EconLog Archive
Book Club
The Autobiography of Malcolm X Book Club, Part 3
Malcolm and the Nation of Islam (Chapters 11-15) Summary At the urging of his siblings, imprisoned Malcolm writes a letter to Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad responds, and before long Malcolm is not just a true believer, but a crusader. This motivates him to improve his reading ability, but almost .. MORE
Tax Reform
Romney’s Tax Cut
There is a lot of controversy about Mitt Romney’s proposal for cutting tax rates and broadening the tax base by limiting deductions and exemptions. I’ve discussed this here and here and Garett Jones highlighted Josh Barro’s piece on it yesterday. Critics, including Barro, have concluded that the only way Romney can get his 20% across-the-board .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
Turning the Camera: The Political Externalities of the Status Quo
Imagine you live in a democracy surrounded by a hostile majority. The median voter wants to deprive you of the rights to (a) accept a job offer from a willing employer, or (b) rent an apartment from a willing landlord. Politicians eagerly oblige the median voter, so legally speaking, you’re an unperson. Question for anyone .. MORE
Finance
EconTalk: Russ and I discuss Fisher’s Debt-Deflation Theory
As always, I enjoyed the hour. Hope you do as well. I suspect it was this post that led to the invitation. I really do believe Fisher’s 1933 Econometrica article offers a more complete model of the entire business cycle process than anything in Keynes’s General Theory. It took Hicks, Alvin Hansen, and other interpreters .. MORE
Behavioral Economics
How Stagnant Are We? The Results
Remember my Time Diary Self-Experiment? Only 41 people responded, so I take the feedback with a grain of salt. Still, both of my predictions were correct. To refresh your memory, I asked respondents to repeatedly ask themselves: 1. Was my experience during the last hour noticeably better as a result of an innovation introduced from .. MORE
Fiscal Policy
Josh Barro, Progressive Taxation, and Public Choice
Josh Barro today claimed that the Romney tax plan can’t work. The Romney plan is simple to summarize: Cut income tax rates across the board, then end enough deductions and exclusions (informally, “loopholes”) to make it revenue neutral. Plus, the Romney plan is to keep the system at least as progressive as it is today–so .. MORE
Microeconomics
ACA: turning full-time jobs into part-time jobs
At least at some Red Lobsters: The owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants is putting more workers on part-time status in a test aimed at limiting the impact of looming health coverage requirements. Mickey Kaus’s Monday prediction becomes Tuesday’s news. No surprise here, basic microeconomics. Health coverage is complicated, especially for industries with high turnover. .. MORE
Energy, Environment, Resources
Hanson on “Bankrupt California,” Part Two
I promised in yesterday’s post to cover the parts of Victor Davis Hanson’s article that dealt with other aspects of California. Immigration aside, I found myself agreeing with a number of them and wanting to extend some. 1. Gas prices. He points out that gas prices are higher in California than elsewhere, especially now, but .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
My WSJ Review of Flynn’s Are We Getting Smarter?
My review of James Flynn’s Are We Getting Smarter? is in today’s Wall Street Journal. Highlights: When most people hear about the Flynn effect, they conclude that we really are getting smarter. Mr. Flynn is more cautious. He opens the book by reviewing his previous work on intelligence tests. IQs have risen, but we’re definitely .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
Open Borders Persuasion Bleg
Immigration restrictions probably have bigger effects on the world’s economy than all other regulations combined. As far as I can tell, virtually every moral theory – utilitarian, libertarian, egalitarian, Rawlsian, Kantian, Christian, and Marxist for starters – implies that these effects are very bad. As a blogger, I’ve tried (though perhaps not hard enough) to .. MORE
Economics of Crime
Victor Davis Hanson on “Bankrupt California”
“Bostonian,” one of the commenters on my previous post on immigration quoted from an article by my Hoover colleague, Victor Davis Hanson. So I read the whole thing. There’s a lot of meaty content, good and weak, in his article, “Bankrupt California,” and so in a later post, I’ll comment on other parts. But for .. MORE
Behavioral Economics
National Egoism and Vronsky Syndrome
I was just at a conference where several eminent economists embraced the following principle: The United States should adopt whatever policies maximize the per-capita GDP of the existing population of the United States, and their descendents. It was frustrating to listen. On the one hand, any philosophy professor could instantly produce devastating counter-examples to this .. MORE
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Henderson vs. Woodruff on Immigration
In response to my Freeman article, “Tear Down These Walls,” Henry Woodruff wrote [permission granted from The Freeman to reprint his letter and my response]: I very much enjoyed reading David Henderson’s article, “Tear Down These Walls,” in the June 2012 issue of The Freeman. However, I think he misses the point. It is not .. MORE
Finance
Bailouts are for Bondholders
During the worst days of 2008, something strange happened. During the Eight Days of Terror, the S&P 500 fell by 23% but there were no loud calls for the government to guarantee the value of stocks (Aside: TARP was signed into law on Day 3 of the 8). By contrast, about two weeks beforehand, .. MORE
Statistical theory and methods
Overdetermination vs. Randomness
Here are the opening sentences from an article by San Jose Mercury News sports reporter Tim Kawakami: All the melodramatic twists, tweaks and breaks should’ve made the Giants virtually unbeatable on Saturday. They had their ace, Matt Cain, on the mound, and the Reds lost their ace, Johnny Cueto, after eight pitches. The Giants were .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Henderson on Landsburg’s “Armchair Economist”
Steven Landsburg’s The Armchair Economist is one of the best economics books ever written. It is insightful, disarmingly simple and yet sophisticated and, at the same time, provocative, passionate, and witty. Were I to detail the many things I like about it and why, I would write much too long a review. So instead I’ll .. MORE
Public Choice Theory
How to Pronounce Tiebout and More
From William Fischel’s brief biography of the Connecticut-born economist. Fischel spoke with Charles Tiebout’s family and friends, so this statement deserves weight: If I could offer but one contribution to his memory, let it be to induce economists to pronounce his name correctly: It is “TEE-bow,” the unstressed syllable sounding like the bow of cellos .. MORE
Economics of Education
Can I Sit In?
Yesterday morning I found myself in a shuttle with two of the world’s most eminent labor economists. So I presented one of my favorite puzzles for human capital extremists: Why is the best education in the world already free? Colleges do not card. With a few exceptions, any presentable adult can simply show up on .. MORE
Labor Market
The Latest Unemployment Figures
Our new co-blogger, Luigi Zingales, in his first post, has done an excellent job of dispelling the conspiracy theory that political operatives in the Obama administration “got to” the professionals in the Bureau of Labor Statistics who gather and report unemployment data. By the way, welcome, Luigi. One disagreement, though. I do think that Luigi .. MORE
Economic Methods
I Win My Unemployment Bet With Mike Shedlock
Back in 2010, Mike Shedlock (“Mish”) and I agreed to the following bet: If the official initially reported U.S. monthly unemployment rate falls below 8.0% for any month between now and June, 2015, I win $100. Otherwise, Mish wins $100. Since, by Mish’s own admission, the initially reported U.S. monthly unemployment rate just hit 7.8%, .. MORE
Political Economy
BLS Data
The Bureau of Labor Statistics had not finished releasing the surprisingly good September data that a number of commentators started raising doubts about the truthfulness of the data. There is no doubt that the data were a boost to President Obama, a boost coming at a difficult moment, when the President’s lead is faltering. Yet, .. MORE