Paul Krugman described behavioural economics as the most important innovation in the economics discipline for half a century.[1] Three decades ago, I reviewed The Winner’s Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life by Richard Thaler which reported behaviour which appeared anomalous according to the economist’s standard model of ‘rational economic man’. Anomalies are at the heart of scientific […]
The Winner’s Curse: Behavioural Economics Anomalies Then and Now
The Winner’s Curse: Behavioural Economics Anomalies Then and Now
24 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in behavioural economics, history of economic thought
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 Supply And Demand Game
12 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of information, history of economic thought Tags: experimental economics
I played it in each class I taught. A former colleague taught it to me many years ago. As far as I know, I use the game invented by Edward Chamberlin and refined by Vernon Smith. Click here to see the Lessons From the Supply and Demand Game. Or just read it all here. Part…
The Supply And Demand Game
Ancient Clay Tablets Show Markets Worked 4,000 Years Before Economists Explained Them
21 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, development economics, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics, law and economics, property rights
Clay tablets unearthed in Asia Minor reveal a sophisticated commercial order emerging spontaneously nearly four thousand years before economists explained how markets work. By Surse Pierpoint of The American Institute for Economic Research.”A clay tablet from Kanesh, in what is now central Turkey, contains the founding charter of a twelve-partner trading company. Twelve merchants pooled thirty-three…
Ancient Clay Tablets Show Markets Worked 4,000 Years Before Economists Explained Them
Quotation of the Day…
15 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, history of economic thought, labour economics, labour supply, unions
Tweet… is from page 88 of Art Carden’s and Ilia Murtazasvili’s paper “W.H. Hutt: An Economist for the Twenty-First Century,” which is a chapter in 2026 book Unsung Heroes of the Market: The 24 Underrated Economists You Need to Know – a volume edited by Robert Whaples, Christopher Coyne, Gregory Robson, and Diana Thomas [original emphasis;…
Quotation of the Day…
Greg Ip Is Mistaken Again About U.S. Trade Deficits
15 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, growth miracles, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, politics - USA Tags: free trade
TweetHere’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal. Editor: Writing about U.S. trade deficits, Greg Ip declares that “by exporting so much, China effectively forces its trading partners to run deficits” (“The Global Economy Is Threatened Again by Trade Imbalances,” June 12). Wrong. U.S. trade deficits occur whenever foreigners sell more to us than they…
Greg Ip Is Mistaken Again About U.S. Trade Deficits
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
Jamieson Greer’s Ignorance of Economics and History Is Alarming
02 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, economic history, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: free trade, tarrifs
TweetHere’s a letter to F&D Magazine, a publication of the IMF. Editor: U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer wrote more than 2,100 words about trade yet managed to get correct approximately nothing (“Economics for the Real Economy,” June 2026). Just listing his errors would take nearly as many words, so I here address only one of…
Jamieson Greer’s Ignorance of Economics and History Is Alarming
On Private Money
28 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, financial economics, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetary economics
TweetHere’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal. Editor: Greg Ip’s argument that cryptocurrencies, being privately issued, will fail as money relies heavily on his historical claim that privately issued bank notes in the 19th-century United States failed as money (“Stablecoins Are Private Money. That’s Why They’re a Risk to the Economy.” May 25). Mr.…
On Private Money
Trade Deficit Illiteracy, Part III
28 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, economic growth, fiscal policy, history of economic thought, international economics, macroeconomics, politics - USA
Looking at Part I and Part II, and considering the focus of today’s column, this series should actually be entitled “Trade Deficit Literacy.” That’s because the material I cite explains that a trade deficit is merely the flip side of an investment surplus. And it is good that the United States is a magnet for […]
Trade Deficit Illiteracy, Part III
Edmund Phelps, 1933-2026
28 May 2026 Leave a comment
in business cycles, history of economic thought, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, unemployment
Economics has recently lost another of the greats, Nobel Prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps, who passed away last week. Phelps was a macroeconomist, and among his many contributions he helped to formalise the concept of the natural rate of unemployment. Phelps won the Nobel Prize in 2006 for “his analysis of intertemporal tradeoffs in macroeconomic policy”.Surprisingly,…
Edmund Phelps, 1933-2026
Blame Washington for the Great Depression, Part III
27 May 2026 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, great depression, history of economic thought, macroeconomics
To follow up on Part I and Part II in this series, let’s start with this Stossel video featuring Professor Don Boudreaux of George Mason University. The message is simple and accurate. Starting nearly 100 years ago, we got terrible statist policy from Herbert Hoover, followed by terrible statist policy from Franklin Roosevelt. No wonder […]
Blame Washington for the Great Depression, Part III
Quotation of the Day…
26 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, international economics
Tweet… is from pages 171-172 of Menzie Chinn’s and Douglas Irwin’s excellent 2025 textbook, International Economics: The Lerner Equivalence Theorem – that an import tariff is equivalent to an export tax – carries a powerful message: a country that tries to protect import competing industries from foreign competition may be able to help those industries…
Quotation of the Day…
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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