Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

Interesting Reads:

• Richard Thaler: Anomalies Columns
• Barry Ritholtz: Understanding What Makes Vanguard So Successful: "Low costs help, but that's only part of the explanation..."
• Agnel Philip: Krugman Says Potential Fed Chair Warsh Is ‘Wrong About Everything’: "'It’s kind of almost awesome. You could almost make money by taking whatever he thinks is going to happen and betting the other way', according to Krugman. A spokesman at the Hoover Institution, where Warsh is now a fellow, did not immediately respond to a request for comment..."
• Naftali Tishby, Fernando C. Pereira, and William Bialek (1999): The information bottleneck method: "We define the relevant information in a signal x ∈ X as being the information that this signal provides about another signal y ∈ Y.... Understanding the signal x requires more than just predicting y, it also requires specifying which features of X play a role in the prediction. We formalize this problem as that of finding a short code for X that preserves the maximum information about Y..."
• Eric Martin, Josh Wingrove, and Andrew Mayeda: U.S. Offers Proposal That Could Kill Nafta in 5 Years: "‘Sunset clause’ requires nations to decide to maintain accord. Canada, Mexico say measure would create business uncertainty..."
• MSRI: Celebration of Mind 2017: Math, Magic, Puzzles, Games!
• Gabriel Sherman: We're at "lunge for the nuclear football" stage of Trump presidency: "Gabriel Sherman says a GOP source tells him that General Kelly and Secretary Mattis talk about what they would do if Donald Trump lunged for the nuclear football..."
• Dona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro: What Realists Don’t Understand About Law: "There’s nothing more realistic than realizing that national interests aren’t just about power, geography, and great men..."
• Heather Boushey: Viewpoint: Don't repeal and replace D.C.'s paid leave act
• Martin Wolf: The Fed is treading a fine line on monetary tightening: "Kevin Warsh... stated in March 2010 that 'I don’t think we should be complacent about inflation risk'. That misjudgment should rule out his candidacy..."
• Three, Four... Many Secular Stagnations!
• Andrew Prokop: The bizarre situation where only retiring Republicans will talk about Trump’s fitness for office - Vox: "Partisanship and careerism have badly warped this discussion..."
• David Warsh: Going West: "Before there was Walter O’Malley, there was Kenneth Arrow..."
• Paul Romer (2015): Stigler Conviction vs. Feynman Integrity
• Stephen Maurer: On the Shoulders of Giants: Colleagues Remember Suzanne Scotchmer's Contributions to Economics
• William Darity: WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City: "The New (Incorrect) Harvard/Washington Consensus on Racial Inequality..."

And Over Here:

• Live from the Orange-Haired Baboon Cage: Matthew Yglesias: IF THIS KEPT HAPPENING WITH A SEPTUAGENARIAN COLLEAGUE AT YOUR WORK: "There’d be some difficult conversations with HR..."
• Live from Timeless Coffee: Let the record show: Even though I live in what is supposed to be Avocado Toast Central, this is the first time I have ever seen the phrase "avocado toast" used non-ironically.
• Live from the Orange-Haired Baboon Cage: I endorse Duncan Black here: I am not going to ignore that this is a situation that calls for the removal of the President immediately via the Amendment 25 process. And shame on everybody else who pretends not to notice this.
• Twitter: @antonhowes, @pseudoerasmus, @Econ_Marshall, and me: MALTHUS AND SPARTA: The fact that Spartiates wanted to marry rich daughters of Spartiates meant that every generation the number Sparta could put into the hoplite phalanx shrunk by 20% or so...
• Twitter: @jbarro and @mschmitt9: OUR POLITICS IS ABOUT SMALL CONCERNS AND CONCERNS TOO BIG: "This is an excellent, challenging column. I think it's 99% right, but need aspirational element of politics, too..."
• Twitter: Ian Millhiser: THERE'S MUCH MORE OF A CONSENSUS AMONG LIBERALS: "There's much more on a consensus among liberals than among conservatives about how to interpret the Constitution. All the liberal justices believe in some version of Carolene Products plus a more expansive view of fundamental rights to accommodate Roe..."
• Must-Read: Tim Duy: KEVIN WARSH, VERY SERIOUS PERSON: "Scott Sumner is perplexed by... Kevin Warsh['s in 2010]..."
• Should-Read: Vitor Gaspar and Mercedes Garcia-Escribano: INEQUALITY: FISCAL POLICY CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE: "Income inequality among people around the world has been declining in recent decades..."
• Should-Read: Karl Smith: PAX SINICA: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?: "Most vexing is the seeming disinterest either the Chinese people or the Chinese state have for democratic reform..."
• Should-Read: Jörg Mayer: INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS AND INCLUSIVE GROWTH: "Robots are not yet suitable for a range of labour-intensive industries..."
• Should-Read: Nick Bunker: ON TWITTER: "THAT ONE IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING SHIFTED BACK!: "The Beveridge Curve is so close to its pre-recession spot..."
• Should-Read: Justin Fox: NOBEL WINNER RICHARD THALER'S SAVVY, CALCULATING INSURRECTION: "'Dumb stuff people do' was an expansion, not a rejection, of mainstream economics..."
• Should-Read: Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry: THE HYPOCRISY OF BOB CORKER: "It is well-understood that the United States, and the West in general, is in the grips of a populist insurgency that often has noxious ideas..."
• Should-Read: Michael Strain: REPUBLICANS, IT'S WAY PAST TIME FOR A REAL TAX PLAN: "The way to keep critics from assuming the worst about your intentions is to say exactly what you want to do..."
• Should-Read: Paul Krugman: RATIONALITY AND RABBIT HOLES: "Like the vast majority of economists, I was delighted to see Richard Thaler get the Nobel..."
• Should-Read: Noah Smith: DEFENDING THALER FROM THE GUERRILLA RESISTANCE: "This... by Kevin Bryan... [who] instead of explaining Thaler's research, Kevin decided to challenge it, in a rather dismissive manner..."
• Should-Read: Paul Krugman: Why Do You Care How Much Other People Work? Revisited: "Greg Leiserson has an interesting post on assessing tax reform, in which he argues that distribution tables..."

Perhaps Worth Looking at...