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David Henderson: March 2011
An Author Archive by Month (38 entries)
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March 30, 2011
Economics and Culture
David Henderson
Commenting on my post on sports, my friend John Goodman said that he was surprised that I am so into sports. People who knew me before I was about 32 are surprised too, one of the main ones being my... MORE
March 29, 2011
Monetary Policy
David Henderson
On Judge Napolitano's "Freedom Watch" on March 25, Austrian economist Bob Murphy claimed that the unrest in the Middle East was due to rising food prices which in turn are due to the Fed printing money. I'm not sure about... MORE
March 28, 2011
Statistical theory and methods
David Henderson
The outcomes so far in the NCAA men's basketball games have surprised most people. The biggest surprise is Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) beating the mighty Kansas, President Obama's choice to win the whole thing. VCU's wins are surprising. But it,... MORE
Economics of Education
David Henderson
I second Arnold's recommendation of the Khan video. Some highlights: 4:47: These videos help even an autistic kid. Wow! 5:10: "Here I was, an analyst at a hedge fund; it was very strange for me to do something of social... MORE
March 26, 2011
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
David Henderson
I wrote this one evening in the fall of 1981 after watching an episode of "The Greatest American Hero" in which the key character interacts with the Lone Ranger. I had known nothing ab0ut the show but I was suddenly... MORE
March 24, 2011
Upcoming Events
David Henderson
Tomorrow, Friday, March 25, I'll be giving at a talk at California State University, Monterey Bay, titled "The Cost of War." It goes from 10:00 to noon and is open to the public. Here's the announcement and here are the... MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
David Henderson
It is disappointing that there is one zombie idea that Quiggin does not bury and still buys into: the idea that a government with a lot of coercive power over people's lives can be trusted to use that power for... MORE
March 23, 2011
Political Economy
David Henderson
Here is the speech I referred to in my previous post. I would like to thank Leonard Silk for his fundamental decency and sense of fair play in letting me appear here today. I come before you to speak on... MORE
Political Economy
David Henderson
In 1980, the American Economics Association had its annual meeting in Denver in early September. When I arrived and paid my dues, I noticed that the program had a session planned for the first day titled, "Presidential Candidates' Economic and... MORE
March 22, 2011
Income Distribution
David Henderson
I received the following from a regular reader of this blog, an economics professor who was one of my best teachers when I studied economics for a year at the University of Western Ontario: Hi David, I have enjoyed your... MORE
March 21, 2011
Income Distribution
David Henderson
I can't think of anything in the private sector that even begins to compare to this reverse Robin Hood redistribution from the poor to the rich and the nouveau riche. And remember, in order to pull it off, government first... MORE
March 20, 2011
Income Distribution
David Henderson
I was gratified by the response--in quantity and quality--to my post yesterday, "How to Help Poor People in Poor Countries, Part 2." I promised to say what my colleagues wrote in response to my question. Before doing so, I'll point... MORE
March 19, 2011
Income Distribution
David Henderson
About 40 to 60 percent of the economists around my campus--the Naval Postgraduate School--get together for a brown-bag lunch around a table once a month and just talk about whatever is on our minds. We're an eclectic bunch. There are... MORE
March 18, 2011
Cost-benefit Analysis
David Henderson
One of the most important things I learned from my Economics professors at UCLA was at a cocktail party at the late Sherwin Rosen's place in Rochester, New York. Labor economist Finis Welch was visiting from UCLA and I had... MORE
Fiscal Policy
David Henderson
Discussions of government spending are carried on as if there's a clearcut difference between "discretionary spending" on the one hand and "mandatory" or "entitlement" spending on the other. What do the words mean? Discretionary spending is spending that politicians have... MORE
March 17, 2011
Fiscal Policy
David Henderson
Zinni's article [on why it's absolutely necessary to keep government funding of the U.S. Institute of Peace] is a good example of a genre of literature we'll be seeing a lot of as the president and Congress grapple with the... MORE
Economic Philosophy
David Henderson
Since students actually know so little, I must explain the differences between Holocaust deniers, Holocaust minimizers, and Hitler rehabilitationists. I must explain propaganda and euphemism and anti-Zionism. I must acquaint them with fascism, eugenics, Romantic struggle and surrender, Einsatzgruppen and... MORE
March 16, 2011
From Third Way comes this clever exercise in numeracy: seeing how important various parts of the federal budget are by translating it into what you pay in taxes for each part. So you plug in all the taxes you pay,... MORE
Labor Market
David Henderson
In a comment on my post, Minimum Wage: The Missing Explanation, Tom West writes: I'm not certain it's necessarily a net loss for the USA to have actually had labor laws and unionization that led to a middle class large... MORE
March 15, 2011
Public Choice Theory
David Henderson
Is this a day to celebrate or to mourn the death of Julius Caesar? That's the question for the Ides of March. Here's what Wikipedia says about his policies: When the triumph was over, Caesar set forth to passing an... MORE
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
David Henderson
On Facebook today, a friend posed the following question that he had heard in a sermon: Would you rather have $100K for your own use OR $1M to be given away (anonymously to a good cause with whom you have... MORE
March 14, 2011
Central Planning vs. Local Knowledge
David Henderson
President Obama has repeatedly given us his vision of how to lower the cost of health care and raise its quality: Find out what works; then get everyone else to copy it. Toward that end, the administration is making millions... MORE
Macroeconomics
David Henderson
One of the commenters, mark, on Arnold's post today on the Great Depression noted that Gene Smiley has a book out on it. The book is excellent. I asked Gene to put in a few thousand words the highlights of... MORE
March 13, 2011
Labor Market
David Henderson
LET THEM WORK In essence, we have seen the rise of a large class of "zero marginal product workers," to coin a term. Their productivity may not be literally zero, but it is lower than the cost of training, employing,... MORE
March 12, 2011
Public Choice Theory
David Henderson
"Power tends to corrupt: absolute power corrupts absolutely." This quote is, of course, from Lord Acton. Today, Megan McArdle has laid out beautifully how it corrupts. This is my favorite McArdle post in a long time. She starts with a... MORE
Labor Market
David Henderson
'How,' ask Card and Krueger early in the book, 'can the general public, most governments, and many other social scientists disagree with the negative view of the minimum wage that is so widely held by economists?' (p. 7). The reader... MORE
March 11, 2011
Monetary Policy
David Henderson
Jeff Hummel has posted a careful analysis of the Federal Reserve's recent change in accounting rules. His bottom line is that basically the change is no big deal. Although Jeff makes the case very carefully, as is his wont, it... MORE
Property Rights
David Henderson
As a specific instance, the fire-bomb raids on Hamburg in July and August 1943 were highly intense community-wide disasters. As normally occurs in such situations, people proved tougher than structures. The raids destroyed about 50 percent of the buildings in... MORE
March 10, 2011
Economic Philosophy
David Henderson
David Gordon makes a category error. The other factor was more fundamental; we have discussed it already but now Rothbard elaborated on it in more detail. Crane and Koch, in a quest for political power, wished to compromise with libertarian... MORE
March 9, 2011
Economic Philosophy
David Henderson
Tyler Cowen (here and here) and co-blogger Arnold Kling have commented on what they see as the main failings of left-wing and market-oriented economists. I agree with much of what Arnold said and some of what Tyler said: my disagreements... MORE
March 8, 2011
Regulation
David Henderson
Citing America's Declaration of Independence and the Maine Constitution, the ordinance proposed that "Sedgwick citizens possess the right to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing." These would include raw milk and other dairy products and... MORE
March 7, 2011
Labor Market
David Henderson
Now that I've seen the Undercover Boss episode about the Cincinnati mayor, it's time to analyze. See here for my predictions. The bottom line is that I was on to something. Alex Tabarrok, in a comment on my previous post,... MORE
Regulation
David Henderson
One might think that the ideal regulations would be those that find the right numbers for these portfolios, not too small and not too large--the Goldilocks of risk. Surprisingly enough, it is not possible. It turns out that no algorithm... MORE
March 6, 2011
Labor Market
David Henderson
In which the author makes some predictions. My wife and I have watched about the last 4 episodes of "Undercover Boss" on CBS and are now hooked. All 4 have been private-sector for-profit companies and here's what I've noticed: 1.... MORE
Labor Market
David Henderson
In today's WaPost, political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that not only are unions good for their members but also that unions promote a strong middle class. Their main argument is that unions are a strong political... MORE
March 5, 2011
Macroeconomics
David Henderson
Yesterday, CNBC's Squawkbox had Alan Greenspan on for an extensive interview. The difference between the communication skills of Alan Greenspan as economic commentator and the communication skills of Alan Greenspan as Fed Chairman is like the difference between day and... MORE
March 2, 2011
Macroeconomics
David Henderson
Last month, Alex Tabarrok posted an interesting piece on the failure of Keynesian politics. Let's posit arguendo, he said, that Keynesian economics is correct: during a recession, if the government increases aggregate demand using tax cuts or government spending increases,... MORE
March 1, 2011
Regulation
David Henderson
I hadn't known until reading Arnold's post this morning and then the Wall Street Journal article that he referenced that Jack Calfee, a health economist at AEI, had died. I didn't know Jack well--we talked on the phone only about... MORE
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