In my work on WCITLeaks and on my latest working paper on cybersecurity (paper, blog post, podcast), I’ve had the occasion to think a lot about governance structures. In particular, what happens when there is a mismatch between a…

Bob Gordon released a provocative working paper (ungated) back in August that made quite a splash on the blogs. It is an extreme, more pessimistic version of Tyler Cowen’s The Great Stagnation. Gordon argues — -rightly, in my opinion —…

Toban Wiebe, a brilliant young economist of my acquaintance, writes In Praise of Consumer Debt:

Debt is a wonderful thing. But many intelligent and responsible people have debt aversion, believing that the optimal level of debt is zero. They proudly…

Adam Ozimek reminded me of his old post on brain-computer interfaces, in which he argues that in the future virtually everyone will have one. Adam reasons that such interfaces will augment our intellectual capabilities so much…

Fmb asks:

Request: discuss any literature on and/or speculate wildly about ways to make price discrimination more efficient.

One component of pd is often arbitrary time…

I recently read Finite and Infinite Games, by James Carse, poolside while on vacation. Excerpt:

Seriousness is always related to roles, or abstractions. We are likely to be more serious with police officers when we find them uniformed and performing their…