Startups relying heavily on organization capital to achieve economies of scale and network effects through digital technologies are more likely to become large private firms than exit earlier via an IPO or acquisition, from Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, Leandro Sanz, and René Stulz www.nber.org/papers/w35191

I've posted this before but it bears repeating and hopefully learning lessons .... but we won't. How not to build an AI Institute Alex Chalmers share.google/OyUx4JsLABGx...

I just started writing on substack over the past couple of weeks—and it's all in front of the paywall. Topics are eclectic, but it's all about using economics to better understand this beautiful world of ours. Sounds interesting? Give it a gander, and subscribe → newsletter.platypuseconomics.com

My Sunday Times column: Britain’s industrial decline has long shaped the country’s economic geography. It keeps reshaping our political geography too, because no politician has an answer to it: Voters cried out for help. Know-how, not nostalgia, can save them www.thetimes.com/article/569d...

And now the voting. Time for the traditional switch to the Father Ted "Eurovision" episode.

Londoners will always reject those who seek to divide our communities. My statement on today’s events:

These new delivery functions will be accountable to both their Secretary of State and to my team. This builds on my recent work setting up the new joint No10 and Cabinet Office Delivery Unit. Read more: www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/...

Britain is a wealthy law-abiding country, with a long shared history, a vibrant civic society and robust institutions. It is not in any way ungovernable and suggesting it is lets the people who should be governing it off the hook.

Are you tired of the non-stop utopian/dystopian AI predictions from CEOs? Do you want to hear what's ACTUALLY happening, from the people it's actually happening TO? If so, I have good news: I felt the same, so I have worn out my shoe-leather & written this book! www.penguin.co.uk/books/462159...

What China is doing with major projects is stunning. The contrast with other nations is striking.

What’s also quite staggering is that almost all of this new generation came from solar and wind. China generated 340 TWh more electricity from solar than the year before. That’s more than our two home countries, the UK and Spain, generate from all sources each year.

Very interesting on how AI is making jobs better or not. Are we thinking about AI and productivity all wrong? share.google/SKLKz7816yVG...

Ugh this is so brilliant i wish i'd commissioned it. What went wrong for the Groucho? (Apart from everything) the-fence.com/dean-street-...

Outrage generates clicks, which is why you'll have noticed a surge in online content talking London down. Be vigilant: so much of what we see online is far from real. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

At last! some decent news on productivity.

Can law stop criminals misusing #AI? 🤔 Join us for a free online open event with Prof Michael Veale (@michae.lv) exploring AI, technology law and digital regulation - followed by an intro to our new LLM Law and Technology specialism and Q&A. 📅 10 June, 12:00–13:00 BST 🔗 Register: shorturl.at/pEHAH

Interesting piece on anti infrastructure extreme right terrorism. Aligns with European experience with eco-fascism.

Absolutely correct from Starmer here. Sharp contrast to the equivocal response to the last Robinson/Musk rally - a very welcome change.

💯from @robertshrimsley.bsky.social. Relatedly, if you think the UK changes PMs too often, which of the last 5 departures were mistakes? Cameron shd have stayed after losing the referendum? May after deadlock with her deal? Johnson after Partygate? Truss after meltdown? And Sunak lost an election.

I think this maybe the most niché bit of trivia I’ve ever heard.

The great global bond freakout ft.trib.al/39zhB4O | opinion

Radical change you say Mr/s Leadership candidate? The FT would like you to sit on that stool there while it goes to get a big bucket of iced water. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

GB News should lose its licence, says ex-Sky News editor Adam Boulton

When the Great Defunding started in 2025, the European Union introduced a "bold" program to attract top scientists from the US, funded at the tune of about ~$500 million spread over 3-5 years. In 2024, the NIH allocated almost twice as that per week.

This thread is really interesting. Inside and outside the USA there is an underappreciation of just how big and high quality US research is. Individual US departments produce more of the highest quality science than European nations. And not just small ones.

King’s College London to merge with Cranfield University, in the latest major partnership between UK higher education institutions amid a sector-wide financial crisis. Helen Packer reports #merger #edusky https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/kings-college-london-merge-cranfield-university

NEW: What exactly happened in the local and devolved elections in England, Scotland and Wales last week? @persuasionuk.bsky.social has some new polling out today which offers a first glimpse. Thread here on top line findings from each nation. 🧵

My new Coppola Comment post reflects on inflation control in the Roman Empire. Just like today, it's all about the labour market - but the labour market in a slave economy works very differently from ours. open.substack.com/pub/coppolac...

This is very good.

it's essentially a fascist vision rather than an imperial one, and I do think they're different in this regard; fascist conquest puts a much greater emphasis on the humiliation and subjugation of the conquered people as inferiors, and the libidinous pleasure to be derived from that for the core.

Does engaging with the arts help to slow the aging process? According to this new paper from Fancourt et al the answer is yes! Alas, the paper is actually unsuitable for such claims. Let’s examine by discussing how you'd establish whether arts engagement actually caused future health! 1/18 🧵

The dilemma—enough freedom for innovation, enough control to prevent disaster—is the central regulatory challenge of the age. Register for free to learn why China’s approach matters

Just wrote a new blogpost trying to summarize my thoughts on the question of how and whether to use AI for research in psychology and cognitive science: babieslearninglanguage.blogspot.com/2026/04/usin...

Research funded by big bamboo, probably: A new method for creating high-strength bamboo molecular plastics with exceptional mechanical strength, thermal stability, and biodegradability that outperforms most commercial plastics and bioplastics while being cost-competitive and recyclable.

For 45 years, Berkeley built virtually no new housing. By the mid-2010s, it was one of the most expensive college towns in America. Around that time, YIMBYs took over and kicked off a building boom. Today, rents are below 2018 levels in nominal terms—a remarkable case of progress on affordability.

But some worry that the process is too rushed to be credible

8 months later, despite *clear mathematical errors*, Neurology still doesn't have the guts to retract it! N.B. This study went VIRAL. Global news coverage, all over social media. And it's bullshit. Worse than bullshit. It's dangerous health misinformation. www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/...

'The government has no clear plan for universities at risk of insolvency, despite the fact that such a financial failure would deal a “severe and lasting blow” to the UK’s reputation for outstanding research, a committee...has warned.' Finally, recognition that teaching & research joined at hip.

Step 1: Run regression of [scary Y] on [trendy X] using observational data Step 2: Magically "adjust" for the 20 bajillion imperfectly-measured confounders Step 3: Wait for a credulous journalist to write it up as causal www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Eating Prime Ministers is a Dutch, and only Dutch, tradition, thank you very much. My culture isn’t your costume!

It’s coming, I just know it. Is this the day an MP says something crushingly stupid about not being bossed around by the bond market?

How Labour took on the far-right in the 1960s.

From now on, I'm going to write papers where I take an arbitrary performance metric, restrict the sample to top performers on that metric, and then hunt for negative correlations with everything else in the truncated sample. I'm at a business school, so this should be extremely lucrative.

1/ New piece on the NEIS Center Substack by @luukschmitz.bsky.social: conditionality in industrial policy isn't just a safeguard against waste — it also has real costs. And those costs are systematically underweighted in the current debate. neiscenter.substack.com/p/industrial...

Two thoughtful essays about the impact of LLMs on graduate education: ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma... economics.mit.edu/sites/defaul... From personal experience I think the self-control problem mentioned in the first essay is very real.

Scary diagram on how much of our daily lives would fall apart if somehow we were cut off from US tech. Tech sovereignty and resilience is going to be costly! www.ft.com/content/4c3a...

Thieves are stealing Chile's solar panels & cashing in on the black market. Prof. @sovacool.bsky.social highlights that Chile’s rapid expansion of solar energy has exposed new risks, as growing value & demand for PVs make them increasingly attractive to criminal networks. tinyurl.com/33md55ya

Nice review by @gilesyb.bsky.social of @johnkampfner.bsky.social’s new book showing how policy can be different drawing on examples from other countries. It’s true UK policy tends to be parochial. As Giles says, it’s not simple and policy is path dependent www.ft.com/content/7de3...

#ChemicalWeapons #Syria #Justice #WarCrime Syria arrests ex-Assad era general over 2013 chemical attack www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-ea... Syria’s Interior Ministry announced Friday the arrest of a former general from the era of ousted regime leader Bashar Assad over alleged involvement in a ...

Great thread on the mess of Russia