My latest paper, The Price of a Cure: Luxturna and the Economic Dilemmas of Precision Medicine, is in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics. I discuss the economics of the pharmaceutical industry and the special issues that arise with targeted drugs that cure. We are going to get many more of these drugs in…
Expensive Pharmaceuticals for Targeted Diseases
Expensive Pharmaceuticals for Targeted Diseases
07 Nov 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, health economics
Profiling the Criminal Mind of Hitler
07 Nov 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of education, health economics, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, World War II
How do you profile the mind of one of the most evil men who ever roamed the Earth? The Office of Strategic Services (now CIA) tasked psychoanalyst Walter C. Langer and psychologist Henry Murray to come up with an extensive analysis of Hitler’s mind in 1943. The reports used many sources to profile Hitler, including […]
Profiling the Criminal Mind of Hitler
Dr. Douglas M. Kelley: Psychiatrist of the Nazi Mind at Nuremberg
21 Oct 2026 1 Comment
in defence economics, health economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, World War II
Dr. Douglas McGlashan Kelley was a U.S. Army psychiatrist who became renowned for his psychological evaluations of high-ranking Nazi officials during the Nuremberg Trials. His work not only contributed to the fields of psychiatry and forensic psychology but also provided a rare glimpse into the minds of those responsible for the atrocities of the Holocaust […]
Dr. Douglas M. Kelley: Psychiatrist of the Nazi Mind at Nuremberg
China fact (?) of the day
15 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles, health economics, labour economics, labour supply, population economics Tags: China
A monograph by Yi Fuxian, a University of Wisconsin-Madison demographer and longtime critic of China’s population policies, argues that China’s actual population may be closer to 1.27 billion—not the 1.4 billion officially reported. The gap would be as much as 130 million people, roughly the population of Mexico. And Yi argues the distortion has warped…
China fact (?) of the day
Marijuana Contracts Are Not Enforceable in Federal Court
14 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: Marijuana decriminalization. economics of prohibition
Just because marijuana is legal under state law does not mean marijuana is legal — a useful reminder.
Marijuana Contracts Are Not Enforceable in Federal Court
Another, very significant, example of why Māori privilege is a myth.
10 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, health economics, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: economics of mental illness
My ears pricked up a week back when ZB reported on recently released 2025/2026 suicide stats. Like many NZers, people taking their own lives has had an impact on me. My birth father took his own life when I was sixteen and close to meeting him for the first time. I have also been in…
Another, very significant, example of why Māori privilege is a myth.
Did the ACA reduce mortality?
05 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, health economics, politics - USA Tags: health insurance
Many of us brought up related points at the time, but basically we were booed off the reservation: While recent research has provided evidence that the Medicaid expansions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) reduced mortality, there is no evidence on the effect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) net of the Medicaid expansions on…
Did the ACA reduce mortality?
Does Surgery Work?
30 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
The Economist: Many surgical interventions are little better than placebo The results are upending the field. Removing an inflamed appendix, an operation that around 5-10% of people have had at some point in their life, has turned out to be no better for most patients than a course of antibiotics. Trials comparing different surgical techniques…
Does Surgery Work?
Tea drinking and mortality in pre-industrial England
24 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics Tags: The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape
The importance of clean water for public health is thoroughly uncontroversial in modern times. In the temporary absence of a safe water source, one recommendation is to boil water for drinking, which will kill off most bacteria and other pathogens. 668 more words
Tea drinking and mortality in pre-industrial England
Who Pays for Medicare for All?
18 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in health economics, income redistribution, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics
Plus: Democrats reckon with the rise of the DSA, Trump scales back America’s military presence abroad, and the case for letting kids play outside
Who Pays for Medicare for All?
Opportunity Party on when you’re a child
17 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, economics of education, health economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: 2026 general election, crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, law and order
The Opportunity Party policy is or was that any criminal offender aged under 25 should be sent to the Youth Court for a family group conference, rather than go to an adult court. They say this is because 24 year old brains are not fully developed, so they should not be held fully accountable for…
Opportunity Party on when you’re a child
SST lashes crazy TOP policy
11 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, economics of education, health economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: 2026 general election
Chris Lynch reports: The Sensible Sentencing Trust has launched a blistering attack on The Opportunity Party’s policy to raise the age of Youth Court jurisdiction, describing it as one of the craziest ideas it has seen in years. Opportunity’s “Smart on Crime” policy promised until recently to “raise the age of the youth court jurisdiction…
SST lashes crazy TOP policy
Further progress in South America
08 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: The Great Escape
The share of people who are hungry has been decreasing faster in South America than anywhere else in the world. It is down by one-third since 2020, according to a report published on July 21st by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Just 3.5% of people in the region consume insufficient calories, the lowest…
Further progress in South America
You hear me, you gutless bastard? You’re going back to the front.
04 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in defence economics, health economics, war and peace Tags: World War II
On Aug. 3, 1943, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton slapped a soldier who was hospitalized for psychoneurosis, accusing him of cowardice. The incident nearly ended Patton’s career.. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, commander of the Seventh U.S. Army, visited a military hospital in Sicily on Aug. 3, 1943. He traveled past the beds of wounded […]
You hear me, you gutless bastard? You’re going back to the front.
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