Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
23 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Armen Alchian, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, survivor principle, theory of the firm
One of the most persistent criticisms of law & economics is that it rests on unrealistic assumptions. Economic models often assume firms maximize profits, investors respond rationally to incentives, and market participants systematically adjust their behavior in predictable ways. Critics frequently point to these assumptions as evidence that economic analysis is detached from reality. Real…
‘Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory,’ by Armen Alchian
23 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, entrepreneurship, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, market efficiency, occupational choice, survivor principle, theory of the firm
California has seen the future of work, and Sacramento’s first instinct is to convene 14 task forces about it. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-6-26 today, setting California’s workforce agencies in motion on directives involving research reviews, revisions to the state’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, studies of new safety-net programs, a…
The AI Jobs Panic Comes to Sacramento
14 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: competition law, land supply, zoning
The Spinoff reports: Both Labour and National governments have considered the idea of breaking up the big two but ultimately decided against it. A 2023 analysis by MBIE suggested forcibly breaking up the supermarkets could cost as much as $3.8 billion over 20 years, mostly due to the loss of economies of scale. It could make wholesale and distribution…
A good idea for supermarket competition
13 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: industry policy
Tweet… is from page 8 of Scott Lincicome’s and Huan Zhu’s superb September 2021 paper, “Questioning Industrial Policy: Why Government Manufacturing Plans Are Ineffective and Unnecessary”: A core part of industrial policy’s knowledge problem is timing: because markets and personal preferences are constantly evolving, the facts (products, investments, supply and demand, etc.) on which an…
Bonus Quotation of the Day…
08 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, transport economics
Many antitrust economists are wary of the efficacy of predatory pricing, the strategy of pricing below costs to drive a competitor out of a market. The usual counter-argument is that, for it to work, the inevitable losses this will entail must be recouped after the rival has exited. Recoupment requires higher prices … that can…
A Hiccup in a Price War
27 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation Tags: industry policy
Tweet… is from page 815 of Richard Nelson’s and Richard Langlois’s February 1983 Science paper titled “Industrial Innovation Policy: Lessons from American History”: A quick reading of the case studies is enough to dash any supposition that technological change is somehow a cleanly plannable activity. In fact, it is an activity characterized as much by…
Quotation of the Day…
19 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
In Part I of this series back in 2014, we looked at some academic research from Canada showing that the revenue-maximizing tax rate on the richest taxpayers was 27.5 percent. A key insight from that research is that high-income taxpayers have considerable control over the timing, level, and composition of their income (just like in […]
The Laffer Curve and Limits to Class Warfare Tax Policy, Part II
17 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in business cycles, Edward Prescott, entrepreneurship, financial economics, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, occupational choice, Robert E. Lucas
Tim Sablik of the Richmond Fed interviews “Ellen McGrattan: On measuring what businesses do, developing effective tax policy, and searching for answers beyond the lamppost” (Econ Focus: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, First/Second Quarter 2026). Here are a few of the comments that caught my eye: How did McGrattan become interested in business cycles? In…
Interview with Ellen McGrattan: Business Cycles and Intangible Capital
17 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, law and economics, managerial economics, market efficiency, movies, organisational economics, politics - USA, television Tags: competition law, creative destruction, merger law enforcement
Big mergers make headlines. They don’t always make antitrust problems. In a previous commentary, I explored the antitrust implications of a potential acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). That uncertainty is now resolved. On Feb. 27, Paramount Skydance Corp. agreed to acquire WBD for roughly $110 billion in enterprise value—$31 per share, all cash. The…
The Paramount Question Isn’t Paramount
11 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, entrepreneurship Tags: creative destruction
Computers nowadays come in all shapes and sizes from a smartphone to the super computer Mira. An essential requirement nowadays is that computers are portable. It may be hard to believe but the history of portable computers goes back 45 years, even when I write it ’45 years’ I can’t believe it . I was […]
Osborne 1-First Portable Computer
09 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of education, entrepreneurship, financial economics, history of economic thought, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality
I created the 8th Theorem of Government because it’s important to distinguish between people who want to help the poor and people who want to punish the rich. The former group has good motives while the latter group has ignoble motivations. Envy (common among the leftist intelligentsia) Public choice (common among leftist politicians) Zero-sum illiteracy […]
Why “Gini Coefficients” Are Meaningless
07 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, politics - USA, survivor principle
I have excerpts from posts or articles by three different economists. The answer seems to be no. Two are older and one is very recent by Harvard prof Jason Furman, who was once the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under Obama. Then two older sources. One is from Tyler Cowen (2023), professor at…
Is there something about manufacturing that requires special policies to help it that other industries don’t get?
01 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, entrepreneurship, financial economics
That all sounded wonderful, and that core model and its offshoots dominated financial research for decades. The problem, however, was that it wasn’t true, or at least it wasn’t nearly as true as we had thought and hoped. When financial economists refined the models with more complete specifications, it turned out Beta didn’t predict stock…
Is financial economics still economics?
31 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, labour economics, occupational choice, transport economics
See He Earns $1,000 a Job—and He’s a Car Dealer’s Worst Nightmare: With car prices soaring, one man deploys dealer speak to talk down the sticker price on behalf of buyers by Imani Moise of The WSJ.What if you don’t like haggling over the price of a car? Would you hire someone to do the haggling…
Professional Hagglers (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions)
26 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, entrepreneurship, growth miracles, health economics Tags: drug lags
This paper examines China’s transition from pharmaceutical “free rider” to global innovator over the last decade. In 2010, China accounted for less than 8% of global clinical trials; by 2020, it had surpassed the US in annual registered clinical trial volume. To study this transformation, we compile a comprehensive, synchronized database spanning the pharmaceutical drug…
The rise of China as a global innovator in pharma (incentives matter)
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
A History of the Alt-Right
Econ Prof at George Mason University, Economic Historian, Québécois
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Res ipsa loquitur - The thing itself speaks
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.”
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“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.
The truth about the great wind power fraud - we're not here to debate the wind industry, we're here to destroy it.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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