David S. Evans

David S. Evans
How to Think About AI Regulation
January 24, 2024

Every year, for the last 16 years, economists have come to Toulouse for the Digital Economics Conference to present cutting-edge research on just about everything digital. For those who don’t know Toulouse, or only that it is the headquarters of Airbus, the La Ville Rose is a...

David S. Evans
Can the EU Get Its Digital Act Together?
December 06, 2023

Where’s the European Union when it comes to AI? It has the world’s second-largest GDP — $18.4 trillion in 2023. Its 448 million population is more than 100 million greater than the U.S. It is home to many top educational institutions with some of the world’s leading scientists and...

David S. Evans
Humanity to OpenAI Board: You’re Fired!
November 22, 2023

Governance is back in the news with the OpenAI debacle.   The Governance Lessons of Brexit and Bitcoin   The last time I wrote about governance was in the summer of 2016. The United Kingdom had put a decision to exit the European Union to a popular...

David S. Evans
Platform Economics: How Instacart Leverages Time Into Profits
November 16, 2023

Time is our most precious asset. Each day, we get just so much. Twenty-four hours, 1440 minutes, 86,400 seconds. If we don’t use it, we lose it. We try to make the most of it. We can do lots of things with it and increasingly...

David S. Evans
What Lighting a Fire Tells Us About Igniting Threads and the Billionaires’ New City
October 31, 2023

It never hurts to brush up on basic skills, like how to make a roaring campfire in the woods before taking that next backpacking trip. How you make one also provides some timely reminders for Silicon Valley heavyweights who may be off on their next platform...

David S. Evans
To Reap Digital Gold Look for Kludge, Hope for Inspiration
October 25, 2023

If you want to come up with the next big thing for digital transformation, you shouldn’t wait around for inspiration. Maybe the apple falling from the tree really did inspire Isaac Newton to develop his theory of gravity. In more recent times, it is harder to know...

David S. Evans
How Airbnb and 18th-Century Newspapers Found Profits from Frictions 
October 11, 2023

Brian Chesky says that Airbnb is broken and he’s going to fix it.   New York City recently passed regulations that all but gave them the boot. Meanwhile, guests are griping — such as when they find, after a long trip, that the place they rented doesn’t...

David S. Evans
How Netflix Shows the Importance of Getting Innovation’s Timing Right
October 04, 2023

There Are Ghosts, of Course A bit more than 25 years ago, on March 10, 1998, Netflix shipped its first DVD, “Beetlejuice,” about two ghosts played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis. Last Friday, more than 5.2 billion DVDs later, it shipped the last one. Netflix...

artificial intelligence
The Demographic Debacle Meets the AI Miracle
September 20, 2023

The world is now witnessing one of the most momentous and consequential changes in centuries. It puts the social importance of artificial intelligence (AI) revolution in a different light. It can take forever to get a doctor’s appointment with a specialist. China is no longer...