right ... but even there, you've got a total cost of [whatever] so using it once per decade is a lot of money per [unit of power] delivered.

Let's not forget deep geothermal!

afaik there are plenty of techs that can beat 4 hour and be cheaper than i.e. stacking two 4-hour batteries to get 8 hours, but underlying problem is m having a piece of kit that costs £X and revenue from each charge/discharge so infrequent use costs more, whatever tech.

Public investment quality and sovereign risk This paper introduces a new index measuring the quality of public investment covering 120 economies over the period 2000–2021. It shows that scaling u…

possibly so ... or possibly not. I think some countries get in trouble running levels of expenditure they cannot sustain (covering SOE power co deficits, etc.) and the growth doesn't come through. This paper finds a pattern related on an index of quality www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I'd like to read something about how countries have misjudged it and when they have got it right

Power, water, healthcare, education, all often cost more than people can pay for, either out of pocket or via taxes. I imagine good policy is forward looking and runs a little ahead of what is affordable today (that's why sovereign borrowing is useful)

India has splurged billions on metro trains. But where are the commuters? Without better last-mile connectivity and affordable fares, metro use is unlikely to improve quickly, say experts.

I don't see this much studied by academics but imo a big part of development policy is trying to align your big plans with what people can afford

India has splurged billions on metro trains. But where are the commuters? - BBC News share.google/xlfQQmPiCiR5...

'Daft Funk Live' - A Retrospective Celebration of Daft Punk A Retrospective Celebration of Daft Punk - Performed Live

Anyone want a couple of tickets to this, tomorrow night at The Garage in Highbury www.daftfunk.co.uk

We've launched In Development! It is aiming to be the New Yorker for global development.

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I read Steve Malkmus also saying his lyrics are usually just words he things sound good together and are vaguely evocative and don't bear much further examination

I suppose it needs govt intervention and long-term off take contracts to prevent green producers going bust every time the fossil price dips and they'd lose demand if selling into a spot market?

... is less good at saying in specific place, right, this is what needs to done, which is I think behind some of dissatisfaction with development economics where people are looking for something more propositional (i.e. should we try to get into automotive, if so, how?)

also, a thought on my mind recently about industrial policy and growth (with no clam of originality or insight) which is mainstream econ tends to see the "someone needs to *do* something" part of growth as process that can be helped or hindered but ....

which, in turn, made me wonder whether, if I looked into mainstream econ treatment of investment decisions, would I modelling of rollover risk if using short-term debt, or uncertainty about future prevailing wages?

On Algae and Animal Spirits Arjun and I did a webinar recently on our book Against Money, organized by Merijn Knibbe.

this from @jwmason.bsky.social seems so eminently sensible it left me wondering who it's disagreeing with

jwmason.substack.com/p/on-algae-a...

I don't know - at some point the victim of theft needs to point to their bike, it might as well be at the start.

Prob easiest if you can focus from the start on the stolen bike and ignore all other comings and goings, no?

I keep hearing about how any fule can get AI to write an app that does stuff like that ... although presumably a human has to first identify the bike in question

My mind is bent.

I would like to understand how that decline in floor space for private renters interacts with whatever inflation stats have to say about housing costs

maybe it's the parent's welfare that is really hit!

inflation often result in substitution to cheaper and previously less preferred goods and capturing welfare cost of that is hard - with substituting to living with parents, much worse is that "housing service" in welfare terms, relative to independent living?

or if they could adjust for quality of housing (so i.e. if nominal expenditure is flat but quality declines, it shows up as inflation)

here is example of distributional analysis of consumption side of cost of living ifs.org.uk/sites/defaul...

There is some analysis of inflation for different sections of society, but I don't know how imputed housing costs work there and if it would pick up having to live with parents or in low quality small shared housing

quite possibly yes - I am interested in how to test that idea. for example, if you under invest in maintenance you might expect to start seeing more spent on repairs, it would be interesting to see if there is that sort of evidence in spending patterns.

this work on disaggregated national accounts, defining "cells" that trace flows connecting smaller groups "for example, which consumers purchase goods from which producers and which producers pay income to which consumers" looks interesting:

academic.oup.com/qje/article/...

i meant apart, and percentage points not %

yes! this is something I have been asking people about, especially applied to government, where every branch seems to be coming part at the seams, but total expenditure as % of GDP is up 5% on pre-pandemic. I realise NHS faces underlying demand growth, but what about the rest?

I've been enjoying Paul McAuley. I'm also struggling a bit with another much-recommended book, Patrick Rothfuss, which, as with Tainted Cup, would benefit from pruning.

Oh this is the first one I diverge from you on I think. I thought it was badly written.