The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 24th, 2013
Do any of you have that yellow warning light in your cars? That is the tire pressure sensor gauge in my snazzy little Mazda 3. I think all new cars sold past the year 20xx require them. The next image is the thermometer reading for my car, you will see that it says 42 degrees. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 21st, 2013
Here’s an email exchange Wintercow and I would like to share with you: Me: What was it that pulled you away from Georgism? I just bumped into it in Wikipedia, and it seemed to mesh with everything I believe [about normative economics]. It seems like many of the people who’ve influenced my worldview (including you!) [...]
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 Government Gone Wild, Uncategorized, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 3rd, 2013
Hey basketball fans, believe me when I say this, St. John’s used to be excellent. There was nothing more exciting to me than watching mid-1980s Big East Basketball. But I’m not here today to tell you about the athletic exploits of Walter Berry and Mark Jackson and Bill Wennington (2 of them played in our [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 5th, 2012
Biggs and Richwine examine the American Time Use Survey to find that: What we found was that during a typical workweek, private-sector employees work about 41.4 hours. Federal workers, by contrast, put in 38.7 hours, and state and local government employees work 38.1 hours. In a calendar year, private-sector employees work the equivalent of 3.8 [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 24th, 2012
Posted in Central Planning, Institutions, Regulation, Transportation and Infrastructure, Uncategorized on Nov 2nd, 2012
Today continues the Reasonable People series seeking questions and answers on policy that’s desirable in a world not with zero government failure, but rather in a government functioning near the higher end of its realistic range of performance in a high-trust (and highly trustworthy) society. First question today: is there any federal highway spending that a reasonable [...]
Posted in Environment, Institutions, Price System, Property Rights, Regulation, Uncategorized on Oct 31st, 2012
A logical first topic to connect the new Reasonable People series to my earlier posts on carbon taxes: what might a reasonable person advocate? At minimum the “no regrets” price for carbon is appropriate but probably the ideal is likely the median damage estimate among studies published in reputable journals. Deep uncertainty about the extent, effects, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 29th, 2012
[Editor's Note: This is an update of the original post] Today starts a new series: we're exploring what policies a reasonable person in a pluralistic society would advocate. This is coming from the perspective of a Hayekian fan of spontaneous order who tolerates and understands the Rawlsian desire for transfers to attempt to smooth, within [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 28th, 2012
Sorry for the long gap in my contributions but I’ll have content for you soon!
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