To follow up on Part I and Part II in this series, let’s start with this Stossel video featuring Professor Don Boudreaux of George Mason University. The message is simple and accurate. Starting nearly 100 years ago, we got terrible statist policy from Herbert Hoover, followed by terrible statist policy from Franklin Roosevelt. No wonder […]
Blame Washington for the Great Depression, Part III
Blame Washington for the Great Depression, Part III
27 May 2026 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, great depression, history of economic thought, macroeconomics
Schumpeter comes to Wellington
27 May 2026 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice
(And what we can learn from the Luddites) In 1987 Telecom New Zealand employed about 25,000 people. By 1997 it employed under 8,000. A single corporation shed 17,000 jobs in a decade, in a country of 3.3 million. The cost of Telecom’s long-distance calls fell by 60 per cent between 1987 and 1992. The decade that followed […]
Schumpeter comes to Wellington
The corporate tax rate really matters
26 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, macroeconomics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment
Three findings emerge. First, improvements in aggregate tax competitiveness are positively and significantly associated with real GDP per capita growth, robust to a wide range of controls. Second, this aggregate effect is driven entirely by the corporate tax pillar; no other component displays a significant growth effect. Third, the corporate tax effect materializes contemporaneously and…
The corporate tax rate really matters
Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Net Zero Dream
26 May 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, economics of natural disasters, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: climate alarmism
Human welfare, not abstract emissions targets, must remain the lodestar. History shows that technological progress and energy abundance, not central planning, have lifted billions from poverty and improved environmental outcomes along the way. The post Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Net Zero Dream appeared first on Watts Up With That?.
Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Net Zero Dream
Quotation of the Day…
26 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, international economics
Tweet… is from pages 171-172 of Menzie Chinn’s and Douglas Irwin’s excellent 2025 textbook, International Economics: The Lerner Equivalence Theorem – that an import tariff is equivalent to an export tax – carries a powerful message: a country that tries to protect import competing industries from foreign competition may be able to help those industries…
Quotation of the Day…
1,600 more homes in Upper Hutt, if the Council doesn’t block it
26 May 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
Radio NZ reports: A developer is calling on the Upper Hutt City Council to let it build what it believes to be a crucial road, so it can construct 1600 homes. Guildford Timber Company (GTC) wants to build the road through an area of council-owned land known as the Silverstream Spur, home to a number…
1,600 more homes in Upper Hutt, if the Council doesn’t block it
Are Living Standards Higher in France or Mississippi?
25 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, income redistribution, labour economics, macroeconomics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice Tags: France
Earlier this month, in Part V of my series on the U.S. vs. Europe (previous versions available here, here, here, and here), I shared a chart showing the OECD calculations of “Actual Individual Consumption.” The AIC numbers are designed to give people an apples-to-apples comparison of living standards. I’m re-sharing the chart today, and I’ve […]
Are Living Standards Higher in France or Mississippi?
Thomas Poole and Elena De Nictolis: The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026
25 May 2026 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy Tags: British constitutional law, British politics
After months of parliamentary debate, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 (‘English Devolution Act’) received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. The Act has important implications for the relationship between central and local government and the long-running ‘English question’ in UK constitutional politics. This post situates the Act within almost three decades of […]
Thomas Poole and Elena De Nictolis: The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026
Liberal Economists Score an Own Goal Against Bezos
25 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, fiscal policy, James Buchanan, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, Public Choice, public economics
Jeff Bezos tweeted: Yes, the United States has the most progressive tax system in the world. The top 1% pay 40% of taxes, the bottom 50% pay 3% of taxes. We can make it even more progressive by zeroing out taxes on the bottom half. It’s a small amount of the total tax revenue but…
Liberal Economists Score an Own Goal Against Bezos
Scotland 2026: A normal election for its MMP design
24 May 2026 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, Public Choice Tags: Scotland
The electoral system used for the Scottish Parliament is more restrictive than the Westminster parliamentary electoral system, and recognizing this characteristic is key to understanding the result of this election.
Scotland 2026: A normal election for its MMP design
Repugnant Economics
24 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought
I spoke on a panel at AEI with Nobelist Al Roth about his new book, Moral Economics, which covers “repugnant markets,” from prostitution to surrogacy to kidney exchange. A fun book! My case study was acting. Acting was considered repugnant for over 2,000 years. In Rome, actors could not vote, hold office, or be trusted…
Repugnant Economics
The (Amusingly) Destructive Economics of Wealth Taxation
24 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
I’ve shared several columns (here, here, here, here, and here) reviewing scholarly research on the harmful economic impact of wealth taxation. From now on, however, I think I’ll simply share this clever video from the folks at Reason. The video uses humor to make very important points about how a wealth tax would diminish incentives […]
The (Amusingly) Destructive Economics of Wealth Taxation
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 13
24 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of regulation, environmental economics, environmentalism, history of economic thought, law and economics, Murray Rothbard, property rights, Public Choice
SummaryThis chapter, on “Conservation, Ecology, and Growth,” is an early statement of free-market environmentalism. It begins by ridiculing leftists’ decades of contradictory complaints about capitalism: “Stagnation; deficient growth; overaffluence; overpoverty; the intellectual fashions changed like ladies’ hemlines,” and quoting one of Schumpeter’s best lines:Capitalism stands its trial before judges who have the sentence of death…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 13
The Case Against Socialism, Part V
24 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, macroeconomics, Marxist economics Tags: North Korea, South Korea
As far as I know, Matt Mitchell and I are not related, but we both have a low opinion of socialism. He covers a lot of ground (defining socialism, the role of prices, socialism’s death toll, and the myth of Nordic socialism) in this 15-minute interview. Matt does such a good job that I didn’t […]
The Case Against Socialism, Part V
Why California High-Speed Rail Failed
23 May 2026 Leave a comment
in transport economics, urban economics
While Wendover Productions, the maker of this video, believes in high-speed rail, it shows that the California project was poorly planned. Planners optimistically believed it could be built in the U.S. for the same costs that high-speed rail had been built in Europe. Among other things, they failed to account … Continue reading →
Why California High-Speed Rail Failed
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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