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Great Moments in Compulsory Government IDs - Econlib
In Revolution, Martin Anderson’s 1988 book about the Reagan revolution and about Marty’s role in things, Marty tells an interesting story about illegal immigration. On July 6, 1981, the Task Force on Immigration and Refugee Policy met in the White House. Marty was there. The Attorney General, William French Smith, presented his proposal […]
Is California turning to the right? - Econlib
Recent referenda on the minimum wage produced some striking results: The California proposal to raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour in steps by 2026 narrowly failed, 51%-49%. Opponents and backers amassed a combined $1.8 million war chest for the issue — the lowest amount of all the propositions on Californians’ ballots this year, according […]
Build, Baby, Build To Fight Climate Change - Econlib
The climate is getting hotter, and people are contributing to the change. What should we do about it? Many people think they’re fighting climate change and keeping the environment pristine by prohibiting development on huge chunks of land in California and otherwise making it prohibitively costly to build there. They’re wrong. Building restrictions in California […]
The Tail Wags the Dog - Econlib
In his 2018 book Expert Failure, Roger Koppl discusses the influence of “big players” on expert opinion (pages 214-215, 230). A “Big Player” is an entity whose presence alone can influence individual behavior. Where Roger gives the example of the IPCC and the intelligence system in the US, it seems we’re also seeing it now […]
Do we understand elections? - Econlib
The media is full of analyses as to why Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the recent election. At various times, I’ve mentioned factors like voter frustration over high inflation, illegal immigration, and woke excesses on college campuses. The more I think about the election, however, the less confidence I have in any single explanation. […]
A Strange Turning Point - Econlib
I enjoy reading intellectual biographies – books dedicated to exploring how a particular person’s thinking evolved and developed through their lifetime. This, too, applies to intellectual autobiographies, where thinkers describe their own journey about how they came to believe what they believe. Of course, all such accounts should be taken with a pinch of salt. […]
Should You Be a College Professor? - Econlib
On November 7, Arnold Kling, formerly a co-blogger at this site, wrote: I can pinpoint the exact moment when I started to lose sleep over higher education in America. This was in the Spring of 2012, at my daughter’s graduation ceremony at Brandeis University. The main graduation speaker was in the midst of a not-memorable […]
Terrorism, Israel, and Dreams of Peace (with Haviv Rettig Gur) - Econlib
Over the last 30 years, the Israeli public has moved to the right on the question of how to deal with the Palestinians. Why did this happen? How has this changed Israeli politics and the strategy of the Palestinians? Listen, as journalist Haviv Rettig Gur explores the political and military history of the last three […]
The importance of principles - Econlib
Given a choice between the rule of law and the law of rulers, I’d choose the former every time. That’s even true if I happen to agree with the ideology of the people who are currently in change. Thus I’ve consistently opposed “court packing”, regardless of which party is in power at the time. One […]
My Weekly Reading for November 17, 2024 - Econlib
Toyota USA Chief: Hey, About Those IMPOSSIBLE EV Mandates… by Stephen Green, PJ Media, November 11, 2024. California’s electric vehicle mandates, which go into effect next year, are “impossible” to meet and will result in reduced choices on dealer lots. “I have not seen a forecast by anyone,” Jack Hollis, chief operating officer of […]
Fifty Percent Plus One Is Not a License to Kill - Econlib
Winning an election with 50% plus a few (or many) voters does not imply the normative conclusion that the winner is justified to impose policies that significantly harm the other 49% (or fewer). In a free society, the political majority rule has three main justifications. First, it allows to change the rulers when their exercise […]
A Nobel Prize in Economics for the ‘Inclusive’ Free Market - Econlib
Thirty days have passed since my WSJ op/ed last month on the three winners of the Nobel Prize in economics. Therefore I can post the whole op/ed here. A Nobel Prize in Economics for the ‘Inclusive’ Free Market The three laureates’ research demonstrates the importance of property rights and the rule of law. By […]
Peace for our time? - Econlib
In September, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain struck a deal with Adolph Hitler. Britain (and France) would allow Germany to seize the parts of Czechoslovakia that were inhabited by ethnic Germans (the Sudetenland), in exchange for a promise not to make any further advances on the country. Upon returning home, he declared that he […]
You're Probably Willing to Price Gouge (and That's OK!) - Econlib
Imagine that Walt is gently swaying in a hammock on a well-deserved vacation day when his phone rings. It’s his boss. She tells him that his co-worker has an emergency and can’t come into work. Although it’s last minute, she asks if Walt would be willing to work today—otherwise, the store will be too short […]
Find the Math Error - Econlib
Bryan Cutsinger has been doing an excellent job of presenting economic problems to solve. Sometimes, to do basic economics, you need to know basic math. Here’s a statement from research scientist Carey King in “Why Energy Efficiency Might Not Cut Emissions As Much as You Think,” Wall Street Journal, November 11, 2024 (print edition): The […]
The importance of diminishing returns - Econlib
In graduate school, I recall a professor suggesting that the rational expectations revolution would eventually lead to much better models of the macroeconomy. I was skeptical, and in my view, that didn’t happen. This is not because there is anything wrong with the rational expectations approach to macro, which I strong support. Rather I believe […]
EconLog Price Theory: Consumer Purchasing - Econlib
[Editor’s note: We’re bringing back price theory with our series on Price Theory problems with Professor Bryan Cutsinger. You can view the previous problem and Cutsinger’s solution here and here. Share your proposed solutions in the Comments. Professor Cutsinger will be present in the comments for the next two weeks, and we’ll again post his proposed solution […]
Fine Tuning Policy - Econlib
While trying to make an analogy for a smartphone review, the technology reviewer and journalist Marques Brownlee once made the following observation about the Porsche 911: Have you ever listened to a car reviewer describe the latest generation Porsche 911? This is a car that’s looked more or less the same for the past fifty […]
Who Needs Miracles? On Nature and the Miraculous (with Alan Lightman) - Econlib
How can we cultivate a sense of awe in our lives? Easy, says physicist and author Alan Lightman: Pay more attention. When we take the time to examine the world around us, from shooting stars to soap bubbles to everything in between, we can feel a sense of wonder and appreciation akin to spirituality. And […]
Sellgren Interviews Henderson on the Latest Nobel Prize Winners - Econlib
Juliette Sellgren, a senior and economics major at the University of Virginia, has a podcast titled “The Great Antidote.” In October, she interviewed me about the winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics: Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. She contacted me because I wrote, as I have done in most years since […]
The "problem" of induced demand - Econlib
An article on a highway project in the Pacific Northwest caught my eye: However, the shiny new document leaves out an essential consideration when it comes to projecting the future effects of I-5 expansion in this long-constrained corridor, an omission that would have been much less noticed in a decade ago but which sticks out […]
My Weekly Reading for November 10, 2024 - Econlib
Subsidies and Tech Deals Don’t Change the Economics of Nuclear Power by David Kemp, Cato at Liberty, November 4, 2020. Excerpt: Despite the flurry of attention, nothing suggests that the underlying economics of nuclear have changed. Nuclear remains expensive, and its costs likely outweigh its benefits as a zero-carbon energy source. A recent Washington Post editorial, […]
The market reaction to the election - Econlib
A throwaway comment at the end of my previous post may have been misunderstood. So today I’ll provide a more complete interpretation of the market response to the recent election. There were a number of significant market responses to the election, including: 1. Significantly higher stock prices2. A stronger dollar3. Higher interest rates4. Higher inflation […]
My Personal Prediction Machine - Econlib
Alex Tabarrok has an excellent post at Marginal Revolution this morning explaining why he had and has confidence in prediction markets. It’s very hard to argue, while predicting, against people who are putting their own money on their own predictions. Like Alex, I tracked those markets closely, which is why I was telling friends that […]
Watch the Breakevens - Econlib
Lars Svensson has argued that monetary policymakers should “target the forecast”, which means they should set their policy at a position expected to lead to on-target inflation. Early in 2024, a few high inflation readings led to concern that we might not be on track for a soft landing. Inflation eased later in the year, […]
Is the Rule of Law Sacred? - Econlib
It is not because preserving the rule of law is a French problem that it has no relevance for the United States. Quite the contrary. The current minister of the Interior, the top cop in France, recently declared (see Nicolas Bastuk and Samuel Dufay, “L’État de droit est-il sacré?” or “Is the Rule of Law […]
The Problem With Economic Planning - Econlib
Economic planning, where the government uses policies such as taxation, subsidies, spending, or nationalization, in order to direct economic outcomes, is back in vogue. Its proponents often liken economic planning to planning done by individuals in the economy. The difference, they claim, is that national economic planning can help accomplish larger economic, national, or social […]
We at 100 - Econlib
The 20th century produced fictional dystopias besides real ones, yet the best known – like George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four – originated in liberal democracies. All, however, owe much to a novel from one from one of the real dystopias, We, by the Soviet Union’s Yevgeny Zamyatin. Born in 1887, Zamyatin became a Bolshevik while a […]
Players, Games, and Rules - Econlib
Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean’s The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind has a lot of criticisms of how medical institutions operated during the pandemic (and also generally). One occasionally hears that the United States shows why a free market in health care can’t work. (I confess, […]
Martin Anderson on Ronald Reagan's Smarts - Econlib
Yesterday, I posted over on my Substack on a long interview that my late Hoover Institution colleague Martin Anderson did about his time with Richard Nixon. In it he revealed how quickly Nixon came to Marty’s position against the military draft in 1967, relatively shortly after meeting Marty. There’s lots more that’s fascinating in that […]
Externalities and Public Policy - Econlib
External effects such as air pollution are often cited as an example of a problem that can be usefully addressed by public policy. In the real world, however, two factors cause externalities to be overemphasized as a justification for regulation: Transactions costs Motivated reasoning A recent article by Geoffrey Kabat in Reason magazine helps to […]
The Linguistic Disadvantages of Liberalism - Econlib
The words used in public discussions shape the outcome of debates. In political discourse, language plays a critical role in conveying ideas, shaping perceptions, and even determining public opinion. In the 21st century, despite the successes of liberalism in expanding freedom and reducing poverty, liberal ideas remain unpopular in many parts of the world. This […]
An Interesting Political Phenomenon - Econlib
We observe a strange phenomenon that does not only affect America but currently looks especially virulent in this country. (Before the fall of the Soviet empire, it was more noticeable in Europe.) When an election is coming, each of the two main competing sides shouts that if the other 50% (plus 1% or whatever) wins, […]
The "Opportunity" to Get Cancer - Econlib
Art Carden has written a terrific article this morning on the huge economic progress we have made in the last 2 centuries. It’s “Conceived in Liberty or Conceived in Sin? Exploitation and Modern Prosperity,” Econlib, November 4, 2024. One excerpt: We are R.I.C.H.: Rich, Interconnected, Civilized, and Healthy. What does this mean? First, I’m referring […]
Feeling Lucky? - Econlib
My appointment at Washington University was in the sociology department. During the autumn of my fourth year, I ran into a social work faculty friend of mine in the hallway of my building… she mentioned in passing that the social work school had a job opening that perhaps I might be interested in… on a […]
Conceived in Liberty or Conceived in Sin? Exploitation and Modern Prosperity - Econlib
Economics in One Lesson author Henry Hazlitt said that good ideas must be re-learned every generation. As I tell my economic history students, we’re contending for the values of the Enlightenment—life, liberty, equality, and the resulting prosperity. Contrary to what we are often told, we owe our prosperity to liberty, not exploitation, and a flourishing […]
Give Away a Kidney? Are You Crazy? (with filmmaker Penny Lane) - Econlib
After filmmaker Penny Lane decided to donate a kidney to a stranger, it took three years and a complex, often infuriating, sometimes terrifying process to make it happen. Along the way, being a filmmaker, she eventually decided to chronicle her experience and explore the question: How can a choice that seems so obvious to the […]
Freedom and the Lawmakers - Econlib
A Book Review of Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, by Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze.1 Liberties, Thomas Hobbes wrote, “depend on the silence of the law.” Nowadays the law is very chatty. Here are three examples from the new book by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze, Over Ruled: […]
Thinking: Both Fundamental and Misunderstood - Econlib
In his 2017 Nobel lecture, University of Chicago Professor Richard Thaler focused on how his native discipline, economics, lost its analytical way when economists founded their theories on methodological sand, meaning a premise of not just human rationality, but perfect rationality, in decision making. In his lecture, Thaler stressed the obvious, even to (neoclassical) economists: […]
When should we defer to others? - Econlib
Based on the indicators that I look at, I’d expect PCE inflation to run well above 2% over the next 5 years. On the other hand, market indicators such as TIPS spreads point to roughly 2% expected inflation. Which view should I trust? I’d say both. If I put zero weight on my own (inside) […]