@sethposting

regmonkey pretending to understand econ, beginner distributed energy enthusiast

Joined April 2020
  • Tweets16.5K
  • Following993
  • Followers1.4K
1.2KMedia
Kaldor-Hicks need pressure groups to have any real meaning. "Manual operators gradually disappeared, with younger generations still finding work. Nevertheless, the losses for existing operators were often persistent, and they were commonly relegated to much lower-paying jobs."
Alex Imas
@alexolegimasOct 22
New Substack post with @soumitrashukla9. Work has never been just about the income earned sans effort costs, as typical in economic models. Key aspects of people’s identity, their meaning, and sense of agency are all wrapped up with what they do for a living. There has been a lot of conversation lately about how technological change, particularly AI, may disrupt this relationship, from Ezra Klein's column on his own mathematician father’s grapplings with losing meaning in mathematics, to Francis Fukuyama's post on AI, agency, and recognition. In this piece we take a historical perspective on how technological transformation has disrupted identity and meaning by affecting jobs, and how workers and society responded to these changes. Much of the debate around AI and jobs has centered on wages and material consequences, but losing one's work is also intertwined with how people view their place in society. Most people know about the Luddites—skilled weavers and knitters—who protested the devaluation of their mastery. What’s less known is that the Luddites were actually experts in using the machines as well, and that their protests prompted prominent economists like David Ricardo to rethink the role of automation in society, and later inspired the Arts and Crafts movement. A century later, when recorded sound displaced 20,000 cinema musicians, their campaign against "canned music" and two-year recording ban pressured labels into funding live performance. Soumitra and I have been working on versions of this essay for months. He led the piece, and we’re both really excited to get it out there. Link to the post here: aleximas.substack.com/p/tech…
1
2
3
219
!
Sorrow Residual@sethposting2 Apr 2024
Amartya Sen on compensation principle: annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10…
They were trying to make comparisons that would go beyond the so-called the Pareto principle—which acknowledges an improvement only when some people gain and nobody loses. Plausible enough (it seemed), but with relatively rare applicability. The compensation test was meant to take us well beyond this simple case. What did it say? To summarize rapidly, consider a change from which some people gain and others lose. If the gainers have gained so much that they can compensate the losers and still retain some gain, then it’s an improvement according to the compensation test. So you ask the question, Do they actually compensate the losers? No, they don’t have to do it—the losers stay losers (all we are checking is whether they could have been compensated). I mean, what kind of an improvement is that? The losers can rightly think this to be a con job. Can the compensation test be made more persuasive by insisting that the compensation that is possible be actually paid?

ALT They were trying to make comparisons that would go beyond the so-called the Pareto principle—which acknowledges an improvement only when some people gain and nobody loses. Plausible enough (it seemed), but with relatively rare applicability. The compensation test was meant to take us well beyond this simple case. What did it say? To summarize rapidly, consider a change from which some people gain and others lose. If the gainers have gained so much that they can compensate the losers and still retain some gain, then it’s an improvement according to the compensation test. So you ask the question, Do they actually compensate the losers? No, they don’t have to do it—the losers stay losers (all we are checking is whether they could have been compensated). I mean, what kind of an improvement is that? The losers can rightly think this to be a con job. Can the compensation test be made more persuasive by insisting that the compensation that is possible be actually paid?

The others—the “compensators” involved— have also gained. Can’t we acknowledge this to be an unequivocal improvement, and isn’t this a “hooray” for the compensation test? Yes indeed, but what kind of a victory is this for the compen- sation test? After compensation, there are people who are better off and no one is worse off, but that surely is just a Pareto improvement, which is already accepted in welfare economics. Why do we need the compensation test at all then, which appears to be either completely unconvincing, or totally redundant? More particularly, there is no progress here, especially in dealing with inequality or poverty, and we are stuck with just the distribution-indifferent Pareto principle.

ALT The others—the “compensators” involved— have also gained. Can’t we acknowledge this to be an unequivocal improvement, and isn’t this a “hooray” for the compensation test? Yes indeed, but what kind of a victory is this for the compen- sation test? After compensation, there are people who are better off and no one is worse off, but that surely is just a Pareto improvement, which is already accepted in welfare economics. Why do we need the compensation test at all then, which appears to be either completely unconvincing, or totally redundant? More particularly, there is no progress here, especially in dealing with inequality or poverty, and we are stuck with just the distribution-indifferent Pareto principle.

Angus Deaton: Before you go on from there—we’re laughing about these compensation tests and how stupid they were, but they’ve totally infected American jurisprudence today. Amartya Sen: And within economics, international trade theory, too. Angus Deaton: Yes, and the Supreme Court is applying compensation tests like that on a day-to- day basis. Amartya Sen: I know. It is saddening. Angus Deaton: Violating contracts is fine if the surplus is large enough. So this monster is still out there. Amartya Sen: I know. But never underestimate the power of a bad idea. Angus Deaton: Especially if you can express it in three seconds.

ALT Angus Deaton: Before you go on from there—we’re laughing about these compensation tests and how stupid they were, but they’ve totally infected American jurisprudence today. Amartya Sen: And within economics, international trade theory, too. Angus Deaton: Yes, and the Supreme Court is applying compensation tests like that on a day-to- day basis. Amartya Sen: I know. It is saddening. Angus Deaton: Violating contracts is fine if the surplus is large enough. So this monster is still out there. Amartya Sen: I know. But never underestimate the power of a bad idea. Angus Deaton: Especially if you can express it in three seconds.

1
52
During the 20th Century; "The goal of management was to study work activities, establish methods and timings, and give workers specific instructions on dos and don’ts. Planning increasingly became the responsibility of management and not of the individual worker. -
Alex Imas
@alexolegimasOct 22
New Substack post with @soumitrashukla9. Work has never been just about the income earned sans effort costs, as typical in economic models. Key aspects of people’s identity, their meaning, and sense of agency are all wrapped up with what they do for a living. There has been a lot of conversation lately about how technological change, particularly AI, may disrupt this relationship, from Ezra Klein's column on his own mathematician father’s grapplings with losing meaning in mathematics, to Francis Fukuyama's post on AI, agency, and recognition. In this piece we take a historical perspective on how technological transformation has disrupted identity and meaning by affecting jobs, and how workers and society responded to these changes. Much of the debate around AI and jobs has centered on wages and material consequences, but losing one's work is also intertwined with how people view their place in society. Most people know about the Luddites—skilled weavers and knitters—who protested the devaluation of their mastery. What’s less known is that the Luddites were actually experts in using the machines as well, and that their protests prompted prominent economists like David Ricardo to rethink the role of automation in society, and later inspired the Arts and Crafts movement. A century later, when recorded sound displaced 20,000 cinema musicians, their campaign against "canned music" and two-year recording ban pressured labels into funding live performance. Soumitra and I have been working on versions of this essay for months. He led the piece, and we’re both really excited to get it out there. Link to the post here: aleximas.substack.com/p/tech…
1
1
5
374
-Gradually, workers lost discretion and the ability to exercise judgment over what constituted “good work.” As Orrin Cheney, a machinist at Watertown Arsenal, put it, “I could not follow this man’s instructions out and do my work and do it properly.”"
4
43
Sorrow Residual retweeted
econimate@econimateOct 21
Why doesn't the U.S. have national health insurance? Marcella Alsan (@StanfordEcon) & Yousra Neberai (@Kennedy_School) on the political role of the American Medical Association: youtu.be/3qSMAdZD2vg
4
7
602
Mumbai? There's like hundreds of parks, malls, not to mention kilometres of beaches ?? What.
sammm ☆@onlysammmsOct 17
we genuinely have no third spaces in big cities like bombay. you cant even step out and spend some quality time with your people without spending thousands. and if you disagree, honestly i’m glad you live somewhere where this isn’t the case
17
18
10
482
16,703
Sorrow Residual retweeted
Renaud Foucart@RenaudFoucartOct 15
Replying to @doktor_val
My utility function is concave enough that the cost of thinking about the problem is higher than any marginal gain I could get above a billion
1
1
14
220
Sorrow Residual retweeted
Sorrow Residual@sethpostingJul 6
There's a whole genre of Econ navel gazing on this website that responds to basically any discussion about the economy with a blind parroting of the title of Pritchett's essay on 'GDP growth and only GDP growth is enough', however.
Alex Tabarrok
@ATabarrokJul 6
Economics does not say maximize GDP and never has. The only people who thought this way were Soviet central planners chasing output targets.
3
1
11
1,816
Sorrow Residual retweeted
David Fishman
@pretentiouswhatOct 13
In 2026, the Chinese power system is struggling to digest the additions of solar and wind from 2024-25. This will persist into next year, even as growth slows. The share of wind and solar generation in the mix last year (22%+) had already exceeded the level where it's just "free power absorbed into a thermal system". The system will need to be explicitly re-organized around accommodating large volumes of intermittent, non-dispatchable generation. It's tempting to say: "what's the problem with having too much power? Isn't that basically a good thing?" And it can be, except when you sell that power into a market that wants to price that power according to scarcity. When that happens, power prices can be too low to support further investment, or grids can be physically strained beyond their ability to integrate more. Beyond this, I have some broader comments about certain frames used in the piece.
1
3
23
1,520
Malcolm Reavell@malcolm_reavellOct 12
Using models instead of studying the real economy. Jesus. And they get a prize for that.
2
12
154
6,062
Yeah the worst part about PHM was that they had to (understandably) spoil one of the best parts of the book in the movie's promotional materials
chloe 🐳@hodukameowOct 11
blind watching project hail mary was life changing
1
1
377
"firm-level adaptation, whether it’s increasing efficiency or building out alternative generation, is costly – if firms could just use more cheap energy, they’d do that instead. This is because adaptation doesn’t spring into being from nowhere; rather, firms have to re-direct -
Matt Clancy@mattsclancySep 18
New post from Willow Latham-Proenca on the Abundance and Growth team about energy and economic growth! open.substack.com/pub/abunda…
1
1
3
240
- brainpower and budgets to make those scarcity-adaptive improvements. Assuming R&D budgets are relatively fixed, a redirection towards efficiency crowds out other productivity-enhancing technology. The opportunity cost of that crowding out – in addition to -
1
1
80
the growth directly foregone before adaptation gets up and running – should be added to the tab for an energy bottleneck, not ignored."
1
38
Feeling bad for mild mannered sanghis with liberal friends abroad. Will have to pretend that at least some of the crack down is bad to save face imo
2
1
2
38
1,226
Sorrow Residual retweeted
@ratlimit
@ratlimitOct 9
just heard my favorite podcasters talk about something I know a lot about
9
319
57
8,682
130,586
I don't think the fact that the negative weight problem isn't breaking every other TWFE paper implies that the lit coming out of it is useless (or that better methods should be abandoned in favour of TWFE when the computational cost of better methods is basically zero?)
1
7
557
Replying to @sethposting
If you can take the log of NAICS, why not Starbucks?
1
1
25
1,422
Friendly reminder that this party aims to throw people out of the country on bullshit theories of what a language should sound like
BJP Manipur
@BJP4ManipurOct 9
Mocking accents and speech patterns isn't humor—it's racism and casual discrimination. The diverse linguistic heritage of the Northeast is something to be celebrated, not ridiculed. We strongly condemn the derogatory remarks made by @SauravDassss regarding how Northeastern people speak. Respect and inclusion aren't optional. xitter.cf/SauravDassss/status/21… #StopCasualRacism #NortheastIndia #RespectDiversity #InclusionMatters
4
22
535
log(Starbucks + 1)
Natalia Emanuel
@NataliaHEmanuelOct 9
Coffee shops boost innovation. 10% more Starbucks in an area --> 3-4% more inventions. People gather over a cuppa. They share ideas, discuss how to untangle a knotty problem, help see an issue from another perspective. These conversations lead to breakthroughs and inventions. A very fun paper finds that when Starbucks rolled out to a new county, it fueled a coffee-shop culture, urging more and more people to “grab a coffee” together. The authors compare the counties where Starbucks had rolled out to those where it had not yet arrived. And they find that the number of patents in caffeinated counties is meaningfully higher. This paper underscores how essential the face-to-face encounter is. Starbucks isn’t that old. People Could have picked up the phone and chatted at any time. People Could have dropped an email. Probably they did. But those connections didn’t yield the same insights and creativity. Turns out that a Cup of Joe really does help the knowledge flow. We talk about how much in-person connection boosts creativity in In Person. It’s out in just few days, so now is a great time to pre-order. To see the full research use the link in the comments. #Innovation #InPerson #FutureOfWork #CoffeeCulture #NewBook
4
17
4
333
20,307
Load more