Alphaville and other things
A few personal updates
Dear readers, I have a few things I’d like to share with you.
First, I am going to be contributing some economics pieces to FT Alphaville, one of the oldest and greatest economics and finance blogs. The first piece, which is available now, argues that the massive amounts of investment needed to support the AI boom could generate conditions similar to those seen during the “Engels’ Pause” phase of the Industrial Revolution. For much of the early Industrial Revolution, wage growth badly lagged increases in output per worker, in part because capital was scarce relative to investment needs. This allowed capital owners to capture an outsized share of the gains from growth for nearly a century. Today, people tend to focus on the possibility that AI will displace human workers, but in the near term the bigger problem may be a comparable problem: that AI’s investment needs are enormous and the return on capital invested in AI infrastructure is high. As a consequence, firms would much rather spend their marginal dollar on AI investment as opposed to new hires or wage increases. Anyway, I’m excited to be writing for the FT, and I hope you’ll follow me there.
Second, I unexpectedly have a piece in the most recent issue of The Economist. I wrote an obituary for Alan Greenspan before I left, and it ran this week on the sad occasion of Greenspan’s passing.
Third, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss In Good Faith on a number of great podcasts over the past couple of months. I’ll share them with you over the next few posts, so as not to dump a stack of videos of me talking all in one go. Here’s an initial one, with Brink Lindsey on his Permanent Problem podcast. Brink is great, and I very much enjoyed the conversation.
Finally, I want to close with a plea: if you have read In Good Faith and enjoyed it, please, please, please consider 1) telling others about it, and 2) leaving a review at the bookseller of your choice. I’m very proud of the book, but it has been tricky getting people to pay attention to it given the, um, broader news environment. I’m very grateful for your help!