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Arnold Kling: August 2012
An Author Archive by Month (32 entries)
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August 24, 2012
Econlog Administrative Issues
Arnold Kling
Sorry for being abrupt, but this is something I have been thinking about for months. In the future, I plan to do my writing in essay format. As far as blogging goes, I am opting for exit rather than voice,... MORE
Political Economy
Arnold Kling
Concerning U.S. corporate law, Kent Greenfield writes, Compare this to the European model of corporate governance, which requires much more robust social obligation on the part of corporations, embodied not only in cultural norms but also in law. The duty... MORE
Political Economy
Arnold Kling
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson write, Central planning maximizes the extent of control that the state, and the people running the state, exercise. The desire to control others is a constant in history and is part and parcel of the... MORE
August 23, 2012
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
He talks with Russ Roberts. A few excerpts: typically in U.S. business cycles, productivity, measured either as total factor productivity or labor productivity--output per hour or output per worker--typically falls significantly during substantial recessions such as those in the 1970s... MORE
August 22, 2012
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
1. Robert J. Barro writes, Convergence at a 2% rate implies that it takes 35 years for half of an initial gap to vanish and 115 years for 90% to disappear. Convergence-rate parameters are important to pin down because they... MORE
August 21, 2012
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
David Warsh writes, I expect the Democrats to dominate this election (and probably the next), the Tea Party to slowly shrink, the caucus of Republican pragmatists to grow, until one day the GOP credibly offers to take over and improve... MORE
August 20, 2012
Growth: Causal Factors
Arnold Kling
The New York Times reports, Even as Foxconn, Apple's iPhone manufacturer, continues to build new plants and hire thousands of additional workers to make smartphones, it plans to install more than a million robots within a few years to supplement... MORE
August 19, 2012
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
Timothy Taylor points to a Pew study of housing segregation by income class. Not surprisingly, it is on the rise. the authors calculate what they call a Residential Income Segregation Index, which comes from "adding together the share of lower-income... MORE
Social Security
Arnold Kling
John Mauldin writes, some people get so angry when you challenge their beliefs. You are literally taking away the source of their good feeling, like drugs from a junkie or a boyfriend from a teenage girl. Keep that in mind... MORE
August 18, 2012
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
Kauffman Foundation seems to be shutting down its DC operations. I wish I knew more about the goings-on there. I have nothing against Kansas City, but I hope there is no general contraction taking place at Kauffman. Meanwhile, there is... MORE
August 17, 2012
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
In response to my post on Civil War Scenarios, some commenters brought up the 1960s. I actually do not have to read a history of the 1960s--I can remember them. One thing people forget about the 1960s is how many... MORE
August 16, 2012
IQ in Economics
Arnold Kling
Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen write (large .pdf) We do not assume that national IQ is the only factor capable to explain global disparities in access to clean water and sanitation facilities; we only assume that it is probably the... MORE
August 15, 2012
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
He writes, The theory the country is about to test is that chains will make us better and more efficient. The question is how. To most of us who work in health care, throwing a bunch of administrators and accountants... MORE
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
Pascal Boyer writes, I am surprized, nay flabbergasted that there is no study of folk-economics in the social science literature. No-one (except Caplan and a few others) seems to study what makes people's economic modules tick. In psychology we have... MORE
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
Peggy Noonan writes, I suspect some conservative used the Romney campaign's listless response as a stand-in for what they'd really like to say to Mr. Romney himself, which is, "Wake up, get mad, be human, we're fighting for our country... MORE
August 14, 2012
Economic Methods
Arnold Kling
Gary Becker and James Heckman argue for more government support for economic research. In the other corner are Don Boudreaux and Tyler Cowen. Indeed, Tyler was in really good form in writing his post. There is not much left of... MORE
August 13, 2012
Social Security
Arnold Kling
He wrote, Your federal government is basically an insurance company with an army. You and I would read that as an insurance company backed by coercion. Frances Woolley took it that way, and started into the pros and cons of... MORE
August 12, 2012
Economics of Education
Arnold Kling
Timothy Taylor, the economics blogger with by far the highest signal-noise ratio, has another valuable post, this time spotlighting a piece by Martin West on Global Lessons for Improving U.S. Education. I'll snip from Taylor's excerpt: [T]here are three broad... MORE
Eurozone crisis
Arnold Kling
How do you say "Have a nice day" in Japanese or French?... MORE
August 11, 2012
Political Economy
Arnold Kling
The Economist reports, This experiment in radical outsourcing began back in December 2005, when Sandy Springs went from being merely a part of Fulton County--which also includes most of Atlanta, Georgia's capital and largest city--to an incorporated city itself. CH2M... MORE
Microeconomics
Arnold Kling
I've said this many times. I was reminded of it by this story from John Scalzi about tortillas priced higher when priced as "wraps," which Matt Yglesias suggests provides a means for price discrimination. In terms of efficient pricing, one... MORE
August 10, 2012
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Arnold Kling
The book is American Nightmare, and it is iconoclastic. Some excerpts: Glaeser and Avent each profess to oppose coercive policies aimed at forcing people to live in higher densities than they wish. Yet their often-erroneous arguments lend credence to those... MORE
August 9, 2012
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
Reihan Salam points to two of the strongest reactions to President Obama's Roanake speech ("You did not build that"). Virginia Postrel writes, The president's sermon struck a nerve in part because it marked a sharp departure from the traditional Democratic... MORE
Finance: stocks, options, etc.
Arnold Kling
Nick Rowe asks the question. My answer is based on Marcia Stigum's Money Market, a book that more economists need to read. Securities dealers are dealers, sort of like auto dealers. If you go to an auto dealer, you expect... MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Arnold Kling
Bryan's comments on Brink Lindsey's new book are valuable. I am just annoyed that nobody seems to have noticed my own review.... MORE
August 8, 2012
Economic History
Arnold Kling
Price V. Fishback and John Joseph Wallis write, Federal budget outlays in real dollars rose 88 percent under Hoover between 1929 and 1932, faster than the growth in the first three years under Roosevelt (although starting from a lower base).... MORE
August 7, 2012
Austrian Economics
Arnold Kling
About four years ago, I described myself as an Austro-Keynesian. Recently, I have been asked about that concept. One way to put it is that I accept and reject some major tenets of each camp. From the Keynes camp, I... MORE
August 6, 2012
Growth: Consequences
Arnold Kling
I have been working on some educational software--nothing revolutionary,, and nothing ready to show just yet. It is interesting to see how different the software world is from when I left it in 1999. I'll put the rest of this... MORE
August 4, 2012
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Evan Soltas writes, A disparaging but not unfair comparison would be to little orphan Annie. "The sun'll come out tomorrow," Annie sang. "Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun." The 3-to-4 percent recovery growth we've been long promising... MORE
August 3, 2012
Finance: stocks, options, etc.
Arnold Kling
Michael Mandel writes, an investment in the stock market becomes a bet on innovation. Do you think that the U.S. or the global economy has another wave of disruptive innovation coming? Then buy stocks. But if you think that we... MORE
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Steve Randy Waldman writes, Idle unemployment is a problem in societies that are highly productive but very unequal. Here basic goods (food, clothing) can be produced efficiently by the wealthy via capital-intensive production processes. The poor do not employ one... MORE
August 2, 2012
Politics and Economics
Arnold Kling
A new publication from the Boston Fed informs us. Time will tell. But universal public education still stands as one of America's most successful government programs. America's public schools have taken their share of criticism, and some of it may... MORE
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