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Cross-country Comparisons
A Category Archive (108 entries)
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November 10, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
A new international Gallup survey on migration preferences finds that the U.S. is the most popular dream destination. Singapore, however, is #1 on the Potential Net Migration Index, which adjusts for population:The Potential Net Migration Index is the estimated number... MORE
November 6, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
After Singapore's Law Minister used my article in Ethos to rebut international criticism, Singapore's Online Citizen asked permission to run a longer version of "Two Paradoxes of Singaporean Political Economy." Reactions were... mixed. Several readers backed me up:I would say... MORE
October 6, 2009
Growth: Causal Factors
Arnold Kling
Ed Glaeser writes, no variable from 1900 better explains success in 2000 than investment in education. That is, if you had a high percentage of the school-age population enrolled in school in 1900, you would have a high GDP per... MORE
August 24, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
When Americans visit Europe, they see a lot to like: Charming boulevards, delicious food, and historic cities that feel safe. When Europeans visit the U.S., it's not so pretty: While major American cities are impressive, their inhabitants can be more... MORE
August 21, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I'm amazed by how many Swedes knew about my list of Scandinavian expectations. Now that I'm back, I'm ready to compare expectations to experience:1. Denmark and Sweden will be more aesthetically pleasing than most of the U.S., but markedly less... MORE
August 9, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Today I start my trip to Denmark and Sweden. I'll be lecturing at CEPOS in Copenhagen, and the Research Institute of Industrial Economics and Mont Pelerin Society meetings in Stockholm. Since I've never visited either of these paragons of the... MORE
July 11, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
David Henderson
In his speech yesterday in Ghana, President Obama said, among other things: No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top. and But what America will do is increase assistance for responsible... MORE
June 7, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Over at Freakonomics, Justin Wolfers shares a graph showing how different nations are faring during this recession. His take: "the greater your involvement in producing high-value goods, the harder the fall." My take on the same graph: Asian economies are... MORE
June 1, 2009
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Bryan Caplan
I really liked Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 A Day. Westerners tend to think of the world's bottom billion as charity cases. The harsh and amazing reality, though, is that they largely stand on... MORE
May 28, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I'm pleased to report that noted blogger John Quiggin has accepted a slightly revised version of my proposed bet on European unemployment. The only revision: I sweetened the point spread to 1.5 percentage-points. Average European unemployment must be at least... MORE
May 27, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
When I compare U.S. and European unemployment, critics often object that Europe is heterogeneous. Fair enough, but you can make the same objection to any generalization. The U.S. is diverse, too. How often can you silence critics of the U.S.... MORE
May 22, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
The authors of the "U.S. Unemployment Rate Now as High as Europe" report have turned down my bet. One of the authors did however counter-offer a bet that Scandinavia's scores on the Human Development Index would beat America's at the... MORE
April 27, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
David Henderson
In his column in yesterday's New York Times, Cornell University economist Robert Frank writes: Another important message of recent research is that a person's salary depends far more on where she is born than on her talent and effort. For... MORE
Finance: stocks, options, etc.
Arnold Kling
Ravi Balakrishnan and others write, Evidence from past systemic banking crises in advanced economies (the US in the 1980s and Japan in the 1990s) shows that the decline in capital flows to emerging economies tends to be sizeable. Since then,... MORE
April 11, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
In his From Third World to First, Lee Kuan Yew admits that his original political motivation was simply nationalism:The Japanese occupation... aroused my nationalism and self-respect, and my resentment at being lorded over. My four years as a student in... MORE
April 6, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
A while back, I gave EconLog readers a primer on the "Enlightened Preference" approach to policy. The key idea is that you give subjects two surveys. The first tests objective knowledge; the second elicits policy preferences. The idea is to... MORE
April 5, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
In Lee Kuan Yew's massive From the Third World to the First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000, there is only one country that he positively seems to envy: Hong Kong. In his view, Hong Kong had a less favorable starting point... MORE
February 18, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I've finished my paper for Ethos, the journal of Singapore's Civil Service College. From the intro (footnotes omitted):Officially, Singapore is a democracy. When you compare it to almost any other democratic country, though, Singapore has two deeply puzzling features. Puzzle... MORE
February 13, 2009
Finance: stocks, options, etc.
Arnold Kling
Amar Bhide writes, Regulators apparently succumbed to the idea, peddled by financiers and modern theorists, that if a little financial innovation was good, a lot must be great--even if it was far outside their capacity to monitor. Thanks to Reihan... MORE
January 27, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
The opposition parties which competed in the 1997 and 2001 general elections are all to the political "left" of the PAP [the ruling People's Action Party], while the PAP occupies the center-right. There is no right-wing opposition. (Mauzy and Milne,... MORE
January 23, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Jagadeesh Gokhale writes, By 2020, the average EU country will need to raise the tax rate to 55 percent of national income to pay promised benefits. In other words, their Social Security systems are in worse shape than ours.... MORE
January 22, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
The sweet voice of reason works swiftly in Singapore. Less than six months after I blogged about its Health Minister's interest in legalizing kidney sales, it's "almost certain to pass into law after another reading in Singapore's government-dominated parliament." The... MORE
January 13, 2009
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
From Singapore Politics Under the People's Action Party:Lee Kuan Yew believes in eugenics. Among others, he has been influenced by Professor H.J. Eysenck, an expert on measuring intelligence who visited Singapore in 1987. Lee states that his views are a... MORE
December 4, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
People often point to Malaysia as a good example of a "moderate Muslim nation." So when I took a side trip to Kuala Lumpur and Malacca, I was curious to see moderate Islam with my own eyes. What's it like... MORE
November 29, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
An Ode to Speakers Corner (mocking the regulation of their public speakers' forum), Ode to Romancing Singapore (mocking the government's natalist campaign), and this cartoon mocking the government's use of security cameras:I've seen lots of political satire on professors' doors... MORE
November 28, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Americans often describe Singapore as a "dictatorship." I've occasionally done so myself. After further study, though, I've concluded that this view is simply wrong. Singapore is a democracy in practice as well as theory. Yes, the ruling People's Action Party... MORE
November 27, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Here's my favorite plaque in all of Singapore, displayed on the Dalhousie Obelisk:Which reminds me: If you're sharing today's meal with a protectionist, remember that the best side dish for a turkey dinner is an oversized helping of economic education. ... MORE
November 26, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
If you'll forgive the allusion, I tempted to open with "I've seen the future, and it works!" But the quote is apt: If Asia stays on course for the next three decades, China will be a massive version of Singapore... MORE
November 12, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Here's a striking paragraph from 1989:It was in Singapore that I first heard of the "American Disease," a primary symptom of which is living beyond one's means. A significant dimension of this pathology often is a slowing of productivity gains.... MORE
November 11, 2008
Upcoming Events
Bryan Caplan
I leave for Singapore on Saturday. I will be giving two public lectures there on Tuesday, 11/18:A seminar on The Myth of the Rational Voter at the Civil Service College from 9:30 to 11:30 AM.A lecture on Selfish Reasons to... MORE
November 3, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
This is truly insightful:[I]t has long been my experience that whenever any person reasonably but not fully sophisticated in economics sees the findings of these studies [of economic freedom], he invariably objects on the ground that his own country is... MORE
October 20, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I can vaguely understand why Western democracies won't deign to emulate Singapore's miraculously cheap and effective health care system. But when the Chinese ignore Singapore and copy Western socialized medicine, I can only roll my eyes in disgust:China has unveiled... MORE
September 23, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
After many posts about Singapore, I'm finally going to see it first-hand. I'll arrive on 11/16 and leave on 11/24, with a side trip to Kuala Lumpur toward the end. Besides giving talks, I'll also be doing some field work.... MORE
August 28, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
A new World Public Opinion survey of Muslims in seven nations finds that solid majorities favor globalization and trade:Asked about "globalization, especially the increasing connections of our economy with others around the world," majorities in six of the seven nations... MORE
August 21, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
It's the 40th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Many Czechs and Slovaks remember, but here's a shocking factoid:In a 2006 visit to the Czech capital, then-president Vladimir Putin expressed Russia's 'moral responsibility' for crushing the Prague Spring. However,... MORE
July 30, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
It looks like Singapore is once again going to win the prize for Most Economically Literate Bureaucracy. Here's what the Health Minister of Singapore has to say about human kidney markets:Singapore is considering legalising kidney trading to help meet demand... MORE
July 24, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
I am trying to learn more about the political system of Switzerland. The country has 23 cantons, each with its own parliament! I can find the population of each canton and the number of members in each parliament. I am... MORE
June 5, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Here's my last gasp of Europhilia: The Euro has much better denominations than the dollar. Instead of $1 bills, they've got 1€ and 2€ coins, worth about $1.50 and $3.00 respectively. Tipping's a lot easier; so are vending machines. The... MORE
June 3, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
In the U.S., we have low gas taxes, low car taxes, few tolls, strict zoning that leads developers to provide lots of free parking, low speed limits, lots of traffic enforcement, and lots of congestion. In Europe (France and Germany... MORE
June 2, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
In Germany, most highways have no speed limits at all. In France, all highways have speed limits, but there appears to be virtually zero enforcement. I was on the roads of France for almost a week, and I never saw... MORE
May 31, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
...was riding the Hasenhorn in the the Black Forest town of Todtnau. Fifteen minutes in a skilift to the top of a mighty mountain in the middle of nowhere, followed by a three kilometer toboggan track back down to the... MORE
May 28, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Raphael Franck, a French Israeli professor, has been visting at the Public Choice Center for the last two years. He leaves for good on Saturday. And in the true GMU spirit, we've worked out a bet as a going-away present.... MORE
May 26, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I'm back from Europe. Though I'm still playing catch up, here are a couple of observations from my travels: 1. I've often heard people claim that "You can become American, but you can't become French." All my experience in France... MORE
May 13, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Tonight I'm headed to Europe for the first time since 2001. Unlike Tyler Cowen, I can't provide lists of the five best long-haired archaeologists from Monaco. So you'll have to settle for my list of the Best Things European. Here... MORE
February 25, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Thinking about Cuba's prospects reminded me of Sobel and Leeson's neat chapter on "The Spread of Global Economic Freedom" in the 2007 Economic Freedom of the World study. In this piece, Sobel and Leeson use spatial econometrics to see whether... MORE
February 24, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Michael Stastny writes, Cubans don't have access to "world news" (no foreign newspapers, no internet, no satellite dishes), so the people I talked with were actually quite happy with their situation ("We don't earn much, but as opposed to other... MORE
January 16, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Check this out: The 50 U.S. states have been renamed for countries with similar GDPs. You'll learn as much about America as you will about the world.... MORE
January 14, 2008
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
The world - including the U.S. - can learn a lot from Singapore. (See here and here). But would I want the U.S. to become Singapore - that is, to replace our current package of policies with theirs? No. The... MORE
December 24, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
From Singapore's Success by Henri Ghesquiere:Malaya and the British saw in the union [between Malaysia and Singapore] a way to help Lee, and themselves, prevent Singapore, then a hotbed of communist agitation, from becoming an Asian Cuba.Talk about a near... MORE
December 18, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
William Nordhaus has G-econ The basic metric is the regional equivalent of gross domestic product. Gross cell product (GCP) is measured at a 1-degree longitude by 1-degree latitude resolution at a global scale. Richard Florida offers the pointer. As he... MORE
December 3, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I just had a fascinating chat with two extremely economically literate Singaporean civil servants. It suggested a challenge for libertarians: If you had to choose the system of government and policies as a package, which would you pick: the U.S.... MORE
November 17, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Esquire features a fascinating story in pictures: The seven wonders of the totalitarian world. This article reminds me that it's time to renew my call to privatize Lenin's mummy. I wish I could make the same suggestion for the other... MORE
November 15, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I recently doubted that the Chinese economy lives up to its reputation. Now the Financial Times says that the Asian Development Bank is backing me up:In a little-noticed mid-summer announcement, the Asian Development Bank presented official survey results indicating China’s... MORE
November 7, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
The International Food Policy Institute reports, the ultra poor are overwhelmingly concentrated in one region—Sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than three-quarters of the world’s ultra poor. Sub-Saharan Africa is also the only region in the world in which there... MORE
October 21, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I've long been skeptical of Chinese growth numbers. I don't doubt that China's economy is growing rapidly, but year after year of 10% growth seems incredible. In addition to the generic argument for doubting extreme numbers, we have the long... MORE
September 4, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Last week, I posed the question "Why don't Hispanics beg in America?" - and inspired this poignant essay by Venezuelan writer Ibsen Martinez:The emigrant is not only fleeing poverty. By deciding to leave his country he is fending off faulty... MORE
August 14, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I'm all for looking on the bright side of things, but I'm stunned that someone could be upbeat about post-colonial Africa. But someone is: Charles Kenny asks "Is Africa a Failure?," and almost says No:[C]omparative performance in economic growth is... MORE
June 21, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Austan Goolsbee writes, Perhaps the greater amount of uncertainty and churn in the world economy in the 1990s is the new norm. Perhaps the 21st century will continually favor those who adjust best to changes. As Professor Van Reenen put... MORE
May 17, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Edward Luttwak writes, We devote far too much attention to the middle east, a mostly stagnant region where almost nothing is created in science or the arts—excluding Israel, per capita patent production of countries in the middle east is one... MORE
April 8, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Arnold's surprise surprises me. 0% growth for one decade during the next four in countries with plenty to eat counts as a "collapse"? I think both Arnold and I would scoff if, say, Krugman claimed that the incomes of the... MORE
April 5, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
One reader tells me that the Wall St. Journal's op-ed page has spent the last twenty years claiming that Europe is on the "verge of collapse." Googling "Wall St. Journal Europe 'verge of collapse'" turns up little or nothing. In... MORE
April 4, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Tyler continues to baffle me. Now he's deeply misstating the free-market case against European social democracy: Market-oriented types look at Europe and think it is on the verge of collapse, when it isn't. They can't imagine that it doesn't, in... MORE
March 19, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Does anyone know anything about economic freedom in Ethiopia? I'm going to be on a panel where this would be useful knowledge to have - and unfortunately, Ethiopia does not yet seem to be included in the Economic Freedom of... MORE
January 29, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
In the February 12 issue of National Review, not yet available on line, John O'Sullivan writes, Several estimates suggest that China, India, and the U.S. will between them account--and roughly account equally--for three-quarters of world GDP by mid-century...The same estimates...show... MORE
January 22, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Shortly before he died, Milton Friedman gave the Wall Street Journal an email interview. China has maintained political and human collectivism while gradually freeing the economic market. This has so far been very successful but is heading for a clash,... MORE
January 11, 2007
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Henrik Rasmussen writes, estimates of Danes living in London vary between 35,000 and 70,000, which is roughly 1% of the total Danish population of 5.4 million. According to the leading Copenhagen business daily Børsen, the average income of these Danish... MORE
November 27, 2006
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Arnold Kling
In my latest essay, I write, Continental Europe is set up to preserve large public sectors, large banks, and large corporations. For individuals, the promise is stable jobs, a stable business environment, and collective sharing of the costs of unemployment,... MORE
November 11, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
The Economist blog suggests we give George Orwell a booby prize for his 1941 declaration that World War II proved the superiority of socialism over capitalism: The first award goes, post-humously, to Mr George Orwell, socialist writer, who penned these... MORE
October 10, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Rather, he writes a provocative, important piece in today's Opinion Journal (via the Wall Street Journal). There are two economic systems in the West. Several nations -- including the U.S., Canada and the U.K. -- have a private-ownership system marked... MORE
September 26, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
The World Bank has assembled indicators of the quality of governance in 213 countries. The researchers are making the underlying data available to researchers, so I can imagine many regressions being run to try to see which indicators best correlate... MORE
September 16, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
I've discovered a gem of a book on public opinion in the former Soviet bloc: Values and Political Change in Postcommunist Europe by William Miller, Stephen White, and Paul Heywood. In the mid-late '90's, they surveyed people in Russia, Ukraine,... MORE
September 13, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
You've heard about the Russian "oligarchs," right? They're the richest men in Russia. The insinuation is almost invariably that they owe their riches not to entrepreneurial ability, but to political connections. It's not "what you know," but "who you know,"... MORE
September 6, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
A World Bank Study is filled with information on the cost of doing business in various countries. For example, they rank countries using an overall index. New Zealand has the most business-friendly regulation in the world, as measured by the... MORE
July 19, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Eric Crampton
Jacqueline asks in the comments about restrictions on political speech in New Zealand. First, nobody's restricted against using the term argy-bargy. In fact, it's used rather frequently. I heard it on the radio this morning driving into work. Strange place.... MORE
July 17, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Eric Crampton
Patri Friedman asks in the comments for info on the desirability of New Zealand for libertarian expatting; C.L asks about the cost of living. I’ll see what I can do on both fronts, beneath the fold.... MORE
July 15, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Eric Crampton
I'm quite happy to fill in for Bryan while he's holidaying in California. I finished up at GMU about three years ago before taking a job at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Bryan's given me a bit... MORE
June 7, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Edmund Phelps writes, An informal cross-country analysis of those economies that I have conducted with Gylfi Zoega examined three measures of economic performance: the employment rate (relative to the working-age population), the unemployment rate (relative to labor force), and labor... MORE
February 13, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Fareed Zakaria writes, Talk to top-level scientists and educators about the future of scientific research, and they will rarely even mention Europe. There are areas in which it is world-class, but they are fewer than they once were. In the... MORE
February 7, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Tim Worstall reports on research that explains the differences between hours worked in the U.S. and Europe. the fact that many German women stay at home to make sauerkraut, while more American women go outside the home to do something... MORE
January 4, 2006
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Alex Tabarrok has a pair of neat posts on India and China. The first points to a vast expansion of private schooling in India, and makes the plausible argument that growth is causing education rather than the other way around.... MORE
December 28, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
When a country forbids foreigners to freely wander around and talk to people, smart money says that something monstrous is going on. North Korea is probably now the world's clearest example. It's hard to confirm that the alleged horrors are... MORE
December 19, 2005
Growth: Causal Factors
Arnold Kling
In a new book, a team of World Bank economists writes, most of a country's wealth is captured by what we term intangible capital...Intangible assets include the skills and know-how embodied in the labor force. The category also includes social... 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
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
October 29, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Another interesting result from Pew's "Islamic Extremism" survey: Americans are, compared to other Western countries, pro-Muslim! Only 22% of Americans surveyed admit to unfavorable views of Muslims. I suspect that many people who hate Muslims won't admit it, but the... MORE
October 17, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Who is most open to privatizing Lenin's mummy? You might think that it would be people to suffered under Communism, and want to turn their backs on anything tainted by it. But "Goodbye Lenin (or not?)" a fascinating paper by... MORE
September 19, 2005
Politics and Economics
Bryan Caplan
I'm convinced that economists have a lot to learn from personality psychology. For example, personality is a great predictor of occupational choice. Librarians are highly introverted, and salesmen are highly extraverted, just as you'd expect. Preferences matter, Becker and Stigler... MORE
August 3, 2005
Growth: Consequences
Arnold Kling
Mahalanobis quotes Peter C.B. Phillips and Donggyu Sul, the fastest learning countries are China, India and the East Asian group. Remarkably, China has experienced over four centuries of base trajectory OECD growth in the last 52 years taking it to... MORE
August 2, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Alex Tabarrok's llama statue reminds me of an argument by Jared Diamond that no longer convinces me. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond forcefully argues that an important reason Eurasia was more economically successful than the rest of the world... MORE
July 11, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Dan Klein has alerted me to the presence of two free-market organizations in Hong Kong, the Lion Rock Institute and The Hong Kong Centre for Economic Research. It's a start. Klein also pointed me to a nice lecture on what... MORE
July 9, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Hong Kong has had the freest economy in the world since 1970, the earliest year covered by the Economic Freedom of the World data set. Indeed, it's higher now under the Communists than it was in 80's! And it's hard... MORE
July 5, 2005
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Bryan Caplan
The Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science blog features an interesting graph comparing the actual and perceived percentange of foreign-born residents in 20 European countries. Consistent with my research on anti-foreign bias, people overestimate the percentage of foreigners in... MORE
June 15, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
This Friday, June 17, the Mercatus Center will be hosting French libertarian sensation Sabine Herold. The time: 12:00. The place: Mercatus Board Room, 4th Floor. Sabine's the talk of D.C., so my guess is that this will be a rare... MORE
May 4, 2005
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser, and Bruce Sacerdote write, we show, in an accounting sense, that legally mandated holidays can explain 80 percent of the difference in weeks worked between the U.S. and Europe and 30 percent of the difference in... MORE
March 23, 2005
Cross-country Comparisons
Bryan Caplan
Yesterday I had an interesting chat with an earnest young man who belongs to the Falun Gong movement. As best as I can tell, Falun Gong is the most serious of the opponents of Communist rule in China. Whenever I... MORE
September 5, 2004
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
The Wall Street Journal asks a series of questions to a number of Nobel Laureates in economics. On one question, whether the global income distribution will be more equal 50 years from now, several of them say "yes," because they... MORE
August 31, 2004
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
How can you tell whether one country's health care system works better than another? In this essay (read the whole thing), I talk about how not to make the comparison. Overall, I think that it is a mistake to define... MORE
August 30, 2004
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Gerard F. Anderson, Uwe E. Reinhardt, Peter S. Hussey, and Varduhi Petrosyan write, the United States spends more on health care than any of the other OECD countries spend, without providing more services than the other countries do. This... MORE
August 16, 2004
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-wing think tank (well, the newspapers always refer to Cato and Heritage as right-wing think tanks, don't they?), writes, seven OECD countries have passed the U.S. in productivity: Norway, with 131 percent of U.S. productivity... MORE
August 8, 2004
Cross-country Comparisons
Michael Munger
by Michael Munger Guest Blogger Things seem to be picking up for Russia, heart of the former Soviet Union and the world’s only third-world superpower. This year, using a purchasing power parity basis, Russian GDP stands at $1.287 trillion, or... MORE
August 2, 2004
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
Michael Munger, who will be guest-blogging here next week, has recently visited Cuba. Our hosts were professors and were also well paid, earning in some cases more than $20 per month. The idea that someone would pay nearly $30 to... MORE
July 12, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
The OECD looks at total hours worked in its member countries. The performance of US labour markets also looks quite strong when assessed in terms of hours worked per capita, a more comprehensive measure of “labour utilisation” than the employment... MORE
June 14, 2004
Growth: Consequences
Arnold Kling
Steve Antler points to a study by Fredrik Bergström & Robert Gidehag of various indicators of prosperity in the U.S. relative to countries of the European Union. Most Americans have a standard of living which the majority of Europeans will... MORE
April 19, 2004
Fiscal Policy
Arnold Kling
In his New York Times column last week, Jeffrey Madrick referred to the work of Peter Lindert on the ability of countries to grow in spite of welfare state distortions. Lindert's argument can be found in Why the Welfare State... MORE
February 1, 2004
International Trade
Arnold Kling
An engineer from India emails me, The purchasing power parity in India is 5 compared to USA - a 20000 $ programmer in India is actually making 100,000 $ in terms of his spending power. ...an average programmer in India... MORE
May 29, 2003
International Macroeconomics: Exchange Rates, International Debt, etc.
Arnold Kling
Prashant Kothari forwarded an email from one of his readers that said, I think global deflation is [in] the cards as long as we have free trade in goods and services. China is rapidly becoming a sophisticated manufacturer and there... MORE
May 28, 2003
Supply-side Economics
Arnold Kling
In this essay, I take issue with Paul Krugman's claim that the liquidity trap is relevant to Japan and the United States. Krugman has learned the wrong lessons. He thinks that the bank bailouts are a good thing, that Japan's... MORE
January 26, 2003
Cross-country Comparisons
Arnold Kling
In the Atlantic Monthly's "State of the Union" issue, Ted Halstead says that for the American economy it is the best of times and the worst of times. We boast more patent applications than the entire European Union; almost three... MORE
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