Tuesday assorted links

1. The penis-shaped ice rink culture that is Russia.

2. The Economist on Peter Chang and the revolution in Chinese cuisine.  Price variability is rising in the Chinese cuisine market.

3. Dylan Matthews favorite social science studies of the decade.

4. “Impact funds earn 4.7 percentage points (ppts) lower IRRs ex post than traditional VC funds.”

5. Arnold Kling’s books of the year.  And Scott Sumner responds to me on national security and trade.

6. “Relative to low-income households, high-income households enjoy 40 percent higher utility per dollar expenditure in wealthy cities, relative to poor cities. Similar patterns are observed across stores in different neighborhoods. Most of this variation is explained by differences in the product assortment offered, rather than the relative prices charged, by chains that operate in different markets.”  Link here.