The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of Mancur Olson

Mancur Olson’s The Rise and Decline of Nations is one of my favorite books and a classic of public choice. Olson may well have won the Nobel prize had he not died young. He summarized his book in nine implications of which I will present four: 2. Stable societies with unchanged boundaries tend to accumulate […]

The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of Mancur Olson

Dishonest Pimping for a Global Wealth-Tax Cartel

Everything you need to know about wealth taxation can be summarized in two sentences. The biggest problem with most tax systems is the pervasive tax bias against income that is saved and invested, which discourages the accumulation of capital that helps to finance future growth. Wealth taxes would dramatically increase the tax bias against saving […]

Dishonest Pimping for a Global Wealth-Tax Cartel

The Peltzman Effect at Sea

Deiana, Maheshr,and Mastrobuoniand have recently published an analysis of the effects of Search and Rescue operations on migration from Africa to Europe.Nearly half a century ago, Sam Peltzman showed that, because mandatory seat-belts made driving safer, drivers tended to drive more recklessly, partially offsetting the increased safety. Similar effects occurred in the search and rescue…

The Peltzman Effect at Sea

Some Economics of Tipping

Why leave a tip? You have already received whatever food or service you are going to receive. Maybe if you are a very regular customer, tipping could lead to better service in the future. But most people who leave tips do so even if they are stopping off at, say, a restaurant in a city…

Some Economics of Tipping

Conversations that Matter: Is 2050 a Realistic Net-Zero Goal?

Conversations that Matter: Is 2050 a Realistic Net-Zero Goal?

Quotation of the Day…

Tweet… is from page 422 of Robert Bork’s masterful 1978 book, The Antitrust Paradox: Competition in open markets reflects the ideal of equality of opportunity, while antitrust’s longstanding and growing concern for the small and less efficient reflects a preference for equality of outcome. Outcomes are not equal in open competition, hence the pressure for…

Quotation of the Day…

Why Socialism Won’t Die

“to employ a hundred people is… exploitation, but to command the same number [is] honorable.” That’s an actual book by the way, explaining that although communism has failed in the past across different nations, races and cultures, it might work in the future where machines can create anything we want. Think Star Trek’s replicator technology. […]

Why Socialism Won’t Die

US v. Google: do complaints have to be internally consistent?

From former DOJ Economist Greg Werden: The governments case suggests that its exclusive deals with Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine on their browsers “allowed Google to maintain its monopoly power [in “general search”] in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”  However, the government’s brief also suggests that Google’s scale is very important,…

US v. Google: do complaints have to be internally consistent?

Bjorge brings calm to climate conversation

Is the Commerce Commission for consumers or suppliers

Max Salmon writes: Last week the Commerce Commission announced its concern with a proposed merger between Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island. Their concern is a decrease in competition in the market. It sounds crazy when you first hear it, but it’s even weirder when you see what the Commerce Commission is actually worried […]

Is the Commerce Commission for consumers or suppliers

The War On Cars

In a fit of self-loathing, the European Union has begun to destroy the economic engine that pays its bills. Some of this is well known, but some is not, and it will astonish you.

The War On Cars

Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World

What does Earth Day teach us about supply?

Around the time of the first Earth Day (1970), Environmentalists were making dire predictions (via Mark Perry):  …world famines of unbelievable proportions. some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.” By the year 2000, … there won’t be any more crude oil. Lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver would…

What does Earth Day teach us about supply?

Hiring discrimination sentences to ponder

Several common measures — like employing a chief diversity officer, offering diversity training or having a diverse board — were not correlated with decreased discrimination in entry-level hiring, the researchers found. But one thing strongly predicted less discrimination: a centralized H.R. operation. The researchers recorded the voice mail messages that the fake applicants received. When a company’s […]

Hiring discrimination sentences to ponder

Dumb Idea of the Month: Currency Devaluation

Five years ago, I shared this video explaining why trade deficits generally don’t matter. The most important thing to understand is that a trade deficit is the same thing as a financial account surplus (formerly known as a capital surplus), which is easy to understand when reviewing this graph. And that type of surplus occurs […]

Dumb Idea of the Month: Currency Devaluation

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