Socialism has always possessed considerable moral appeal. Its advocates commonly appeal to equality of opportunity, social justice, fairness and the desire to prevent poverty and exploitation. Those are legitimate moral concerns. But there is an important distinction between socialism as an ethical aspiration and socialism as an economic system. There is also an important distinction between socialism and […]
The Problem with Socialism
The Crime of Winning: How Europe’s DMA Punishes Google for Competing
09 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation Tags: competition law
Brussels has found a new way to punish success. Today, the European Commission fined Google €890 million under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for two familiar business practices—featuring its own products and charging for customers its platform helps attract. The Commission imposed €460 million for “self-preferencing,” or giving Google’s services prominent placement in search results,…
The Crime of Winning: How Europe’s DMA Punishes Google for Competing
‘Market Power in Antitrust: Economic Analysis after Kodak,’ by Benjamin Klein
01 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation Tags: competition law
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services that a firm without market power in photocopiers might still possess market power in photocopier parts and service. The Court’s logic turned on opportunistic hold-up: Kodak could profit by trading short-run exploitation of locked-in customers for long-run losses in equipment…
‘Market Power in Antitrust: Economic Analysis after Kodak,’ by Benjamin Klein
New Research Further Confirms Anti-Growth Impact of Wealth Taxation
30 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, liberalism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
I’ve shared multiple studies about the harmful impact of wealth taxes (see here, here, here, here, and here). Today, let’s add to the body of evidence. I’ll start by calling attention to a column I wrote in 2019 that warned how wealth taxes mean very high – even confiscatory – taxes on saving and investment. […]
New Research Further Confirms Anti-Growth Impact of Wealth Taxation
The economic effects of GLP-1s
30 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, survivor principle
We estimate the causal impacts of GLP-1 treatment on labor market outcomes using linked Danish administrative data and a matched stacked difference-in-differences design. We compare patients who initiate GLP-1 treatment during the first two years of Semaglutide availability to observably similar patients who initiate four years later. We find that GLP-1 treatment reduces long-term sickness…
The economic effects of GLP-1s
Cataloging Growth: A Re-Evaluation of 1900–1990
25 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, entrepreneurship, macroeconomics
From Verónica Bäcker-Peral and Benjamin Wittenbrink of MIT: Measuring real GDP growth requires distinguishing changes in prices from changes in product quality and composition, yet systematic quality adjustment of price indexes is unavailable for much of the twentieth century. We construct a new quality-adjusted price index for U.S. consumer goods using 5.1 million product listings…
Cataloging Growth: A Re-Evaluation of 1900–1990
Let them build: electricity and datacentres edition
24 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, energy economics, entrepreneurship, politics - New Zealand
New Zealand’s electricity companies know how to stick a pipe into the ground in the Taupo Volcanic Zone and generate electricity. They’ve been doing it for decades, and there is enormous untapped potential. America’s hyperscalers are currently willing to pay a large premium for immediacy. They are sticking expensive off-grid generators beside datacentres that would have…
Let them build: electricity and datacentres edition
Is Progress Sustainable? Mokyr’s Nobel Lecture
18 Jul 2026 1 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
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 Great Enrichment continues
17 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation Tags: creative destruction, The Great Enrichment
Does Costco Follow The Efficiency Wage Theory?
13 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in labour economics, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, managerial economics, organisational economics, personnel economics, applied price theory, labour supply
See He Earns $33 an Hour as a Costco Cashier, Now He’s a Millionaire: Long-tenured workers like cashier Tony Barzar are reliable, experienced and able to speed shoppers through a checkout line-Costco is willing to pay to keep them around by Sarah Nassauer of The WSJ. I explain The Efficiency Wage Theory below after article excerpts:”Costco has…
Does Costco Follow The Efficiency Wage Theory?
The Troubled History of Government Equity in Technology
07 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, privatisation, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, Germany
Even though Germany privatized Deutsche Telekom in 1996, the federal government retained a substantial ownership stake. This partial state ownership status, which remains to this day, presents a textbook example of how this type of arrangement distorts incentives and delays the competitive dynamism necessary for technological progress. Through the late 1990s and into the 2000s, Deutsche Telekom…
The Troubled History of Government Equity in Technology
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Ignorance
07 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of information, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, financial economics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, market efficiency, politics - USA, regulation, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction
Everyone in Washington seems to agree that artificial intelligence must be governed. The only real dispute is who gets the steering wheel. Congress? Federal agencies? State legislatures? Some newly minted task force with a long acronym and a taste for reporting requirements? That debate is already too narrow. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on…
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Ignorance
SpaceX and the New Geography of Corporate Governance
07 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, law and economics, managerial economics, organisational economics, property rights
SpaceX may soon ask public investors to buy a piece of the future. The fine print may ask them to buy something else, too: a theory of corporate governance. The company’s reported initial public offering (IPO) has already drawn significant concern from institutional investors and corporate-governance observers. That concern is understandable. SpaceX reportedly seeks to…
SpaceX and the New Geography of Corporate Governance
Fourth Shale Revolution = Hydrocarbon Abundance
06 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in energy economics, entrepreneurship
Peter Zeihan is a global energy, demographic, and security expert breaking the news about a new tech revolution enhancing extraction of hydrocarbon fuels. For those preferring to read, below is a lightly edited transcript from the video with my bolds and added images. Hey all, Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Los Angeles on […]
Fourth Shale Revolution = Hydrocarbon Abundance
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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