|
November 2005
A Monthly Archive (50 entries)
|
|
|
|
November 30, 2005
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Bryan Caplan
In a letter submitted to the Wall Street Journal, Cafe Hayek blogger Don Boudreaux observes: [O]pponents of openness often allege that immigrants come here to free-ride on taxpayer-supplied welfare. That this allegation is a canard is revealed by the innumerable... MORE
November 29, 2005
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
My alma mater, Swarthmore College, sent out a mailing (I can't find it online) that begins, Swarthmore charges $41,280 per student in tuition and fees, and its endowment reached nearly $1.2 billion...Isn't that enough money for a small college...is it... MORE
Regulation and Subsidies
Arnold Kling
The FCC thinks that cable TV's bundling policies are bad, according to this report. Chairman Kevin Martin, reversing a course set by predecessor Michael Powell, told lawmakers on Tuesday that cable subscribers could benefit if given the option to pick... MORE
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
Philip Keefer writes, political competitors who are unable to make credible promises to most voters will, upon taking office, underprovide public goods, overspend on transfers to narrow groups, and engage in significant rent-seeking. That is, the behavior of such politicians... MORE
Economics of Health Care
Bryan Caplan
We're gaining a point of subjective health every 333 years. But on second thought, that's not so bad. Another way to express the same fact is to say that we are aging by only 9.5 months every year.... MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Bryan Caplan
Patri Friedman has posted his interview of the Underground Economist himself, Tim Harford, at Catallarchy. My main quibble is when Tim says: People who oppose the use of markets in healthcare can point to two genuine problems: illness is extremely... MORE
November 28, 2005
Economics of Health Care
Bryan Caplan
Lately economists have gotten awfully interested in subjective well-being, popularly known as "happiness." (Here's my take; here's Arnold's; and don't neglect Will Wilkinson's blog on the subject). And of course economists have long been interested in health - trying to... MORE
Public Choice Theory
Arnold Kling
There are several gems in the latest Milken Institute Review. On the topic of bank regulation, James Barth, Gerard Caprio and Ross Levine give an excellent generic description of how the public-choice view of government differs from the assumptions that... MORE
Growth: Causal Factors
Arnold Kling
From an article by Radha Chaurushiya in the Milken Institute Review. The information technology sector employs only one million people – a quarter of a percent of a labor force of more than 400 million. Output in the services sector... MORE
Economic History
Arnold Kling
Robert J. Gordon writes, The evolution of the economy after 2000 was, of course, entirely different than after 1929, and we have previously attributed this to the aggressive easing of monetary policy that sustained a major boom in residential construction... MORE
November 26, 2005
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Bryan Caplan
If you believe the movies, Captain Bligh caused the "mutiny on the Bounty" by being so harsh that his men decided that they had nothing to lose by kicking him off the ship. In other words, Captain Bligh was to... MORE
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
My latest TCS essay is built around one of my favorite Tyler quotes. I write, There are passionate Republicans and passionate Democrats. But I agree with Tyler Cowen that neither party is likely to seem attractive. I can give a... MORE
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
My latest essay is now out from behind the subscription wall in the Weekly Standard. Massachusetts is considering health insurance reform to address the problems of the uninsured. The federal government is pressuring the state to do something or lose... MORE
November 25, 2005
Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I'm a trusting person by nature, so it's useful for me to reflect on how deceptive people can be. The following excerpt really helped focus my attention. It's from a speech given to the Associated Press in 1933 by Adolf... MORE
November 23, 2005
Business Economics
Arnold Kling
My answer has always been "no." Read this post, from a venture capitalist. there are two ways to build a company. You can design it from scratch, figuring out exactly what you want to build, getting it all down on... MORE
Economic Education
Bryan Caplan
Arnold has a thought-provoking new hypothesis about "Why People Hate Economics": Paul Bloom's essay "Is God an Accident?" in the latest issue of The Atlantic, suggests that humans' belief in God, Intelligent Design, and the afterlife is an artifact of... MORE
Macroeconomics
Bryan Caplan
Schumpeter famously praised the "creative destruction" of the market: The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial... MORE
November 22, 2005
Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Alex Tabarrok writes The conclusion seems right to me - file-sharing increases social-welfare, so in theory a win-win solution is possible, but in practice the increase comes at the expense of music firms. That reminded me of Zimran ("winterspeak") Ahmed's... MORE
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
The lead story in today's Wall Street Journal reports If a treatment helps people, should governments and private insurers pay for it without question? Or should they first measure the benefit against the cost, and only pay if the cost-benefit... MORE
November 21, 2005
Energy, Environment, Resources
Bryan Caplan
When I was finishing up my book on voter irrationality, I had a lot of trouble tracking down any quotes confirming my belief that economists roughly buy into Julian Simon's views on the benefits of population. In the end, I... MORE
Cost-benefit Analysis
Bryan Caplan
HBO's new series Rome cost $100 M to make, and its ratings are about one-fourth of The Sopranos'. But it's getting renewed anyway. Bad business? No, it looks like good old-fashioned marginalism and avoidance of the sunk-cost fallacy. According to... MORE
November 19, 2005
Economics and Culture
Bryan Caplan
Sociologists have been saying funeral rites for religion for over a century. Either it's already dying out, or its just about to have a heart attack - a claim known as the "secularization hypothesis." My debating partner Larry Iannaccone and... MORE
November 18, 2005
Economic Philosophy
Arnold Kling
Reacting to a piece by Paul Bloom in the Atlantic Monthly, Don Boudreaux writes not only are we genetically predisposed to infer the existence of a supernatural designer of our physical world (or a supernatural bully, depending), but we’re also... MORE
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
Donald Moran writes, As private insurance thins out toward a more catastrophic form, however, this dynamic can be expected to change, in two ways. First, facing a much larger share of the first-dollar cost of expensive therapies, patients will be... MORE
Energy, Environment, Resources
Arnold Kling
In the September American Economic Review, Ian W. H. Parry and Kenneth A. Small write, The British government has defended high gasoline taxes on three main grounds. First, by penalizing gasoline consumption, such taxes reduce the emissions of both carbon... MORE
November 17, 2005
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Bryan Caplan
The turnout for the Iannaccone-Caplan Debate on Economics of Religion was excellent - about 300 people by my count. That's a striking illustration of interaction effects: as solo speakers either of us would have been lucky to draw 50 listeners!... MORE
November 16, 2005
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
He writes If Medicare and Medicaid spending continue to grow 3.1% faster than GDP, by 2150 the federal government would consume 370% of GDP. Hold on a sec. (See also, Robert J. Samuelson on AARP's America Is a Mirage)... MORE
November 15, 2005
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Bryan Caplan
One of the main reasons to study psychological biases is to help us stop making them, but even many specialists don't bother to try to reform their thought processes. But don't give up hope. Jane Galt is a role model... MORE
November 14, 2005
Economics and Culture
Bryan Caplan
Dear Adbusters: While your publication seems to have little use for neoclassical economics professors, there is at least one topic where you have my sympathy. Like you, I find most advertising to be extremely painful. Commercial radio, with its shrill... MORE
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
Mark Thoma channels Paul Krugman. It's nice to have Paul Krugman discuss a question that has been addressed repeatedly at this site, market failure in the provision of health and social insurance due to moral hazard and adverse selection This... MORE
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
Alex Tabarrok writes, Expenditures on footwear by whites and other races: $274 Expenditures on footwear by blacks: $440. Chalk one up for the good Dr. Cosby. Alex is defending Bill Cosby against an attack by a Washington Post financial columnist.... MORE
November 13, 2005
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
The Boston Globe reports, Rhetoric surrounding the healthcare debate in Massachusetts has been largely shaped by plans to extend coverage to the poor. But two of the major initiatives under consideration by the Legislature would also, for the first time,... MORE
November 12, 2005
International Trade
Arnold Kling
Angry Bear reports that some bloggers on the left have been having a debate on whether or not free trade is a good thing. In my view, those who think "not" are doomed to intellectual failure. One of the good... MORE
November 11, 2005
Fiscal Policy
Arnold Kling
Steve ("the skeptical optimist") Conover writes The two trend lines, receipts and outlays, confirm what I thought I had seen two months ago. Federal tax receipts are growing much faster than federal spending outlays: 15.2% versus 8.5%, respectively. As a... MORE
November 10, 2005
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Bryan Caplan
I am tooling up for my debate on the economics of religion with Lawrence Iannaccone. Studying data from the General Social Survey, it's clear that people who attend church more are a bit happier. On a three-step scale (very happy/pretty... MORE
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun wisely tells us: "Every Hun has value even if only to serve as a bad example." In this spirit, a coven of grad students has produced videos of nine really bad interviews to illustrate... MORE
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
In my latest essay, I write Under the welfare state, government usurps the role of the family in education, health care, and saving for retirement. As economic historian Robert Fogel has pointed out, these are the fastest-growing segments of our... MORE
November 8, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Sucheta Dalal writes about India: Salary differences between equally qualified (non-professional/technical) candidates can be as high as 400 to 500 per cent. In fact, the more fancied jobs in airlines, hotels, media, banks and financial services only to those who... MORE
Economics and Culture
Bryan Caplan
Way back in 1988, I saw John Carpenter's They Live, and last night, I watched it again. The plot: Aliens have infiltrated our society, and are brain-washing us by infusing pop culture with subliminal messages like "Obey," "Consume," "Watch TV,"... MORE
Regulation and Subsidies
Bryan Caplan
A while back, I wrote: In a classic episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza realized that his instincts were fundamentally wrong, and vowed to "do the opposite": George: Elaine, bald men, with no jobs, and no money, who live with their... MORE
November 7, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Theodore Dalrymple writes, A French employee works 30% fewer hours than a British worker, and a much smaller percentage of the French population than the British works at all, yet total French output is very nearly equal in value to... MORE
Energy, Environment, Resources
Arnold Kling
Andrew Samwick points to a paper by Jayanta Sen that suggests that it is in the interest of oil consuming nations to tax oil. Sen writes, a tax on crude would transfer wealth of $100+ billion a year from foreign... MORE
Politically, of course, it's dead in the water. But Andrew Chamberlain and Patrick Fleenor show why it makes economic sense. The current system requires six tax rates ranging from 10 percent to 35 percent to raise the $912 billion in... MORE
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
Gary Becker writes, Part of the hostility to campaign contributions reflects a general hostility to advertising found among intellectuals in all spheres, including many economists. This hostility greatly underestimates the importance of advertising in providing information, in helping new products... MORE
November 6, 2005
Regulation and Subsidies
Bryan Caplan
The last big populist movement that libertarians could and did embrace was the tax revolt of the late 70's and early 80's. Since then, there's been a long dry spell, at least in the U.S. And if you know much... MORE
November 4, 2005
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Bryan Caplan
I'm joining the chorus of fans of Tim Harford's new book, The Undercover Economist. There's something good on practically every page, and though I furrowed my brow in skepticism every few pages, too, that's a pretty good batting average. As... MORE
November 3, 2005
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
I would like to join the chorus of praise for Will Wilkinson's new blog on happiness and public policy. For example, this post: Nesse goes on to point out that a few (of the far too few) longitudinal studies have... MORE
November 2, 2005
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Bryan Caplan
Will Wilkinson is pointing his rapier wit at happiness research with his new Happiness and Public Policy blog. It's a fascinating subject. Who would have guessed, for example, that quadriplegics are, on average, happy? Incidentally, if you want to see... MORE
November 1, 2005
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
Kevin Drum writes The bottom line is that if HSAs are a better deal for healthy people, then inevitably they're a worse deal for sick people. And if you take healthcare seriously, it's sick people you should be concerned about.... MORE
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Bryan Caplan
In September, Arnold wisely asked: On the issue of poverty and immigration, which Robert J. Samuelson raised, I would ask, "Where would you prefer that people be poor?" That is, do we want to insist that poor Hispanics should remain... MORE
Return to top
|
SHARE