- On economic efficiency, and what’s better, on learning more about coffee.
- I’d suggest a large mug of coffee and at least an hour to read this article. Take your time, and maybe read it more than once. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, pay attention to this excerpt, make sure you understand it, and read the whole thing again:
A distributor in a zero-sum competition for subscribers (like AT&T) has a vertical business model: ideally there should be services and content that are exclusive to the distributor, thus securing customers. Time Warner, though, is a content company, which means it has a horizontal business model: content is made once and then monetized across the broadest set of potential customers possible, taking advantage of content’s zero marginal cost.
- Every now and then, I think “the dismal science” to be an understatement. Today is one of those days. Yes, incentives matter. And sometimes, that turns out to be a really bad thing.
Yet, Trump’s behavior is easy to explain. If word gets out that children are forcibly taken from their parents, many will stop trying to get in.
Tyler Cowen adds points worth thinking about.
- We’re, um, behind the curve. To put it mildly.
- This story doesn’t have a happy ending. Can all clouds have a silver lining?
- A useful article to read about current fears in America about inflation. But also read this article to help you understand how one should think about inflation in general.
- Nobody builds better, more intuitive economic models than Paul Krugman, and what’s better, nobody translates models into understandable English as well as he does.
