EconLog Archive
Energy, Environment, Resources
Thomas Gale Moore RIP
I just learned from Condi Rice yesterday that my long-time Hoover Institution colleague and long-time friend Tom Moore has died. He died on August 23. He was 93. Tom was an excellent economist. He wrote the article titled “Trucking Deregulation” in The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics, 1993, which later, after the rights reverted to .. MORE
Labor Market
Minimum Wage Laws are UNemployment Laws
The minimum wage law is a snare and a delusion. It preys upon the weakest economic actors in the land. Before the advent of this pernicious law way back in the 1930s, the unemployment rate of whites and blacks, young and old, was about the same. There were no marked differences regarding joblessness for any .. MORE
Free Markets
Remunerations Determined by Markets or Politics?
In our more or less free societies, we regularly see confirmations of an idea well defended by Friedrich Hayek and by Anthony de Jasay. The idea is that remunerations determined by politics, that is, by coercive authorities under the threat of punishment, are not only less efficient but also more conflictual than if determined only .. MORE
Energy, Environment, Resources
Californians, If They’re Like the Rest of America, Have Already Answered
The majority of Californians Have Decided. “California Needs to Decide if it Wants Low Carbon or Low Gasoline Prices.” That’s the title of an article published by the “Energy Institute at Haas,” part of the University of California, Berkeley. It’s by James Bushnell, a professor of economics at UC Davis who earned his Ph.D. in .. MORE
Economics of Crime
The Media, Alcohol, and Illegal Drugs
During wartime, the media generally engages in propaganda in order to bolster support for the government’s policies. The so-called “War on Drugs” is no different. Consider the following headline, from the BBC: Cranberries singer O’Riordan died by drowning O’Riordan had fallen into a stupor due to excessive consumption of a legal drug known as alcohol. .. MORE
Central Planning
My Weekly Reading for October 27, 2024
With SCOTUS, the Statistics Belie the Vibe by Ilya Shapiro, Shapiro’s Gavel, October 21, 2024. Excerpt: The court leans right, yes, but it’s no monolith, and it clips the wings of aggressive conservative litigators and lower-court judges alike. Indeed, last term, for the first time in living memory, the Supreme Court reversed the Texas-heavy Fifth .. MORE
Cross-country Comparisons
Germany, Japan, and Telangana
Mancur Olson once argued that Germany and Japan grew rapidly after WWII largely because a great deal of bureaucratic deadwood was removed by the war—allowing these defeated nations to rebuild with a more streamlined and efficient economic system. A David Brooks column discusses this theory: In 1982, the economist Mancur Olson set out to explain .. MORE
Austrian Economics
The Socialist Calculation Debate: Theory in Action
The socialist calculation debate is firmly located within economics. But a look at philosophy can shed light on the kind of insight Ludwig von Mises gave us, and thereby sharpen our understanding of socialism and its problems. It shows what we can know about socialism through conceptual analysis, and what such analysis cannot tell us. .. MORE
Family Economics
Empowering Strong Families: More Government Isn’t the Answer
At the recent vice-presidential debate between Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz, both leaders emphasized that families are America’s backbone. However, they erred in their approach by suggesting that more government involvement could solve families’ challenges. From expanding the child tax credit to advocating for new social programs, their solutions imply that the government .. MORE
Economic Education
We’re Number 4; We’re Number 4!
4. Econ Log EconLog, run by the Library of Economics and Liberty, includes various contributors sharing ideas on economic theory, public policy, and classical liberal views. This blog offers a place for lively debate and different opinions. (bold in original) This is from Anja Finegan, “The Top Economics Blogs to Follow in 2025,” inomics.com, October 7, 2024. Finegan .. MORE
Microeconomics
Price Controls with Fixed Supply
Most economists oppose price controls, especially those following a disaster or some other unexpected event (commonly called “anti price-gouging legislation”). However, UMASS–Amherst economist Isabella Weber objects. She tweets: “One of the problems with [the supply and demand diagram] is that it is missing a crucial dimension: time. When it comes to price gouging in emergencies, .. MORE
Business Cycles
Real Shocks and Recessions
Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen are doing a series of podcasts on the economy of the 1970s. A few weeks back, I commented on one of their previous podcasts, which discussed the tricky problem of establishing causality for changes in inflation. Their most recent podcast discusses oil shocks and the business cycle, an area where causality .. MORE
Economic History
Did Inequality Fall Between 1870 and 1910?
The period from 1870 to 1910, which includes the Gilded Age and Progressive era, is depicted everywhere as one where there was rapid economic growth. This growth is commonly seen as rapidly and unevenly distributed with the poorest 90% enjoying far fewer improvements. This popular conception is probably wrong because of the way we are .. MORE
Economics and Culture
Cultures
If culture means a set of shared rules of conduct (mores) and common exposure to certain ideas (if this second category is not superfluous), then cultures exist in many, or perhaps any, groups of individuals. If culture is nothing else than national culture, one of the two words is superfluous, just like “cultural culture” or .. MORE
Cross-country Comparisons
Is China a developing nation?
It won’t take long to answer this question. Therefore most of this post will be devoted to considering why this is even an issue. Consider the following Bloomberg headline and subhead: Who Thinks China’s Not an Economic Powerhouse? China One of the hottest topics at the upcoming global climate conference is whether China should still .. MORE
Austrian Economics
Thinking About Friction
A fair warning to the readers – this post is going to be pretty heavy handed with metaphors. So insert the usual disclaimer here about how all metaphors are imperfect, break down when extended too far, etc. With that out of the way, a metaphor recently occurred to me that helps highlight something that separates .. MORE
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan on the UAE
Bryan Caplan’s latest Substack post, “Reflections on United Arab Emirates,” Bet on It, October 21, 2024, is excellent. It’s all about his experience in the UAE and how it informs his thinking on open borders. His bottom line is hard to summarize but his points #2 and #3 come close. Point #2: The key ingredient .. MORE
Incentives
Should lottery directors be licensed?
I’ve often wondered why financial advisors need a license. Perhaps the government believes that this regulations protects the public from making bad financial decisions. But what is a bad financial decision? Is buying a managed stock mutual fund a bad decision for the average person? How about an indexed fund? Perhaps the government is worried .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
My Weekly Reading for October 20, 2024
No Place To Go by Christian Britschgi, Reason, October 15, 2024 Excerpt: In September, the city council of Kalispell, Montana, took the unusual, and likely unprecedented, step of revoking a permit it had given to a local shelter that had allowed it to offer warm beds to the rural community’s homeless during the winter months. .. MORE
Economics of Crime
Trafficking versus Voluntary Prostitution
A friend on Facebook sent me the following message. I’ve edited it to make fragments of sentences into sentences and to correct spelling mistakes. It relates to my post a few days ago about government officials referring to voluntarily chosen prostitution as “trafficking.” I saw your EconLog post on sex trafficking. I was going .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Monetary Shocks: A Natural Experiment
The Economist has a recent article discussing a fascinating natural experiment: History does nevertheless throw up “natural” experiments. In an earlier paper, Mr Brzezinski, Mr Palma and two co-authors exploited one source of variation in the money supply of early modern Spain: disasters at sea. Ships carrying treasure to Spain from the Americas would sometimes .. MORE