Another case of #MarketsInEverything
Fraudulent markets in everything
Highlighting one of the best pieces of journalism this year
Opinion Why does the IRS need $80 billion? Just look at its cafeteria.
The rise and fall of empires
The last two centuries witnessed the rise and fall of empires. We construct a model which rationalises this in terms of the changing trade gains from empires. In the model, empires are arrangements that reduce trade cost between an industrial metropole and the agricultural periphery. During early industrialisation, the value of such bilateral trade increases, and so does the value of empires. As industrialisation diffuses, and as manufactures become more differentiated, trade becomes more multilateral and intra-industry, reducing the value of empires. Our results are consistent with long-term changes in income distribution and trade patterns, and with previous historical arguments.
That is from a new NBER working paper by Roberto Bonfatti and Kerem Coşar.
Secret swearing in of Scott Morrison to 3 portfolios ‘very peculiar’ ABC Australia. Which Dark Scotty could not have done without a sign-off from the Governor General
Major and minor writers alike are snoops, undercover busybodies, spies in the lives of others, voyeurs not exhibitionists, devoted to the trivial and private. Systematically examining the contents of a woman’s purse – a woman you have just met – seems as intimate as sex. Even minor writers, not just major ones like Babel, know the little things in life are important. Babel, like Nabokov and other Russian writers, is a master of detail. Canetti goes on:
“He took literature so seriously that he must have hated anything vague and approximate. However, my timidity was no weaker than his; I couldn’t get myself to say anything to him about Red Cavalryor The Odessa Stories.”
Elias Canetti: 'He Was Obsessed with Literature'
