Emergent Ventures Africa and Caribbean, fifth cohort

by  Tyler Cowen

Mwigereri Dorcas, Kenya, for research using machine learning techniques for solar energy distribution optimization.

Mmesomachi Nwachukwu, Nigeria, to support the Special Maths Academy which prepares teams for competitions including the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Mohamed Haoussa, Senegal, for the Pan-African Robotics Competition in Dakar which has had over 2800 participants from middle school to university from 37 countries since inception.

Santiago Eyama, Equatorial Guinea, to support the production of YouTube videos on life and society in his country.

John Anthony Francois, St. Lucia/California, PhD Candidate at Stanford, to support his research on Immune Checkpoint Blockade.

Caroline Ochieng, Kenya, PhD candidate at Jomo Kenyatta University, for research into the molecular characterization and transmission dynamics of Chikungunya and Dengue viruses.

Mohamed Diouf, Senegal, for his startup idea of doing merchandise loans (instead of money) to small scale vendors in West Africa.

Kemar Stuart, Barbados, for the production of YouTube videos on Caribbean politics.

Tyrique King, UAE/UK, for developing an AI coding instructor which can train and upskill talent without prior coding experience within 100 days in Africa.

Kurtis Lockhart, US/Tanzania, for developing an economics focused degree program in Zanzibar.

Daniel Alabi, Nigeria/US, Postdoc CS researcher at Columbia University, for Naija Coder, a summer program teaching Nigerian high school students computer science in Abuja and Lagos.

Joshua Walcott, Trinidad/Poland, University lecturer in politics in Poland, for research and writing on existential risk and Caribbean geopolitics.

Nikita Greenidge, St. Lucia/UK, PhD candidate at University of Leeds, for research on surgical robotics.

Masahiro Kubo, PhD candidate at Brown University, for research on how Catholic missionary work contributed significantly to the accumulation of human capital in Africa.

Fiona Moejes, to assist the Mawazo Institute based in Kenya, which supports early-career female scholars and thought leaders in Africa.

Tobi Lawson, Nigeria, to assist in the production of the Ideas Untapped substack and podcast focused on African development.

Samukai Sarnor, Liberia, for research focused on monetary policy in Liberia.

Chipo Muwowo, Zambia/UK, for Capital Markets Africa, a subtack and podcast focused on listed companies and the regulatory environment for finance in Africa.

Peter Courtney, South Africa/Netherlands, PhD candidate at Stellenbosch University, for research on implementing Georgist land value policies in Africa.

Led by the excellent Rasheed Griffith.

Free Trade with Free Nations

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Alec Stapp points out that Canada is the only NATO country that has a free trade agreement with the United States. That’s quite remarkable if you think about it. NATO allies are bound by mutual defense commitments, support for military cooperation, and a dedication to democratic principles. Despite these shared commitments, the U.S. still enforces tariffs and quotas on our NATO allies including France, Germany, the UK, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain. This is like getting married and not having a joint checking account. If they are good enough partners to commit to their defense then surely NATO allies are good enough partners to commit to free trade?

Free trade enhances the economic strength of countries, thus free trade should be a strategic asset in self-defense. Let’s be rich and safe together.

There are many reasons to have free trade agreements with countries that we don’t have a defense pact with but free trade with free nations should be a minimum standard. It’s not just the United States, of course, NATO allies don’t all have free trade agreements with fellow NATO members. So how about a North-Atlantic Trade Organization? You could call it NATO for short.

Restriction of output for me, but not for thee?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Is this ultimately an issue of women not always wanting to serve immigrants?

The decline in labor’s share of national income

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:

There is some bad news afoot for workers. Labor’s share of the US gross domestic product has been falling for a long time, by seven percentage points since World War II. The labor share for 2022 — depending on exactly which measure is used, it comes in at slightly more than 60% — is the lowest measured since 1929.

And it’s not just America. Globally, the labor share, which is the fraction of an economy’s output that goes to workers, has declined by six percentage points since 1980. The numbers suggest that the share of labor is declining in 13 of the 16 wealthiest countries in the world.

Note that is a share, and very often real wages still are rising.  Still, why this regularity?

One possible explanation for labor’s declining share is simply that the cost of capital has been falling for decades in most countries. That development benefits capital income very directly: It’s cheaper to raise capital, which benefits workers only indirectly. Of course, with real interest rates higher recently, it will be possible to test whether the labor share of income will make a comeback. In any case, this stands as one of the most plausible hypotheses.

Globalization and automation are two other trends that may have made labor markets more competitive, at least as compared to capital markets. Yet it is not obvious why those forces would lower labor returns more than capital returns. Is labor more mobile internationally than capital? Even if you think US companies have benefited from buying cheap manufactured goods from China and then reselling them at the expense of US workers, that doesn’t explain why labor’s declining share has been so widespread across countries and decades. If globalization were the culprit, labor’s share should be rising in China and other major exporting countries — but the opposite is true.

There is much more at the link.  And I do recommend this Karabarbounis piece from the latest JEP on these topics.

Monday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. U.S. foreign aid allocation across nations, based on one specific measure of foreign aid.

2. Singapore writers don’t want the government to train an AI on their work.

3. Most rapidly-selling British novels of the 19th century.

4. Will building companies in the AI era become more expensive because of the Jevons paradox?

5. The rise in reported maternal mortality rates in the US is largely due to a change in measurement.

6. Predicting police misconduct — evidence for the bad apples theory?

7. More evidence for mental health interventions in poorer countries.

The reserve currency and the liquidity demand for safe assets

by  Tyler Cowen in

I propose a dynamic model of the reserve currency paradigm that centers on the liquidity demand for safe assets. In global recessions, the demand for the U.S. safe bond increases and raises its convenience yield, giving rise to a stronger dollar and a countercyclical seigniorage revenue. The seigniorage revenue raises the U.S. wealth and consumption shares in recessions, despite the U.S. suffering portfolio losses from its external positions. This asset demand channel also connects exchange rate dynamics to the marginal utility over bond holding, which provides new perspectives on exchange rate disconnect and on the relationship between exchange rates and capital flows. Under this safe-asset view, exorbitant privilege does not require exorbitant duty.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Zhengyang Jiang.  And here is some relevant data on the increase in dollar holdings around the globe.

Organize your life?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Ben Lang didn’t expect to get so much hate just for being organized. For the past three years, he and his wife, Karen-Lynn Amouyal, have been using Notion, a popular software tool, to optimize their household and relationship. His version of the tool, commonly used by businesses to manage complex projects, functions like a souped-up Google Doc, with sections for a grocery list, to-do lists and details of upcoming trips.

More unusual is a section Mr. Lang, a venture capital investor who previously worked at Notion, created about principles (“what’s important to us as a couple”). Another section, called “Learnings,” outlines things the couple have discovered about each other, such as their love languages and Myers-Briggs test results. There’s a list of friends they want to set up on dates. They also maintain a log of memories from their date nights. Mr. Lang, 30, was so proud of the creation that last month, he started promoting a template of the setup to others. “My wife and I use Notion religiously to manage our day-to-day life,” he wrote on X. “I turned this into a template, let me know if you’d like to see it!”

Here is more from Erin Griffith at the NYT.

Sunday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Is it people on the Left who have a better sense for the visual arts?

2. Boat painting regulatory arbitrage?

3. The Dublin portal.

4. Gideon Lewis-Kraus samples flying cars (New Yorker).

5. The popular cover song is dead.

6. 15 percent of the Georgian population was in the streets last night.

7. Immigration and the housing crisis in Australia.

8. Autism and the internet will defeat the monoculture, by Ruxandra.

There is simply no good reason for such a ruling

by  Tyler Cowen in

A top Wall Street regulator has proposed outlawing election betting in the U.S. derivatives markets, with officials warning that the activity poses a threat to the sanctity of American elections.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is charged with regulating the vast and complex derivatives markets, voted 3-2 on Friday to issue a new rule proposal that would ban so-called event contracts that effectively act as wagers on political elections. The plan would also prohibit those contracts related to sporting events and even awards ceremonies like the Oscars.

And from the horse’s mouth:

“Contracts involving political events ultimately commoditize and degrade the integrity of the uniquely American experience of participating in the democratic electoral process,” CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam said. “Allowing these contracts would push the CFTC, a financial market regulator, into a position far beyond its Congressional mandate and expertise. To be blunt, such contracts would put the CFTC in the role of an election cop.”

Behnam was joined in supporting the proposal by fellow Democratic Commissioners Kristin Johnson and Christy Goldsmith Romero.

Here is the full Politico article.  How can you put such people in charge of things?  What else do they want to stop us from doing?  Is it so difficult for them to imagine a world where the election forecasts we can find on Predictit — among other sources — simply continue and that is perfectly fine, as it has been for years?