Tyler Cowen
FollowThe latest interviews, podcast appearances, and blog posts from Tyler Cowen, updated daily.
The economics of agents
From Patrick Collison: Assorted things I’ve been mulling over regarding agents in the economy: • Companies are in some sense the original superintelligence.
Earth facts of the day
Global call center headcount is 5.3% below its December 2023 peak, ending more than a decade of growth.
California in-migration and out-migration
Long-run U. S. population movements have been driven more by natural amenities than by jobs, and California, rich in both uniform and complementary climates, should be a persistent net gainer of…
On *Stubborn Attachments* and religion (from my email)
Hey Tyler I consider Stubborn Attachments your most dogmatic and religious book. Pondering on it, here are my Abrahamic readings of it: Jewish: Ten Commandments, obviously.
Ethiopia update
Ethiopia is the center of the world right now as it has returned to war. Ethiopian forces retook Mekelle from rebel forces, but the fighting has extended beyond Tigray.
The origin of risk
From the QJE, by Alexandr Kopytov, Mathieu Taschereau-Dumouchel, and Zebang Xu: We propose a tractable model in which risk, at both the micro and macro levels, is endogenous and driven by incentives.
A Sentiment Analysis of Cowen, Hanson, Caplan, and Krugman
Supplied by Bryan Caplan, performed by ChatGPT, excerpt: So Cowen isn’t well described as either “positive” or “negative.” A much better description is: High appreciation + high concern + very low…
How and why did the Victorians succeed?
From Samuel Hughes, in Works in Progress: The elites of Victorian Britain operated differently. Their schools and universities were not terribly academic and had very little STEM.
Predictions for economics, given AI
From Ingar Haaland: With math essentially being delegated to OpenAI, here’s what I predict for economics and the social sciences more generally: The top tier of research will just become better and it…
Effective altruism is useful at the margin
That is the theme of my latest Free Press essay, here is one excerpt: I feel I am well aware of the limitations of effective altruism, and I have outlined many others in an hour-long dialogue I had…