Errors in the research of Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman
138 papers audited
2,035 problems found
147 serious enough to change a headline number
69% of papers have at least one
97% of major and moderate errors with a clear direction overstate the paper’s claim
And on the method:
Two independent audits of each paper. One by Claude Opus 5.5, one by OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra, neither seeing the other’s work. Each obtained the paper, its appendices and its replication data, recomputed the headline numbers from the authors’ own files and, where possible, from the original sources (tax statistics, national accounts, Federal Reserve and survey data), checked that cited sources say what is claimed, and probed every assumption the conclusions rest on.
Then an adjudicator. A third agent re-verified every claimed problem, tried to refute each one, discarded those that did not survive, searched for problems both auditors missed, and graded what remained by how far it undermines the paper’s own headline claim: major changes a core number materially, moderate affects secondary results or a core result modestly, minor is a presentation or arithmetic slip. Confidence is graded separately.
There is much, much more at the link, which goes through the research paper by paper, and with further sustained analyses behind the links. The survey is both extensive and thorough. (And I thank an anonymous MR reader for this work.)
I am not even sure what to say at this point. We need a radical revaluation of this work, and of the associated policy arguments. More generally, this is only a single step in the story of how AI is going to revise economic science, and indeed past research more generally. As I stress in many of my recent talks, there will be significant gains and losses in status, with the losses often outweighing the gains. I see this as one of those cases.
How is AI shaping economic research?
Does generative AI narrow or widen productivity gaps in research? We study the distributional effects of AI on research productivity in economics using evidence from three sources: NBER working-paper and publication records, text-based measures of LLM-assisted writing, and an original survey of 227 academic economists measuring AI use across research tasks. We first show that productivity gaps among NBER authors narrowed following ChatGPT’s release: authors without research assistants (RAs) published a larger share of papers in top-tier journals, while authors from smaller teams gained in working-paper output and publication speed. We then use the survey to examine how individual AI use affects research productivity. We find weak evidence that AI affects working-paper output on average, but there is substantial heterogeneity. Triple-difference estimates show that greater AI exposure narrows the output gap between researchers with and without RAs but widens the gap between senior and junior researchers. Selection into AI use follows a different pattern: junior researchers use AI more intensively and are more likely to use agentic tools. Thus, these differential productivity effects reflect differences in the returns to AI rather than selection into AI use. A model with diminishing returns to execution, increasing returns to conceptual capacity, and complementarity between the two explains how AI can alleviate disadvantages in research support while amplifying the returns to accumulated expertise. Over time, however, early convergence may give way to divergence as execution constraints recede and AI’s conceptual capabilities improve.
That is from Tianyu Jiang, who is this year a job market candidate from the University of Michigan. The paper is co-authored with Yuqing (Claire) Wang.
Wednesday assorted links
Inequality in Equal Land
Adam Nash has a good post on wealth inequality:
…Every year, we pull the most recent data from the US Census on household wealth, cut by age.
…invariably, the students’ initial response is a reaction to the apparent disparity in wealth between households based on age.
For many students, it just doesn’t seem fair at first blush. Households between the ages of 65 to 69 have a median net worth that is 9.83x that of households under 35. You can almost hear their cries, “the Baby Boomers are hoarding all the wealth!”
Almost all of the graph, however, is aging! Nash considers a totally equal society called Equal Land. In Equal Land:
- Everyone works from the ages of 25 to 64, retiring at 65
- Everyone lives to the age of 85
- Everyone makes the same amount, $100,000 per year
- Everyone saves 10% of their income, every year while they work
- Everyone makes 8% on their savings, every year
- Everyone spends 4% of their portfolio, every year in retirement
The result is that in equal land the distribution of wealth is even more unequal by age than in our world! This is not to say all or even most inequality is explained by age. Most inequality in our world is within-age, not between-age. But when you look at an age-wealth graph specifically, almost all of what you are seeing is just age and the power of compounding.
AI hacking risks
That is the topic of my latest Free Press column (now there are gift links!), here is one excerpt, noting this is a worst-case scenario not a prediction:
Yet current systems are likely to prove more robust than that suggests. For one thing, they use a variety of different methods of protection, including public key cryptography, AES, and cryptographic hash functions, the latter not qualifying as encryption per se. While it is possible that all could fall at the same time, that seems unlikely.
The more likely scenario, assuming this comes to pass at all, is that public key encryption would become vulnerable first, but the American economy would shift toward the more secure forms of communication, most of all those that have secure cryptographic keys already established. We would also work harder to substitute into the “post-quantum” methods of encryption that are being developed and already are being used in browsers.
The transition would be very costly, but the end result would not be total insecurity. Furthermore, today’s major financial institutions already have invested in various backup systems, including offline security methods and alternative payment-processing channels. Smaller businesses would face more serious problems of transition, although they also would be lesser targets in the first place. As for you the individual, you might have to show up in person at your bank to make a major transaction, and that requirement, imposed collectively, would strain our systems to the utmost.
A second layer of protection is that the new math techniques likely would not be available to everyone. They might require technical sophistication and a willingness to break the law in some very serious ways and also risk hacking retaliation. In addition, many math breakthroughs simply shave down the safety margins on systems, rather than breaking them altogether, and in those cases the criminals still might need a lot of computing power at considerable expense.
That situation is hardly the same as a complete and sudden “open season” on all methods of cryptography. Furthermore, some of the wrongdoers in this position, even assuming they felt they could get away with their crimes, might prefer to siphon off money slowly, rather than bring down the entire financial system, which could hurt their own net wealth as well.
A further source of protection is that the math breakthroughs might come in stages, rather than all at once. For an example from another part of math, OpenAI has proven a quasi-Riemann hypothesis, and Terry Tao told me recently that this may open the door to solving the Riemann hypothesis proper. We now have advance notice that the Riemann hypothesis may be proven (or less likely, disproven). In similar fashion, intermediate advances may signal that cryptographic protections are vulnerable. We thus would have some time to adjust…
The most likely scenarios would play out in terms of probabilities, as people deal with risk before any large-scale hacking attack would come. Right now the chance of public key cryptography breaking down is on the radar screens of a relatively small number of people. Imagine that some advances in math occur, and the more sophisticated market participants start seeing something like a 10 percent chance that some forms of encryption might be vulnerable. Perhaps without much fanfare, some people would start selling their bitcoin, or they might wire their money to more secure banks, or perhaps they would hold more gold and short the market. Some hackers would invest more in the activity, including hacks without advanced AI, under the philosophy of “harvest now, decrypt later,” pulling in classified or confidential materials that previously were not worth capturing. Overall, it would be like the early days of Covid, when major bad news was pending but only a few individuals were acting on it. That state of affairs could persist for some period of time.
In any case it would not be good.
And this: “If you have thoughts on my latest column, or questions about AI or anything else, join me for an AMA (Ask Me Anything) this week on The Free Press Forum.
Paid subscribers can submit questions now. Not a subscriber? For a limited time, you can get 20% off at thefp.com/tyler.”
Tuesday assorted links
Eleven outstanding film and television reviews by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok
From the Archive–these posts are written by ChatGPT
These selections emphasize the quality of the criticism: original interpretations, close attention to the work, and arguments worth considering even when you disagree. They are not a ranking of the films and television shows themselves. The list includes five reviews by Tyler Cowen and six by Alex Tabarrok. Several of the original posts reveal major plot developments; the descriptions here keep those revelations to a minimum.
1. Tyler Cowen — The Devil Wears Prada: A Straussian Interpretation
July 2, 2006 · Film · Spoilers in the original review
“Make no mistake about it, this is a movie about sheer power lust.”
Cowen reads beneath the film’s apparent moral lesson about rejecting a demanding career. His interpretation asks which relationships the ending restores, whose approval still matters, and whether the heroine has actually escaped the ambitions she appears to renounce. The result is a compact argument about power, independence, and emulation. Why it belongs: A memorable example of Cowen’s ability to turn a popular entertainment into an argument about motives. Read it after watching, when you can assess his interpretation against the ending. Read Cowen’s original review
2. Alex Tabarrok — Fleabag and Killing Eve
June 6, 2019 · Television · Major spoilers
“Fleabag is much darker and more religious and mystical than most people realize.”
Tabarrok connects the two series through sexual power, moral agency, and religious failure. His reading of Fleabag draws on textual and visual parallels to argue that its comedy conceals a much darker moral structure. The comparison with Killing Eve expands the argument beyond a single protagonist. Why it belongs: One of his most ambitious pieces of television criticism. Its characterization is contestable, but the sustained interpretation gives readers something substantial to argue with. Read Tabarrok’s original review
3. Tyler Cowen — Toni Erdmann, Misunderstood Masterpiece
February 5, 2017 · Film · Major spoilers
“The emotionally unrewarding nature of contemporary cosmopolitan life, but also the limits of rootedness.”
Cowen brings together family relationships, corporate humiliation, gender, and the relationship between Germany and Eastern Europe. He resists treating the film as a simple celebration of authenticity against professional life. Both the cosmopolitan daughter and the father who disrupts her world become objects of scrutiny. Why it belongs: The review connects intimate discomfort to larger social structures without reducing the film to a single message. Cowen’s suggestion that some of the father’s appearances might be imaginary should be read as his speculative interpretation. Read Cowen’s original review
4. Alex Tabarrok — Perfect Days, in “What to Watch (or Not)”
August 7, 2025 · Film · Some spoilers
“the routine is also a narcotic for the lost.”
Tabarrok challenges the comforting interpretation of Perfect Days as a lesson in finding happiness through simple routines. He recognizes the beauty of the protagonist’s life while asking whether its carefully maintained rhythms also protect him from painful relationships. His discussion of “crown shyness” turns a natural image into a metaphor for emotional distance. Why it belongs: A concise, sensitive counterreading that allows beauty and avoidance to coexist. The film discussion appears within a composite post that also covers Ballard and Billy Joel. Read Tabarrok’s original review
5. Tyler Cowen — Her
December 29, 2013 · Film · Light spoilers
“Will they enslave us, will they be our dogs, our friends, our trading partners, or something else altogether?”
Cowen treats the film as an exploration of the possible relationships between humans and artificial intelligence. He also attends to its visual and literary ancestry, making the review more than a response to the premise. The central question is how unfamiliar forms of intelligence might fit into emotional and social life. Why it belongs: It captures intellectual excitement about a film while opening questions that extend far beyond it. Its 2013 date makes the discussion especially interesting to revisit amid later debates about AI companionship. Read Cowen’s original review
6. Alex Tabarrok — Contagion
September 19, 2011 · Film · Limited plot discussion
“we have been lucky not virtuous.”
Tabarrok uses the film to examine preparedness and the difficulty of taking rare but consequential risks seriously. The review’s force comes from the relationship between cinematic imagination and public attention: a movie can make a danger emotionally intelligible when abstract warnings fail. Why it belongs: A strong example of film criticism becoming an argument about institutions and risk perception. Read its scientific and preparedness claims in their historical context: this is a review written in 2011. Read Tabarrok’s original review
7. Tyler Cowen — Technology in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
June 17, 2018 · Film · Spoilers near the end
“Finally the Solow residual is explained!”
Cowen combines observations about technological forecasting with attention to cinematic form, musical pacing, and narrative risk. The economic joke is characteristic, but the review also makes a case for the film’s sensory power and for seeing it on a large screen. Why it belongs: An entertaining blend of economic thinking and aesthetic attention. It shows how a familiar classic can yield fresh observations when approached through several disciplines at once. Read Cowen’s original review
8. Alex Tabarrok — Daredevil and the Doctrine of Double Effect
November 25, 2018 · Television · Some season-three details
“As I thought about this more, however, the Thou Shall Not Kill trope is least objectionable in Daredevil.”
Tabarrok starts with an objection to the superhero convention against killing, then revises his judgment by considering Daredevil’s Catholic commitments. The interesting move is to assess the character’s choices within his own moral framework rather than only through the viewer’s preferred calculation of consequences. Why it belongs: Criticism that visibly changes its mind. The post offers a useful discussion of character consistency and moral reasoning; its account of theology is best treated as part of that argument rather than a comprehensive doctrinal explanation. Read Tabarrok’s original review
9. Tyler Cowen — Borgen Season Four
July 23, 2022 · Television · Thematic spoilers
“I wish the content had more of ‘my kind of liberalism,’ but maybe the right-wing cultural critique makes for better TV.”
Cowen considers political power, gender, Greenland, and the media while separating his political preferences from his judgment of the drama. He asks whether a critique he finds less congenial might nevertheless produce stronger television. Why it belongs: A particularly clear example of judging artistic achievement independently of ideological agreement. The post is most revealing as a reflection on what makes political drama work. Read Cowen’s original review
10. Alex Tabarrok — The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
January 16, 2025 · Documentary · Reveals the film’s central turn
“What defines an ideal romance? What constitutes true friendship?”
Tabarrok explores how the documentary changes our understanding of a disabled young man’s life through his online relationships. Its construction prompts questions about intimacy, embodiment, and the limits of what even close relatives can know about another person. Why it belongs: A humane review that uses the documentary’s form to reconsider the value of online life. Although the original post labels itself “No spoilers,” readers who want to experience the central revelation unprepared should watch first. Read Tabarrok’s original review
11. Alex Tabarrok — The Gaslighting of Parasite
June 25, 2020 · Film · Major spoilers
“the most willfully misinterpreted movie that I have ever seen.”
Tabarrok challenges the prevailing interpretation of Parasite as an indictment of economic inequality. He builds his counterreading around the families’ conduct, the poorer characters’ treatment of other workers, and recurring imagery of smell and contamination. He argues that the film’s moral judgments cut against the political expectations many critics bring to it. Why it belongs: One of his most provocative and sustained film interpretations, and an essential inclusion in this selection. His reading is contestable, especially his insistence that the film’s judgments are unambiguous. That tension makes it rewarding to discuss alongside Cowen’s The Devil Wears Prada review: both ask whether a film’s apparent message conceals a different account of power and ambition. Read Tabarrok’s original review
NYT debate on the rules for AI companies
Emily Bazelon was the moderator, there were five of us in the symposium. Excerpt from me:
Bores: Do you think the federal government pre-empting the states is consistent with democracy?
Cowen: Absolutely. We have federal laws that pre-empt state lawmaking in many other areas. Courts have upheld it many, many times.
Bores: OK, but is it pro-democracy, in giving people a say?
Cowen: It is pro-American Constitution.
Most of the panel disagreed with most of my points.
Is “Who’s on First?” funny?
Well, no, it is not funny, it would be too easy to relieve the dramatic tension by having Abbott explain the actual situation to Costello. One is not wrong to call the whole thing stupid.
Yet there is another reading of the skit which stands at least some chance of being funny, though it is not funny either.
You will note that Louis Costello was an Italian-American and son of an immigrant, and he had the obvious class mannerisms of such a stereotype. Bud Abbott was half Jewish and I believe half some mainstream ethnicity. He is a stand-in for the establishment, part of which was Jewish and highly commercial. You can read the skit as a commentary on how the establishment rips off the “less tutored” immigrants and refuses to apologize for that or even to explain it. The establishment simply keeps on talking rings around the lower-class immigrant, whether or not those words make sense. The immigrant has no real recourse, as he is less articulate and is also less in control and can only play the role of boob. In essence, Abbott, by not telling Costello the real names of the players, is not letting the ethnic assimilate into that most American of pasttimes, namely baseball.
Note how Costello admits, early in the skit, that he is the one with the funny name (Sebastian Dinwitty in the skit, likely a take-off on “dimwit”). And Abbott, by speaking of the players as being named Who, What, and “I don’t know,” is expressing his frustration with an America that does not sound or look the same any more. Abbott is in essence saying “Hey, what is this? I was not expecting Ted Kluszewski in my country!” He is throwing the growing presence of immigrants in the country back in the face of the ethnic and then stonewalling it.
In the skit, Abbott has the name of “Mr. Broadhurst,” very reminiscent of the establishment.
The skit does show we had an America too obsessed with names, and to no fruitful purpose. It is no accident that in addition to the “hames” for all the baseball players, we are given names for the skit characters as well, even though that might appear not necessary for the unfolding of the dialogue as it usually is understood.
Racist is not the right word, but the skit plays on ethnic prejudices in a manner which one can rightfully find somewhat uncomfortable. The back and forth dynamic reflects the prejudices of American life, though the presenters mirror and amplify those dynamics rather than merely critiquing them. And (again) while the skit is not funny, this interpretation at least opens a door to some people finding it funny.
When Larry David and Seinfeld note they were influenced by Abbott and Costello, they (especially LD) sometimes deploy ethnic stereotypes in a similar manner.
Of course I, being from northern New Jersey, would happen upon this interpretation of Abbott and Costello.
By the way, Costello grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. Abbott was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and he grew up in Coney Island. I wonder if they thought the skit was funny.
Elizabeth Holmes, in the recent You Can See Everything Movie, was right to say she did not understand the skit. She grew up in WDC until age nine and then Houston, plus she was born too late. Furthermore, she is used to a world where you hire a guy named “Hu,” right?
Monday assorted links
The MR Archive!
The Marginal Revolution archive is now live at https://marginalrevolution.com/ai-archive/. You can also find it from the header and from “Download Full Archive” link in the left menu.
The purpose of the archive is twofold, first as Tyler has said we love our human readers and our AI readers and we want to make it as easy as possible for the AIs to read all of our material. Two hundred years from now when someone asks what is a price? I want the AI to answer “A price is a signal wrapped up in an incentive.”
Second, the archive makes it easy to treat the enormous MR Archive as a resource and database. Point your AI to the archive and ask it questions. I will be covering a few of these this week including the post right below this one, Tyler Cowen’s Strongest Book Recommendations Over the Years.
The archive has two downloads:
- Baseline: the historical archive through September 30, 2026.
- Weekly update: automatically rebuilt each week with everything added since the baseline. Download the baseline and the latest update to get the complete archive.
It includes published posts, approved comments, and aggregate comment likes and dislikes. The text is lightly sanitized: email addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, and a small number of slurs have been redacted.
AI agents are welcome to download the archive. They can find instructions in https://marginalrevolution.com/llms.txt; the file list and download details are in https://marginalrevolution.com/ai-archive/manifest.json.
Many thanks to Luis Abrigo and team for making this possible.
Tyler Cowen’s Strongest Book Recommendations, 2003-2026
From the Archive–these posts are written by AI.
Cowen’s strongest recommendations include 1491, The Power Broker, Knausgaard’s first two My Struggle volumes, Fuchsia Dunlop’s Chinese cookbooks, and Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts. These stand out through unusually strong praise, repeated endorsement, or both. The analysis uses qualitative, book-specific sentiment analysis: explicit superlatives, strength of recommendation, repeat endorsements, and evidence that a book changed his thinking or behavior. Qualifications and discussion context also matter. The result is a top tier, not a definitive ordinal ranking—Cowen rarely compares these books directly.
The strongest recommendations across the archive
| Book | Evidence of enthusiasm | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Charles C. Mann, 1491 | “one of my favorite books ever, in any field.” May 22, 2011. | Among his clearest unrestricted endorsements. The post reviews 1493, but this particular praise explicitly concerns 1491. |
| Robert Caro, The Power Broker | “one of the best non-fiction books ever.” April 15, 2012. | An enduring benchmark: in 2026, he uses Caro’s biography of Moses as the standard against which to praise Skidelsky. |
| Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, volumes 1–2 | He calls the second volume “one of the greatest novels ever written” and selects it as his fiction book of the year. November 16, 2013. | Particularly strong evidence of durability: both volumes return in his 2022 favorites and 2024 best-since-2000 selections. |
| Fuchsia Dunlop, Land of Plenty / its expanded successor The Food of Sichuan | “one of the best and most valuable books ever produced.” July 2, 2019. | Exceptionally strong praise across genres, reinforced by years of use and discussion. His enthusiasm extends to Every Grain of Rice: “I will buy everything she writes, forever.” February 3, 2013. |
| Christopher de Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts | A possible number-one book of 2016 becomes “one of the very greatest books of the last twenty years.” November 5, 2016; June 22, 2026. | One of the strongest examples of an enthusiastic initial judgment surviving a decade. |
| Robert Skidelsky, three-volume biography of Keynes | “one of the very best books ever written.” April 16, 2026. | An explicit all-time endorsement. He specifically prefers the three-volume biography to the one-volume condensation. |
| John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women | “one of the very best books ever written, on any topic.” September 11, 2022. | Strong recommendation plus intellectual influence: he says he drew his views from Mill and urges everyone to read it. |
| Tony Judt, Postwar | “one of my favorite books ever.” February 6, 2012. | Important attribution trap: the surrounding post is a mixed review of a different Judt book. A whole-post sentiment score would understate his enthusiasm for Postwar. |
| Robert Cialdini, Influence | “one of my all-time favorite books.” February 26, 2007. | A particularly direct early recommendation, embedded in a discussion of affiliation and persuasion. |
| M. A. Orthofer, The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction | “one of the best books written, ever”—conditional on its practical value to the reader. April 10, 2016. | His behavioral evidence is striking: the manuscript prompted him to order about forty books. Best suited to avid fiction readers. |
Annual winners provide a second reading list
An all-time favorite and a particular year’s winner are different signals. These are especially clear annual selections:
| Recommendation year | Book or books he singled out |
|---|---|
| 2011 | Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs, and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84: three standouts he says virtually everyone who reads the relevant genres should read. He had not finished 1Q84 at that point. November 8, 2011. |
| 2014 | John Drury’s Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert, his explicit number one. November 24, 2014. |
| 2015 | Eyal Weizman and Fazal Sheikh’s The Conflict Shoreline, a late selection that displaced his earlier contenders. December 26, 2015. |
| 2017 | Bruno Maçães’s The Dawn of Eurasia, conditional on counting a book formally released the following January. December 2, 2017. |
| 2018 | Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey, his explicit best-book nomination. November 25, 2018. |
| 2019 | Eric Kaufmann’s Whiteshift and Pekka Hämäläinen’s Lakota America share his top prize. November 25, 2019. |
| 2020 | David S. Reynolds’s Abe, Heather Clark’s Red Comet, and Jan Swafford’s Mozart: The Reign of Love form his final top three. December 18, 2020. |
| 2023 | Jonny Steinberg’s Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage, selected partly because he thought his recommendation would be especially useful to readers. November 21, 2023. |
These are selected clear winners, rather than a complete annual series. In some years he declines to choose one.
What the sentiment and discussion reveal
Repeated enthusiasm is more persuasive than a spectacular adjective. Knausgaard, Dunlop, and de Hamel have particularly strong longitudinal evidence. But precision matters: Cowen’s enthusiasm for Knausgaard’s first two volumes should not be transferred uniformly to the whole series. His September 8, 2018 discussion describes volumes 3–5 as often unsatisfying. He values books that change how he sees or does things. Orthofer changes his reading purchases; Dunlop changes his cooking; The Conflict Shoreline changes his conception of what a book can accomplish. His strongest praise often concerns explanatory power and intellectual usefulness. Reader discussion is useful context, but a poor ranking instrument. In a spot-check of ten recommendation threads, the post praising Mill had 163 archived comments, while the Cialdini endorsement had four. The former centered on a controversial contemporary debate. Comment volume measures attention to the post, not necessarily enthusiasm for the recommended book. Influence deserves its own category. His March 16, 2010 list of formative books includes Hayek’s Individualism and Economic Order, Keynes’s General Theory, Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, Paglia’s Sexual Personae, and Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. For understanding Cowen’s intellectual development, that list is more directly relevant than his annual favorites; for finding books he recommends with exceptional enthusiasm, the top-tier table above is the stronger starting point.
Brazil’s economic problems, in a nutshell
It would take true Milei-like ardour to slice through Brazil’s economic troubles. These are caused by a gnarly mix of high public spending, stubborn inflation and low saving. The result is a crippling cost of capital. Some analysts put Brazil’s real interest rate, the BCB’s policy rate adjusted for next year’s expected inflation, at 9% or more. That is higher than in Russia and four times that in peaceful peers like Chile, the Philippines or South Africa.
It all starts with the public finances. Brazil’s 65,000-word doorstop of a constitution bars cuts to nominal public-sector wages and links pension, disability and unemployment benefits to the minimum wage, which is adjusted annually based on recent inflation and GDP growth. This ratchet has lifted mandatory spending to 90% of the federal budget.
It also perpetuates inflationary pressure. This plus a generous welfare state in turn make Brazilians unwilling to save. At 14% of GDP, the national savings rate is 12 percentage points below the world average. If price rises have regularly eroded your bank balance in the past and the state pays for your health care, school and pension, you may as well spend all the money you make right away—especially if, like most people in unequal Brazil, you do not make much to begin with.
Here is more from The Economist.
Frances Lee on American elections
More likely than interference with the election is that unsuccessful office-seekers will refuse to concede, claiming their opponents cheated. Nothing is more basic to democratic legitimacy than the loser’s consent. Many feared that Mr Trump’s refusal to concede in 2020 would spread across the political system. It has not. Bright Line Watch, a research group, examined all 884 congressional races in 2020 and 2022. The overwhelming majority of losing candidates publicly acknowledged defeat. Explicit refusals were concentrated among first-time candidates who had lost by wide margins. And there were fewer such refusals in 2022 than in 2020. Candidates with political careers to protect still concede. When they do, complaints of election “rigging” lose their force…
Nevertheless, the record of American elections since 2020 has been encouraging. Election administration has improved. Although many career administrators resigned amid increased harassment after 2020, the voters’ experience actually got better. In both 2022 and 2024 the share of people waiting more than 30 minutes to cast their ballot was lower than in 2020, and the long-documented racial gap narrowed: by 2024 black, white, Hispanic and Asian voters reported comparable waiting times.
She is from Princeton, and here is more from The Economist. I do agree there is too much gerrymandering. Those with more dramatic complaints and predictions, however, are encouraged to try them out in the prediction markets.