EconLog Archive
Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Why Be Normal?
Economists love to pour cold water on new ideas: “If your plan is so great, why aren’t people already doing it?” And usually we’re right to do so. Most of the economy’s backseat drivers aren’t fit to run an apple cart. But still… There are a lot of ideas that seem to hold up to .. MORE
Austrian Economics
Math and Economics
In a wide-ranging essay, I question the dominance of math in advanced economics. The raising of the mathematical bar in graduate schools over the past several decades has driven many intelligent men and women (perhaps women especially) to pursue other fields. The graduate training process filters out students who might contribute from a perspective of .. MORE
Income Distribution
Income Volatility
The Los Angeles Times reports In the early 1970s, the inflation-adjusted incomes of most families in the middle of the economic spectrum bobbed up and down no more than about $6,500 a year, according to statistics generated by the Los Angeles Times in cooperation with researchers at several major universities. These days, those fluctuations have .. MORE
Regulation and Subsidies
Robin, Radon, and Regulation
When the typical economist tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is “Eh, maybe.” Then I forget about it. When Robin Hanson tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is “No way! Impossible!” Then I think about it for years. Case in point: Hanson’s “Warning Labels as Cheap Talk: Why Regulators .. MORE
Behavioral Economics
Layard and Happiness
Richard Layard, the king of “happiness research” is back, and I am not happy. He writes, Divorce and broken homes are ever more common. Research shows that the children of broken homes are more prone to depression in adulthood. To protect children, the state should act to try to make family life more manageable, through .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Learning from Lomborg
There’s a reason why Bjorn Lomborg has been rewarded for writing The Skeptical Environmentalist with a pie in the face. The book’s good, very good – and that’s bound to anger the touchy, gloomy Greens he’s debunking. The book has few big surprises for me – I’ve been reading the late great Julian Simon for .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Ayn Rand, Economic/Political General Equilibrium Theorist
To finish off my celebration of Ayn Rand’s 100th birthday (see also here and here) now let me turn to her contribution to social science. I remember that a critic of Murray Rothbard’s work in economics, history, and philosophy quipped that libertarian economists liked everything but his economics, libertarian historians liked everything but his history, .. MORE
Economics of Health Care
Provider-Driven Health Care Regulation
Henry E. Jones, MD, writes, in the late 1990s HMOs throughout the State panicked at the prospect of losing their patients to Internet physicians. Pharmacists panicked at the prospect of Internet pharmacies taking their business. So the Medical Board of California was pressed into action. There is absolutely no evidence that medical diagnosis and treatment .. MORE
Uncategorized
How to Keep Up with So Many Blogs
William Parke has created The Economics Roundtable, which aggregates the posts from several dozen economics blogs. I suppose that one could do this oneself with an RSS aggregator, but I like having Professor Parke do it for me.
Economics of Health Care
Who Needs Health Insurance?
The self-employed are less likely to have health insurance than ordinary wage-earners. This may not be the bad thing that most Washington wonks assume it to be, according to a paper by Craig William Perry and Harvey Rosen. Perry and Rosen find that the gap in the utilization of health care services between the self-employed .. MORE
Social Security
Actuarial Scoring Errors
In this essay, I take off on “actuarial scoring” of Social Security plans. In fact, at a 3 percent real interest rate, it would be irrational for me to switch to using personal accounts! I have some of my portfolio invested in Treasury-indexed securities, earning 2 percent. If instead I can earn 3 percent by .. MORE
Economics of Health Care
Medicaid and Nursing Homes
The Wall Street Journal describes what people will do in order to have Medicaid pay for nursing home care. Anyone can give away most of his assets and three years later become eligible for Medicaid with no questions asked. Or, since a home, business and car of unlimited value are excluded from the calculation of .. MORE
Economic Education
Economics of Movies
One of my favorite examples to use in a first-year economics class is the movie business. For one thing, it’s easy to explain adjusting for inflation when you talk about comparing the box office receipts of movies of different eras. For another, the process by which movies and movie theaters make money is interesting. Jonathan .. MORE
Social Security
Social Security Privatization: History of an Idea
Yesterday’s Washington Post had a fascinating history of proposals for Social Security privatization. Admittedly, it’s probably more fascinating to me than to most people, because I know most of the people mentioned in the article! Some highlights: Twenty-five years ago, Peter J. Ferrara was a Harvard Law School student with what he called “the craziest .. MORE
Macroeconomics
So Many Blogs
There are a lot of great economics blogs that are not on our blogroll. For example, there is David Altig’s Macroblog, which I had not heard of until today, when Altig was paired with Alex Tabarrok (of Marginal Revolution in the latest WSJ Celebrity Death Match, this one concerning saving. Other bloggers that I have .. MORE
Economic Education
True Scarcity?
Apparently, there is a scarcity of economics professors. According to the Wall Street Journal, According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, salaries for economics teachers, a category that includes professors, averaged nearly $140,000 a year — based on a 52-week year — in 2003, making it one of the highest-paid professions that the government tracks. .. MORE
Economics of Health Care
Third-party Payments and Vioxx
Holman W. Jenkins writes, a University of Maryland study found that the more generous a patient’s insurance, the more likely he was to be taking a Cox-2 — and the less likely he was to need it. For the patients with the best coverage, in fact, there was basically zero correlation to need. …what insurers .. MORE
Politics and Economics
Pragmatism, continued
In this essay, I discuss the recent piece by Jonathan Chait, who argues that liberals are pragmatic and conservatives are ideological. I write, The market solution for health insurance is something that has never been tried. I believe that it is possible that the market could come up with a reasonable solution. I would like .. MORE
Economics of Education
The Summers Flap, Continued
In this essay, I use the Lawrence Summers controversy as a jumping-off point for some idle speculation about gender differences in the world of academics and business. My experience is that in male-dominated organizational groups…Guys tend to flatter the boss in the belief that this will help them build a useful relationship. They try to .. MORE
Regulation and Subsidies
Regulation and House Prices
Edward L. Glaeser, Joseph Gyourko, and Raven E. Saks write, the evidence points toward a man-made scarcity of housing in the sense that the housing supply has been constrained by government regulation as opposed to fundamental geographic limitations. The growing dispersion of housing prices relative to construction costs suggests that these regulations have spread into .. MORE
Labor Market
“Do the Opposite”: Efficiency Wages and Incentives for Employer Candor
In a classic episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza realized that his instincts were fundamentally wrong, and vowed to “do the opposite”: George: Elaine, bald men, with no jobs, and no money, who live with their parents, don’t approach strange women. Jerry: Well here’s your chance to try the opposite. Instead of tuna salad and being .. MORE