Benchmark Blog

We need productivity improvements in the sectors that disproportionately affect the poor, how do we do it? Here are a few ways.

Next week President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. Biden and his team plan to take bold action to address climate change and other environmental challenges. Those plans include stricter limits on pollution, federal incentives for clean energy, and higher fuel economy standards. He’s also discussed a commitment to […]

The 30 by 30 initiative provides a feasible step toward preserving nature and combating climate change that has the potential to attract bipartisan support.

That fear of concentrated economic power is the beating heart of antitrust law in the U.S., and it’s deeply felt on both sides of the aisle.

Machine learning has unlocked one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of this century. Learn more on the CGO Benchmark.

Last week, BioNTech and Pfizer announced that their COVID-19 vaccine had shown efficacy in human trials, and this Monday, Moderna did the same. No one was sure this point would ever be reached. Both groups have submitted applications to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency approval, paving the way for the vaccines to be distributed beginning […]

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has now filed its long-awaited case against Google, taking aim at the company for its “anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising.” The primary focus of this case is narrower than expected, alleging that Google “entered into […]

Give geothermal the same permitting concessions as oil and gas on public lands It’s hard to overstate the importance of the shale revolution. Unconventional oil and gas wells have made the United States a net energy exporter for the first time since the 1950s. The revolution has been a rare bright spot in U.S. economic […]

Immigrants enrich US culture Can you imagine a man clever enough to make the devil jealous? In an Irish legend, “Stingy Jack” earned that distinction. Jack caught the devil’s attention from his reputation as a drunkard with a silver-tongue. One dark night in the countryside, the devil appeared in front of Jack on his walk to the […]

Alternatives are better for public health and taxpayers For most, COVID-19’s emergence has meant some level of distancing from friends and families. Yet for immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has been difficult. Immigrant detention centers across the country have been hotspots for COVID-19. ICE […]

Policymakers should stop trying to force them to The battle over how gig economy workers should be classified continues to rage on in California. Last month California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that exempts more workers from the requirements of AB5 — a controversial law that went into effect at the beginning of this year that […]

Photographers often lament taking pictures in Romania. Taking a clear photo of centuries-old homes and city centers is difficult because of the wires. Everywhere they are strung, breaking up the views. Part of the reason for these dense nests of wires comes as a result of Romania’s wired broadband networks, which had their genesis in […]

How much is rooftop solar worth? This simple question has stimulated a raging debate between electric utilities and solar advocates, both in Utah and around the country. The issue comes down to how utilities should account for electricity that rooftop solar owners feed onto the electrical grid. Utah’s largest utility, Rocky Mountain Power (RMP), wants to pay […]

Who do you blame when something goes wrong? Have you ever experienced a blue screen of death? Nobody likes it when his computer crashes, but the BSoD, the screen that is displayed when Windows crashes, features a particularly frustrating problem: It is difficult to know who is to blame for the crash. An operating system […]

Arecent paper published in the American Economic Review has reignited interest in data property rights. In “Nonrivalry and the Economics of Data,” economists Charles I. Jones and Christopher Tonetti generate insights on data property regimes by beginning first with a simple model of data. After articulating the idea within a model of the economy, the authors can […]

In March, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed some changes regarding the disposal of radioactive waste in the US. Two months later, an article from The Guardian asserted these proposed changes could “allow dangerous amounts of radioactive material to be disposed of in places like municipal landfills, with potentially serious consequences to human health and the environment.” This […]

In1717, Lady Mary Montagu was living in Turkey as the wife of the British ambassador. There, she witnessed Turkish women practicing variolation, a method of smallpox inoculation that involved transferring fluid from an infected person’s smallpox pustules into an uninfected person’s open wound. Though the practice was common throughout Africa and Asia, it was uncommon in Europe. Before moving […]

Real economics in a satirical workplace Hidetoshi Hasagawa, or Hide, is a warehouse worker in NBC hit comedy, The Office. Of course, fans may better know him as the number one heart surgeon in Japan. As Hide reveals, he left Japan to escape from the Yakuza after killing one of the Yakuza’s bosses. The warehouse foreman, Darryl […]

Incentives + education for low-water landscaping Air conditioning units and sprinklers are still humming across most of the U.S. as the dog days of summer start to wind down. For the driest areas in America, sweltering days with soaring temperatures mean high rates of water use. And the future will likely bring even more demand […]

How prediction markets can make the world more rational Ifwe are going to improve public discourse, we must at the outset confront a tricky question: What if people prefer their polarized beliefs? If they are going to line up behind their preferred ideas no matter the facts, we aren’t going to get very far by […]

Building a better nuclear industry requires global allies The US Department of Energy (DOE) wants to help colonize space, and they want to do it with nuclear energy. Late last month, DOE released a notice that they are seeking information about the challenges and feasibility of using reactors to power future missions. The goal is to design […]

Policymakers worry about the impact on workers from robots and other automation techniques. COVID-19 has pushed many companies to consider automating or embracing robots for public health. Workers worry that after the pandemic, they’ll find a robot in their place. Those fears are overblown. After all, it took a global pandemic for many companies to embrace automation. […]

What can we learn from the first stimulus checks? August recess is set to begin this week for the House and next week for the Senate, and lawmakers are still negotiating on an aid package meant to help businesses, states, and individuals cope with the economic effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While they may […]

But that doesn’t mean platforms are biased This is the second installment in a series, find the first here. We hear a lot about “censorship” by online platforms. A certain vocal segment of right-of-center politicians and commentators regularly accuse Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms of bias against Republicans. Indeed, the Trump Administration recently issued […]

New polling sheds light on why we should be skeptical about the techlash The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are testifying before Congress today in a hearing billed as crucial for the future of both antitrust law and Big Tech’s relationship with Washington. Putting these companies under the glare of a national spotlight […]

They belong in school Recent reports have exposed just how bad life is for the children who find themselves in detention centers along our southern border. The New York Times has described filthy conditions lacking food and basic health care. Investigations have uncovered overflowing toilets, extreme heat, bedbugs, and days without showers. At a detention center in Clint, Texas, “the […]

For computers to serve us, they must understand human contexts Power relationships can be deceptive, even those with inanimate objects. Who is in charge, you or your computer? I am old enough to remember booting up a DOS or Linux computer straight to a command line. The black screen displayed some apparently random symbols followed […]

On June 16, former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang took to Twitter to call out Facebook, Yang asks an important question, “How much of that value are users seeing?” Normally, economists use prices and quantity of sales to measure how much value a sector creates. Since social media services are said to be free, it is confusedly […]

The virtual future of work is closer than we think Inthe pre-COVID-19 world, the idea that remote meetings are second-best was pervasive in traditional corporate thinking. But insisting in-person is better is a flawed approach. It ignores the societal, economic, social, and mental benefits of remote work. It also downplays the functionality and promise of […]

And it may be a long-term trend More people have been working from home over the past few months than ever before in modern history. In the wake of COVID-19, government restrictions and company policies alike have been put in place to encourage social distancing by requiring workers to clock in from their home office […]