The Unbroken Window

It is not at all clear to me that comparing a world with mandated curbside recycling to a world with no recycling (mandates) that we get reductions in MSW generated. At least it is an empirical question. What the heck am I talking about? You might think that by having recycling, less stuff gets put [...]

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In Friday’s post we discussed one problem with measuring the success of recycling programs by showing people how much material was collected. Today, let’s think about another related problem. Good principles of economics students understand the law of supply – which tells us that if producers are able to secure a higher price for a [...]

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While speed walking to class the other morning in the rain, I found myself stopping to read and take a picture of a garbage truck. What made this otherwise ordinary looking garbage truck so interesting, however, was the sign posted on the side reading, “Last year we recycled enough paper to save over 41 million [...]

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It is well known (apparently) that America is suffering an obesity epidemic of unprecedented proportions. And I’ve heard all kinds of proposals for how to deal with it, ranging from the seemingly innocent (e.g. providing more information in school about the risks of obesity) to the more draconian (banning trans-fats, or worse). My personal view [...]

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Actually, we don’t get to see it! They just pick up the factory and machine and take it to a private coffee shop. On the agenda over espressos and lattes, according to more than a dozen lobbyists and political operatives who have taken part in the sessions, have been front-burner issues like Wall Street regulation, [...]

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I am in the midst of an excellent book, The Big Necessity, and the author does her best not to be too overtly in love with the state, but she does believe that creating more public toilets would solve all sorts of problems, such as long bathroom lines for women: There would be fewer queues [...]

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This just hit the wire: WASHINGTON (AP) — Estimates of the number of graves that might be affected by mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery grew from hundreds to as many as 6,600 on Thursday, as the cemetery’s former superintendent blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his ouster. John [...]

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Inside Higher Ed reports that, Since the 1960s, the national mean G.P.A. at the institutions from which he’s collected grades has risen by about 0.1 each decade – other than in the 1970s, when G.P.A.s stagnated or fell slightly. In the 1950s, according to Rojstaczer’s data, the mean G.P.A. at U.S. colleges and universities was [...]

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Did you know that the U.S. government created an agency colloquially known as “Farmer Mac?” Yep, in 1988 Congress chartered a company to do in agriculture exactly what Fannie and Freddie have done in the mortgage market. Farmer Mac, a “private” company, is “allowed” to purchase loans from agricultural lenders and then repackage them into [...]

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Yesterday, we explored why it might not make sense to be too tough on crimes – the reason being is that raising the penalty on petty crimes at the same time effectively lowers the penalty on more violent crimes. This seems to be an unattractive and inescapable constraint in law enforcement. At some point, the [...]

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