EconLog Archive
Politics and Economics
The Political Scene
1. I was on a panel at the American Action Network today. My talk got a lot of laughs. At some point, there may be C-span video, but they might not have covered the panels.* There were a number of center-right Republican politicians there. Some of what they were laughing at were my suggestions to .. MORE
Behavioral Economics
WHINE
This may be Mankiw’s career-topping one-liner: Maybe President Obama should instead follow in President Ford’s footsteps and start wearing a WHINE button on his lapel, for Whip Healthcare Inflation Now, Egads! He adds, “Feckless would be one step better than counterproductive.” Glad he’s come around to my way of thinking!
Economic and Political Philosophy
What About the Bloggers?
One objection to my meritocratic view of the market (work backwards from here) that I haven’t heard: “What about the bloggers?” Some bloggers are great, some aren’t, yet almost all of them earn the same wage – zero. You could just as easily ask, “What about the garbagemen?” They’re mostly unskilled, but earn a lot .. MORE
Politics and Economics
Ralph Nader and Campaign Finance
At the event I was at on Saturday, Ralph Nader gave an excellent speech. I had seen him speak at UCLA in 1974 and I was unimpressed both by his content and by his delivery. His speech on Saturday was very good on both. I particularly liked: 1. His quick hit on the bailout. He .. MORE
Family Economics
Nature, Nurture, and Orientation
My take from Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Parents have a small effect on sexual orientation. Psychologists used to label homosexuality a “mental illness” caused by overprotective mothers and distant fathers.[i] Now we tend to see sexual orientation as a preference inherent in our genes. When you look at the actual evidence from twin .. MORE
Family Economics
Born Gay?
Ryan Sorba, author of The “Born Gay” Hoax, was recently booed at the CPAC convention. Since I recently read all of the main twin and adoption studies of sexual orientation, I wondered what he had to say. He focuses on Bailey and Pillard’s 1991 twin study, which he correctly reports, “found that 52% of the .. MORE
Macroeconomics
Theories of the Recession
Mark Gertler and Nobuhiro Kiyataki write, As balance sheets strengthen with improved economics conditions, the external finance problem declines, which works to enhance borrower spending, thus enhancing the boom. Along the way, there is mutual feedback between the financial and real sectors. In this framework, a crisis is a situation where balance sheets of borrowers .. MORE
Economics of Health Care
Top-Down Health Care Reform
From the White House. One key improvement, for example, is eliminating the Nebraska FMAP provision and providing significant additional Federal financing to all States for the expansion of Medicaid. For America’s seniors, the proposal completely closes the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap. It strengthens the Senate bill’s provisions that make insurance affordable for .. MORE
Family Economics
Ignoring: There Is Such a Thing As Free Sleep
New parents’ number one complaint has got to be sleep deprivation. When you’ve got a newborn, some disruption is inevitable. But parents’ sleep often suffers for years. I’m pleased to report, then, that children’s sleeping problems (and therefore parents’ sleeping problems) can usually be solved simply by ignoring them. The old-school version is known as .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
What I’m Reading
The New Holy Wars, by Robert H. Nelson. He seeks to interpret various economic and environmental ideologies in religious terms. Some excerpts follow. [Update: fascinating stuff in the comments section. Let me highlight a couple of links: Peter Taylor and TWV.]p. 296: In the broadest view, one might say that, intellectually and theologically speaking, much .. MORE
Business Economics
Fun With Ralph Nader
Yesterday, I was at an all-day meeting of “left and right” in Washington to see if we could put together a coalition against the various wars that the U.S. is in but not in. (War has not been declared since December 8, 1941.) There were about 30 people or so at the meeting. I came .. MORE
Upcoming Events
Speaking on Job Creation
I will be talking here on Tuesday morning. Supposedly will be covered by CSPAN and other media. I think that most in the audience will be looking for concrete policy proposals to create jobs, as opposed to a message that says that government does not know how to create jobs, that we are in a .. MORE
Behavioral Economics
The Fear Budget Hypothesis
Last night in my graduate Public Choice class, Peter Twieg suggested that people have a fixed mental budget of fear to allocate. An implication, I suggested, is that non-terrorist fears would decline right after 9/11. Today I checked. At least for crime, the “fear budget” hypothesis checks out. From a long-running Gallup survey: Notice: Fear .. MORE
Political Economy
Bipartisanship or Irreconcilable Differences?
Pundits bemoan the absence of bipartisanship. Implicitly, they believe that bipartisanship is necessary and sufficient to solve public policy problems. Another possibility is that our politics today actually involves irreconcilable differences. One picture of American politics is that only about 10 percent of us want the European welfare state and only about 10 percent are .. MORE
Politics and Economics
Paranoia About Paranoia
Michael Gerson writes, But there are others, new to political engagement, who have found paranoia and anger intoxicating. They watch Glenn Beck rail against the omnipresent threat of Saul Alinsky, read Ayn Rand’s elevation of egotism and contempt for the weak, listen to Ron Paul attacking the Federal Reserve cabal, and suddenly their resentments become .. MORE
Family Economics
Karacter: From the Cutting-Room Floor
I’ve very fond of this passage from Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, but Alex Tabarrok suggested a much more accessible substitute – Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue.” In 1997, the Dutch movie Karacter won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Set in 1920s, it’s the story of Jacob Katadreuffe, an up-and-coming lawyer .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
Cross-Country Musings
“In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there is within me an invincible summer.” –Albert Camus I’m a congenital optimist. I can’t tell you why exactly. Maybe it comes from my genes. Maybe it comes from figuring out early in life that if I didn’t have hope, if I didn’t have something to .. MORE
Economics of Health Care
Some Health Reform Ideas
From Nick Schulz and me. Not sure why this showed up here. I thought we submitted it somewhere else. Anyway, we say that a better idea would be to move toward a health-care safety net. This should have two components: universal progressive catastrophic insurance; and health-care savings accounts.
Fiscal Policy
Bailout Ahead
The Pew Center reports, $1 trillion. That’s the gap at the end of fiscal year 2008 between the $2.35 trillion states had set aside to pay for employees’ retirement benefits and the $3.35 trillion price tag of those promises. …To a significant degree, the $1 trillion reflects states’ own policy choices and lack of discipline .. MORE
Politics and Economics
A Strange Preference on Wage Subsidies
Mark Thoma says that he signed a petition, which reads in part, There are many ways to design an effective hiring tax credit, but in general the beneficial effects will be greater the stronger the hiring incentives and the lower the administrative burdens placed on firms. It is critical that such a tax credit be .. MORE
Microeconomics
Problems with Age-Testing
Let me clarify my question for David. I support both means-testing and age-testing, but they’re more similar than they seem. It’s true, of course, that you can change your means, but not your age. But in both cases, there are perverse incentives for people near the cut-offs. For means-testing, the problem is clear: If you’re .. MORE