Martin Beraja (@MartinBeraja)

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AI companies trained their models on web content no one clearly owned. Now courts are deciding who does.

This looks unprecedented. It isn't — it's how innovation and growth at the resource frontier have always worked.

Martin Beraja @MartinBeraja 2d

Why do firms exist?

The organization-science classics of the 1990s gave an answer that we, economists, have barely explored: firms are not just about economizing on transaction costs, but about building and diffusing knowledge — and firms know more than they can tell.

AI is making many of these ideas newly relevant. And there is an opportunity to bring them into economics, with formal models and empirical discipline.

This was the theme of Session 6 of our @UCBerkeley PhD reading group. We discussed Kogut & Zander's "Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology" (1992), Nonaka's "A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation" (1994), and March's "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning" (1991).

Martin Beraja @MartinBeraja Aug 31

Today we kick off a PhD reading group at @UCBerkeley on Growth, Technology, and Innovation.

Sessions on innovation and automation, property rights, and knowledge in organizations — old classics and new work on AI, side by side, built around gaps where the next papers should be.

Here is the reading list for those who are interested.

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Martin Beraja @MartinBeraja 3d

Fantastic initiative. I took the “Little Red Schoolhouse” course and it was one of the highest value courses I’ve ever taken. I still go back to my notes.

If you are @UChicago, I cannot recommend enough taking their writing classes.

The University of Chicago @UChicago 4d

UChicago has launched the Chicago Center for Writing, a new hub for writing across campus. It will anchor a new Core requirement, the first major change to the College’s writing curriculum in over 30 years, built for the era of AI.

Learn more: ms.spr.ly/6014afKGC
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Martin Beraja @MartinBeraja 6d

A discussion about ABMs has been making the rounds.
@alexolegimas @johnjhorton @AndreyFradkin

People talk about Schelling... March (1991) is another fantastic example of an ABM that has not only been hugely influential, but also has actual insights that were not obvious.

Garett Jones Verified account @GarettJones 6d

"[T]he code can learn only from individuals who
deviate from it..."
--James March, "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning, Organization Science, 1991.
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Martin Beraja @MartinBeraja Oct 30

Much of human progress comes from pushing the frontier of resources available for economic use. But what happens when property rights are not clearly defined?

Think of oil, radio spectrum, personal data, or AI training data. Innovators brought these resources into use, appropriated them, and triggered conflicts over ownership. Here, appropriation isn't simply redistribution: it's part of the very process of economic growth. And property rights follow innovation, not the other way around.

One question: is common law, with its reliance on litigation and precedent, better suited to this process than civil law?

This was the theme of Session 5 of our @UCBerkeley PhD reading group on the macro of AI. We discussed Aaron Tornell's "Economic Growth and Decline with Endogenous Property Rights" and "Growth at the Resource Frontier," my paper with Noam Yuchtman.

Martin Beraja @MartinBeraja Aug 31

Today we kick off a PhD reading group at @UCBerkeley on Growth, Technology, and Innovation.

Sessions on innovation and automation, property rights, and knowledge in organizations — old classics and new work on AI, side by side, built around gaps where the next papers should be.

Here is the reading list for those who are interested.

View quoted post on X

Martin Beraja

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