across contexts. They do not…
What the compensatory-use model rejects is a stronger claim. It rejects the idea that smartphone exposure itself is the primary driver of youth distress and that prohibition is therefore the central remedy. If that causal story were correct, limits would show large and consistent benefits across households, including among those with the weakest communication and highest distress. They do not.
And to close:
The most reliable way to improve youth well-being is to meet individual needs through connection instead of control.
That work depends on cooperation, not compliance.
Here is the full essay by Owen Kellogg, of course this is only a single study.
The post A model of girl happiness, a compensatory-use study appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2025-12-27 02:45:55
1. David Brooks offers some Sidney awards, including to Works in Progress (NYT).
2. If you are the Lakers, of course you should have traded for the new superstar, namely Luka. But by now it is clear the trade actually will not work out so well, and Dallas is better off with Cooper Flagg.
3. “The threat to German auto producers isn’t from Chinese cars flooding Germany. It’s from Chinese cars flooding to emerging markets (red), where they’re killing the market for German cars. That’s not something EU tariffs on China are going to be able to fix.” Link here.
5. The brother Megan McArdle lost.
6. “Our Archivara Math Research Agent (in alpha) just became the first AI system to fully solve an Erdős problem on its own (zero human input or literature online).” Link here.
7. Israel just recognized Somaliland.
The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2025-12-26 22:32:01
The astronomy world was recently shaken by a discovery from an unexpected source: a teenager still in high school. Matteo Paz, a student from Pasadena, utilized archival data from NASA’s retired NEOWISE mission to bring 1.5 million invisible cosmic objects into the light.
During a stint at Caltech’s Planet Finder Academy, and mentored by astrophysicist Davy Kirkpatrick, Paz took a novel approach to data analysis. He built a unique machine learning model capable of sifting through a staggering 200 billion infrared records. In a span of only six weeks, his AI detected subtle patterns that human analysts had missed, identifying everything from distant quasars to exploding supernovas.
Here is the link, via Shruti.
The post Scientific discoveries will be made by the young appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.