Some interesting links on local optima/greediness/risk-aversion/creative destruction (eg. Porter hypothesis or equity premium puzzle), sometimes demonstrated by disasters.
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“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy”, Timothy 2002
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The Luck Factor, 2004
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War/Disaster/Collapse:
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“The great wars, the great crash, and steady state growth: Some new evidence about an old stylized fact”, Ben-1995; “Do natural disasters promote long-run growth?”, 2002
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“The Economic Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Its Victims: Evidence from Individual Tax Returns”, et al 2014
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“The Benefits of Forced Experimentation: Striking Evidence from the London Underground Subway Network”, et al 2017
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“Resetting the Urban Network: 117–2012 AD”, 2016; “Monks, Gents and Industrialists: The Long-Run Impact of the Dissolution of the English Monasteries”, et al 2015/ 2021 (see the criticisms of perpetuities/waqfs as locking in mistakes)
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“Lehman’s Lemons: Do Career Disruptions Matter for the Top 5%?”, 2021
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“Displacement, Diversity, and Mobility: Career Impacts of Japanese American Internment”, Arellano-2021
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Fire (background):
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“Razing San Francisco: The 1906118ya Disaster as a Natural Experiment in Urban Redevelopment”, 2012; “Does Building New Housing Cause Displacement?: The Supply and Demand Effects of Construction in San Francisco”, 2021
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“Creative Destruction: Barriers to Urban Growth and the Great Boston Fire of 1872”, 2017 (cf. The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth in America, 1986)
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“The Billion Pound Drop: The Blitz and Agglomeration Economics in London”, 2018 (contrast with 2020)
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Decisions:
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“Making Big Decisions: The Impact of Moves on Marriage among U.S. Army Personnel”, 2018
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“Timing is Everything: Evidence from College Major Decisions”, et al 2019
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“Heads Or Tails: The Impact Of A Coin Toss On Major Life Decisions And Subsequent Happiness”, 2020
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“Science Is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial”, et al 2017; “Wikipedia Matters”, et al 2019
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“The Gift of Moving: Intergenerational Consequences of a Mobility Shock”, et al 2022
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creative destruction; the “Porter hypothesis”; the equity premium puzzle
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“Exploration in the wild”, et al 2018 (an interesting paper, although not clearly establishing suboptimal exploration, which uses an extremely large dataset of restaurant orders by individuals from Deliveroo)
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“Evidence for a Conserved Quantity in Human Mobility”, et al 2016 (people visit few physical locations, and while they do continuously explore new locations & shift, there appears to be an equivalent of a Dunbar’s number, suggesting limits to human abilities to easily plan/remember activities covering more than ~25 locations regularly)
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An amusing fictional example might be the My Little Pony episode “Applejack’s ‘Day’ Off”.
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“Eager To Burst His Own Bubble, A Techie Made Apps To Randomize His Life”
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See Also: Evolution as Backstop for Reinforcement Learning, Sunk costs, On Having Enough Socks