2026-04-15 02:42:15
But despite the pitiful state into which the country had descended, the major outside powers, Russian and the Ottoman Empire, did not intervene as they had in 1722-1725. It was partly that they were busy elsewhere, and surely also that the outcome of their previous attempts had not encouraged them to repeat the experiment.
That is from Michael Axworthy’s A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind, a good general introduction to the history of the country.
The post That was then, this is now appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-04-15 00:05:28
1. Where is it dangerous to be a pedestrian in NYC? And city-owned grocery stores for NYC? (NYT)
2. Is Mississippi running out of liquor?
3. Four classic Chinese texts and their relevance.
5. Seb Krier.
6. The penguin-tracking culture that is Kyoto, Japan.
7. The Economist will be using bylines and putting people in front of the camera (NYT).
8. Marginal Literary Revolution.
9. New Rebecca Lowe and Henry Oliver podcast.
The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-04-14 19:18:16
Charles Miller, a space entrepreneur and head of the Trump transition team on NASA, has a good piece proposing a Lunar Development Authority:
I propose the development of an international Lunar Development Authority (LDA), chartered and led by the United States, that would serve as a quasi-governmental regulator. The base on the Moon would be managed as a master-planned infrastructure development project, with NASA as the key strategic partner, emphasizing commercial methods and an investor mindset to drive economic viability in both the near and long term. The LDA would prioritize development of lunar resources to lower costs and serve customers, and treat the United States government and the governments of our allies as anchor tenant customers. The LDA would leverage public-private partnerships and cooperation among both governmental and private industry tenants from many countries to finance and develop lunar infrastructure in a commercial manner.
The model is New York’s famous Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, which imposed a simple, legible order on what was then mostly undeveloped land. The plan coordinated future development around a grid with standardized lots and clearly demarcated spaces for public and private infrastructure. Miller proposes a similar sequence for the Moon: first survey, standards, shared infrastructure, and a governing authority; then private tenants, resource extraction, construction, and finance.
The main legal obstacle is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which paired a ban on weapons of mass destruction in space with “anti-colonial” restrictions on national appropriation. The OST, however, doesn’t prohibit economic activity per se—the target was national land grabs, not commercial development. The more recent Artemis Accords address this directly:
The ability to extract and utilize resources on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids is critical to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development.
The Artemis Accords reinforce that space resource extraction and utilization can and should be executed in a manner that complies with the Outer Space Treaty and in support of safe and sustainable space activities.
The Homesteading Act granted title rights in return for development. The likely path forward on the moon reverses that sequence, development first, title later. Ownership of extracted resources is already widely accepted, next will come toleration of exclusive operational zones, then long-duration concessions, then transferable development rights around fixed infrastructure.
The OST may delay ordinary land markets, but it cannot repeal the deeper economic fact that settlement happens only when builders can keep enough of what they create. TANSTAAFL.
The post Moonsteading appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-04-14 14:48:35
This paper estimates the economic value to the United States of eliminating cancer mortality over a 35-year horizon beginning in 2030, which would eliminate 30.7 million cancer deaths with a total mortality burden of 380 million life-years. We quantify the economic value of this substantial reduction in cancer mortality by incorporating the monetized value of increased longevity. To value the longevity gains in monetary terms, we utilize the valuations used by the U.S. federal government in its cost-benefit evaluations of regulations. Eliminating cancer mortality generates $197 trillion in economic benefits over 35 years, corresponding to approximately $16,282 per American per year, or $41,684 per American household per year. If cancer elimination is viewed as an R&D investment, it yields an enormous internal rate of return, ranging from 570% to 1,024%, based on benchmarked R&D costs. In addition, we perform a sensitivity analysis by varying the elimination durations and the degree of success, using the benchmark case scenario in which cancer mortality is reduced by 80 percent over a 20-year transition. This achieves about 70 percent of the total economic value of full elimination above, corresponding to aggregate benefits of about $134 trillion, or approximately $11,112 per person per year.
That is from a new NBER working paper by
The post The economic value of eliminating cancer appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-04-14 13:17:43
This paper introduces Entangled Time — a novel economic variable representing the simultaneous production-consumption state characterizing human engagement with algorithmic digital interfaces. We develop a formal equilibrium model in which rational agents allocate time to zero-price digital platforms, where their behavioral data constitutes unpriced cognitive labor driving AI capital formation. We demonstrate three principal results. First, under a non-stationary algorithmic resonance state formalized through a Preference Expansion Function, the marginal utility of interface time can be non-decreasing, violating Gossen’s First Law and generating a corner solution (Proposition~1). Second, the firm operating as an algorithmic monopsony facing perfectly inelastic labor supply optimally sets the fiat wage for digital labor equal to zero, substituting monetary compensation with endogenous digital utility (Proposition~2). Third, we define and calibrate Dark GDP — the aggregate value of uncompensated cognitive labor invisible to the System of National Accounts—and show it accounts for a measurable fraction of the secular decline in global labor share (Propositions~7–9). We establish equilibrium existence via Brouwer’s Fixed Point Theorem and propose an empirical identification strategy using privacy-mandate shocks as instruments for data extraction. Three institutional redesigns are proposed: an Algorithmic Monopsony Standard, a Pigouvian Algorithmic Severance Tax, and a Cognitive Depreciation Allowance.
That is all from Nav Vaidhyanathan, who estimates the value of these unpriced services may be in the range of $1.3 trillion. Here is the easier to follow Substack version. Speculative, but worth a ponder.
The post “Dark labor” claims to upset almost everybody appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-04-14 02:16:57
But the cartel’s interests may prove just as important to security as government efforts, according to a dozen local and state officials and security experts.
The CJNG has much to gain from the regional economic boost of a successful tournament in Guadalajara — akin to its administrative headquarters — and much to lose from drawing authorities’ attention.
“The city is safe because those guys put all their money here, and they stand to make even more,” said one state official who was not authorised to speak on the record. “They don’t want a war here.”
Huge profits earned elsewhere from drug trafficking and other activities are laundered in Guadalajara, experts said, helping to power a real estate boom. A rash of shiny new skyscrapers has popped up, some of which sit empty. The leafy city also boasts luxurious open-air shopping malls and lively nightlife.
Here is more from Ciara Nugent at the FT.
The post Incentives matter, Mexican cartel edition appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.