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Writings


AI Labs Shouldn’t Control What Investigators Can See [12 September 2026]
How to ask for help from people who don't know you [30 June 2026]
Economists agree on more than you think [7 May 2026]
Bretton Goods is becoming Speculative Decoding [27 December 2025]
Singapore should move with urgency on robotaxis [14 December 2025]
We could save 100 lives a year, if we moved faster
Should spaced repetition algorithms consider your chronotype? [7 September 2025]
Contrived evaluations are useful evaluations [21 June 2025]
Do Junior Developers Add Value To Companies? [5 June 2025]
Probably not, unless you reinvent yourself
How to enjoy your first ML conference [26 April 2025]
How to have a career even when OpenAI's o3 drops [31 January 2025]
Reinforcement Learning is the Way to AGI [30 January 2025]
How big is your government? [27 June 2023]
The Index of Economic Freedom is directionally correct at best
Contra Scott on AI Races [16 May 2023]
What is a race exactly?
Public Policy for Realists [30 April 2023]
Reading Time: 20 minutes
Links (1) [12 February 2023]
What you might enjoy reading
Mistakes I have made [31 January 2023]
Because it is useful to keep track
The High Cost of Expensive Housing (and How Auckland Might Fix it) [29 January 2023]
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Norms about (online) debate [9 January 2023]
Some book recommendations [9 December 2022]
And about the Great Man theory of history
Bitcoin is a risk asset, not a reserve currency [31 October 2022]
Reading time: about 6 minutes
Gambling on Development Review [18 September 2022]
How the politics of countries matters for development
Pakistan’s Next Crisis is Guaranteed [24 July 2022]
The Cultural Superpowers of 2072 [29 May 2022]
Reading Time: 15 minutes
Why is the US Dollar a reserve currency? [20 March 2022]
Or what connects a fallen Indonesian dictator to foreign exchange reserves
Vetocracy: Big Lawsuits eat Small Fish [17 February 2022]
What was Shkreli's Crime? [31 January 2022]
Reading time: 5 minutes
A Tale of Three Billionaires [27 December 2021]
Reading Time: 10 Minutes
India’s climate future is a policy choice [12 November 2021]
You should not run your country on bitcoin [17 September 2021]
Can you cheat the Gold Standard and win? [22 August 2021]
No, not for long
Why Did So Many Countries Join the Gold Standard? [11 August 2021]
The selfish case for vaccinating the entire world (and links) [28 July 2021]
Why you should issue GDP linked bonds [20 July 2021]
Ideology, mistakes and Tiananmen [4 July 2021]
How do you govern a new country? [27 June 2021]
Running a quickly growing economy isn't as easy as it sounds
What went right in China? (Part 2) [21 June 2021]
The transition to a market economy explained
What went right in China? [18 June 2021]
What changed for China to become the world's largest economy?
What happened to Russia? [6 June 2021]
Did free market policies cause Russia's economic decline in the 90s? I think not
How to ruin your economy in 7 easy steps [30 May 2021]
Latin American populists have tried it again and again
Yuan Milkshake Theory [22 May 2021]
Can the Chinese digital Yuan beat the US Dollar? Probably not
How to break a peg [19 July 2020]
Mafia bonds, crime and banks [8 July 2020]
Fog of uncertainty [3 July 2020]
Hey there, Apple [25 June 2020]
One exchange’s trash is another’s treasure [15 June 2020]
The stock market finds its time [19 May 2020]
You can't plan it all [12 May 2020]
The wealth fund bonus [4 May 2020]
To print, or not print? [27 April 2020]
How to get companies to hoard labour [20 April 2020]
Hoarding: the solution to our problems [20 April 2020]
The Fed is everyone's central banker [20 April 2020]
The banks have too much money and other people don’t. [18 March 2020]
LIC's Stake Sale: Step in the right direction, but inadequate [1 February 2020]
Voda-gone? Why it happened [20 January 2020]
The Bear Case on India [25 November 2019]