The Unbroken Window

I noticed recently that Progressive is offering customers free insurance for their dogs if they sign up for auto insurance with the company. The insurance I imagine pertains only to injuries that dogs might sustain while in the car of their owners. Why might Progressive offer this benefit to their customers?
Insurance markets are characterized by […]

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It is a well-known fact that union membership and coverage has declined substanially over the 20th century. For exampe, in 1973 nearly a quarter of all wage and salary workers were unioin members (it was far higher in earlier years - for example it seems to have hit 37 percent in 1960, but the data […]

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I was in Chicago on a cold and snowy day when I saw the de-icing trucks coming down Michigan Avenue. They looked strange, like fuel tankers, and not the salt-trucks I am used to seeing here in New England. As it passed by, I noticed a sign on the side that read, “Beet Juice.”

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… and hits one to the warning track.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, the typically excellent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Surowiecki has a nice review of Indur Goklany’s new book on the Improving State of the World. However, he slips into all too easy dogmatic territory with this critique:
The environmental transition hypothesis is the most striking example of this view, since it […]

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