When a truly great new invention appears, people rarely greet it with the reverence that hindsight later bestows. Instead, they squint at it through the lens of the familiar. They ask: What is this like? And because it is not like anything they already know, they underestimate it. History is littered with inventions that, at […]
The initial underappreciation of great inventions
The initial underappreciation of great inventions
31 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, industrial organisation Tags: creative destruction, The Great Enrichment
Exciting New Research on the Laffer Curve
30 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, history of economic thought, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics Tags: taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
Unless you’re a policy wonk, I realize “exciting” may not be the right word to describe new developments in public-finance economics. For nerds, however, three economists at the Joint Committee on Taxation have some important new research on the Laffer Curve. The study, authored by Rachel Moore, Brandon Pecoraro, and David Splinter, concludes that the […]
Exciting New Research on the Laffer Curve
Violent Saviors: The West’s Conquest of the Rest
29 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: age of empires, economics of colonialism
Some Links
26 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice
TweetPhil Magness’s new essay on the origins of the vague and derogatory term “neoliberalism” is superb. A slice: While most versions of the neoliberal label still come from the academic left today, the term has come back into favor within a certain, curious strand of the right. Conservative writers such as Patrick Deneen, Adrian Vermeule,…
Some Links
Sectoral shifts in supply, wartime agriculture edition
26 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economic history, industrial organisation, war and peace Tags: British history, World War II
It is all the more remarkable, then, that within six years Britain’s agricultural output had transformed, more profoundly and at a faster pace than any time since the start of the Industrial Revolution. The most urgent need was to provide a substitute for all that previously imported foreign wheat. In 1939, Britain only had 11.8…
Sectoral shifts in supply, wartime agriculture edition
The economics of currency values
25 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, financial economics, international economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: Japan
That is the topic of my latest Free Press column, here is one excerpt: What else are currency values telling us today? The Japanese yen continues a very weak run, now coming in at about 158 to the U.S. dollar. I can recall when it was common for the yen to stand at about 100…
The economics of currency values
Climate Change Economics, Skip the Hysteria (Lomborg)
25 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, economics of climate change, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, resource economics Tags: climate activists, climate alarmism, pessimism bias
For those who prefer reading, below is an excerpted transcript lightly edited from the interview, including my bolds and added images. Hey everyone, it’s Andrew Klavan with this week’s interview with Bjorn Lomborg. I met Bjorn, he probably doesn’t remember this, but I met him many, many years ago at Andrew Breitbart’s house. Andrew brought […]
Climate Change Economics, Skip the Hysteria (Lomborg)
Americans Are Getting Richer, Part IV
24 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, income redistribution, labour economics, macroeconomics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality
In 2016, here’s some of what I wrote about the economic outlook in Illinois. And I shared the same observation when writing about California in 2018. There’s a somewhat famous quote from Adam Smith (“there is a great deal of ruin in a nation“) about the ability of a country to survive and withstand lots of […]
Americans Are Getting Richer, Part IV
When the Left and the Right start behaving in the same way, there’s nothing left of the Left
23 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, discrimination, economic history, economics of education, gender, International law, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: regressive left
I HAVE BEEN RESISTING the conclusion that New Zealand no longer possesses a “left-wing” movement. What the news media persists in referring to as “the Left” or “progressives” are no such thing. By any reasonable definition, the movements identified – or identifying themselves – as left-wing fail to measure up. What they truly are we […]
When the Left and the Right start behaving in the same way, there’s nothing left of the Left
Part II: Oxfam Is a Leftist Joke, not a Real Charity
20 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth miracles, income redistribution, labour economics, liberalism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, technological progress Tags: regressive left, The Great Enrichment
As I wrote nine years ago, Oxfam is a pathetic organization. Originally created to help the poor, it has been captured by activists who peddle class warfare. But they play that role in an incredibly sloppy fashion. In all the debates I’ve been part of over the years, no left-leaning academic has been willing to […]
Part II: Oxfam Is a Leftist Joke, not a Real Charity
Is there a British productivity comeback?
20 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, industrial organisation, macroeconomics Tags: British disease
Let us hope: Britain is seeing early signs of a long-awaited turnaround of its productivity woes, according to an alternative measure that suggests output per hour worked has risen at a pace not seen since before the financial crisis. The Resolution Foundation said a “blistering” productivity surge has been masked by problems with official statistics and pointed…
Is there a British productivity comeback?
We’re still better off than ever before
18 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, liberalism Tags: The Great Enrichment
Steven Pinker wrote at the Free Press: Human progress continues, with some backsliding. Since publishing two books on human progress (The Better Angels of Our Nature, 2011, and Enlightenment Now, 2018), every year I update my graphs on the major dimensions of human well-being. Most people think everything’s gotten worse, but that can be a misleading…
We’re still better off than ever before
The Great Escape
07 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics Tags: maternal mortality
The Red Apple: Mamdani Pledges to Introduce “the Warmth of Collectivism”
07 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, Marxist economics, politics - USA
Below is my column in The Hill on Mamdani’s full-throated pledge to introduce New Yorkers to “the warmth of collectivism.”…
The Red Apple: Mamdani Pledges to Introduce “the Warmth of Collectivism”
Why Care About Debt-to-GDP?
06 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in econometerics, economic history, international economics, macroeconomics
Here is another piece for “contrarian Tuesday,” like it or not: We construct an international panel data set comprising three distinct yet plausible measures of government indebtedness: the debt-to-GDP, the interest-to-GDP, and the debt-to-equity ratios. Our analysis reveals that these measures yield differing conclusions about recent trends in government indebtedness. While the debt-to-GDP ratio has…
Why Care About Debt-to-GDP?
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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