iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I’ve got a chapter about this coming out soon. You can model basically any choice in terms of utility. Sometimes this exercise sheds no additional insight, sometimes it does.

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Reposted by Steven Bosworth

Senior PowerPoint Engineer @ryxcommar.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

A friendly reminder as Nobel season approaches, the Nobel Prizes are not real Sveriges Riksbank Prizes in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Work by Bakker and Datta shows that provision of leased housing is completely inelastic so capping fees improves consumer welfare: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... but of course which consumers get apartments is obviously not neutral and I would guess favours locals / insiders

papers.ssrn.com

The Equilibrium Effects of Regulating Junk Fees: Evidence from the Rental Brokerage Market

Hidden “junk” fees have the potential to distort competition, creating high costs to consumers. However, regulating them can lead to adverse effects, especially

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The UK has actually run this experiment in reverse! Leasing agents used to charge a fee of about 1 month’s rent ON TOP of the security deposit just to sign the contract. This was banned in 2019 because people hated them (of course what they really hated was that scarcity enabled rentierism).

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Gordon Tullock spinning in his grave

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

But pressure for such a policy change is not going to come from existing university admins. They are run by people who have most skilfully navigated the existing wasteful system.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Governments need to have national funding bodies ban overheads. Yes, universities need to be funded, but governments can do this in ways that waste less of people’s time.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

“we control for selection on observables”

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Reposted by Steven Bosworth

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The Chief Rabbi speaks for Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and their apologists in this country. Ed Miliband speaks for me and many other British Jews.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

For all the hate this has got it’s almost right: we know that models work by mimicry, no debate there. But if you think (as I do!) that consciousness is qualitatively different then you need to elaborate a theory of consciousness which is ideally observationally distinct. It’s not a trivial problem!

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Italy and Britain, passing in the middle

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Reposted by Steven Bosworth

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I argue that the human tendency towards xenophobia, domination-politics and violence (to be clear, alongside our tendencies towards cooperation and altruism - we are complex!) comes from our long history of warfare. So let's talk about the evidence for how long that history is.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Should have taken a class on welfare economics. They’ve got this 100% nailed down.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

The airlines are extracting a surplus which is fake. From a passenger welfare perspective it’s unambiguously bad. Overall ???

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I’ve never understood why most people care about this. If you’ve got an assigned seat then it’ll be there whenever you board. The whole plane is taking off at the same time. You are just going from sitting in a terminal to sitting in a more cramped space.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

English has a functionally logographic writing system

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

(I am not actually anti-fixed point theorems)

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Reposted by Steven Bosworth

Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I think the issue is live again, somewhat, because of the poli-sci view that people really hated the covid inflation, which wasn't that far off IMO the best central banks could do under the circumstances. The alternative being less inflation and a big recession.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Pretty sure Rubinstein would also say this

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

uhh neither, this is a bargaining problem you should haggle them to 500K and save the trial costs

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

von Neumann and Morgenstern were writing about how people SHOULD play games

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

But on the poker thing, yes, it’s good advice to remind yourself to try and be risk neutral over small stakes! (where ‘small stakes’ of course needs to be relative to your wealth and access to credit)

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

tbf I am trolling a little - as a behavioural economist I see vNM utility functions as modelling conveniences, not a thing people have

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

But what if people preferring the 50K resolves the equity premium puzzle, hmm??

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Yeah it is precisely the high level of public accountability that makes the NHS so stingy.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

OP thread also mischaracterising UK system - we have private healthcare! you can go to whichever provider you want and even get private insurance. But you are paying for the NHS under all circumstances and get to use it whenever you like. It is not M4A.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Psychological game theorists, finally getting in on IO economists’ consulting bag

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

look if they didn’t set a deadline only to miss it what would they complain about?

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

“Sovereign debt markets organize the collective interests of the ruling class” theory completely destroyed by Liz Truss

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

This is what they (Napoleon) took from us.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

People in my union will say this about ‘uninvolved members’ voting on strike ballots and I wonder if their theory of worker power is 5 people going on strike constantly.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Reminds me of Ali G /Borat or any of the SBC personas where the character wears thin pretty quickly but the comedy comes from people interacting with it seriously. If you wonder why people are laughing at the bin, they’re not, they’re laughing at you.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

The easiest marks are the ones who think they’re in on the con.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

themselves when he’s gone but the problem is his successors are true believers, which is a big turn off to the wider public.

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I think a big element of how successful Trump has been at leading the US fash right is how he doesn’t believe in anything beyond aggrandising himself. So he’s a convincing salesman to normies and the movement uses him as a convenient wrecking ball. They may still be around and have entrenched 1/2

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Kudos to the CMA for pursuing this!

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

All the forms are there to placate swing voters angry about immigration, who are very sensitive to the actual numbers of immigrants and how many forms they need to fill out /s

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Steven Bosworth @sjbeconobot.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

There’s a certain extent to which if a health study lands in the Guardian you know it must be rubbish.

The Guardian
Drinking champagne could reduce risk of sudden cardiac arrest, study suggests
Maintaining a positive mood and eating more fruit may also help lower risk, researchers find
• Lewis Hamilton celebrates with champagne on the podium after winning the British Grand Prix in July. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Reuters

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