Edward Conard

Top Ten New York Times Bestselling Author

  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
  • “…a very valuable contribution.” - Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and director of the National Economic Council, president emeritus, Harvard University
  • “…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • “Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
  • “Unintended Consequences should be read by anyone who takes for granted the superiority of progressive taxation and has not thought carefully about the trade-offs involved.” - The New Republic
  • “…a very valuable contribution.” - Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and director of the National Economic Council, president emeritus, Harvard University
  • “Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
  • “…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • “…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
  • “A full-throated defense of economic dynamism.” - The Wall Street Journal
  • “…a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy.” - Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management
  • “Unintended Consequences offers deep and well-argued analyses on almost every issue.” - The New York Times
Upside of Inequality Oxford Unintended Consequences

AI Summary. Chinese social media is saturated with viral posts about low wages, job scarcity, falling property values, and economic despair, despite increasingly aggressive censorship. The volume of pessimistic and satirical content surviving China's censorship apparatus signals the depth of public anxiety about the economy.

Li Yuan New York Times
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Attitudes expressed on Chinese social media are increasingly negative. Given that the “censorship apparatus still controls the internet,” the increasingly negative online sentiment, much of it about “economic despair,” is “striking,” Li Yuan remarks.

Is China's censorship failing to contain economic despair online?

Core argument: Viral feeds on RedNote, Douyin, and Weibo are saturated with posts about meager wages, scarce jobs, and falling property values, signaling that economic despair has become the dominant register of Chinese social media.

Across RedNote, Douyin, Weibo and other popular platforms, you can scroll endless posts about meager wages, scarce jobs, falling property values and fear about the future. Some turn their hardships into dark humor. Others hijack official posts and hashtags and turn propaganda into spectacles of mockery. China’s internet censorship has grown increasingly ruthless over the past decade. That makes the sheer volume of the pessimistic posts and sarcastic comments all the more striking. When [Li Yuan opened her] RedNote in recent weeks, [she] was surprised to find that the first 30 or so posts were nearly all about economic despair, many with hundreds or thousands of likes. The suggested searches could be even gloomier. “Is there a future for employment in China?” read one.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Viral feeds on RedNote, Douyin, and Weibo are saturated with posts about meager wages, scarce jobs, and falling property values, signaling that economic despair has become the dominant register of Chinese social media.
  2. Chinese citizens are hijacking official hashtags and propaganda posts to stage public mockery, converting state messaging into vehicles for dissent despite a decade of increasingly ruthless censorship.

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AI Summary. Across wealthy countries, intended fertility and ideal family size fell over the past decade as children came to be seen as constraining freedom rather than conferring status or fulfillment.

Raquel Fernández, Inés Berniell and Milagros Onofri National Bureau of Economic Research
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Fernández et al. cast doubt on Goldin’s hypothesis that men’s limited willingness to share domestic responsibilities is central to fertility decline, pointing instead to the erosion of the belief that children are necessary for a fulfilling life.

Does freedom from family obligations now outweigh the fulfillment children provide?

Figure 1 documents how fertility outcomes and attitudes changed over the decade. Intended fertility fell in every GGS country, from 28 to 21% on average (Figure 1a). The ideal number of children fell in 17 of the 22 ISSP countries, from 2.42 to 2.31 on average (Figure 1b). [Children] became more likely to be seen as constraining parental freedom and less likely to be seen as conferring status (Figure 1c). Gender roles became less traditional, and the division of household work became more equal [Figures 1i]. Despite this greater sharing of chores and care, work–family conflict rose sharply. The decade saw changes that might have been expected to make the burden of children lighter, at least for women. Simultaneously, however, children became less attractive and, above all, less necessary: the belief that a fulfilled life requires children lost more ground than any attitude we measure [Table 2, Part II, Panel B].

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AI Summary. Over 40% of young men identify as failures, with daily pornography use and daily gambling each associated with failure self-perception rates above 60%.

Joseph Davis, Michael Toscano and Ken Burchfiel Institute For Family Studies
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An ISF survey of 2,000 American men aged 18–29 found 23% reported gambling daily and 27% watch pornography daily. 66% of the men who gambled daily reported feeling like a failure, as well as 63% of the men who watch pornography daily.

Are young men's struggles with addiction driving their sense of failure?

Core argument: 42% of young men identify as failures, with daily pornography viewers (63%) and daily gamblers (66%) reporting self-perceived failure at rates roughly 1.5× the overall average.

More than half of young men in our survey are now gamblers. Nearly 1 in 4 (23%) report that they gamble daily, plus 12% doing so more than several times a week, and a further 21% at least some of the time. 43% of young men say they watch pornography daily (27%) or several times a week (16%), with another 26% about weekly or less. More than 4 in 10 young men (42%) believe that the statement “all in all, I am inclined to think that I am a failure” describes them “very well” (15%) or “somewhat well” (27%). Those who view pornography (63%) and gamble (66%) every day—along with day trading and playing fantasy sports—are significantly more inclined to see themselves as a failure.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. 42% of young men identify as failures, with daily pornography viewers (63%) and daily gamblers (66%) reporting self-perceived failure at rates roughly 1.5× the overall average.
  2. More than half of young men gamble at some frequency, with 23% doing so daily—a pattern concentrated among those also exhibiting compulsive pornography use and self-perceived failure.
  3. 43% of young men consume pornography daily or several times a week, with daily users (27%) disproportionately represented among those who describe themselves as failures (63%).

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AI Summary. The narrowing unemployment gap between young college graduates and non-graduates reflects rising labor force dropout among non-graduates, not equal job market outcomes; the share of young non-graduates who are employed is 1.7 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels and falling, while graduates are near recovery.

Justin Fox Bloomberg
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Labor force participation is rising for American college graduates aged 25–29, and is now at 89.4% – above its pre-pandemic level. Participation among non-college members of that age cohort is falling; at 78.7%, it is now below its pre-pandemic level.

Are non-graduates disappearing from the job market?

Core argument: The narrowing education-unemployment gap among young adults reflects labor force withdrawal by non-degree holders—not diminished diploma value—as workers who stop seeking jobs are excluded from unemployment calculations.

The narrowing of [the unemployment gap btw college and non-college workers] in recent years has lent support to narratives that college diplomas are losing their value amid the rise of large language models, the purported return of blue-collar work, and other job market changes. But while it may well be that diplomas have lost value, the recent shrinking of the young-adult education-unemployment gap seems to be driven mainly by a different phenomenon. Growing numbers of young adults without college degrees simply aren’t trying to find work and thus aren’t counted in unemployment calculations. The employment-population ratio for young college grads is not far off from where it was just before the pandemic and seems as if it might be headed upward again after a sharp drop in 2023 and 2024, for non-grads it is 1.7 percentage points lower than before the pandemic and clearly trending downward.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. The narrowing education-unemployment gap among young adults reflects labor force withdrawal by non-degree holders—not diminished diploma value—as workers who stop seeking jobs are excluded from unemployment calculations.
  2. Young adults without college degrees carry an employment-population ratio 1.7 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels and trending downward, while college graduates have nearly recovered to pre-pandemic parity.

Related Articles:

  • Labor Force Participation Is High If You Measure It Right — The overall labor force participation rate is a misleading measure of labor market health because it does not account for age-related variation in work patterns, making it especially distorted when large population groups shift into retirement-age brackets.
  • How Labor Force Participation Has Diverged Across Genders — Male labor force participation has fallen steadily since the 1970s, while female participation rose sharply before plateauing, driven by shifts in education levels and age composition rather than a single cause.
  • AI, Immigration, and Collapsing Labor Force Participation — Declining labor force participation concentrates economic output among fewer workers, raising the return on automation and making productivity growth the primary driver of expansion. Any productivity shortfall carries greater consequences because a shrinking worker base cannot compensate through increased participation.

AI Summary. Israel is the only wealthy democracy where fertility has risen over the past generation, reaching a total fertility rate of 3.0, driven entirely by Jewish fertility growth; secular Jewish Israelis average nearly 2 births per woman—2x the rate of secular Jewish Americans.

Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick American Enterprise Institute
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The rise in Israeli Jewish fertility is an exception to the collapse across advanced economies. TFR is 1.9 among secular Jews, 2.1–2.7 among traditional Jews and 3.7 among Dati Jews. Eberstadt suggests mimetics—social imitation—may help explain it.

Why is fertility rising in one wealthy democracy while falling everywhere else?

[Israel is] the lone affluent democracy where national fertility (estimated TFR) actually rose over the past generation (albeit slightly—from 2.9 in 1991 to 3 in 2021). This was powered wholly by a rise in Jewish fertility, from about 2.6 births per woman in 1995 to 3.1 in 2024. In 2022–24 fertility in Israel was over 20% higher for Jews than Muslims. Much has been made of Israel’s extraordinarily prolific Haredi community and its six-plus-children-per-woman estimated TFR. But fertility for the rest of Israeli Jewry is unique for modernity too. For secular, natural-religious and traditional Jews combined, the current average TFR is about 2.5 births per woman. And for secular Israeli Jews, per se, it is almost two births per woman.

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AI Summary. Cannabis use disorder affects ~30% of cannabis users, a higher rate than the ~20% of alcohol drinkers who develop alcohol use disorder.

Roni Caryn Rabin New York Times
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A study of 186,823 Americans found 26% of men and 21% of women reported using cannabis in 2024, up 4 and 3pp respectively from 2021; 9% of men and 6% of women reported symptoms of cannabis use disorder.

Is cannabis addiction becoming a bigger public health problem than alcohol?

Core argument: Cannabis use disorder prevalence rose among both sexes between 2021 and 2024—reaching 9% of men (up from 7%) and 6% of women (up from 5%)—signaling a broad deterioration in controlled use as overall consumption expands.

A growing number of Americans say their cannabis use is problematic, according to a large new study [which found] more than 9% of the men reported symptoms of cannabis use disorder in 2024, up from about 7% in 2021. The prevalence of cannabis use disorder also rose among women, increasing to nearly 6% in 2024, up from about 5% in 2021. Symptoms of the disorder include not being able to cut back or quit, or continuing to use the drug despite it leading to interpersonal problems. Overall, cannabis use rose among all adults during this time. In 2024, 26% of men reported using the drug, up from 22% in 2021. Among women, 21% said they used cannabis in 2024, up from nearly 18% in 2021. Of the survey participants who said they used cannabis, about 30% showed symptoms consistent with cannabis use disorder. Those findings suggested that those who used cannabis were at higher risk of developing problematic use than those who drank alcohol, as fewer than 20% of those who reported drinking in the survey showed symptoms of alcohol use disorder.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Cannabis use disorder prevalence rose among both sexes between 2021 and 2024—reaching 9% of men (up from 7%) and 6% of women (up from 5%)—signaling a broad deterioration in controlled use as overall consumption expands.
  2. Approximately 30% of cannabis users meet cannabis use disorder criteria, a rate 1.5x higher than the sub-20% disorder rate among alcohol drinkers, indicating cannabis carries materially greater addiction risk per user than alcohol.
  3. Cannabis use rose 4 percentage points among men (22% to 26%) and 3 points among women (18% to 21%) from 2021 to 2024, enlarging the population exposed to disorder risk.

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John Burn-Murdoch Financial Times
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According to American Time Use Survey data, on a three-year rolling average basis in 2023, 10% of Americans aged between 23 and 29 reported spending zero time interacting face-to-face with another person.

While exploring data from the American Time Use Survey, which draws on detailed diaries to track how and with whom people spend every minute of a randomly selected day, I came across the following: on an average day in 2023, one in 10 young Americans aged between 23 and 29 did not spend a single minute interacting face to face with another person. The most socially connected quarter of young people used to spend 87% of their day with other people, whether family, friends, co-workers, or others. During the pandemic, that dipped to 78%, but it has rebounded to 83%. The most isolated segment used to still spend roughly a third of their day around others, but that has now collapsed to essentially zero.

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AI Summary. Global fertility has fallen below replacement level, meaning population will peak at roughly 9 billion around 2056 and then decline, driven by large existing generations masking the underlying shortfall in births.

Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and Patrick Norrick University of Pennsylvania
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The UN appears to systematically overestimate births; e.g. 33 of 37 countries with high-quality statistics registered fewer births in 2024 than the UN had forecast. Fernández-Villaverde and Norrick infer humanity is below replacement fertility in 2026.

Will declining birth rates eventually shrink the global economy?

Core argument: Global fertility has fallen below replacement level as of 2026, ending humanity’s ability to sustain long-run population stability without a reversal in trends.

In Table A1 we compare the World Population Prospects (WPP) estimates of births in 2022-2023 with the official numbers reported by several countries. [A2 shows the full sample with the deviations.] As of 2026, humanity is likely to be below the replacement fertility level: we are having fewer births than we need to keep population constant in the long run. This astonishing fact does not mean that population has stopped growing. Because of momentum effects (the large cohorts of women born two or three decades ago are having their children now, and their own parents have not died yet), world population will keep growing for another 30 years or so. But unless trends change, it will peak at roughly 9 billion around 2056 and then start falling, first slowly, then fast.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Global fertility has fallen below replacement level as of 2026, ending humanity’s ability to sustain long-run population stability without a reversal in trends.
  2. Population momentum—driven by large cohorts of women now in peak childbearing years—will sustain growth for roughly 30 more years before world population peaks at approximately 9 billion around 2056 and begins declining.

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