When Milton Friedman pondered what would happen if a helicopter dropped $1,000 from the sky, he likely never imagined that one day a military cargo plane would scatter millions of dollars into one of Bolivia’s largest cities. But while the Nobel Prize-winning economist worried about the inflation that an influx of cash could generate, the impact in…
The actual helicopter drop?
The actual helicopter drop?
07 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, financial economics, growth disasters, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, property rights
Dismantling the competition myth
06 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, organisational economics, politics - Australia, technological progress, theory of the firm Tags: competition law, creative destruction
Ask anyone in Australia’s competition law community what transformed the economy, and you will hear a familiar story. Australia was once a cartelised, complacent place where businesses divided up markets and consumers paid the price. Then came the Trade Practices Act in 1974, and competition law forced firms to compete. This is not a fringe […]
Dismantling the competition myth
The Evaluative Emptiness of the Economic Approach to Law
04 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, history of economic thought, law and economics, Public Choice
Law & economics traces its intellectual roots to the University of Chicago. That lineage still shapes how the field is understood. Chicago price theory—especially Gary Becker’s (1976) systematic application of maximization, equilibrium, and stable preferences across social life, and George Stigler’s (1992, p. 459) suggestion that “every durable social institution or practice is efficient, or…
The Evaluative Emptiness of the Economic Approach to Law
The Macroeconomic Effects of Tariffs
02 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics Tags: free trade, tariffs
We study the macroeconomic effects of tariff policy using U.S. historical data from 1840–2024. We construct a narrative series of plausibly exogenous tariff changes – based on major legislative actions, multilateral negotiations, and temporary surcharges – and use it as an instrument to identify a structural tariff shock. Tariff increases are contractionary: imports fall sharply,…
The Macroeconomic Effects of Tariffs
Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism and Intellectuals
01 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of education, history of economic thought Tags: creative destruction
See Socialists, Knowledge of History and Agency. These are letters to the editor of The WSJ in response to an article about socialism by Joseph Epstein. The one below reminded me of a 1992 article by Robert Samuelson in Newsweek. “Joseph Epstein’s “Socialists Don’t Know History” (op-ed, May 30, 2019) on the abysmal historical knowledge…
Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism and Intellectuals
The bizarre world of Advertising
26 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of information, economics of media and culture, history of economic thought, industrial organisation
It is not often I am speechless but that is exactly what I was when I saw some of these advertisements and products from days of yore. You would not get away with it by today’s standards. Vintage newspaper ad for heroin Who doesn’t like a bit of cocaine on their candy. Stay fit and […]
The bizarre world of Advertising
From Discount to Discrimination: The Strange Economics of Anti-Competitive Antitrust
24 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics Tags: competition law, creative destruction
Antitrust has always been a strange regulatory enterprise. Businesses are largely free to engage in various commercial practices involving price, output, product design, distribution, research, and innovation—until they’re not. Outside the paradigmatic examples of explicit agreements among competitors to fix price and output, many business practices live in a gray zone. Whether a particular pricing…
From Discount to Discrimination: The Strange Economics of Anti-Competitive Antitrust
The Economic Burden of Protectionism, Part III
23 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, politics - USA, survivor principle
In Part I and Part II of this series, we looked at research showing that Americans are bearing the burden of Trump’s trade taxes. Those findings are a useful antidote to Trump’s silly and illiterate claim that foreign companies are swallowing the added cost. In both of those columns, however, I pointed out that I’m […]
The Economic Burden of Protectionism, Part III
“You see tech and AI everywhere but in the productivity statistics”
17 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply Tags: creative destruction
How many times have I heard versions of that claim? Erik Brynjolfsson picks up the telephone in the FT: While initial reports suggested a year of steady labour expansion in the US, the new figures reveal that total payroll growth was revised downward by approximately 403,000 jobs. Crucially, this downward revision occurred while real GDP…
“You see tech and AI everywhere but in the productivity statistics”
Debunking Trump’s Error-Filled WSJ Column
04 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, economic growth, economic history, fisheries economics, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economic law, international economics, macroeconomics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: free trade, tarrifs
Donald Trump, who describes himself as “Tariff Man,” recently wrote a column in defense of his protectionist trade policy for the Wall Street Journal. After reading the column, my first thought was that Trump was trying to show he is more economically illiterate than Joe Biden (a big challenge, as seen here and here). And […]
Debunking Trump’s Error-Filled WSJ Column
Netflix, WBD, and the Myth of the Streaming Monopoly
03 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: competition law
The proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) assets by Netflix is already being cast as a landmark antitrust “test case.” If past deals are any guide, the critiques will follow a familiar script: narrow market definitions, selective data points, and headline-friendly market-share claims designed to trigger alarm. Yet in a video ecosystem defined by…
Netflix, WBD, and the Myth of the Streaming Monopoly
Colonialism, Slavery, and Foreign Aid (with William Easterly) 12/8/25
01 Feb 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, property rights Tags: age of empires, economics of colonialism, economics of slavery
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
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments