ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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Right now I am reading How The West Grew Rich, by Rosenberg and Birdzell (Basic Books 1986). It's a spectacularly good book, makes me notice again how much good stuff gets lost having gone down the river as new books get written. It's big on institutions allowing capitol accumulation and encouraging risk taking.
I plan to read Clark later, but find it hard to imagine that I'll think his new ideas should replace these well-buttressed old ones.
Why isn't comparative advantage enough to explain the sudden growth? The benefits from trade arise as soon as people start trading, but to do that effectively you need a certain amount of technology, e.g. steam engines.
In fact I wonder about Bryan's hypothetical of a few posts ago, "what if the American revolution failed?": in the century after 1776, England dropped its tariffs and launched the industrial revolution, would this have happened had the founding fathers been crushed?
Could you comment on the Barney Frank editorial in today's Boston Globe.