Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Behavior, ethical foundations, Inequality, Institutions on Oct 17th, 2012
There are many reasons to be concerned about poverty, even here in rich America. While I am almost sure that living on low income itself is not ipso facto that hard to do, it does correlate well with other things that are hard to do. For example, I intentionally make myself poor when I go backpacking for […]
Posted in Institutions, Macroeconomics, Regulation, Welfare State on Oct 12th, 2012
For much of the 20th century, if one was to look at the share of national income that ended up in the pockets of “capitalists” versus in the hands of laborers, you would have seen something very surprising given the conventional wisdom. What you would have seen is that in evil, greedy, capitalist America, workers […]
Posted in Institutions, Public Choice, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 1st, 2012
A student of mine was upset about some actions of a corporation he learned about in a Law class here. His immediate conclusion to me was, “this is why we need socialism.” Now, I am almost sure that folks who say this don’t actually know what socialism is, nor are they prepared to discuss the […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Economists, Institutions, Money on Sep 26th, 2012
There is no denying that many people, perhaps yours truly included, seem to love the idea of having money. The same, of course, is true for extra-individual institutions. But is it really the case that even for the most megalomaniacal person out there that the acquisition and pursuit of money is an end wholly unto […]
Posted in Development, Institutions on Sep 11th, 2012
The Fabian Socialists famously thought that the science of socialism was so sound that there would be no need for people to take up arms to overthrow capitalism – people would just naturally turn to it as they saw the truth. In no small bit of irony, the London School of Economics was founded by […]
Posted in Environment, Inequality, Institutions, Standards of Living on Aug 29th, 2012
The formal environmental movement is a movement of the 1% (OK, perhaps the 20% is fairer). Famously the average income of members of members of the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations is closer to the top 10% of the income distribution than to the middle or bottom of the distribution. I’ll post data on […]
Posted in Institutions on Aug 15th, 2012
I just finished a really good paper by Greenstone and Looney on the “True Costs of Our Energy Choices.” There is however much to pick apart from it. Early in the paper they hit on my of my all-time worst political-economic bugaboos: citing foreign policy arguments as reasons to intervene in a particular market. On […]
Posted in History, Institutions on Aug 13th, 2012
I am a big fan of harp-guitar players and one of my favorites is Stephen Bennett. Here is one of my favorites from him, entitled Merry Christmas Mr. Gorbachev. It’s a happy sounding song, as it should be. I imagine he wrote it as a reference to the (in)famous Christmas night in 1991 when Soviet […]
Posted in Institutions on Aug 1st, 2012
If the NCAA was actually doing anything more than responding in an ad hoc manner to the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State they would vacate EVERY single sport’s wins back to 1998 and vacate any national championships that the school has won since 1998. Why then? Well, athletic director Tim Curley seems (from the […]
Posted in Economics 238W, Environment, Extended Order, Institutions, Price System, Property Rights, Resources, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jun 28th, 2012
George Stigler, I think, once quipped, "If you never missed a flight in your life, you've spent too much time in an airport." While there is much wisdom in this observation, I would recommend not taking it too seriously. We like to get to airports early so that we do not miss our flights. There […]