Articles from Digitopoly

I have a new paper out with Christian Catalini (or ‘Dave’ as we call him) that examines initial coin offerings (or ICOs). These are the big new thing in fund raising for ventures whereby startups issue tokens that are redeemable for services that they may provide or facilitate in the future. Here is John Oliver with a good primer:

It is time for the annual review of the past year in digital economics. As in prior years, this review will resemble an awards ceremony. And there are so many events deserving of recognition — hackers at Equifax, Russian ads at Facebook, #metoo on Twitter, an implosion at Uber, and a bubble at Bitcoin, to name just a few notable events. This post will reward these events, and more!

Many people say nothing but that is the same of all money like assets to some degree. Bob Shiller says we can’t actually tell as it is worth what people think it is worth and that could be anything. I wonder if we can do better. To be sure, “better” is not great.

Amongst economists I know (myself included), Ted Chiang is universally beloved as a science fiction writer. So it was with great excitement that I saw yesterday he had written a Buzzfeed piece on artificial intelligence and the power of corporations. Alas, it turned out to be an incoherent mess that went nowhere.