Evan Starr on non-competes

Former Michigan student Evan Starr, now at the Smith (no relation) School of Busyness at Maryland, discusses his research on non-compete agreements on NPR.

Assorted links

1. A humorous primer on Hillary's health scandal. It is only funny because despite all evidence to the contrary, one still expects some modicum of intellectual consistency from political partisans.

2. A very fine primer on infrastructure spending by Ed Glaeser at Harvard.

3. Rudi Bachmann on economics in Germany.

4. A new bookstore in Detroit.

5. IES What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) summary of the serious evidence on the Teach for America Program.

6. A truly amazing headline.

#2 via MR

Harbaugh on vitamins

Sign outside of Knight's downtown (in the former Borders #1) on Friday.

Clearly, I do not get enough vitamins.

Full episode of "The Profit" on Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour

A happy ending so far ...

I think fixing up the candy section is an excellent idea, as is closing failed locations. I would not have changed the font on the FARRELLS sign. More generally it is amazing what a smart person willing to speak honestly can accomplish.

Assorted links

1. The government is just another name for the things we do together.

2. Tyler Cowen recalls the Miracle of the Futures. I was always a bit surprised that this did not get more mainstream coverage back in the day.

3. Congratulations to Demetra Nightengale at DOL on winning the 2016 APPAM Exemplar Award.

4. On the demography of college towns.

5. An update on Ann Arbor's State Theater, which is now closed for renovations.

Jason Kerwin on npr

Former Michigan graduate student Jason Kerwin, now at Minnesota in their Department of Applied Economics, is interviewed about the research from his job market paper.

Movie: For the Love of Spock

There is nothing very deep here, and I would have liked more detail about the apparently rocky relationship between Leonard Nimoy and the filmmaker, his son Adam Nimoy. How could two such apparently nice people not get along?

My favorite bits were the remarkably thoughtful interviews with the actors from the reboot movies and, of course, the bombastic William Shatner. Oh, and the short bit about fan-generated "slash" fiction and related videos.

The NYT review does not have much to say.

If this seems like the sort of movie that you would like, then you will like it.