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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In some places it is called "to create difficulties (bureaucracy) to sell (bribe) easiness".
This finding is consistent with the findings by Tim Harford and the World Bank, which showed a negative correlation between economic growth and development vs. gubmnt red tape.
Seems like payments made to gov't workers for administrative burden are just a fancy sort of welfare. Why not just bury money and get people to go dig it up? I suppose the difference is that these people are being paid to waste their own time AND the time of other people who are attempting to create real jobs.
I think economists do themselves damage by continuing to use the phrase, "rent seeking." Talk about a term of art. Only an economist can connect the activity with the ordinary notion of rent - A pays B to use B's property as if it belonged to A.
Then too, "seeking" is more often "paying". How about "privilege buying?"
Bill Drissel
Grand Prairie, TX