Alex Tabarrok on The clustering of early cases around th…

Alex Tabarrok

Economist at George Mason University and coauthor of the Marginal Revolution blog

A higher probability of a lab-leak should also reduce the probability of zoonotic origin but the latter is an already known risk and COVID doesn’t add much to our prior while the former is new and so the net probability is positive.

AI Verified (Mar 24, 2025)

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Marginal Revolution, "What Follows from Lab Leak?"

3mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

The clustering of early cases around the Huanan market reflects where the COVID-19 virus emerged, not just where testing looked

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AI Verified The quote weighs lab-leak probability against zoonotic origin, which is directly relevant to the Huanan-market origin inference. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified The quote lowers the plausibility of a wet-market zoonosis account and shifts probability away from the market-origin claim. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 3mo ago

Bayesian analysis is the right framework for settling the COVID-19 origins question

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AI Verified The quote’s Bayesian addendum is directly about using Bayesian reasoning for the COVID origins question. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified The quote explicitly frames the origins assessment in Bayesian terms and argues the posterior probability rises, so for is correct. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified Marginal Revolution says a higher lab-leak probability should also reduce the zoonotic-origin probability while leaving the net probability positive. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 3mo ago

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Alex Tabarrok votes For

AI will create more jobs than it destroys

The creation of Excel did not put accountants out of work. It actually further increased the demand for accountants. And I think the same is going to be true for AI.

AI Verified source (Jun 9, 2026)