Marginal Revolution Monday Links: Czechia's 150 kph Speed Pilot, Japan's Secluded Premier, and a Defense of Academia
Key Takeaways
- •Czechia's transport ministry is piloting a 150 kph speed limit on the D3 motorway, a level above the country's standard 130 kph motorway limit and the 140 kph national caps in Poland and Bulgaria.
- •The roundup linked an Asahi Shimbun article exploring why the Japanese prime minister spends considerable time in seclusion.
- •A Marginal Revolution author pushed back on Nicholas Decker's essay defending academia, arguing that economists may overstate their field's real progress and that highly context-specific research can offer limited broader usefulness.
- •The academia exchange extends a long-running debate over how much economics research produces useful knowledge beyond the discipline itself.
- •Two new NBER working papers were noted: one titled "Rhine Group" and another concluding that entrepreneurs in state government improve state government.
The economics blog Marginal Revolution, co-written by George Mason University economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, published its “Monday assorted links” roundup on August 24, 2026, touching on transport policy in Czechia, the Japanese premiership, and current debates over economics research.
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There is now a formal 150 kph (93.2 mph) speed limit in one part of Czechia — a pilot program on the D3 motorway, according to the Czech Ministry of Transport, and above the country's standard 130 kph motorway limit. The trial limit would sit above the 140 kph national motorway caps in Poland and Bulgaria, which are among Europe's highest set limits, while Germany leaves many autobahn sections without a numeric cap.
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Why does the Japanese prime minister spend so much time in seclusion? — an Asahi Shimbun piece from one of Japan's leading national dailies.
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Decker defends academia in an essay titled “Academia is doing fine, actually,” which pushes back against the popular narrative that academic research is in decline. The Marginal Revolution author responds:
“I do not think the ‘only the peaks’ defense quite works. I also worry about very high quality research that ends up being too context-specific to be very useful. That is no fault of the researchers, but…the world is not wrong to be less than totally impressed in response. Economists, when they discuss what they are up to, are far too taken in by ‘the quality of the work’ as a relevant variable. I think they can be fairly delusional as to how much progress they actually are making, even though along the ‘research quality’ dimension the work is much better than what people were doing say thirty years ago. In fact we train economists to make precisely this kind of mistake.”
The exchange continues a long-running debate over how much economics research translates into useful knowledge beyond the discipline itself.
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Rhine Group — a new NBER working paper. NBER, the National Bureau of Economic Research, circulates new economics research as working papers ahead of peer review. More European optimism, in a linked X post by economist Luis Garicano.
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Entrepreneurs in state government improve state government, per another new NBER working paper.
