Catching up is about radically raising growth in the countries now at the bottom…This book sets out an [aid] agenda for the G8 that would be effective. (The Bottom Billion, pages 12 and 13) Sir Paul Collier, Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) is a British development economist […]
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier (2007)
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier (2007)
05 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, defence economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, history of economic thought, war and peace Tags: Africa
Why Britain’s economy is failing
04 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: British politics, land supply, zoning
In the past five years, the number of applications to connect to the electricity grid — many of them for solar energy generation and storage — has increased tenfold, with waits of up to 15 years. The underinvestment is restricting the flow of cheap energy from Scottish wind farms to population centers in England and adding to […]
Why Britain’s economy is failing
Quotation of the Day…
01 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, behavioural economics, economic history, history of economic thought, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: capitalism and freedom, evolutionary psychology, The Great Enrichment
Tweet… is from my emeritus Nobel-laureate colleague Vernon Smith‘s splendid speech “Human Betterment Through Globalization,” delivered in September 2005 at the Irvington-on-Hudson then-headquarters of the Foundation for Economic Education: The challenge is that we all function simultaneously in two overlapping worlds of exchange. First, we live in a world of personal, social exchange based on…
Quotation of the Day…
Solow on Market Advantages and Market Failures
31 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, labour economics, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, unemployment
Robert Solow (1924-2023) died last week. As a starting point for understanding his life and his work on growth theory, the Nobel prize website, since he won the award in 1987, includes an overall description, a biographical essay, and his Nobel lecture. I can also strongly recommend an interview that Steven Levitt carried out with…
Solow on Market Advantages and Market Failures
190308 [Webinar] Consistent Economic Policy and Economic Development
29 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, defence economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of information, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, fisheries economics, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, inflation targeting, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, Public Choice, public economics, unemployment
Friedman and Schwartz agreed with Anderson, Tollison and Shughart on the public choice origins of the Great Contraction!
28 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, great depression, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: monetary policy



Te Tiriti o Waitangi cedes sovereignty to the Crown, and can be unifying rather than divisive
27 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
Interview with Angus Deaton: Critiques of Cosmopolitan Prioritarianism and Randomized Control Trials
25 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, econometerics, experimental economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought
David A. Price of the Richmond Fed carries out an interview titled “Angus Deaton: On deaths of despair, randomized controlled trials, and winning the Nobel Prize” (Econ Focus: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Fourth Quarter 2023, pp. 18-22). Here are a few of Deaton’s comments that caught my eye: On his shift from “cosmopolitan prioritarianism” to…
Interview with Angus Deaton: Critiques of Cosmopolitan Prioritarianism and Randomized Control Trials
Corporate Taxation, Ireland, and Jealousy
24 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, macroeconomics, public economics Tags: Ireland, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment

Two months ago, I wrote about a remarkable example of the Laffer Curve, involving Ireland’s low 12.5 percent corporate tax rate. According to the New York Times, Ireland was collecting so much corporate tax revenue that the government was having a hard time figuring out what to do with all the money (as you might […]
Corporate Taxation, Ireland, and Jealousy
Argentina Milei reform impressions
23 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, history of economic thought, income redistribution, international economics, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, monetary economics, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, unemployment Tags: Argentina
I didn’t have much time in Argentina, but I can pass along a few impressions about how Milei is doing, noting I hold these with “weak belief”: 1. He is pretty popular with the general population. He is also popular in B.A. in particular. People are fed up with what they have been experiencing. It […]
Argentina Milei reform impressions
FMI Public Speaker Series – Finn Kydland
23 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking
Finn E. Kydland Nobel Lecture at CERGE-EI
22 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, Public Choice, public economics
From Now To 2100 Emission Reduction Policy Costs Greatly Exceed Any Net Benefit from Averted Warming
20 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, econometerics, economic history, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: climate alarmism
The benefits of not meeting Paris Accord emissions-reduction targets outweigh the costs associated even with worst-case-scenario global warming throughout the 21st century.
From Now To 2100 Emission Reduction Policy Costs Greatly Exceed Any Net Benefit from Averted Warming
Fritz Machlup (1902-1983)
19 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, history of economic thought, international economics
TweetAmong the many bits of unearned good fortune that have come my way in life was to have been a student in two of Fritz Machlup‘s classes at NYU. (In Spring 1981 I was a student in the last graduate course he taught on one of his specialities, International Trade. That course was phenomenally good.…
Fritz Machlup (1902-1983)
Claudia Goldin: “What’s ‘Greedy Work’ and Why Is It a Problem?” | People…
18 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economic history, gender, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, minimum wage, occupational choice Tags: gender wage gap, sex discrimination
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