“Sorry Europeans, but some drinks taste better with ice cubes. The key is to get the ratio right. As a first approximation, there are two main problems. First, the ratio of drink to ice cubes may be too high. In…”
via Marginal Revolution
“A loyal MR reader writes to me: Here’s an interesting fact: despite a population of more than 1 billion, India has won a grand total of 18 Olympic medals (mostly in field hockey): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_at_the_Olympics there are many obvious hypotheses, all…”
via Marginal Revolution
“In Alabama it is illegal to recommend shades of paint without a license. In Nevada it is illegal to move any large piece of furniture for purposes of design without a license. In fact, hundreds of people have been prosecuted…”
via Marginal Revolution
“Against Intellectual Monopoly is a relentless, pounding, take no prisoner’s attack on patent and copyright law. It joins Lessig’s Free Culture and Heller’s The Gridlock Economy as an instant classic and a must-read on these issues. Many people argue that…”
via Marginal Revolution
“As distinct from happiness, of course: 1. If a kid does badly in school, does the parent genuinely get mad at the kid and withhold affection? 2. Can people wait in an orderly line? 3. Can people stay in their…”
via Marginal Revolution
“Brought to you by Aghion, Algan, Cahuc and Shleifer, this is one of the best papers so far this year. It’s so good I’ll give you a longer than usual quotation from the opening pages: In a cross-section of countries,…”
via Marginal Revolution
“In millions of metric tons: Texas: 688 California: 394 Pennsylvania: 275 Ohio: 262 Florida: 256 Illinois, Indiana, and New York come next. I didn’t know that Texas would rank so high on the list. And it’s interesting that #3, 4,…”
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“Martin Feldstein, a proponent of the recent fiscal stimulus, said it didn’t work. Here are the facts. Tax rebates of $78 billion arrived in the second quarter of the year. The government’s recent GDP figures show that the level of…”
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“I read many blogs but there is only one — of the two or three hundred I have sampled — which I find truly obnoxious. I find the content obnoxious and I find the style obnoxious and I find the…”
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“(a) energy is not scarce; the historically most efficient sources (oil, coal, etc.) are; (b) a well-functioning price system will shift energy consumption to (cleaner) alternative energy sources as prices for historical extracted sources of energy rise; (c) the initial…”
via Marginal Revolution