Matthias Kasper

I cannot stop being amazed that somehow, in 2026, he managed to have an article written about him in NYT that reads more like an advertisement despite the context and the "research" history

“Germans know that a world in which only power counts is a dark place,” writes German Chancellor @_FriedrichMerz. “Our country went down this path in the twentieth century to a bitter and evil end. Today, we are taking a different path.” foreignaffairs.com/europe/how-ave…

Overleaf killer.

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: federalreserve.gov/newsevents/spe…

@businessbarista Claude

I want to start a community dedicated to Claude Code. It’s become the gateway drug to coding and experiencing the power of AI for tons of people. This will be a space for people to share killer use cases, agentic workflows, proven prompts, and connect with other CC obsessives. Comment “Claude” if you want to join.

"At least Hitler built the Autobahn..." Can successful infrastructure projects boost support for a dictatorship? Nico Voigtländer and I wrote a paper looking at the German experience: "Highway to Hitler". Here is a link to the ungated version: anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/nico.v…

This paper from Harvard and MIT quietly answers the most important AI question nobody benchmarks properly: Can LLMs actually discover science, or are they just good at talking about it? The paper is called “Evaluating Large Language Models in Scientific Discovery”, and instead of asking models trivia questions, it tests something much harder: Can models form hypotheses, design experiments, interpret results, and update beliefs like real scientists? Here’s what the authors did differently 👇 • They evaluate LLMs across the full discovery loop hypothesis → experiment → observation → revision • Tasks span biology, chemistry, and physics, not toy puzzles • Models must work with incomplete data, noisy results, and false leads • Success is measured by scientific progress, not fluency or confidence What they found is sobering. LLMs are decent at suggesting hypotheses, but brittle at everything that follows. ✓ They overfit to surface patterns ✓ They struggle to abandon bad hypotheses even when evidence contradicts them ✓ They confuse correlation for causation ✓ They hallucinate explanations when experiments fail ✓ They optimize for plausibility, not truth Most striking result: `High benchmark scores do not correlate with scientific discovery ability.` Some top models that dominate standard reasoning tests completely fail when forced to run iterative experiments and update theories. Why this matters: Real science is not one-shot reasoning. It’s feedback, failure, revision, and restraint. LLMs today: • Talk like scientists • Write like scientists • But don’t think like scientists yet The paper’s core takeaway: Scientific intelligence is not language intelligence. It requires memory, hypothesis tracking, causal reasoning, and the ability to say “I was wrong.” Until models can reliably do that, claims about “AI scientists” are mostly premature. This paper doesn’t hype AI. It defines the gap we still need to close. And that’s exactly why it’s important.

Bombshell: Oliver Sacks (a humane man & a fine essayist) made up many of the details in his famous case studies, deluding neuroscientists, psychologists, & general readers for decades. The man who mistook his wife for a hat? The autistic twins who generated multi-digit prime numbers? The institutionalized, paralyzed man who tapped out allusions to Rilke? Made up to embellish the stories. Probably also: the aphasic patients who detected lies better than neurologically intact people, including Ronald Reagan's insincerity. newyorker.com/magazine/2025/…

Einladung zur Auftaktveranstaltung für unsere große Schriftenreihe "Vordenker der liberalen Moderne" – gefördert vom @bmftr_bund 🚀 . Bis Ende des Jahres 2029 werden im Rahmen der Reihe 26 Bände entstehen. Stay tuned! cc/@Lars_Feld

I’ve started an ongoing project to collect all the datasets which economists can use, all in one place, organized by topic. Started with 50, further suggestions are extremely welcome. It will grow considerably.

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ_uzh at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics. 🧵 1/7

New paper with @brian_jabarian (who is on the market, hire him!) TL;DR: modern LLM-generated text detectors are *really* good and there is a principled way to use them in high-stakes settings. Thread below:

22-year-old David Bowie performs "Space Oddity" at the Ivor Novello Awards in London (1969)

Excited to co-edit this @JOTAJournal Special Issue with @evachalioti & @KotsogiannisC! 🚀 Exploring how #AI is reshaping #TaxSystems — from #TaxAudits & #Compliance to #Policy & #TaxpayerServices. 📝 Deadline: Jan 16, 2026 More info here 👇: jota.website/jota/announcem… @TARC2013

Der Wiss. Beirat beim BMF begründet in seiner aktuellen Stellungnahme warum eine wirksame Schuldenbremse nötig ist und zeigt den Reformbedarf auf. Hier der Link: bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Dow… @AlfonsJ64 @klaus_adam @WielandVolker @Lars_Feld @FuestClemens @NadineRiedel2

*** NEW WORKING PAPER ALERT *** How can we transform qualitative information into quantitative variables – and what are the obstacles in doing so? My new working paper explores these questions and presents a new fiscal rule index for Swiss cantons. A THREAD 🧵

Für Steuersenkungen wird am Ende überhaupt kein Spielraum übrig bleiben. Ob die Unternehmensteuer-Senkungen am Ende überhaupt kommen, steht in den Sternen. Denn im Haushalt klaffen riesige Löcher, und niemand kommt auf die Idee, als Reaktion darauf Sparvorschläge einzubringen.

„Dieses Rentenpaket ist nicht fair. Es ist nicht ehrlich. Und das Schlimme daran, es ist alles nicht neu. Denn so ist es seit vielen Jahren.“ #Rentenpaket tagesschau.de/kommentar/rent…

Studentische Hilfskraft gesucht! Das @Euckeninstitut sucht HistorikerInnen zur Mitarbeit an Forschungsprojekten zum Thema (Wirtschafts)Liberalismus im 20. Jahrhundert 📖 eucken.de/karriere/wisse… Gerne RT! Cc @lars_feld

I’ve been waiting for someone to write this paper, glad to see this all-star team pull it off. Looks like consulting does add direct value, contrary to what many academics (including myself) have thought. (My prior was consulting solved agency issues w/in firms).