Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Economics Problems, Economists, Education, Uncategorized on Nov 9th, 2013
My friend John linked me up to this somewhat unnerving article. Without responding to the claims too harshly, let’s keep in mind some things: Students in almost any discipline learn very little of value while in class. And of what valuable stuff remains, almost none is retained for any considerable point in time. So, even […]
Posted in Economists on Nov 4th, 2013
Formerly known as our research roundup. In this paper Richard Freeman condemns the “virtues of labor market flexibility” because of the severe increase in, and persistence in, unemployment in the U.S. during the “Great Recession.” First, seeing a paper from Freeman drawing this conclusion is about as surprising as Milton Friedman suggest that free-markets work […]
Posted in Economists on Sep 16th, 2013
A former student sends me this short piece from the great Krugman: I realize how lucky I am to have reached a place where I’m no longer in the rat race … But there are no promotions I’m seeking, no honors I desperately desire that I don’t already have … no more steps to climb, […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Economists on Aug 20th, 2013
Thanks again to all of you for reading over the years. While I am not shutting the site down, I do not plan to post much anymore (there will be some from time to time for sure). And it is surely not because there’s not a lot to say. I’ll be writing in other places […]
Posted in Economists on Jul 8th, 2013
Via Kurt Schuler: A link from Marginal Revolution took me to a paper called “An Empirical Guide to Hiring Assistant Professors in Economics.” It is as interesting for what it doesn’t say as for what it does. It concludes that “top 30” Ph.D. programs in economics, which accept a bunch of quite bright college graduates […]
Posted in Central Planning, Economics Problems, Economists, Macroeconomics on Apr 29th, 2013
I am sure many bytes are being “spilled” to analyze and comment on Krugman’s latest outburst or peacocking or whatever you wish to call it. Read the comments. Remember that all of those folks think you should get into the community hot-tub with them. A few points: Remember what I said about Woody Going Straight […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Economics Problems, Economists on Feb 14th, 2013
I was listening to the radio on the way in when a caller chimed in to discuss last November’s cancellation of the NYC Marathon. The caller indicated that the reason Bloomberg was going to “let the show go on” even as the rest of New York suffered without power and fuel and heat, is because […]
Posted in Economists, Fun Facts on Feb 9th, 2013
The table below illustrates one reason why I remain astounded at how the “popular” view of economists has come to be what it is. I sense that the popular view paints us all as market-fundamentalist, anti-tax, anti-regulation, uber-rational, etc. supporters. If political identity actually tells us what we think it does, […]
Posted in Economists on Feb 4th, 2013
Here a few of the interesting working papers in economics that were released today: Evaluating Durable Public Good Provision using Housing Prices by Stephen Coate Recent empirical work in public finance uses the housing price response to public investments to assess the efficiency of local durable public good provision. This paper investigates the theoretical foundations for this technique. […]
Posted in Economists, Education on Dec 21st, 2012
Student: “I’d like to know why I got an F in your class!” Heartless Professor: “Because the College doesn’t allow me to give you anything lower.”