All Research

All Research

Liability Elasticity and Other Policy Concerns Underlying Social Media Addiction Lawsuits
Article
AEIdeas

Liability Elasticity and Other Policy Concerns Underlying Social Media Addiction Lawsuits

Lurking beneath today’s raft of social media addiction lawsuits blaming platforms for harming minors are three broad public policy concerns. These frets could easily affect corporate liability in areas beyond online media.…

A Flammable Landscape
Article
The Dispatch

A Flammable Landscape

Los Angeles continues to burn.  As of this writing, the Palisades Fire is spread over 23,713 acres and is 22 percent contained. This means that 22 percent of the fire’s perimeter has…

Demystifying Social Media Addiction Litigation
Article
AEIdeas

Demystifying Social Media Addiction Litigation

The old sales pitch hollered by baseball game vendors was “you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.” Something similar rings true today about not only knowing the litigants but…

The Hardware and Software of AI
Article
The Dispatch

The Hardware and Software of AI

Friends, it is great to talk with you again. I hope you had a restful break. In the two weeks since we last chatted, I spent some time organizing my…

Meta’s Content Moderation Turnabout
Article
The Honest Broker

Meta’s Content Moderation Turnabout

Today, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced that it would immediately stop using “fact checkers” to police the content on its platforms, which also include Instagram and Threads. Meta explained:…

DOGE Needs to Dig Deeper Than Its Leaders Understand
Article
The Dispatch

DOGE Needs to Dig Deeper Than Its Leaders Understand

An undergraduate class on Congress and legislation was one of the lowlights of my academic career. In my work for the class, I would often get wrapped up in critiquing…

A Venture Capitalist as AI and Crypto Czar
Article
The Dispatch

A Venture Capitalist as AI and Crypto Czar

When I first conceived this newsletter, one of the audiences I had in mind was what I called the “All-In crowd,” the people who listen to and engage with the All-In Podcast.…

The DOJ’s Antitrust Remedies Aren’t Keeping Pace With the Market
Article
The Dispatch

The DOJ’s Antitrust Remedies Aren’t Keeping Pace With the Market

There’s an image that haunts me, in a good way, because it visualizes a tendency that I want to avoid.  It comes from a group of researchers at the University of…

Taking a Swing at the Size and Cost of Government
Article
The Dispatch

Taking a Swing at the Size and Cost of Government

When people talk about Illinois politics, they often reference Chicago. But when Chicagoans talk about politics, they talk about Springfield, the state capital where I was born and raised. Quite…

The Case for Forward-Looking Policies
Article
The Dispatch

The Case for Forward-Looking Policies

This is the fourth presidential election cycle that I’ve worked as a tech policy analyst and it’s easily been my least busy. Normally, a presidential candidate would suggest a crazy…

Twenty-Four Ways to Understand 2024
Article
The Dispatch

Twenty-Four Ways to Understand 2024

Economist Deirdre McCloskey opens The Narrative of Economic Expertise with an observation that blew me away when I read it as an undergraduate: It is pretty clear that an economist, like a…

How Tech Regulatory Approaches Have Changed, and Not for the Better
Article
The Dispatch

How Tech Regulatory Approaches Have Changed, and Not for the Better

As president, Bill Clinton had failures, both personal and professional, but one thing he got right during his time in office was the Framework for Global Electronic Commerce. Released in July…

Article
Knowledge Problem

Progress and Its Enemies

26 years ago, Virginia Postrel published The Future and Its Enemies, which I still consider one of the most insightful books of our time. The book’s subtitle, The Growing Conflict Over Creativity,…

Why Western North Carolina Spurned Flood Control Measures Decades Ago
Article
The Dispatch

Why Western North Carolina Spurned Flood Control Measures Decades Ago

The July 17, 1916, edition of The Asheville Citizen could have easily been reprinted late last month and maintained its relevance: “Asheville today is absolutely isolated from the outside world, is a city…

Extending Years of Life Through Innovations in Drug Therapy
Article
The Dispatch

Extending Years of Life Through Innovations in Drug Therapy

This summer I experienced a cruelty I hope no one should have to endure. On Saturday my mother passed away, just three months and two days after my dad did…