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Revealed Preference
A Category Archive (38 entries)
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January 30, 2013
Economic Education
David Henderson
File this under "Gains from Exchange" Police officers in Seattle, Washington held their first gun buyback program in 20 years this weekend, underneath interstate 5, and soon found that private gun collectors were working the large crowd as little makeshift... MORE
November 30, 2012
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
"Nobody likes to pay taxes. Nobody wants to raise taxes on anybody." This is a quote from a newly elected Democratic congressman from Illinois named William L. Enyart. So, unless he considers himself a nobody, would he advocate raises on... MORE
July 16, 2012
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
Ezra Klein claims that the current Congress is "one of the very worst congresses we have ever had" and then claims to "prove it." He gives 14 reasons. Reason #1 is "They're not passing laws." What's his implicit assumption? That... MORE
June 24, 2012
Public Choice Theory
David Henderson
Their Supreme Gall There are two ways to take lousy government for granted: (1) to understand clearly how lousy, petty, vicious, self-serving, and narcissistic most government is, and (2) to understand implicitly how lousy, petty, vicious, self-serving, and narcissistic most... MORE
January 27, 2012
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
I've been busy all week teaching an intense course. Thus the hiatus in my blogging. I took the Charles Murray quiz that Arnold suggested and I scored, depending on the definition of a close friend, either 12 or 13 points... MORE
October 20, 2011
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
David Henderson
One of the deepest scars of my early youth was etched when my teacher told me, "You do not want that," after I had told her that I did. I would not have been so upset if she had said... MORE
August 31, 2011
Economics of Education
David Henderson
And the company offers a treasure trove of traditional academic content that undergraduates paying $50,000 a year may find nowhere on their Club Med-like campuses. This past academic year, for example, a Bowdoin College student interested in American history courses... MORE
August 30, 2011
Cost-benefit Analysis
David Henderson
The Institute for Humane Studies did an interview with George Mason University economist Chris Coyne just before Valentine's Day on the economics of gifts. Chris lays out one of the standard claims that economists have made about gifts: that to... MORE
August 5, 2011
Central Planning vs. Local Knowledge
David Henderson
"The toughest job you'll ever love." Robert E. White, Peace Corps regional director for Latin America, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1970, "In the early days ... it was like a parachute drop. A Volunteer would be told,... MORE
June 25, 2011
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
House Refuses To Authorize Libyan War, Then Refuses To Defund Libyan War That's the headline on an article by Doug Mataconis yesterday. The House of Representatives voted yesterday not to authorize the use of the U.S. military in Libya and... MORE
April 1, 2011
Economics of Health Care
David Henderson
Economics teaches that people reveal their preferences through their actions. If people act as though they are indifferent between being uninsured and being on Medicaid, we may infer they are equally well off in both states of the world from... MORE
January 31, 2011
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
In a comment on my December 21 post, "John Papola on Behavioral Economics," John Papola wrote: [W]hat is consumer surplus really and why does anyone take such an idea seriously? As someone who takes it seriously--I don't know of any... MORE
January 27, 2011
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
Brett Arends has an article in the January 26 Wall Street Journal titled, "Why You Can't Trust the Inflation Numbers." His distrust is all in one direction: he thinks the Consumer Price Index understates inflation. My distrust is all in... MORE
November 20, 2010
Politics and Economics
David Henderson
This is from an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. The "he" referred to is John Pistole. [Ayn Rand was accused of overdoing it when she used less-obvious names for villains.] "If you have two planes, one where people are... MORE
August 21, 2010
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
Peter Suderman of Reason interviewed me last week in connection with a short article I did on how Canadian politicians Jean Chretien and Paul Martin turned around the federal budget from persistent deficits to persistent surpluses (until the latest recession.)... MORE
May 12, 2010
In a debate with Robert Frank, David Friedman has pointed out some huge flaws in Frank's argument for higher taxes on "the rich." I found Friedman's critique devastating. I'll point to one highlight and then point out two criticisms I... MORE
January 18, 2010
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
A standard thing we teach our students is that it's more efficient to give money to people than to give stuff. Here's a beautiful statement of the point by Alanna Shaikh, a global health professional. An excerpt: Donating stuff instead... MORE
January 1, 2010
Economics and Culture
Arnold Kling
Edward L. Glaeser and Joshua D. Gottlieb survey the fundamental economics questions about cities, including why they exist. Cities are ultimately nothing more than proximity, so the returns to urban concentration can be seen as reductions in transport costs. ...a... MORE
August 30, 2009
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
Economist blogger Craig Newmark has linked to a hilarious Andy Roddick press conference. Roddick is so refreshing, answering questions honestly rather than doing the evasion and bulls**t that so many people at press conferences do. There's something else to note... MORE
July 15, 2009
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
I know this is a little late, but I was just surfing the web and found out that my mentor at Fortune magazine, Dan Seligman, died in January. I'm usually better than this at keeping in touch with friends who... MORE
February 21, 2009
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
Like my fellow blogger Bryan, I take particular pleasure in seeing people "tell it like it is." For that reason, I particularly like the new TV show, "Lie to Me." In it, some federal government employees (you can't have everything)... MORE
February 11, 2009
Revealed Preference
David Henderson
My co-blogger, Arnold Kling, posted today about a blogger named James Wolcott. Mr. Wolcott appears to be someone who is deeply troubled by those who would use stereotypes to make their case. But because I didn't know who Mr. Wolcott... MORE
July 16, 2008
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Arnold Kling
Bruno Frey writes, procedural utility has also been found to play a role in consumers' decisions. The first evidence of this was presented by Kahneman, et al., who investigated customers' reactions to a situation where the price of a good... MORE
April 1, 2007
Revealed Preference
Arnold Kling
Today's Washington Post contains an op-ed by Ian Baldwin and Frank Bryan on Vermonters' desire to secede from the union. We secessionists believe that the 350-year swing of history's pendulum toward large, centralized imperial states is once again reversing itself.... MORE
April 3, 2006
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
Will Wilkinson writes, The neuroscience shows that satisfaction of the highest ranked preference does not imply the greatest hedonic satisfaction. It does not imply any hedonic satisfaction. Take a look at this paper, “Parsing Reward,” [pdf] by Kent Berridge and... MORE
March 14, 2006
Revealed Preference
Bryan Caplan
Steve Levitt often quips that "People lie, numbers don't." I say that both people and numbers lie some of the time. The tough question is figuring out how much trust you should give people or numbers in any particular case.... MORE
September 26, 2005
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Arnold Kling
I write, On the issue of poverty and immigration, which Robert J. Samuelson raised, I would ask, "Where would you prefer that people be poor?" That is, do we want to insist that poor Hispanics should remain in their native... MORE
July 22, 2005
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
Catching up on a week's worth of blog reading, the best thing I missed appears to be this post by Will Wilkinson. Richard Layard points out that one's perceived position in the income distribution is a better predictor of self-reported... MORE
September 8, 2004
Revealed Preference
Arnold Kling
Tyler Cowen acknowledges, Unlike Arnold Kling, however, I do not reject the implications of happiness research altogether. The ever-excellent Michael of 2Blowhards.com has now come forward and offered a good summary of what happiness research implies... "Everyone seems to have... MORE
August 16, 2004
Public Goods
Arnold Kling
Peter Gordon reports on declining use of mass transit. As a group, the 20 largest U.S. metro areas declined in transit use (all trip purposes; thank you, Wendell Cox) in the 1990s. Not relative decline but absolute decline. As a... MORE
July 27, 2004
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
Robert H. Frank writes, Considerable evidence suggests that if we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than before.... MORE
January 26, 2004
Revealed Preference
Arnold Kling
Do European elites hate America? Not if you judge on the basis of revealed preference. According to Time, No amount of funding can buy a culture of competitiveness. And if researchers don't see opportunities for reward, they'll take their talent... MORE
January 13, 2004
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
I have already given so-called "happiness research" a pretty hard bashing. But Tyler Cowen thinks that there is something to it. He links to a paper that says that people who work for nonprofits are happier than people who work... MORE
May 16, 2003
Revealed Preference
Arnold Kling
On the topic of revealed preference, David Thomson writes, Human beings are neither existentially [n]or psychologically able to endure lives of everyday indolence and unrelenting pleasure seeking. That sounds like the introductory sentence for a thesis in behavioral economics. For... MORE
May 14, 2003
Revealed Preference
Arnold Kling
I take a skeptical view of surveys in this essay. From the standpoint of revealed preference, the [survey evidence] that income over $20,000 does not raise happiness simply falls apart. Observing the fact that even people with very high incomes... MORE
April 4, 2003
Revealed Preference
Arnold Kling
In a previous post, I mentioned Richard Layard's critique of economics, based on survey research. Now, I have written an extended response to Layard. An excerpt: [Layard] is saying that you cannot trust people's behavior as an indicator of their... MORE
March 18, 2003
Revealed Preference
Arnold Kling
Richard Layard uses survey research and some fancy philosophical footwork to argue against conventional wisdom in economics and in favor of a nanny state. Some quotes from the series of three lectures: People in the West have got no happier... MORE
February 1, 2003
Revealed Preference
Arnold Kling
A short article by Don Peck and Ross Douthat in The Atlantic Monthly summarizes some research on the relationship between income and happiness by Dutch sociologist Ruut Veenhoven. Peck and Douthat interpret the results as suggesting that Above about $20,000... MORE
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