Wednesday assorted links
Clean Hands, Clear Conclusions: Ignaz Semmelweis as a Pioneer of Causal Inference
My next series is a few things at once. It’s a reminder that sometimes people will do everything in their power to present evidence supporting scientific facts, be unpersuasive and be sent to a mental hospital by their best friend where they spend the next two weeks being beaten by guards mercilessly and then die. But it’s also a discussion of difference-in-differences, and perhaps the challenges of estimation if you’re not entirely clear what the treatment is. And the last thing is just a puzzle I wanted to share in the context of trying to make a broader point about precisely what is implied by the identification elements of a traditional difference-in-differences design.
An excellent introduction to Ignaz Semmelweis, a pioneer in causal inference and medicine, by Scott Cunningham.
Can ChatGPT Help Investors Process Financial Information?
Surprise, surprise, disclosures are bloated past the point of being informally useful:
Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can fundamentally change the way investors process information. We probe the economic usefulness of these tools in summarizing complex corporate disclosures using the stock market as a laboratory. The unconstrained summaries are dramatically shorter, often by more than 70% compared to the originals, whereas their information content is amplified. When a document has a positive (negative) sentiment, its summary becomes more positive (negative). More importantly, the summaries are more effective at explaining stock market reactions to the disclosed information. Motivated by these findings, we propose a measure of information “bloat.” We show that bloated disclosure is associated with adverse capital markets consequences, such as lower price efficiency and higher information asymmetry. Finally, we show that the model is effective at constructing targeted summaries that identify firms’ (non-)financial performance and risks. Collectively, our results indicate that generative language modeling adds considerable value for investors with information processing constraints.
That is from a new paper by Alex Kim, Maximilian Muhn and Valeri Nikolaev.
My views on the UFO hearings
I found them very interesting to watch, and wrote my last Bloomberg column on them. Here is one excerpt:
I do not think that the US government has the remains of alien spacecraft, for example, including some alien bodies, as claimed by retired Air Force Major David Grusch. But the rest of the evidence was presented in a suitably serious and persuasive manner. It is clear, at least to me, that there is no conspiracy, and the US government is itself puzzled by the data about unidentified anomalous phenomena.
As for the more serious claims:
Members of Congress, to the extent they desire, have independent access to military and intelligence sources. They also have political ambitions, if only to be reelected. So the mere fact of their participation in these hearings shows that UFOs/UAPs are now being taken seriously as an issue.
The Pentagon issued a statement claiming it holds no alien bodies, but it did nothing to contradict the statements of [Ryan] Graves (or others with similar claims, outside the hearings). More broadly, there have been no signs of anyone with eyewitness experience asserting that Graves and the other pilots are unreliable.
As is so often the case, the most notable events are those that did not happen. The most serious claims from the hearings survived unscathed: those about inexplicable phenomena and possible national-security threats, not the hypotheses about alien craft or visits.
And to conclude:
I suspect that, from here on out, this topic will become more popular — and somewhat less respectable. A few years ago, UAPs were an issue on which a few people “in the know” could speculate, secure in the knowledge they weren’t going to receive much publicity or pushback. As the chatter increases, the issue will become more prominent, but at the same time a lot of smart observers will dismiss the whole thing because they heard that someone testified before Congress about seeing dead aliens.
I am well aware that many people may conclude that some US officials, or some parts of the US government, have gone absolutely crazy. But even under that dismissive interpretation, it is likely that there will be further surprises.
I thank commenter Naveen for the point about declining respectability. A broader question — which I will continue to ponder — is why it is the United States that held these hearings, rather than other nations (NB: I hope you don’t fall for that Twitter map suggesting that UAP sighting are mainly an Anglo phenomenon).
Behavioral Economics and ChatGPT: From William Shakespeare to Elena Ferrante
We prompted GPT-4 (an artificial intelligence large language model) to use literary fictional characters to play the Dictator game, a classic behavioral economics experiment. We prompted GPT-4 with 148 characters from the 17th century to the 21st century. Their 888 decisions were used to compare characters over time as well as characters to human players. There is a general and mainly monotonic decrease in selfish behavior over time in literary characters. 41% of the decisions of 17th century characters are selfish compared to just 21% of the decisions of characters from the 21st century. In the Human-AI comparison, Humans are much more selfish than the AI characters with 51% of humans making selfish decisions compared to 28% of the AI characters.
Here is the full (short) paper by Gabriel Abrams (a junior in high school).
Tuesday assorted links
1. Granny flats for Ireland (and where else?)
3. “Atkin, Schoar & Shinde have what I believe is first work from home field experiment w/ worker learning. India data entry firm. WFH causally drops productivity 12% at day 0, 6% more from slow learning over time. If workers self-select, it’s much worse.” Link here.
4. Alas, Pee Wee Herman is gone, RIP. Here is the NYT obit. For all his flaws, true comic genius.
New Econ Lesson Plans!
The latest video for Marginal Revolution University’s Principles of Micro course is on a topic near and dear to our hearts: marginal thinking! (Not to mention the sunk cost fallacy and bell-bottom jeans.)
MRU is also featuring this video in a new high school unit plan, “Introduction to Economics.” This unit has a week’s worth of lesson plans, class exercises, games, and interactives covering incentives, institutions, markets, and more. Teachers can get the unit plan for free at https://mru.io/pg7.
The European Visa Mess
A US passport used to allow visa free travel to more countries than almost any other passport. No longer.
Yahoo: The days of visa-free travel throughout most of Europe are about to change. Starting early next year, the European Union will implement the European Travel Information and Authorization System requiring all visitors from visa-free countries to obtain travel authorization prior to their departure.
Terrorism! Crime! Paperwork!
Of course, this inconvenience will reduce travel to Europe (see here) but tell that to the Europeans and they respond, well the US imposes similar requirements on Europeans. This is not a logical response. As Ronald Reagan liked to say, “if one partner in the boat shoots a hole in the boat, it doesn’t make much sense for the other partner to shoot another hole in the boat.” Logical or not, however, it’s a predictable response so I blame the US and the EU for ruining a good thing.
I hate to be the grumpy old man but one day, not too long from now, I will be telling my children, “I remember when you didn’t need a visa to travel abroad. I also remember when there were no anti-money laundering and know your customer laws!” The kids probably won’t believe me. Of course, if I were a little older I could have said, I remember when you didn’t need a passport to travel abroad! The modern passport dates only to World War I:
Wikipedia: During World War I, European governments introduced border passport requirements for security reasons, and to control the emigration of people with useful skills (italics added,AT). These controls remained in place after the war, becoming a standard, though controversial, procedure. British tourists of the 1920s complained, especially about attached photographs and physical descriptions, which they considered led to a “nasty dehumanisation”.
Try to tell anyone today, however, that we should have a world with no passports and they will think you bonkers. In a few years, Americans will not be able to imagine a world without visas. Apparently, we have gotten used to dehumanisation.
Would room temperature superconductivity benefit military offense or defense?
If, if, if, people we still do not know yet. But I am one who likes to ask if, and GPT-4 plus is willing to accommodate those desires:
Room temperature superconductivity could potentially benefit both offensive and defensive military capabilities, but it will depend on how this technology is applied.
Offense: The military could potentially use superconductors to develop high-energy weapons or improve the range and accuracy of existing weaponry. For instance, electromagnetic railguns, which use electric fields to launch projectiles at incredibly high speeds, could be made far more practical and powerful. Additionally, it could help with enhanced signal processing to improve intelligence gathering and surveillance capabilities.
Defense: On the other hand, room temperature superconductors could also be used defensively. They could enhance the shielding of military bases, vehicles, or personnel by enabling creation of powerful electromagnetic shields, improving stealth technology, or developing advanced missile defense systems. Superconductive tech could also enhance communication systems, making them more secure and less susceptible to interception or jamming by enemies.
Then some ethics blah blah blah. People, it seems to me that it is more likely to benefit military offense. Sources of strong power are simply more likely to be portable?
Emergent Ventures India, Cohort Five
The following was compiled by Shruti Rajagopalan, who directs Emergent Ventures India. I will not indent the material:
Ankita Vijayvergiya is a computer Science Engineer and an entrepreneur. She founded BillionCarbon along with her co-founder Nikhil Vijayvergiya, to work on solving two problems that plague India – soil degradation and managing biodegradable waste. At BillionCarbon, they are nutrient mining from biodegradable waste to convert it into liquid bio-fertilizer. Their EV grant is to execute proof of concept with pilots, field trials, and technology validation.
Sujata Saha is an Associate Professor of Economics at Wabash College, Indiana. Her primary research interests are in International Finance and Trade, Open Economy Macroeconomics, and Financial Inclusion. She received her EV grant to study entrepreneurship and economic development in Dharavi, Mumbai, the largest slum in the world.
Aditya Mehta is an Arjuna Award-winning professional snooker player. Through the non-profit organization, The ACE Snooker Foundation, he aims to teach and promote cue sports in India. He is creating a technology-based digital cue sports coaching solution, specifically aiming to develop a curriculum-based approach for schools and colleges across India.
Aditi Dimri (PhD, Economist) & Saraswati Chandra (Engineer, Entrepreneur) co-founded Cranberry.Fit to develop a virtual menstrual health coach with the aim to break through the traditional silence and apathy regarding painful periods and menstrual health. The EV grant supports the development of the virtual coach to help manage menstrual symptoms with the help of a personalized habits plan.
Vedanth Ramji is a 15-year-old high school junior from Chennai, passionate about research at the intersection of Math, Computer Science, and Biology. He is currently a student researcher at the Big Data Biology Lab at QUT, Australia, where he develops software tools for Antimicrobial (AMR) research. He received his EV grant to travel to his lab at QUT, to develop deeper insights into AMR research and collaborate with his team on a publication which he is currently co-authoring.
Abhishek Nath is a 43-year-old entrepreneur tackling public restroom infrastructure and sanitation in urban areas head on. He is determined to bring Loocafe – a safe, hygienic, and accessible restroom for everyone – to cities around the world. He seeks to ensure that no city is more than a kilometer away from accessing a safe public toilet, providing youth easy and safe access to hygienic urban sanitation.
Sandhya Gupta is the founder of Aavishkaar, a teacher professional development institute that aims to educate, equip, and enable teachers of K-10 to become excellent science and math educators. Sandhya and Aavishkaar received an EV grant to help create an army of female Math educators helping students enjoy Math while chartering a career pathway for themselves in STEM fields.
Ankur Paliwal is a queer journalist and founder of queerbeat, a collaborative journalism project to cover the historically underserved LGBTQIA+ community in India. Over the last 13 years, Ankur has written narrative journalism stories about science, inequity, and the LGBTQIA+ community. He received an EV grant to build an online community and newsletter alongside queerbeat, to help transform public conversation about LGBTQIA+ persons in India.
Arsalaan Alam is a web developer, machine learning enthusiast, and aspiring rationalist. He is working on improving the conditions of harmonic coexistence between humans and wildlife. He got his Emergent Ventures grant to continue building Aquastreet, which consists of a hardware device that can be attached beneath a boat, after which it takes in audio of fish’s voices and converts the audio into a MEL frequency and then performs machine learning to classify the fish species, which is then displayed on the Aquastreet mobile app.
Soundarya Balasubramani is a 26-year-old writer, author, and former product manager. She moved to the United States to pursue her master’s at Columbia University in 2017. Immigrants in the US face several barriers, including the decades-long wait times to get a green card for Indians, the lack of a startup visa for entrepreneurs, and the constant political battle that thwarts immigration reform. To reduce the barrier skilled immigrants face, Soundarya is has written a comprehensive book (Unshacked) and is building an online community where immigrants can congregate, get guidance, and help each other.
Aadesh Nomula is an engineer focused on cybersecurity. He is working on a single-point cybersecurity device for Indian homes and small-scale factories. His other interest is Philosophy.
Aurojeet Misra is an 18-year-old biology student at IISER Pune. He received his EV grant for his efforts on a radioactive tracing system to detect and locate forest fires. He hopes to test a prototype of this system to better understand its practical feasibility. He is interested in understanding different scientific disciplines like molecular biology, public health, physics, etc., and working on their interface.
Divyam Makar is a 24-year-old entrepreneur and developer working on Omeyo, a platform to connect local pharmacists, which aims to provide a large inventory to users with all the needed items, along with being super low-cost and interactive. They aim to deliver medicine to their users in as little as 20 minutes.
Divas Jyoti Parashar is a 23-year-old climate entrepreneur from Assam. He founded Quintinno Labs, a cleantech company driving the electric vehicle revolution by developing power banks for EVs. These compact and portable devices that fit in your car’s trunk aim to reduce range anxiety and offer emergency relief to EV users in developing countries that lack a charging station network. He is also working on deploying hydro-kinetic turbines in Assam to generate clean energy from flowing water. His recent passion project was a documentary about the impact of the 2021 volcanic eruption on the local population in La Palma Island.
Ray Amjad is prototyping scalable tools for finding and supporting the lost Einsteins and Marie Curies of the world – young people with exceptional math and science ability from under-resourced backgrounds. He received his EV Grant to help him find collaborators. He graduated from Cambridge, where he filmed many educational videos.
Amandeep Singh is a 22-year-old inventor and entrepreneur interested in machine learning and deep learning. He is building ‘Tiktok for India’, a short video-sharing app that allows people to edit and share videos with the world, create communities, and deliver authentic video content. Prior to this, he founded an AI surveillance startup, particularly for CCTV cameras.
Govinda Prasad Dhungana is an assistant professor at Far Western University, Nepal, and a doctoral candidate at Ghent University, Belgium. He is a public health researcher and co-founder of the Ostrom Center and he designs and implements high-impact HIV/Family Planning programs in marginalized communities. His EV grant will be used for piloting the community-based distribution (using Ostrom’s Design Principles and behavior change models) of a new self-injectable contraception (Sayana Press).
Kalash Bhaiya is a 17-year-old high-school student and social entrepreneur. She founded Fun Learning Youth (or FLY), a nonprofit that employs cohort-based mentorship by volunteers in their localities and received her EV grant to help reduce middle-school dropouts within underserved communities.
Kranthi Kumar Kukkala is a serial entrepreneur and technologist from Hyderabad. He is working on a health care device – HyGlo – a non-invasive anemia diagnosing device. HyGlo is similar to a pulse oximeter, when a person puts their finger in the device probe, it investigates blood inside the finger without taking a blood sample and finds the hemoglobin percentage in the blood. This device can help young girls and women manage anemia (a big problem in India).
Kulbir Lamba is a 35-year-old researcher and practitioner, interested in understanding the startup landscape and received an EV grant for studying the evolution of DeepTech startups in India.
Keshav Sharma is a 23-year-old entrepreneur working at the intersection of design, technology & marketing. Two years ago, he founded Augrade, a deeptech startup with his college friends. Augrade is an AI+AR platform to streamline the creation, editing, validation & visualization of 3D models at scale.
Srijon Sarkar is a 19-year-old researcher from Kolkata interested in mathematical oncology and applied rationality. He received his EV grant to study cancer systems, particularly Epithelial/Mesenchymal Plasticity through a lens of mathematical models and statistical algorithms, during his gap year. He will start his undergraduate degree (mathematics and biology) with a full scholarship at Emory University starting Fall 2023.
Shubham Vyas s an advocate for open discourse and democratic dialogue in India. With a background in data science and interest in philosophy, he received his EV grant to build his venture “Conversations on India,” into a multi-platform media venture to help shape the Indian political and economic discourse landscape.
Navneet Choudhary is an entrepreneur, and his journey started when he was 21 with a food delivery app for trains and buses across 70 cities in India. He received his EV Grant to develop LAMROD, a mobile application-based platform to manage trucking and cargo fleet operations at one place.
Srinaath Krishnan is a 20-year-old entrepreneur from Chennai. He received his EV grant to work on Zephyr, a start-up making credit scores universal and mobile, to enable immigrants to qualify for financial products using their international credit history.
Venkat Ram is an assistant professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur, researching the development and deployment of human capital. He received his EV grant to study the structure and functioning of labor addas (proverbial marketplaces most daily wage laborers in India find work).
Arvind Subramanian, is a 25-year-old sailor from Chennai and works as a product manager at Sportstar, the oldest sports magazine in India. He won his EV grant to enable his (and his team’s) participation in the 2022 J80 World Sailing Championship in Rhode Island, USA. He is working towards building and scaling the niche sporting scene in India.
Some past winners received additional grants:
Karthik Nagapuri, a 21-year-old programmer and AI engineer, for general career development.
Akash Kulgod is a 23yo cognitive science graduate from UC Berkeley founded Dognosis, where he is building tech that increases the bandwidth of human-canine communication. His grant will go towards launching a pilot study in Northern Karnataka testing the performance of cyber-canines on multi-cancer screening from breath samples. He writes on his Substack, about effective altruism, talent-search, psychedelics, and sci-fi uplift.
Those unfamiliar with Emergent Ventures can learn more here and here. The EV India announcement is here. More about the winners of EV India second cohort, third cohort, and fourth cohort. To apply for EV India, use the EV application click the “Apply Now” button and select India from the “My Project Will Affect” drop-down menu.
If you are interested in supporting the India tranche of Emergent Ventures, please write to me or to Shruti at [email protected].
What should Jeff Holmes ask Alex and me?
Rumor has it that there will be a special edition of Conversations with Tyler, to commemorate the pending 20th year anniversary of Marginal Revolution (yes, we have posted multiple times each day, without exception).
We will be recording, of course, in Chennai. So what should Jeff ask Alex and me? If you don’t already know, Jeff from the inception has been the producer of CWT.
Monday assorted links
1. Is HHS the ugliest building in DC, or is it just fine? Why was it once considered “too opulent”?
2. Solar energy fact of the day. Should this make you less bullish about nuclear?
3. Edward Sexton, tailor to the Beatles, passes away RIP.
4. David Card on writing controversial papers.
5. Lord Monboddo would be proud (can an orangutan drive a golf cart?)
Sam Peltzman on American happiness
Sam is still writing good papers:
Since 1972 the General Social Survey (GSS) has asked a representative sample of US adults “… [are] you …very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” Overall, the population is reasonably happy even after a mild recent decline. I focus on differences along standard socio demographic dimensions: age, race, gender, education, marital status income and geography. I also explore political and social differences. Being married is the most important differentiator with a 30-percentage point happy-unhappy gap over the unmarried. Income is also important, but Easterlin’s (1974) paradox applies: the rich are much happier than the poor at any moment, but income growth doesn’t matter. Education and racial differences are also consequential, though the black-white gap has narrowed substantially. Geographic, gender and age differences have been relatively unimportant, though old-age unhappiness may be emerging. Conservatives are distinctly happier than liberals as are people who trust others or the Federal government. All above differences survive control for other differences.
Here is the SSRN link, via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
How to eat well in Sri Lanka
Food here is excellent, but eating well involves some counterintuitive advice.
For one thing, there are few “undiscovered gems” along the roadways. It is just not a thing here, and several Sri Lanka residents have confirmed this to me (one person suggested there used to be lots of them, but they have faded). During my extensive road travels, I saw many many closed, empty, or otherwise deserted roadside restaurants. The open ones had few or no customers. So don’t put a lot of time into searching for them. You will do just fine eating at the obvious restaurants, including hotel restaurants.
Often breakfast is the best meal, as you can sample hoppers and string hoppers. If they will cook a hopper for you with an egg (and spices) inside, do that. Think of it as a spongy carbohydrate turned into a kind of crepe. The egg inside should not be overdone, but the woman cooking it for you has done this 7,834 times before, so probably it will be just right.
When you get string hoppers, it is all a matter of composition. Put the right spices, sauces, and sambals on top. Ask for assistance. The quality of the string hoppers varies only marginally, it is really all about your skills at composition and at asking for aid.
Hoppers and string hoppers are pretty much always very good. You want to keep on ordering them. And yes, food in Sri Lanka is somewhat of an exercise in repeated monotony, but it is a very appealing repeated monotony.
Vegetables in Sri Lanka are first-rate, and if you visit the vegetable markets in and near Dambulla you will come away impressed. If you are served just ordinary broccoli or cauliflower, without spice or garnish, it will be as good as anywhere.
The best vegetable to eat Sri Lankan style is the green beans. Never turn them down. Overall, Sri Lanka is one of the very best countries for vegetarians or vegans. You’ll see many other kinds of curry, such as with jackfruit or manioc, and they are not bad, but once you have tried them you will be returning to the green beans.
The lentils are consistently superb, arguably better overall than in India, though in fewer styles. Keep on ordering them.
Thou shalt not refuse any curry served with cashews in it.
If you are at a buffet, sample any item that has a small green leaf in the sauce. Sample any item with an unusual name, with “tempered cowpeas” being one but not the only example.
Beware of buffets designed for Russian or Chinese package tourists, though usually there will be hoppers or string hoppers somewhere to be had.
Coconut roti is a wonderful snack, but you should not eat too many of them, either at once or across the course of a lifetime.
There is the usual array of tropical fruits, high in quality, though to be frank most of them bore me at this point.
Both pork and bacon are excellent (and common) in Sri Lanka. The pork is much better than the beef. So far I’ve had better luck with shrimp than with fish, though I don’t feel I’ve cracked the cultural codes yet for seafood. Some love Sri Lankan crab, but I haven’t had the chance to explore that direction.
Western-style baked goods are by no means a total disaster here, and it is not a mistake to try them. The high quality is supposed to stem from the earlier Portuguese influence, at least if you can believe llama Chat.
Aqua Forte, in Galle, is a Michelin star-quality Italian restaurant with affordable prices. The chef is from Trentino. The cured raw fish with pistachios is one of the best courses I’ve had in years.
In Colombo, Monsoon is a good Asian fusion place, get the beef rendang. Shang Palace is a good Chinese restaurant.
In sum, you can eat very well here at great prices and booking doesn’t ever seem to be a problem. You do need to be willing to double and triple down on some items, but don’t worry — you’ll like them!
Addendum: The perceptive reader will note I have covered only the food of southern Sri Lanka. That is also the part of the country — by far — that you are most likely to visit.
One simple reason why travel is important
Travel makes you a better reader, especially for history, geography, (factual) economics, and political science.
I have been reading two good books about Sri Lanka, namely K.M. de Silva’s Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE and also his A History of Sri Lanka. Both would be very difficult to follow if I didn’t already have a decent sense of the place names, how the country “fits together,” and many other features of life here. If I read about a 12th century Buddhist kingdom, in fact I absorb and retain much more of that knowledge if I have visited the ruins of said kingdom. It is more intellectually and emotionally salient to me, whether or not that process is rational.
In part you visit places simply to make your later reading about them more productive.
And there is nowhere in the world that is not a place.
Addendum: This effect is not a small one. If a said civilization has vanished, or is almost entirely gone, that is also an enormous blow to our reading. It is so much easier to keep track of “the Florentines” than “the Assyrians.” There is also a question of optimal timing — don’t read about a place too early! Yet some early reading is necessary, so that you may develop the curiosity to want to go there.