How to do regulatory reform (from my email)

by  Tyler Cowen in

“Philip Howard here.  I enjoyed your discussion with Jen Pahlka.  Here are a few notes:

1. This current system needs disrupting, but I fear DOGEs indiscriminate cuts are making the status quo look good.    Here’s Peter Drucker, criticizing Gore’s reinventing got:  “patching.  It always fails.  The next step is to rush into downsizing.  Management picks up a meat-ax and lays about indiscriminately.  …amputation before diagnosis.”  (from Management, revised ed).

2. Most of the newcomers to the realization that govt is paralyzed (Ezra Klein, Dunkelman etc)  think that the red tape jungle can be pruned, or organized with better feedback loops (Pahlka).   This is falling into Gore’s pit.    There’s a fatal defect:  the operating system is designed around legal compliance–instead of human authority to make tradeoff judgments.   Law should be a framework setting the boundaries of authority, not a checklist.     That’s why some reforms I championed (page limits, time limits) haven’t worked; there’s always another legal tripwire.  I describe what a new framework should look like in this recent essay.  https://manhattan.institute/article/escape-from-quicksand-a-new-framework-for-modernizing-america

3.  Public unions:  Democracy loses its link to voters–quite literally–if elected executives lack managerial authority.   The main tools of management– accountability, resource allocation, and daily direction–have been either removed by union controls or are subject to union veto.   Government is more like a scrum than a purposeful organization.  There’s a core constitutional principle –private nondelegation–that prevents elected officials from ceding their governing responsibility to private groups. Stone v Mississippi:  “The power of governing is a trust…, no part of which can be granted away.”   That’s the basis of the constitutional challenge we’re organizing.   The Trump admin could transform state and local govt by invoking this principle.

Fwiw, I see these points– authority to make tradeoff judgments, authority to manage— as microeconomic necessities, not policy positions.  Nothing can work sensibly until people are free to make things work.   We’re organizing a forum at Columbia Law School, The Day After Doge, on the morning of April 23.  Here’s the lineup.  https://www.commongood.org/the-day-after-doge.  Let me know if you’d like to weigh in.”

I never knew Joseph Smith ran for President

by  Tyler Cowen in

Eventually, Smith declared himself a candidate for the White House.  His proposed platform was an awkward conglomeration of popular, though incongruent, principles including restoring the national bank, cutting Congress members’ salaries, annexing Texas, and instituting the gradual abolition of slavery.  Hundreds of Mormon men, including Brigham Young, swarmed the nation campaigning for their prophet to become president.

That is from the new and excellent Benjamin E. Park, American Zion: A New History of Mormonism.  An excellent book, good enough to make the year’s best non-fiction list.

I also learned recently (from Utah, not from this book) that early Mormons would drink alcohol and “Brigham Young even operated a commercial distillery east of Salt Lake City, and his southern‐Utah “Dixie Wine Mission” (1860s‑80s) was organized to supply sacramental, medicinal, and commercial wine for the territory.”  By the time Prohibition rolled around, however, Mormons were close to completely “dry.”

Markets expand to fill empty spaces

by  Tyler Cowen in

How does a start-up founder hire a software engineer or a tech worker find a date in 2025? They could share a job posting on LinkedIn, log on to a dating app — or leave a handwritten note in a Waymo.

That’s what Influur CEO Alessandra Angelini was thinking when she and Jennifer Lo Chan, Influur’s head of marketing, tucked a piece of paper into a self-driving taxi’s center console on a recent trip to San Francisco.

“Looking to hire senior software engineers to work on AI/music project,” said the note, a retro touch in a futuristic setting, with the company’s website and Angelini’s email scrawled below. That same day, another Waymo rider snapped a photo of the note and posted it on the social media platform X, where it has been reshared nearly 200 times, received more than 4,000 likes and more than 300,000 views…

A few days later, another handwritten ad found in a Waymo was shared on X from a single man looking for a date. The bachelor described himself as a 26-year-old who works in tech but “doesn’t make it my whole personality” and left a phone number for interested parties to text. The post has gotten more than 200 replies.

Here is more from Lisa Bonos at The Washington Post.

Problems in Treasury markets (from my email)

by  Tyler Cowen in

Max writes to me:

“Hope you’re doing well. And the craziness in the world hasn’t been affecting you too much. I know I’ve written to you about cash-treasury basis a couple of times over the years. The situation has unfortunately become somewhat more acute and has started to get wider media attention.

There are some good accounts of the issue in the media, by Matt Levine for example But, there are a few things being missed even in high quality media accounts:

  • The issue is now a global one, which has not been the case historically. German bunds now trade at a negative swap spread (the yield on cash bonds is higher than on similar tenor swaps). This is a fairly recent development. It suggests the problem has shifted from being primarily a  shortage of USD cash (though that is still true to a significant degree), to a global oversupply of longer dated bonds.
  • A crunch in repo funding does not seem to be primarily responsible here. Balance sheet efficient methods of intermediating repo (sponsored repo) are more available now than they have been in the past. And they haven’t solved the problem.
  • Permitting bond basis to fluctuate is quite pernicious. It meaningfully reduces the negative correlation between long bonds and risk assets. Meaningully reducing the attractiveness of holding them in a portfolio and increasing funding costs.
  • At this point, global government debt outstanding is so large basis is so high that failing to correct this issue has a meaningful budget impact. Not only in the US, but across the Western world.

I think there is a straightforward solution: The Fed has clear cut authority to trade Treasury forwards during open market operations. Which would alleviate the pressure on dealer balance sheets, relieve market dysfunction, and help restore basis to more natural levels. And do so without relying on emergency authorities.”

Saturday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. New Knausgaard novel coming.

2. Unsecured penguin caused helicopter crash in South Africa.

3. Why does pre-training work?

4. Opinion polling from Poland.

5. Survey measures of the natural rate of interest.  Thread is here.

6. Cass Sunstein reports on the social neuroticism of the Right.  And Balaji is correct.

7. The conservative legal case against the tariffs (New Yorker).

8. WSJ interview with Doug Irwin.

*Postcard from Earth*

by  Tyler Cowen in

If you are willing to pay $250 or so, you can watch it in The Sphere.  From Wikipedia:

Postcard from Earth is a 2023 film directed by Darren Aronofsky, starring Brandon Santana and Zaya Ribeiro. Created specifically to be screened at Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley on the venue’s 160,000 square-foot video screen, the film was shot in an 18K resolution with the Big Sky camera system. The 4D film features 270 degrees of viewing experience, climate control, haptic capabilities for the venue’s seating, and scents to create an immersive environment that tells the story of life on Earth. The film is one of two entertainment features to inaugurate the Sphere, along with U2‘s concert residency.

For visuals, and “integration with its venue,” I give the film an A++.  For script a D?  (Not having read Julian Simon is the least of it.)  For soundtrack C minus?  So it is hardly the Gesamtkunstwerk you might have been hoping for.  But it was worth the money, though barely.

Parallels between our current time and 17th century England

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the topic of my recent essay for The Free Press.  Excerpt:

Ideologically, the English 17th century was weird above all else.

Millenarianism blossomed, and the occult and witchcraft became stronger obsessions. This was an age of religious and economic upheaval; King James I even wrote a book partly about witches called Daemonologie. The greater spread of pamphlets and books meant that witch accusations circulated more widely and more rapidly, and so the 1604 Witchcraft Act applied harsher punishments to supposed witches.

People were more likely to fear imminent transformation, and new groups sprouted up with names such as “Fifth Monarchy Men,” devoted to the idea that a new reign of Christ would usher in the end of the world. Protestantism splintered, giving rise to Puritanism and numerous sects, many of them extreme.

Meanwhile, Roger Williams brought ideas of free speech and freedom of conscience to America, founding what later became the state of Rhode Island. The development of economics as a science with an understanding of markets (credit Nicholas Barbon and Dudley North) dates from that time, as do the first libertarians, namely the Levellers, a liberty-oriented group from the time of the English Civil War.

All of these developments were supported by the falling price of printing, giving rise to an extensive use of pamphlets and broadsheets to communicate and debate ideas, often in London coffeehouses. Johannes Gutenberg had built the printing press for Europe much earlier, in the middle of the 15th century—but 17th-century England was the time and place when a commercial middle class could start to afford buying printed works.

I explore the parallels with today at the link, recommended.

It seems DOGE is dwindling?

by  Tyler Cowen in

The National Institutes of Health told employees Thursday it was rolling back directives from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to probe worker productivity and limit purchases and travel on company cards, according to messages obtained by POLITICO.

It’s a possible sign that the agency’s recently confirmed director, Jay Bhattacharya, is willing to break with Musk and DOGE.

“Please disregard any future reminders or instructions on this directive from OPM or the Department of Health and Human Services,” said one message, referencing the White House’s personnel office. “NIH manages its own performance review processes and will notify employees directly if any information related to work duties or performance is needed.”

Purchasing cards will “be restored to full capacity and use” later today, according to another message from NIH management. Staff will again be able to travel for business and won’t have to seek permission from HHS or the NIH director’s office, the message said.

Here is the full story by Danny Nguyen.  I believe Jay is not the most left-wing NIH head we have had, so the imperatives of bureaucracy are reasserting themselves perhaps?  More data will be on the way.  But the general point I have been making — that DOGE needs to prioritize and needs more Congressional and also public support — is looking more true each day.

America’s Tourism Deficit: How the French Are Winning the Currency War One Croissant at a Time

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Every year, American tourists pour billions of dollars into France, wandering the Louvre, sipping overpriced espresso in Montmartre, and snapping selfies along the Seine—while far fewer French tourists bother making the reverse pilgrimage to admire, say, Disney World. The result? A massive tourism deficit.

On paper, this reflects wealth differentials and revealed preferences – Americans, being richer and more numerous than the French, express a high demand for old world Parisian experiences. But behind this innocent wanderlust is something more sinister. When Americans vacation in France, that’s counted as a US import of tourism. When French people vacation here—fewer, more begrudgingly—that’s a US export. So voilà, the tourism deficit creates a trade deficit, an excess of imports over exports!

The tourism deficit means there is a steady leak of the world’s reserve currency into the hands of a nation famous for its cheese, wine, and suspicion of American capitalism. France, using little more than museums and moodiness, is accumulating dollars from innocent American travelers. And they’re not just hoarding them for kicks. Those dollars are claims on real assets. First it’s a Napa vineyard. Then a Brooklyn fintech startup. Eventually, who knows? The Port of Long Beach? The Federal Reserve’s snack bar?

Make no mistake: France’s true comparative advantage isn’t wine or luxury goods—it’s the ruthless extraction of tourism dollars, performed with flawless precision, a disdainful shrug, and a little help from Emily in Paris. We’re being out-traded, one overpriced pastry at a time, by a nation whose strategic horizon spans centuries—and whose Netflix marketing is impeccable.

The political implications are, shall we say, obvious.

From now on, we demand a tourism balance. No more visa waivers, no more jet-setting to Provence until they send an equal number of French tourists to Branson, Missouri. It’s high time the French get over their Napoleon complex and start to appreciate American corn dogs and Dolly Parton. France needs to treat us with the same respect as the friendly countries that enthusiastically dispatch high-spending tourists to our shores.

It’s one-for-one, or the deal is off. Tourism parity or rien! Point final.

Claims about China

by  Tyler Cowen in

Tariffs don’t just alter trade flows — they redirect resources and reshape industrial structures. If Trump’s goal was to curb China’s technological progress, he would keep tariffs low on the bulk of Chinese exports to the US, locking the country into low-margin basic manufacturing. He would encourage high-tech exports to China, making sure that progress in its advanced components stalls.

But this is the opposite of what’s happening. Ironically, just as the “China shock” pushed the US out of low-end manufacturing, the “Trump shock” is propelling China to reallocate resources into higher value, advanced technologies that compete directly with the US.

Here is more from Keyu Jin at the FT.

My Conversation with the excellent Jennifer Pahlka

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is the episode summary:

Jennifer Pahlka believes America’s bureaucratic dysfunction is deeply rooted in outdated processes and misaligned incentives. As the founder of Code for America and co-founder of the United States Digital Service, she has witnessed firsthand how government struggles to adapt to the digital age, often trapped in rigid procedures and disconnected from the real-world impact of its policies. Disruption is clearly needed, she says—but can it be done in a way that avoids the chaos of DOGE?

Tyler and Jennifer discuss all this and more, including why Congress has become increasingly passive, how she’d go about reforming government programs, whether there should be less accountability in government, how AGI will change things, whether the US should have public-sector unions, what Singapore’s effectiveness reveals about the trade-offs of technocratic governance, how AI might fundamentally transform national sovereignty, what her experience in the gaming industry taught her about reimagining systems, which American states are the best-governed, the best fictional depictions of bureaucracy, how she’d improve New York City’s governance, her current work at the Niskanen Center, and more.

Excerpt:

COWEN: Does that mean we need something like DOGE? I’ve lived near DC for about 40 years of my life. I haven’t seen anyone succeed with regulatory reforms. You can abolish an agency, but to really reform the process hasn’t worked. Maybe the best iteration we can get is to break a bunch of things now. That will be painful, people will hate it, but you have a chance in the next administration to put some of them back together again.

Maybe it’s just in a large country, there’s no other way to do it. We have separation of powers. The first two years of DOGE will seem terrible, but 8, 12, 16 years from now, we’ll be glad we did it. Is that possible?

PAHLKA: I don’t know what’s going to happen. I do think this is the disruption that we’re getting, whether it’s the disruption we wanted. The question of whether it could have been done in a more orderly manner is a tough one. I just feel sad that we didn’t try.

COWEN: Are you sure we didn’t try?

PAHLKA: I don’t think we really tried.

COWEN: The second Bush presidency, people talked about this, what we need to do. Al Gore — some of that was good, in fact, reinventing government. We’ve been trying all along, but this is what trying looks like.

PAHLKA: Yes. I think reinventing government happened at a time when we were just at the beginning of this digital revolution. It was trying with a very 20th-century mindset. Fine, did well within that context, but we don’t need that again.

We need 21st century change. We need true digital transformation. We need something that’s not stuck in the industrial ways of thinking. I don’t think we tried that. I think the efforts have just been too respectful of old ways of working and the institutions. There was really not an appetite, I think, for what I would call responsible disruptive change. Would it have worked?

COWEN: Is there such a thing?

PAHLKA: I don’t know. [laughs]

COWEN: Say you’re approaching USAID, where I think the best programs are great. A lot of it they shouldn’t be doing. On net, it passes a cost-benefit test, but the agency internally never seemed willing to actually get rid of the bad stuff, all the contracting arrangements which made American Congress people happy because it was dollars sent to America, but way inflated overhead and fixed costs. Why isn’t it better just to blow that up — some of it is great — and then rebuild the great parts?

PAHLKA: It’s so hard to say. [laughs] I’ve had the same thought. In fact, before inauguration, I wrote about the Department of Defense. It’s the same thing. There’s a clear recognition by the people in the institution, as you saw with USAID, that this is not okay, that this is not working. It’s just strange to be in an institution that large where so many people agree that it’s not working, from the bottom to the top, and yet nobody can make really substantive change.

Of great interest, obviously.

The Russian paradox

by  Tyler Cowen in

So much education, so little human capital:

According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) statistical database, Russians age 25 and older averaged 12.4 years of schooling circa 2019—almost the same as for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Europe, which averaged 12.6 years. While some Western European countries—Germany, Iceland, Switzerland, and the UK—reported mean years of schooling (MYS) well above Russia’s, others reported lower levels than Russia: among them, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain…

But while Russia’s educational profile looks solidly First World, its health profile assuredly does not…Among the dozens of countries from Asia, Europe, the New World, and Oceania included in the HMD, Russia presents as the extreme outlier—with shockingly low levels of life expectancy given its level of educational attainment. According to Barro-Lee, MYS at age 15 in Australia and Russia in 2010 were basically indistinguishable, yet in that same year, combined male and female life expectancy at age 15 was almost 14 years lower for Russia. The last time life expectancy at age 15 in Australia was at Russia’s 2010 level, according to HMD, was in 1929—well before the penicillin era…

As of 2019, Russian male life expectancy at age 15 looks to be solidly in the middle of the range for UN’s official roster of least developed countries (LDCs)—the immiserated and fragile states designated as “the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of the UN family.” If WHO calculations were correct, life expectancy for a young man in Russia was all but identical to that of his Haitian counterpart at that time—and practically half of the world’s LDCs in Figure 3 had higher life expectancies than Russia!

That is from a longer piece by Nicholas Eberstadt, via Mike Doherty.