Agent Orange Did Not Cause Your Father’s Sickness
The shoddy evidence behind billions in claims
EconomicsCulture
Homo Economicus.
Nicholas Decker on monetary policy, academia, and applied economics.
Recent essays
30 of 41On “The Meritocratic Consensus” in Higher Education
Should we redistribute funding in the universities?
The Least of All Freedoms
On human disempowerment
Three Points About AI Safety
Why I am against “Stop Unilaterally, Raise Awareness” too
Bill Nordhaus (1941-2026)
Bill Nordhaus, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics, has died.
Economists Should Stop Writing Papers About Discrimination
It’s all so tiresome
Do Prediction Markets Create Information?
They’re efficient and accurate!
How Valuable is a Fake Poll?
Could they have swung the Michigan Senate primary?
Air Rage Did Not Get Worse During the Pandemic
Correcting a narrative
How Many People Work From Home?
Correcting some wrong estimates
Some Very Clever Papers
I like papers that are clever.
Berry, Bresnahan, and Pakes (MAYBE) Win the Nobel Prize!!
For revolutionizing industrial organization
How Will These AI Companies Make Money?
The conditions needed to rationalize investment
Shopping in the Future
Why AI agents are likely to lead to higher prices
Am I In Hell?
Some thoughts on AI safety
The Village as Sink of Localism and Den of Ignorance
Wages, high and low
What Do Cost Benefit Tests Measure?
The marginal value of the marginal value of public funds
Inefficient Labor Saving Automation
Yet more models
Can Export Restrictions Make AI Go Faster?
A simple model
The Predictable Disaster of No-Chase Policing
Why failing to treat policing like macroeconomics leads to worse outcomes
The Rise and Fall of Crime
Since 1965, 1 million people have been murdered in America. 300,000 remain unsolved. And homicide is simply the most visible part of millions of unsolved burglaries, assaults, robberies, and other crimes. Preventing crime and disorder is the core function of g…
India’s One Simple Trick to Reduce Alcohol Mortality
Taxes can have big effects
Why Are Dissents Rare in the Federal Reserve?
Some explanations
Kevin Warsh Does Not Understand the Federal Reserve
I am extremely concerned for my country
Academia is Doing Fine, Actually
Weighing big things and small things
No, We Should Not Develop Telepathy
What are we even thinking?
What Can We Know About Discrimination in America?
Mapping callback rates to wages
Why I No Longer Believe Macroeconomic Models of Climate Change
and other commentary on matters macroeconomic
The Great Recession
57 questions and answers about the causes of, and solutions to, the Great Recession
The Median Voter is a Maoist
Seeking truth from facts