EconLog Archive
Behavioral Economics
My Social Media Hiatus
I’ll be travelling most of the next month, so this is a fine time to officially announce my election-year hiatus from social media. Never fear, I will continue blogging for EconLog. I will continue promoting my work on Facebook and Twitter. I’ll still use social media to publicize social events, especially Capla-Con 2020. However, from .. MORE
Terrorism
The Power of Numeracy
In 40 years of teaching economics, I have always followed my rule of not commenting on my preferences about politicians, even when asked. Well, almost always. There was one exception. In a lecture on numeracy, which is basically literacy with numbers, I told my students that my favorite candidate for the Republican nomination for president .. MORE
Behavioral Economics
If the Only Way You Can Get Your Great Idea Implemented…
Economics textbooks are full of clever-and-appealing policy proposals. Proposals like: “Let’s redistribute money to the desperately poor” and “Let’s tax goods with negative externalities.” They’re so clever and so appealing that it’s hard to understand how any smart, well-meaning person could demur. When critics appeal to “public choice problems,” it’s tempting to tell the critics .. MORE
Monetary Policy
Tribute to Anna J. Schwartz
Marginal Revolution University (MRU) has put out an excellent video on the late Anna J. Schwartz, one of the first really successful female economists. I started to write down some reminiscences, but realized that I did so in 2012 when she died. I’ll mention one thing and then hit some highlights in this .. MORE
Economic Growth
Yes, the system is rigged. But how?
The Atlantic has a recent piece on how the optometrist industry is rigged against consumers: In every other country in which I’ve lived—Germany and Britain, France and Italy—it is far easier to buy glasses or contact lenses than it is here. In those countries, as in Peru, you can simply walk into an optician’s store .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Carow Hall Reviews Open Borders
You need a thick skin here at Carow Hall. If you’re wrong, your colleagues aren’t afraid to tell you. The upside: When you receive praise, you know it’s the real thing. So what’s the buzz here for Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration? Tyler Cowen: That is the already-bestselling graphic novel by Bryan .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Monnery on Hong Kong and Cuba
On our sister website, Law and Liberty, I’ve reviewed Neil Monnery’s A Tale of Two Economies. Monnery was interviewed by Russ Roberts on the occasion of the publication of his previous book, an engaging biography of John Cowperthwaite, whom he sees as the “architect” of Hong Kong’s prosperity. In this book, he compares Cowperhwaite with .. MORE
Politics and Economics
Which contentious issues are NOT partisan?
With America’s politics being increasingly polarized, it’s worth giving some thought to the issues are not partisan. What makes an issue cross party lines? In San Diego, a proposal to limit growth has split the Democratic party: “The ‘Yes on A’ side was unable to address the racial problem, in a way that clearly made .. MORE
Adam Smith
Count Dracula and the Chamber of Wonders
[This post contains spoilers for the final episode of the 2020 Netflix series, Dracula. Proceed with caution.] The current rendition of Dracula on Netflix, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, was providing me with a delightfully gory evening of blood and horror when it stopped me dead. Out of nowhere, Count Dracula himself .. MORE
Economics of Education
Profligacy for Austerity?
Suppose you strongly desire to drastically increase the amount of education that people consume. What should you do? The obvious answer: Make education completely free of charge – and have the government pay the the entire cost. I say this obvious answer is obviously right. As I explain in The Case Against Education, I favor extreme .. MORE
Free Markets
A Simple Argument Against Ex-Im
Ex-Im’s mandate in financing American exports has been reconducted by Congress with the blessing of President Donald Trump, who first appeared to be against but changed his mind because, apparently, exports are important and cannot be left to the market. The law’s instigators won by “tucking it into a large must-pass spending package,” to use .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
The Dream of Open Borders
Like Martin Luther King, I have a dream: that my four children will one day live in a world where human beings will not be judged by the nation of their birth, but by the content of their character. My dream, in short, is that my sons and daughter will live to see a world .. MORE
Liberty
Identity cards also have costs
The Economist has an article that focuses on the benefits of giving each citizen an identity card: Around the world, about one billion people lack official proof of their identities, reckons the World Bank. Such citizens cannot, in many cases, get services such as health care, welfare and education. They also struggle to exercise their .. MORE
Central Planning
Learning English from Cartoons
I’m coming off a very successful Mont Pelerin Society meeting at Hoover that started Wednesday night and went to last night. One of my pleasures at such events is meeting new people and hearing their stories. At breakfast on Thursday, I was sitting with Robert Skidelsky, the famous biographer of Keynes (a real sweetheart, by .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Robinson Crusoe: Not Exactly Isolated
For hundreds of years, authors of economic treatises and textbooks have begun their analysis with a discussion of the economics of the isolated individual. Often, they choose the protagonist of Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe as their metaphor or model to undertake this analysis. We are asked to imagine Crusoe stranded on his otherwise deserted .. MORE
Regulation
The Trump Regulatory Record
Before Thanksgiving, a business reporter contacted me for an article he was writing on discussion points for families that wanted to talk politics around the holiday table. He asked me specifically to write up some thoughts about the Trump administration’s regulatory policies, and I did. He ended up not using them, even though I thought .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
What Should I Ask Zach Weinersmith? What Should He Ask Me?
Next week, Zach Weinersmith and I are mutually interviewing each other. What should I ask him? What should he ask me?
Behavioral Economics
Don’t Be a Modal Weasel
I often hear academics say things like: “It is not necessarily the case that the evidence would support that.” Is this sentence meaningless or just trivial? I don’t know, but I am still surprised by how many otherwise reasonable people hide behind such verbiage. Other common examples of the defensive use of modal diction: 1. .. MORE
International Trade
Ah, If H.L. Mencken Were Back!
A common form of state policy, if not a natural strategy, is to handicap some people and then come back on a white horse to save them in return for their support. The practice is not new and comes in many shapes. We had an illustration yesterday when President Donald Trump took on to Twitter .. MORE
Macroeconomics
NeoFisherism and QE pessimism
David Beckworth has an excellent podcast interview with Eric Sims, which touches on both the NeoFisherian heresy and quantitative easing (QE) pessimism. NeoFisherism is the view that lower interest rates are actually contractionary, as the Fisher Effect predicts that low nominal interest rates will be associated with lower inflation rates. QE pessimism is the view .. MORE
Behavioral Economics
Say “Can’t” With Care
Suppose a student fails a math test. Casual observers will often announce, “He can’t do the math.” Or suppose a country has a horrible corruption problem. Casual observers will often announce, “The government can’t solve this corruption problem.” In each case, I detect a casual logical fallacy. Namely: If person X actually does Y, we .. MORE