WE CAN GET THEM TO CHANGE -- PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION. When I (or someone else in my household) orders something from Amazon, i get emailed a receipt. This is useful because then I can see what was ordered, whether it is the right thing or shout at someone who ordered something we already have. …
Remarks on Paul Milgrom
News today that my PhD Supervisor, Paul Milgrom, won the Nobel prize for economics. He won it with his PhD Supervisor, Bob Wilson. Both were long overdue for the honor. There are so many things one could say about Paul but it turned out that I said what I wanted to say back in 2013 …
Covid-19 and ‘Forced’ Experimentation
I have started a new email newsletter, Plugging the Gap, that looks at economics and Covid-19. Here is today's post which overlaps with usual Digitopoly fodder. You can subscribe here. In an unprecedented move, Disney has decided to release the live-action, Mulan, (previously slated to be a big summer blockbuster) online using its Disney+ streaming …
New Book and New Publication Process
I have been spending my quarantine absorbing research on COVID-19 -- especially economic research -- and, in the process, have written a book, Economics in the Age of COVID-19 that will be published at the end of the month by MIT Press. Here is what is interesting about the process. Clearly, this has been quick. …
Innovation + Equality
Today is publication day for Innovation + Equality: How to create a future that is more Star Trek than Terminator (MIT Press). This is my book -- co-authored with Andrew Leigh (the author of Randomistas) -- that examines the relationship between having more equality and more innovation. We make the case that you can have …
Does being rich make you better at allocating capital?
Thanks to this interesting debate last week between Saez, Summers and Mankiw on the wealth tax, there has been considerable discussion of the possible effects of a wealth tax. As is usual with these things, the main discussion has been what a wealth tax will do to the behaviour of those taxed at the margin. …
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2019 NBER AI Conference
Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Catherine Tucker, and I recently hosted the third NBER Conference in the Economics of Artificial Intelligence in Toronto. The conference provides a place for scholars from different fields of economics to discuss the implications of the rise of AI. The fields this year included macro, labor, theory, development, mechanism design, econometrics, …
Paying for Data
In the New York Times, there is a video opinion piece from Jaron Lanier which makes the case for finding a way for consumers to be paid for their data. I really enjoyed the accessibility of this piece as I think it helped make a clearer case. But I found myself with some big questions …
Are broken promises an antitrust violation?
That is the question that Dina Srinivasan answers in the affirmative in her paper "The Antitrust Case Against Facebook."Â This is an interesting set of issues because, frankly, my observation is that Facebook, while having a dominant position in social media (which is not an antitrust violation) had not violated antitrust law getting to that position …
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2018 Digital Year in Review
It is time once again to give awards for the biggest events in IT in 2018. And what a fun year to review! So many crazy events deserve ridicule. Where to start? Before we begin, let’s review the rules. They have not changed since last year. Any event can receive an award if it contains …
Digitopoly 