The Institute for Family Studies puts up a pro-natal proposal that I’d not seen before.Most of the literature I’ve seen on baby bonuses suggests that the amount on offer would have to be hefty to have substantive effects. This version could harness a bit of loss aversion:President Trump launched a small savings account seeded with…
Pronatal policies
Pronatal policies
21 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, labour economics, labour supply, population economics Tags: economics of fertility
Operation Valkyrie: The July 20, 1944 Plot
20 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, World War II
The July 20 Plot, also known as Operation Valkyrie, represents one of the most significant assassination attempts against Adolf Hitler during World War II. This bold initiative was led by a group of senior German officers who, driven by a mix of moral indignation and practical considerations, aimed to eliminate the Führer and put an […]
Operation Valkyrie: The July 20, 1944 Plot
Fixed It. Examining BBC Backflips over Hamas Responsibility
20 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, war against terror
On July 14, the BBC website published a short update piece by David Gritten titled “Israeli strike on police post in north Gaza kills… The post Fixed It. Examining BBC Backflips over Hamas Responsibility appeared first on CAMERA UK.
Fixed It. Examining BBC Backflips over Hamas Responsibility
Fixing Argentina’s Punitive Tax System
20 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, development economics, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, growth disasters, macroeconomics Tags: Argentina
Almost exactly one year ago, the Center for Freedom and Prosperity released this short video as part of a series on the additional reforms Javier Milei should implement to maximize Argentinian prosperity. Let’s take a closer look at the country’s tax policy, and I’ll start today’s column with an analogy. When Milei took office, Argentina […]
Fixing Argentina’s Punitive Tax System
Book review: Econometrics for Dummies
19 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in econometerics, economics of education
I just finished reading Roberto Pedace’s 2013 book Econometrics for Dummies. As you might expect from a book written as part of Wiley’s ‘Dummies’ series, the book is written as a basic introduction to its topic, starting from the basics of probability distributions, and ending with a brief primer on how to conduct an econometrics…
Book review: Econometrics for Dummies
Arthur Nebe
18 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, World War II
The last few days I have seen articles about the German government commemorating those who were involved in the 20th July 1944 assassination plot. In a way I can understand it why they are doing this, but having that said I don’t agree with it. Yes it is true these men planned to kill Hitler […]
Arthur Nebe
Is Progress Sustainable? Mokyr’s Nobel Lecture
18 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic growth, economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, macroeconomics
“Progress” is a word that often generates both a lot of positive vibes, and also a lot of pushback? Progress toward what? At what cost? So it’s perhaps useful to specify that when I refer to “progress,” I’m referring to an overall movement toward good things of life: in no particular order, longer and healthier…
Is Progress Sustainable? Mokyr’s Nobel Lecture
Broadband coverage and rural fertility
18 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in econometerics, labour economics, population economics Tags: economics of fertility
I recently expressed some scepticism at a paper showing that the release of the iPhone explained a third or more of the decline in US fertility. So, I was interested to read this new working paper by Gokhan Kumpas (California State University, Los Angeles), which looks at the effect of broadband coverage on fertility. Specifically, Kumpas…
Broadband coverage and rural fertility
Occupational Licensing Around the World
18 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, labour economics, labour supply, occupational regulation, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA
Hartley and Kleiner have a new Fed Minneapolis working paper surveying workers around the world to measure occupational licensing by country. In the United States, occupational licensing has increased substantially over time, so one might expect licensing to rise with income. Their headline result is the opposite: occupational licensing is negatively correlated with GDP per…
Occupational Licensing Around the World
Some Links
17 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation
TweetMarian Tupy disabuses American socialists of their economically ignorant belief that successful entrepreneurs steal their wealth from workers and consumers. Two slices: Early economists, such as James Mill and David Ricardo, theorized that the physical labor exerted to create a good is the real measure of its value. Karl Marx took the concept to its…
Some Links
The Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder
17 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economics of regulation, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: gender wage gap
In my post Equality Act 2010 I discussed the UK’s absolutely insane wage policy: In short, supply and demand have been replaced by judges and labor boards with the authority to deem which jobs are “equal” and therefore should be paid equally….No one is alleging that male and female warehouse workers were paid unequally or…
The Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder
The Architect of Deception: How Albert Speer Crafted the Myth of the ‘Good Nazi’
17 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, World War II
Although Albert Speer designed some of Nazi Germany’s most prominent buildings and served as its Minister of Armaments and War Production during World War II, he later claimed to have had no knowledge of the Holocaust. For decades after the fall of the Third Reich, Albert Speer stood as a historical anomaly. While Adolf Hitler’s […]
The Architect of Deception: How Albert Speer Crafted the Myth of the ‘Good Nazi’
The Great Enrichment continues
17 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation Tags: creative destruction, The Great Enrichment
ACT’s High Hopes for Henry
16 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand Tags: 2026 general election
One of the rapidly emerging features of the 2026 election is the announcement of candidates carrying a profile from another sphere of activity. New Zealand First started the trend in April with former All Black captain Taine Randell announced as the candidate for Tukituki. He won’t win the seat but will surely be in the […]
ACT’s High Hopes for Henry
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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