Month: June 2018

Links for 30th June, 2018

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  1. An interview with the truly great (and in this case, it is no exaggeration) Daniel Kahneman.
  2. A study on MISO’s (monsoon intra-seasonal oscillations). This is important for two reasons: first, it’ll help make better predictions in about five to ten years. Second, this is a second order problem. The first order problem, by implication, has been mostly solved. Or at least, that’s how I interpret it.
  3. Did you get to read the in-depth and very long article about Johnny Depp in Rolling Stone? Barry Ritholtz comes up with advice about what to not do (the best kind of advice, really) when it comes to finance.
  4. A useful read if you are a student of commodities trading. We all are commodities traders, by the way. Or should be, at any rate.
  5. Words of wisdom, as you’d expect, from Alex Tabarrok over at Marginal Revolution. Beware of the data that you don’t see.

Links for 29th June, 2018

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  1. Democracy is hard. Thinking about it is perhaps harder still. Don’t miss the other parts of what is a multi-part series.
  2. How to think about economic modeling, from the master.
  3. Europe on immigration is perhaps the most important story of the coming months, and there is, finally, surprisingly and pleasingly, room for cautious optimism.
  4. Richard Thaler would have approved of the idea, but probably not the result.
  5. Aswath Damodaran is ever so slightly sceptical about Tesla
  6. Planes, trains and automobiles in Kerala. The eponymous movie is also worth watching, by the way.
  7. A pro-demonetization story… from England.

Links for 28th June, 2018

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  1. America, Canada, Amazon and shopping. Fascinating story.
  2. The Great Game, starring Iran, America, India and what seems to be an unhealthy dose of LSD. This is going to be very, very painful.
  3. LIC as a knight in shining armour for IDBI. But this, if it goes through, is not good news for LIC in the long run (and therefore really bad news for all of us). Andy Mukherjee tells us why.
  4. Fascinating (but unsurprising) study on traffic in Delhi and Mumbai. Also, I didn’t know Uber allows you analyze its data. Very cool! Search for Uber Movements on Google.
  5. Why India’s tax compliance may not be as bad as you might think. Which is not to say that everything is hunky-dory!
  6. This may be slow reading if you don’t speak economic-ese, but it is important reading. Tirole on tech monopolies.
  7. Not for everybody, but a good read for budding macroeconomists. And here’s an exceprt I loved:

    …if you ask me, “Should I marry my friend X?” I may tell you, “No, I don’t think you are compatible, you are going to end up divorced.” But that’s a very different question from, “Should I get a divorce now that we are married and have a mortgage, three kids in school, two cars, and a dog?”

    Like it or not, we got married to the Germans, and the Germans got married to the Spaniards. We need to make this work, because breaking up now would be way too costly.

  8. It might make sense to keep an eye on emerging market currencies.

Links for 27th June, 2018

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  1. Supply and demand in solar energy installations.
  2. Benedict Evans on ways to think about machine learning
  3. Trade is a wonderful thing, but also delicate. A nice article on what Brexit could mean for Britain’s ports.
  4. A very informative (to me, at any rate) article on muslin
  5. An excellent New York Times story about public transit, grassroots campaigning and opportunity costs (at multiple levels)
  6. The other Big Bang

Links for 26th June, 2018

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  1. Via Mostly Economics, a fascinating write-up on the Sindhis of Gibraltar. You might also want to read this book on a somewhat similar theme. Mostly Economics, by the way, is a must follow blog. I found this hilarious write-up via that blog.
  2. Excellent HBR article on (or at least, that’s how I interpret it) the importance of time.
  3. Twitter as the Phoenix. Remember that that story doesn’t end.
  4. The smartest people also tend to be the loneliest ones. Or is it cities I’m talking about?
  5. The always excellent Dani Rodrik on the always excellent Santiago Levy
  6. I listened to the podcast I mentioned earlier, where Barry Ritholtz interviewed Dr. Raife Giovinazzo, and there was a lovely story towards the end about how Dr. Giovinazzo tried to short Amazon in 1998. That story is what I was reminded of when I read this article about China’s Global Energy Interconnection. A lot of people would have liked to, if they could, short China’s political system and its implications for China and the world. But as 2. above mentions, the advantage of China’s system is that of time. One drawback of democracy is that it is (very) analogous to having to meet quarterly expectations. And that has made, and is making, in China’s case, all the difference in the world.
  7. This ought to have been a no-brainer: the Economist on the need for immigration into the USA.
  8. Sri Lanka, India and China. The Great Game continues…
  9. An international perspective on the plastic menace

Links for 25th June, 2018

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  1. It’s a shame that this happened, and it’s a shame that more people aren’t aware of it. Andy Mukherjee presents a possible solution to the SGX NSE tussle.
  2. China is ahead of India in everything. Including real estate bubbles. Lessons need to be learnt.
  3. The Amazon fake review problem
  4. The very essence of Economics for Everybody.
  5. The world is (almost always) much better than we think it is

Links for 24th June, 2018

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  1. Incentives matter.
  2. Add this to the never ending list.
  3. The great game is afoot, an update
  4. This reminded me of exams, invigilation, and copying. Long read, but entirely worth it.
  5. On the psychology of money. Great read.
  6. Great question, so long as one is not domain dependent.
  7. This was… startling.
  8. On mistakes. The best way to learn.

Links for 22nd June 2018

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  1. How to judge if something is well written, and how to write well yourself. I really struggle at this. I found the pop-up on the left of this website truly irritating, and apologies if you do as well. Reading articles like these usually depresses me more than anything else, but for what it’s worth.
  2. I haven’t heard this podcast myself just yet, but it is certainly going up on the list.
  3. Mostly Economics is compulsory reading, and the blog alerts us to trouble with one of our neighbours
  4. Personally, I find that the third method in this article is the most appealing, least dangerous, and the one that unlocks most options.
  5. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Guess who’s beginning to agree.
  6. This is worth reading in its entirety. Also, following @teslacharts on Twitter is a good idea.
  7. If it starts to rain… like, pour… you’ll slow the car down, right? Right?
  8. Knock yourself out.

Links for 21st June, 2018

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  1. Atul Gawande on inequality and all of it’s implications. On inequality and (some) of its causes. On inequality, and the machinations by which it changes.
  2. More on Madagascar. When is a monarchy (maybe) a good idea?
  3. In case you haven’t heard of Godwin’s law.
  4. As an economist, this is not surprising. As a student of economics, this is illuminating.
  5. Apple, economics, politics and diplomacy.
  6. More news on Gawande, and maybe less inequality in health? Atul Gawande, by the way, is definitely worth reading.

Links for 20th June 2018

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  1. Hal Brands writing about what he knows best. But a note of (is that the word I’m looking for?) optimism:

    Passionate hate (by nations and individuals), ends by rotation to another subject of hate; mediocrity cannot handle more than one enemy. This makes warring statelings with shifting alliances and enmities a robust system

    That is from The Bed of Procrustes, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

  2. They don’t use words to illuminate the complexity of reality; they use words to eradicate the complexity of reality.
  3. Michael Schuman on where China went wrong, from America’s viewpoint. The Chinese will likely take literally the opposite viewpoint, and therein lies the problem. Speaking of Michael Schuman, have you read The Miracle: The Epic Story of Asia’s Quest for Wealth?
  4. Meanwhile, on the home front…
    Tariff time!
    Boardroom machinations aren’t always a bad thing
    Flights of fancy
  5. That this needs to be said is frustrating, but for what its worth: on the benefits of immigration. A contrarian viewpoint, and a nuanced one, via Marginal Revolution (which is mandatory daily reading).
  6. On Madagascar, a story worth following (it is a depressing one, though).
  7. Your long read for the day. Richard Thaler’s Nobel Prize lecture. That is via The Conversable Economist, another blog eminently worth following.
  8. On tasks Sisyphean