High electricity prices in Britain are primarily driven by costly renewable energy policies, which could be mitigated by halting new projects and allowing existing contracts to expire.
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Duncan McClements is the author of the website Model Thinking, a Substack publication focused on ideas and impact, with hundreds of subscribers.
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The UK government's public investment appraisal neglects the economic costs of taxation, necessitating a higher benefit threshold for justifying public spending.
The article discusses the implications of AI on urban populations and housing markets, arguing that if AI reduces the wage premium of cities, people may move to areas with better amenities and lower costs. It critiques the notion ...
The blog post analyzes the fiscal impact of migration in the UK, arguing that while some low-wage migrants may be a net fiscal drain, the majority of migrants contribute positively to the economy. It critiques a 2024 ONS study for...
The blog post discusses Britain's historical decline from global dominance, attributing it primarily to mass emigration rather than economic factors. It models a counterfactual scenario where emigration from the UK was zero since ...
Shifting UK pension asset allocations from bonds to equities could significantly enhance retirement consumption and welfare without additional fiscal burden.
5.1Come to Second Order!
2025-08-16 • networking economics unconference policy diversity
The post announces a three-day residential unconference for early-career economists and policy enthusiasts at Harkstead Hall from September 26th to 29th, 2025. Participants will collaboratively create the schedule, focusing on div...
0Pennies for Petabytes
2025-06-06 • copyright digital data ai
The text discusses the impact of copyright reform on AI models and the compensation for artists and writers. It models the potential payment to creators if AI companies were to pay for using their work, concluding that data paymen...
The text discusses the impact of automation on horses and compares it to the potential impact of artificial intelligence on humans. It explains how the welfare of horses has improved despite the decline in population due to automa...
The text discusses the potential economic growth from AI and the possibility of AI automating the process of invention itself. It explores the impact of AI on R&D, cognitive labor automation, and the economy, and the challenges an...
0The end times portfolio is long
2024-11-06 •
The text discusses the concept of skin in the game and how it applies to the AI safety movement. It explores different approaches to betting beliefs and models a portfolio to test each option. The author concludes that high estima...
0Thames into Tyburn
2024-09-13 •
The text discusses the idea of reclaiming land by covering rivers in large cities, using the example of the Thames in London. It outlines the estimated cost and potential benefits of reclaiming the land, including increased real e...
0Refillable planet
2024-09-02 •
Humanity is facing a fertility problem with birth rates falling rapidly. The author discusses the need to encourage more births or remove existing barriers. They argue that more people are beneficial for society, as they bring new...
0A New Atlantis
2024-04-01 •
The text discusses the unaffordability of housing in Britain due to planning restrictions, proposing the reclamation of Dogger Bank as a solution. It estimates the cost and benefits of the project, including infrastructure and eco...
0Insuring Progress
2024-01-07 •
The post discusses the proposal to replace process-based regulations with outcome-based regulations and introduce a Mandatory Insurance Scheme in childcare, energy, and housing sectors to boost British growth. It highlights the be...
0Assessing altruism
2023-07-09 •
The text discusses the paradox of intergenerational altruism in the Barro-Becker model of fertility, and explores possible explanations for the discrepancy between the value of children's welfare and their consumption levels. Theo...
0Paying For Peace
2023-03-26 •
The text discusses the potential idea of paying Russian soldiers to surrender in order to end the conflict in Ukraine. It provides a simple model of the effect of such a policy and estimates the potential gains of the scheme if im...
0Prisons compared
2023-02-12 •
The text compares the effects of prisons on crime, including deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and criminogenic aspects. It discusses the high cost of prisons and compares them to a system with equal deterrence, no incap...
0NATO ascendant
2023-01-22 •
The post provides a macro and abstract model of the war in Ukraine to estimate the levels of Western support necessary at the maximum possible level of Russian mobilisation. It discusses the capital capacity of Ukraine, the milita...
0Innovative externality inclusion
2022-12-31 •
The post discusses the impact of regulation on innovation and economic growth, focusing on the Code of Federal Regulations as a dataset. It explores the effects of regulation on trend output growth, GDP growth, and welfare implica...
0Tsunami invariant
2022-12-18 •
The blog post discusses the modifications made to the model of immigration under a policy of open borders. It includes assumptions about remittances, economic growth, and the impact of immigrants on total productivity in the count...
0Advantage diminishing
2022-12-04 •
Comparative advantage in economics explains why all countries benefit from trade, rather than merely those that are most efficient at producing given goods and services. This blog explores whether comparative advantage externaliti...
0Term time
2022-11-20 •
The blog post discusses the issue of politicians favoring short-term spending over long-term investment due to the need for re-election. It uses the Solow Model to analyze the optimal investment rates under different term lengths ...
0A benefit greater yet
2022-11-06 •
The blog discusses the estimation of optimal population subsidies, taking into account the endogenization of fertility. It presents regression results, predictions of population decline without subsidies, and the implications of d...