John Burn-Murdoch for the Financial Times: Why birth rates are falling everywhere all at once. This is a gift link but has only 3 uses, so I will reveal the punchline of this beautifully illustrated exploration of data here: “In country after country the birth rate plunged after the introduction of smartphones, no matter what the previous trend was. The younger the age group, the more pronounced the downturn — a mirror image of smartphone usage patterns.” Note that my thoughts on journalist science still apply: caveat lector. But since the article matches my own bias I link to it without hesitation.
Harry Law for Works in Progress: Why Spain has the world’s greatest cities. Having recently been to Spain, I agree with their assessment that it does indeed have the best cities. Though with 65% of people living in apartments, and not of the luxury kind, I imagine it can get claustrophobic for introverts.
Scott Lincicome for The Dispatch: GDP Is Good, Actually. Sure is, as long as you remember Goodhart’s law. Otherwise you get into all sorts of moral conundrums, such as whether it is OK to produce and sell stuff that causes cancer because hey, cancer drug research, manufacture and sale will also make GDP go up, amiright?
Melissa Naschek for Jacobin: Socialism Has a Future. Central Planning Doesn’t. This is an interview with Vivek Chibber, professor of sociology at NYU. I will emphasize the same part Alex Tabarrok did, and for the same reason: “If we’re actually serious about changing the world, people on the Left … should be the most remorseless and the most merciless when it comes to facts.” Being merciless about facts used to be the defining characteristic of the scientific way of thinking, until people started using phrases like “settled science” and such as a linguistic bludgeon.