Demographics — Alpha.Sources

Audio Essay: The Demographic Transition

My second audio essay is now up. You can listen and download the file directly here, or alternatively subscribe to ‘Alpha Source Audio Essay’ Apple Podcast channel where my future audio essays will also be published. The link to the episode on Apple podcasts is here.

You can find and download all my economics and demographics essays in written form here , as PDFs. You can find links to all references on the landing page for my demographics work here. I plan on doing once a month of these audio essays, time permitting, on demographics, economics, finance and everything in between.

Things to think about #7 - Glenn Loury, Life History Theory, LatAm fertility and Substack economics

I am a big fan of US economist and academic Glenn Loury. He is smart, honest and well-articulated. He is also not afraid of an intellectual scrap if he stumbles upon one. He is an indispensable public commentator and intellectual whose ideas and influence go far beyond the confines of race, and associated social issues, in the US where he has staked his claim to fame and authority most comprehensively. Glenn has an impressive back-catalogue of writing and citations, but the best way to get a sense of him is by listening to his podcast the Glenn Show, which can be found on all the usual platforms. I am also a big fan of his co-conspirator, John McWorter, a US linguist and public intellectual, with whom Glenn runs a bi-weekly conversation on his podcast, and Q&A for paying subscribers. It is a must-listen. On this occasion, however, I want to recommend Glenn’s recent discussion with Larry Kotlikoff, a US academic economist, in which they discuss the economic policy ideas of the two candidates in the upcoming US presidential election ideas, and the US economy more generally. As the title of the podcast goes; if only we had an economist in the White House!

The Fertility Wars (Audio essay)

Some people like to read, some people like to listen, some people prefer to write, while some speak. I am a bit of a mix, and if you are too, it’s possible that you’d prefer to listen to some of the writing on Alpha Sources rather reading it on a screen. Up until recently, that wasn’t really possible unless I either painstakingly, and poorly, recorded myself reading the text, or I paid an artist to do it for me, the latter which is a touch overkill given that I am not charging for access to my blog. Fortunately, AI voiceover technology is getting good, and fast, so good in fact that I am not able to introduce something new entirely; the Alpha Sources audio essay. These essays are powered by ElevenLabs, where I have recently become a subscriber. It’s fascinating what this tool can do, and I have only scratched the service, I am sure. I am kicking off with an audio version of my recent long-form essay, The Fertility Wars. All references and links used in this essay can be found by following the links above. The written essay contains two footnotes, which have been omitted in the audio version.

Things to think about #6 - An Irish murder mystery, global fertility and the Armas Substack

I’ve recently spent ten days on the lovely Adriatic coast on Croatia. It is the second time I have holidayed in the country, and I wasn’t disappointed. Its inviting coastline—especially between Split and Dubrovnik—is as good a retreat for sun and relaxation as anywhere in southern Europe’s other more well-known holiday spots. Holiday tends to mean audiobook binging, and on this occasion I listened to John Banville’s Snow, narrated by Stanley Townsend in the Audible version. This was a bit of a risk. My wife recently bought Banville’s The Singularities, and struggled to get traction with it. I then had a go, and while I found the prose mysteriously hypnotic, I struggled to follow the plot, and eventually put it down, having reached only a bit further than my wife. I later realised that this was partly because The Singularities presumes knowledge of Banville’s earlier works.

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