ASAllison Schrager

1. Article · Sep 4, 2026 · Allison Schrager

   Column: Where is your happy place? Maybe it’s Slovenia (opens the original)

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   What if the secret to happiness was … low expectations? Most residents of rich, Western countries have relatively high earnings, but many also feel they can’t afford a reasonable lifestyle. Americans, for example, are getting richer but also more unhappy. Meanwhile Eastern Europeans, not generally known for their cheery disposition, are most satisfied with their comparatively lower income. In 2018, research psychologists at Purdue and the University of Virginia compiled data from previous survey

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2. Article · Jul 24, 2026 · Allison Schrager

   Column: Expect more data center moratoriums — and slower growth (opens the original)

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   If you are an AI doomer, as a majority of Americans are, then you might find New York’s one-year moratorium on new data centers reassuring: No matter how fast technology progresses, humans will do all they can to slow it down. Restrictions on data centers, which are almost certainly coming in other states as well, illustrate what we economists call friction. As usual, it comes from a place of fear — in this case, that data centers harm the environment or increase electricity prices. Friction is

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