EconLog Archive
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
The Perfect Gift
[limited blogging, due to power outage and crowded Starbucks] It strikes me that Don Boudreaux’ book Hypocrites and Half-Wits, would make the perfect gift to surreptitiously leave in a liberal friend’s bathroom. His mini-rant/lessons are best read three or four at a time. They are sort of a “best of” from his writing on the .. MORE
Economic Methods
Optimal Openness
There’s something very appealing about Arnold’s praise of thinkers who try to open readers’ minds instead of closing them: Suppose we look at writing on issues where people tend to hold strong opinions that fit with their ideology. Such writing can (a) attempt to open the minds of people on the opposite side as the .. MORE
Statistical theory and methods
It Lost 244% of Its Value? Impossible
In an otherwise good article in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Just Say Nein to Eurobonds,” Matthew Will writes: From 1980 to the launch of the euro in January 1999, the Italian lira and Portuguese escudo lost 108% and 244% of their value against the U.S. dollar, respectively. Greece devalued the drachma 583% against the dollar .. MORE
Business Economics
Basic Research Does Not Equal Technology
One of the best articles by the late William A. Niskanen, which I used to great effect in my recent “Energy Economics” course, is his take-apart of “Bacon’s Chain.” The article is titled “R&D and Economic Growth: Some Cautionary Tales,” and appears in his book, Reflections of a Political Economist [pdf]. Here’s how Niskanen states .. MORE
Microeconomics
What John Roberts and Ben Bernanke Really Have in Common
Tyler writes: Their “simps” think they should have done better. In their own, unconstrained models of the world, they each wish they could be doing better. They each have refused to “do better” out of an understanding of limited institutional and moral capital. They each are given relatively little epistemic deference by their critics on .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
Henderson on Shiller
My review [scroll down] of Robert Shiller’s Finance and the Good Society is out in the latest issue of Regulation. A highlight about the finance portion: On the issue of crises, the main financial crisis in our future is likely to be paying the huge commitments governments have made to government workers, Social Security recipients, .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
The Party Line Continuum
Two veterans of the Council of Economic Advisors object to my claim that political appointees have to toe a party line. Jeff Frankel: Bryan, When I was a Member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, I never said anything I didn’t believe. I think the same has been true of others to serve on .. MORE
Eurozone crisis
Eurozone: Markets Applaud Latest Can-Kicking
Sony Kapoor writes, Setting up an agency that is capable of resolving (shutting down, selling or recapitalizing) banks is perhaps the most urgent part of such a banking union and can be done independently from pooled deposit insurance or common supervision, but is not being prioritized by EU leaders and will still take a long .. MORE
Finance: stocks, options, etc.
The Drop in Home Equity
Timothy Taylor has written one of his bests posts. He writes, Through much of the 1990s, the ratio of owner’s equity to GDP fell, but in the early 1990s, that was partly a result of depressed regional real estate markets in certain states in the aftermath of the collapse of many savings and loan institutions .. MORE
Politics and Economics
Opening Minds, Closing Minds
The following thought occurred to me recently. Suppose we look at writing on issues where people tend to hold strong opinions that fit with their ideology. Such writing can (a) attempt to open the minds of people on the opposite side as the author (b) attempt to open minds of people on the same side .. MORE
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
The GSS and the Political Externalities of Immigration: A Guest Post by Sam Wilson
GMU Ph.D. student Sam Wilson recently mentioned on Facebook that he was using the General Social Survey to test for political externalities of immigration. He posted a few crosstabs, but nothing more. I immediately publicly offered him the chance to guest blog his findings for EconLog, results unseen. Here’s what Wilson found: It should come .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
The Curious Ethos of the Academic/Appointee
High-status academic economists often look down on economists who engage in blogging and punditry. Their view: If you can’t “definitively prove” your claims, you should remain silent. At the same time, though, high-status academic economists often receive top political appointments. Part of their job is to stand behind the administration’s party line. They don’t merely .. MORE
Labor Market
Would Conscription Reduce Support for War?
A number of prominent people in recent years as well as many people I run into in academia have been arguing that one virtue of returning to conscription is that it would put the sons of wealthy and politically powerful people at more risk of going to war and would, therefore, cause those same people .. MORE
Economics of Health Care
Jonathan Rauch is Uncharitable
He writes, According to conservatives, the government should not make people buy insurance; it certainly should not provide coverage for them. That would seem to eliminate the two main ways to deal with free riders. One obvious possibility remains. If you can’t pay for medical treatment, you can’t expect to receive it. Period. Rauch implies .. MORE
Economic Education
Education and Option Value: A Conversation With Virgil Storr
On Monday, my colleague Virgil Storr heard my IHS lecture on “The Case Against Education,” and sent me some interesting comments. Here’s full exchange, with Virgil’s kind permission. Quick question: Do we have good ways of figuring out who will be a scientists, translators, artists, economics professors when they’re 5, 10 or 15 years old? .. MORE
Economic Methods
Did the IGM Reject Laffer Optimism or Old-School Keynesianism?
When I first read David’s latest post, I mentally reversed the true results. I thought that every expert on the panel agreed that: A cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would raise taxable income enough so that the annual total tax revenue would be higher within five years than without .. MORE
Taxation
Where Are We on the Laffer Curve?
A cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would raise taxable income enough so that the annual total tax revenue would be higher within five years than without the tax cut. This is one of the questions on the IGM Forum, a forum in which many of the country’s leading economists .. MORE
Labor Market
PSST: Work-Sharing May Not Work
Don Peck writes, Today, American companies facing weak demand typically lay off workers, even though that decision can be costly down the road (rehiring and training are expensive). A work-sharing program would allow companies to instead make temporary, across-the-board reductions in hours worked by (and wages paid to) the same number of employees Let us .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
Evil Exceptions
Philosophers spend a great deal of time crafting plausible exceptions to widely-accepted moral rules. Sure, murder is wrong. But what if you could murder a man on his death-bed to prevent a plane crash? What if you could smother the baby who grows up to be Adolf Hitler? What if you could prevent a bloody .. MORE
International Trade
Changing World Trade Patterns
From the latest issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, I recommend The Rise of Middle Kingdoms by Gordon H. Hanson. Whereas high-income economies accounted for four-fifths of global trade in 1985, they will account for less than half by the middle of this decade. The entire article is interesting.
Economics of Education
What Arrow Said About Education in 1973
In the early 90s, I saw Ken Arrow informally debate Murray Rothbard. Arrow was not impressive; all he did was repeat tired textbook arguments about market failure. My subsequent encounters with Arrow’s thought were no better. Early this year, however, I read Arrow’s 1973 “Higher Education as a Filter,” and decided I was completely wrong .. MORE