Randomized Controlled Trials: Could you be any more scientific? The book I’m now writing, Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets, insists that the randomistas of the economics profession actually have a thinly-veiled political agenda. Namely: To get economists to humbly serve the demagogues that rule the world instead of bluntly challenging their unabated…
By Paul Homewood London, 5 March – In the run-up to Budget Day (6 March), a new paper by a former World Bank economist and published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation warns that the UK’s current decarbonisation timeframe is unrealistic and threatens to be economically and socially unsustainable.
Five things to know about WA proposal to limit rent hikes | The Seattle Times Isn’t rent control one of the most studied economic experiments? And hasn’t it been shown to be, over the long term, a disaster for everyone involved? What does economic evidence tell us about the effects of rent control? | Brookings […]
Why are we still talking about Covid when many countries – like the US – have moved on? Well the US economy is currently booming and ours is stuck in the mud. The reason has emerged over time. Although our response to the virus was to be commended in early 2020 when no-one knew what…
Question: Do you understand how the child poverty statistics are derived? Clearly some people do not. Last week the latest child poverty statistics were all over the media. But there are a number of misunderstandings that need addressing. Like this one from NewstalkZB’s John MacDonald who wrote: “Living in households that get-by on less than…
TweetThis piece by Rapoza also features a discussion of the U.S. trade deficit in “goods” – any mention of which is a sure sign that the writer is a poor economist. A trade deficit in tangible things is no more economically meaningful than is a trade deficit in yellow things or things that start with…
TweetWriting in the Wall Street Journal, David Henderson and Charley Hooper explain why we should be thankful for high drug prices. Two slices: For Americans, paying for the discovery and development of new drugs rests on our shoulders. If we pay, we get new lifesaving medicines. If we don’t, we don’t. Almost all new drugs…
See Who Pays to Get Forever Chemicals Out of Drinking Water? It Could Be You: Officials say settlements with 3M and DuPont won’t cover all of the costs of building new filtration systems by John Keilman and Kris Maher of The WSJ. Excerpts:”Water systems are spending millions of dollars to filter out PFAS, the long-lasting compounds…
Tweet… is from page 4 of the 1976 second edition of my late, great teacher Leland Yeager’s magisterial International Monetary Relations: Theory, History, and Policy (original emphases; footnote deleted): Our opportunity for gain is genuine regardless of why foreigners sell so cheaply. Perhaps the foreign widgets are cheap because the climate is ideal for their…
I’m a sports fan, which in this case may represent a conflict of interest, because it means I’m conflicted about public subsidies going to sports stadiums. The economic evidence on this point is pretty clear: such subsidies can transfer how people spend their entertainment dollars from one area of a city to another, but the net…
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 Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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