Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Price System, Property Rights on Jul 1st, 2013
Or not. Saturday we linked to a “Sustainability” post about opinions on plastic bags. There is a hidden gem in the comments: and those of us who do not want to use them every time we shop will not be paying for them as an overhead cost in the price of goods A common argument […]
Posted in Environment, Property Rights on Apr 23rd, 2013
Each Spring the facilities crew at the U of R tirelessly reseeds all of the sides of sidewalks that have been destroyed by the winter plowing. And our enlightened students and staff totally respect that work. Here is the sidewalk along intercampus parking lot, just across from the library, looking North. You can see the […]
Posted in Extended Order, incentives, Institutions, Property Rights on Apr 20th, 2013
I assume some will find this in bad taste in light of last week’s tragedies in Boston. But just in case anyone was paying attention, we’re closing in on a dozen years since the WTC was destroyed and it’s rebuild is still not complete yet, so I find it hard to read notes that New […]
Posted in Environment, Property Rights on Jan 24th, 2013
18) Suppose we take the precedent in the Boulston case seriously (btw: isn’t it interesting that Common Law can and does look back hundreds and hundreds of years for it?). What does that imply about the legal precedent and the moral one for instituting a carbon tax or using carbon permits for solving global warming? […]
Posted in Environment, Property Rights on Jan 17th, 2013
If you ever get a chance, do try to spend a view days paddling some of the thousands of lakes and streams and ponds in the Adirondacks. New York State and private landowners in and around the park have done, in my view, a very nice job balancing the myriad public and private interests of […]
Posted in Environment, Property Rights, Uncategorized on Jan 16th, 2013
11) One of the other major mischaracterizations of the insights of Coase is the role that “transactions costs” play in promoting or preventing efficient outcomes. Does Coase ever argue that “transactions costs ARE zero?” Coase never argues that transactions costs ARE zero. It would be an absurd argument. Rather the insight is to imagine what […]
Posted in Environment, Property Rights on Jan 15th, 2013
6) Why does Coase argue that “making the polluter” pay is the not automatically the correct way solve the “Problem of Social Costs?” Provide a simple illustration of the argument from one of the four case studies he presents (which means illustrate the scope for bargaining and the error/correctness in the courts’ reasoning in the […]
Posted in Environment, Property Rights on Jan 11th, 2013
The theory of environmental economics can easily be traced back about 100 years to the work of A.C. Pigou who basically developed the principle of “Polluter Pays.” In other words, he identified the externalities problem in economics as one where actors do not bear the full costs of their actions. This is correct. But Pigou’s […]
Posted in Central Planning, Economic Illiteracy, Environment, Price System, Property Rights, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Dec 12th, 2012
I have absolutely no issue with folks arguing that we need to “do something” about climate change because they are terrified that the seas may boil over. What I do have an issue with is when such claims are made under the pretense that “doing something” necessarily follows from sound economic principles. Those sound principles […]
Posted in ethical foundations, Extended Order, Price System, Property Rights, Voluntary Society, Welfare State, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Dec 11th, 2012
A popular sentiment regarding health care is that unlike other goods, we simply cannot tolerate differences in consumption based on income differences. Having a rich guy with a 90-inch plasma TV as compared to a poor guy suffering with a 36″ cathode-ray tube TV is not nearly as intolerable as the idea that if both […]
