prior probability

The First World War ended on this day 100 years ago (11 Nov 1918), when Germany surrendered to the Allies. The combatants then negotiated the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on 28 June 1918, formally ending “the war to end all wars.” (As an aside, the Great War inspired a class of strategic games known as Blotto Games, and this branch of game theory has informed our understanding of civil litigation. For more, see our work-in-progress “The Colonel Blotto Litigation Game.”)

As Aatish Bhatia notes (via Wired): “A sheet of paper placed across two books can’t even support the weight of a pencil. But if you corrugate the sheet by folding it a few times, it supports a can of beans!” (hat tip: @pickover)

Credit: Aatish Bhatia

Given the enormous increase in voter turnout during this year’s midterm elections, doesn’t President Trump deserve a lot of credit for this swell at the polls? (See chart below for average voter turnout rates in previous U.S. elections this century.) After all, whether by design or by accident, Trump was somehow able to accomplish what so many other politicians, sundry rock stars, and various assorted do-gooders weren’t able to do: he got more people to vote than ever before!

Credit: Brookings Institute

In addition to our regular stream of scholarly readings (blog posts, book reviews, essays, law review articles, etc.), below are some of the books we are reading this month (updated 11/13):

1. Tyler Cowen, Stubborn Attachments (Stripe). This will be a re-read for us, as we read a previous (unpublished) edition of this manuscript two years ago or so.
2. Steven E. Landsburg, Can You Outsmart an Economist? (Mariner). The title of this book is a bit misleading, because the book ignores the entire subfield of behavioral economics. Still, it’s a fun read.
3. Cass R. Sunstein, The Cost-Benefit Revolution (MIT Press). We are going to read this book on the strength of Tyler Cowen’s recommendation. Our copy of this book just arrived (11/12), so expect regular updates soon.
4. Tom Wright & Bradley Hope, Billion Dollar Whale (Hachette). We just finished reading this tome, which tells an incredible tale of financial fraud on the most massive scale imaginable. Alas, the main culprits in this story (the Malaysian boy wonder Jho Low and the investment banker Tim Leissner of Goldman Sachs) are still at large!