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Blog of Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, both of whom teach at George Mason University.
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England and Wales fact of the day

2025-04-19 19:49:48

A recent survey, commissioned by the Bible Society and conducted by YouGov, showed 16 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 in England and Wales said they attended church at least monthly, significantly up from 4 per cent in 2018.

Here is more from the FT.

The post England and Wales fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Saturday assorted links

2025-04-19 12:53:35

1. How tariffs affect trade deficits.

2. How many “ghost branches” of humanity are there?

3. There is actual humor in this NYT piece on the pro-natalism movement.  “With” or “at,” you can debate, but not all readers will align with the NYT perspective.  Bryan has the best line.  The correction is funny too.  I guess the “ghost branches” of humanity were not pro-natalist enough?

4. Should the moon be a computer?

5. Running 80,000 parallel referendums at all times — is that what they are doing?

6. The Network School Fellowship.

7. “Huge rabbit rescued from kill farm is now therapy bunny, drives mini truck.”  (WaPo)

8. Shifting work patterns with generative AI.

The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Brian Potter on what he has learned writing Construction Physics

2025-04-19 12:07:54

  1. Individual construction tasks have, on average, not gotten cheaper since at least the 1950s.
  2. Bricks haven’t gotten cheaper since the mid-19th century, despite massive improvements in brickmaking technology.
  3. Construction has a reputation for being slow to innovate, but innovations seem to spread in construction at roughly similar rates to other industries, like car manufacturing or agriculture.
  4. Single family homes use less energy per square foot than multifamily apartments, likely because certain “fixed” energy costs like refrigerators and water heaters are spread across more living space.
  5. Historically high US homebuilding rates were in large part driven by falling household size. If you control for this factor, the current low rates of US homebuilding looks less dire.

Noting that his numbering scheme has those as 9-13, though it will not let me edit to such.  Here is the full link.

The post Brian Potter on what he has learned writing Construction Physics appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Intertemporal substitution (from my email)

2025-04-19 01:57:23

From a Czech newspaper:

Recruitment of new recruits in Russia is skyrocketing. With the prospect of a ceasefire, they want to ‘jump on the last train’

The number of Russians who have decided to join the army has multiplied in recent weeks. Regardless of their health, recruitment centres are taking anyone who expresses an interest. And it is growing even as an increasing number of Russian soldiers return from the front line in coffins. This is mainly due to the high rewards, and with the prospect of a ceasefire, the motivation of new recruits is even higher. Many of them hope to collect money and peace of arms will come before they end up on the front line.

Nábor nových rekrutů v Rusku prudce stoupá | iROZHLAS – spolehlivé zprávy

That is all from MR commentator uair01.

The post Intertemporal substitution (from my email) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Friday assorted links

2025-04-19 00:16:38

1. Pluto vs. Australia.

2. Moose migration: the television culture that isSweden.

3. October Progress conference in Berkeley.

4. James Meek on Greenland.

5. Can you give “LSD” to your LLM?

6. “People In Iceland Are Collecting Baby Puffins In The Streets And Throwing Them Back Into The Ocean.”

The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Music compensation fact of the day

2025-04-18 19:36:34

The Kanye West and Jay-Z song “No Church in the Wild,” for instance, sampled a single instrumental line from a failed solo album recorded in the late 1970s by the Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera; the licensing proceeds provided Mr. Manzanera with “the biggest payday he had in the course of his entire career.” Or there is Mr. Hepworth’s revelation that some crazed fan supposedly paid more than $160,000 for a seat at Led Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion.

Here is more from the WSJ review of David Hepworth’s Hope I Get Old Before I Die, reviewed by D.J. Taylor.

The post Music compensation fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.