How many lives will be lost over the next five years by cities banning or slowing the rollout of @Waymo and other automated vehicles?

Most people think “indirect costs” for government-funded scientific research have grown out of control (some universities charge >60% rates). In response, the Trump admin tried to cap them at 15%. But this whole debate rests on a false premise: While ***negotiated indirect cost rates*** have gone up over time, ***effective indirect cost rates*** — the overhead costs the government actually ends up paying for — have not. Here’s what the data shows…

.@avi_collis and I have been working on our new measure of the economy, GDP-B, since we were both at MIT. Today, we have an article in the @WSJ about how it can be used to assess the consumer surplus of AI. In the fall, the AEJ Macro will publish our article on how GDP-B measures the benefits of new and free goods that are missing from traditional GDP.

Trust that takes decades to build can be destroyed in an instant.

Every serious economist should speak out in defense of maintaining non-partisan, professional statistical agencies in the US.

My fear is that ordinary Americans are not experiencing the firing of an experienced, non-partisan, leader of a statistical agency as the major earthquake for the United States that it is.

One thing that puzzled me before today's data: GDP growth in H1 was weak, about 1.2%. But job growth was relatively strong. I was just telling someone yesterday that one of them was likely wrong. It turns out it was the jobs side that was wrong & both signals now consistent.

Congrats to @ThankYourNiceAI, @sj_manning, @manlikemishap and @danielrock for their careful work on AI's labor market effects!

New newsletter: Antitrust critics of Abundance claim homebuilding oligopolies are holding back supply and driving up prices. I did something simple. I called up their sources. Everyone I spoke to told me the same thing: Their claims are bullshit.

Longer thread incoming, but @R_Thaler and I have a new book coming out “Winner’s Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies—Then and Now”, out on October 21. And our UK publisher is running a promo!