EconLog Archive
Fiscal Policy
U.S. Government as ARM Borrower
From my most-recent Mercatus study, “Canada’s Reversed Fiscal Crisis,” Working Paper No. 11-15, May 2011, co-authored with Jerrod Anderson: The average annual decrease in government expenditures on interest payments due to falling interest rates ranged from about 0.46 percent to 1.46 percent of GDP between 1996 and 2009, and averaged approximately 1 percent of GDP .. MORE
Energy, Environment, Resources
UCS’s Flawed Economic Reasoning
Last week, I received a request from the Union of Concerned Scientists to sign a letter asking the government to impose even higher miles-per-gallon standards on cars. The letter explains: Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) worked together to set .. MORE
Family Economics
Murray and Marriage
I had an interesting argument with Charles Murray at yesterday’s Cato Book Forum. While he expressed fundamental agreement with my views on nature and nurture, he thought parental marital status was an important exception. Children of divorce do worse than children whose parents remain married; children of never-married parents do worse than children of divorce. .. MORE
Economic Education
John Papola on Teaching Economics
I gave a talk at a joint Institute for Humane Studies/Mercatus Center event in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. One of the other speakers was John Papola who, along with Russ Roberts, made the two Keynes/Hayek videos (here and here). John Papola talked about how the web and cheap movie cameras might revolutionize .. MORE
Economic Growth
Bryan’s Challenge
He wrote, Name the most credible measure of idea production that isn’t at least moderately positively correlated with population. I think this is a somewhat imprecise formulation. First of all, “moderately positive” is vague. It could be a very low bar. But what is the relevant boundary for measuring population? The nation-state? So if 10 .. MORE
Economic Growth
Greg Clark at the Movies
Over at Cato Unbound, I gave Greg Clark a challenge: Name the most credible measure of idea production that isn’t at least moderately positively correlated with population. In his reply, he pointed to Iceland: The 300,000 people of Iceland produced 70 films (features, documentaries etc) between 2000 and 2010, in Icelandic! I recently saw one, .. MORE
Economics of Health Care
Cancer Screening Costs and Benefits
According to Robin Hanson, the latter are statistically small. While cancer screening does consistently lead to more cancer detection and more cancer treatment, it consistently doesn’t lead to lower mortality. This is based on studies of breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and lung cancer. Keep this in mind when someone tells you that other .. MORE
International Macroeconomics
End the IMF
Various bloggers are talking about who should be the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Here’s my nominee: nobody. The IMF should be abolished. I came across an article I wrote in Canada’s Financial Post in 1999. I think it still holds up. Some excerpts: Even if the Mexican bailout had been a .. MORE
Family Economics
Just Say Yes
Bryan’s “Yes Mom” post reminded me of a decision I made early in my daughter’s life that was one of the best decisions I ever made. I had heard so many parents with teenagers and young adult children express their regret about how little time they had spent with their kids when their kids wanted .. MORE
Economic Methods
Yes Mom
Today I learned that I (partly) inspired a charming parenting experiment. British journalist Lucy Cavendish: There are various blogs and websites devoted to the notion that we should give our children free choice, and, in this way, encourage their development while at the same time teaching them responsibility. Only this week, Dr Bryan Caplan from .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
Robots of the Future: A Poor Argument for Socialism
For Matt Yglesias, my vision of the future – “Simon for people, Malthus for robots” – is a powerful argument for socialism: Another way of putting it would be Simon (i.e., plenty) for capital and Malthus (i.e., subsistence) for labor. That, of course, is Karl Marx’s vision of long-term economic development. And while I don’t .. MORE
Public Choice Theory
Mr. Smith Goes to Public Choice
I woke up early Friday morning and, rather than turning on ESPN, which is my wont, I surfed movies and found that “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” had started only a few minutes earlier. Once I start watching that movie, I’m hooked and I hang in for the whole thing. What struck me this time, .. MORE
Uncategorized
Dean Baker on Housing Finance Reform
He writes, The policy being considered by the Obama administration, which would guarantee the mortgage-backed securities issued by mini Fannie and Freddies, is effectively handing taxpayer dollars to the intermediaries in the housing finance process. That’s a good policy if the point is to give taxpayer money to financial intermediaries; it makes zero sense as .. MORE
Political Economy
The One-Party State
Russ Roberts writes, I don’t get it. Why is $4 million of taxpayer money going to a mall so that Costco will come to Wheaton? In a one-party state, businesses that are friendly to the party receive subsidies, and businesses that are hostile to the party face regulation. That in turn destroys the incentive to .. MORE
Growth: Consequences
Innovations and Resistance
Matt Rognlie writes, an Apple or Google could come along and bargain with several national newspapers to assemble a cheap bundle of online subscriptions. Since the bundler would have a very strong incentive to provide a reasonable price for customers, it would put in the effort to determine what each paper really contributed. This is .. MORE
Politics and Economics
David Friedman on Markets vs. Coercion
Earlier today, David Friedman posted a thoughtful piece on a speech by a retired judge who told the audience how badly government works and why they should, therefore, try to make it work better. David points out that the judge was unwilling to consider his initial favoring of coercive solutions over voluntary solutions. One two-paragraph .. MORE
Taxation
Tennessee’s Roving Bandits
Check out this video news story about Tennessee police stopping people and taking their money for keeps, simply on the suspicion that the money was earned on illegal drugs. The whole thing is well worth watching. Here are nine highlights in chronological order, not necessarily in order of importance: 1. 1:45: Asked if taking people’s .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Two Favorite Lines of the Week
1. From the blogosphere: Look, I think we should assume honesty of scientific peers until we have reason not to. This is from Daniel Kuehn’s excellent statement of the strengths and weaknesses of the Conley and Dupor paper on the employment effects of the 2009 “stimulus” bill. One highlight from Daniel’s analysis: The point is, .. MORE
Politics and Economics
Nikita Khrushchev on War
I’ve been reading John Mueller’s excellent book, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda. I just finished Chapter 3, “Deterring World War III,” in which he argues that nuclear weapons weren’t necessary to deter World War III because World War II was such a horrible experience for all concerned that the deterrence of war .. MORE
Growth: Consequences
Consumption-Biased Technological Change
On last night’s PBS, Paul Solman interviewed Tyler about The Great Stagnation in Tyler’s antiquated kitchen. MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson provided counterpoint. Highlight: Solman versus Brynjolfsson: Solman: Sure, high-tech gadgetry abounds, says Cowen, but it hasn’t transformed our economy and created new high-paying jobs, as past so-called industrial revolutions have. Take the ubiquitous iPod. It’s created .. MORE
Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Alan Bock, RIP
Alan Bock, a pro-freedom editorial writer for the Orange County Register, died yesterday. I first saw a blog post about his going to a hospice just yesterday. That was fast. Alan was 67: I had actually thought he was younger. In his editorials over the years, Alan covered the waterfront, defending freedom wherever it was .. MORE