Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
01 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: 2024 presidential election, free trade, tarrifs
It appears that Trump wants to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s with a global trade war. That is going to be very bad news for workers, consumers, taxpayers, manufacturers, farmers, and exporters. But there are two bits of good news. At least for small slices of the populations First, lobbyists will get rich as […]
The Protectionism Edition of Economics Humor
14 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: The Great Enrichment
Long ago, I co-blogged for EconLog with Arnold Kling. Now he’s running a book club for Liberty Fund. Last month, Arnold invited me and philosopher Rachel Ferguson to discuss Mike Huemer’s new Progressive Myths. Enjoy!
*Progressive Myths*: The Kling Club Convo
14 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of information, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights Tags: economics of planning
An excellent EconTalk episode with Pete Boettke on the socialist calculation debate. I like Boettke on the three Ps. The three Ps–property, prices, and profits and loss. Property incentivizes us. Prices guide us. Profits lure us to new changes and losses discipline us. Today, “incentives matter” is often considered the first lesson of economics. But […]
Boettke on the Socialist Calculation Debate
13 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: 2024 presidential election, constitutional law, tariffs
One clause of the Magna Carta says: All merchants shall have safe and secure exit from England, and entry to England, with the right to tarry there and to move about as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and right customs, quit from all evil tolls So tariffs […]
Did you know the Magna Carta was against tariffs?
10 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, history of economic thought, human capital, inflation targeting, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: Canada, monetary policy
Congratulations Mark Carney. When I went to the UK to study economics, we started off doing a degree called Master of Philosophy in…
My Former Economics MPhil and DPhil Class-Mate for many hard years, Mark Carney, becomes PM of Canada.
09 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, entrepreneurship, health economics, history of economic thought, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking
I have a new working paper out. It proposes a price theory-based explanation of why states nationalize the production of “public goods” (i.e., non-excludable and non-rivalrous). This is different than existing explanations as the theory ignores whether private provision is efficient or superior to public provision. I call it the “redistributive engine” theory whereby the […]
Working paper: Why nationalize the production of public goods?
09 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, financial economics, fiscal policy, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, unemployment Tags: monetary policy
Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (and FOMC), Ben Bernanke, was yesterday the first of two keynote speakers at the Reserve Bank’s conference to mark 35 years of inflation targeting, which first became a formalised thing here in New Zealand. He indicated that he’d be speaking about inflation targeting in general and […]
Bernanke on inflation targeting
08 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election, free trade, tariffs
We break down how much of a tariff is ‘passed through’ to customersBy Jason Douglas, Anthony DeBarros and Danny Dougherty of The WSJ. Excerpts:”For example, a 10% tariff on shoes from China would raise their sticker price 4% or so, but on wine or olive oil from Italy, almost 10%.Why the difference? Tariffs aren’t the…
How Much Do Tariffs Raise Prices?
06 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economic law, international economics, International law, survivor principle Tags: current account, free trade, tariffs
TweetHere’s a letter to USA Today. Editor: Defending Pres. Trump’s aluminum tariffs, Peter Navarro focuses exclusively on the effects of these tariffs on U.S. aluminum producers (“Trump tariffs will save American jobs and level the playing field,” Feb. 28). He points out what no serious defender of free trade denies, namely, that punitive taxation of…
Peter Navarro Conducts a Master Class In Looking Only at That Which Is Seen
01 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: floating exchange rates
Last year there was an interesting new book out, made up of 29 collected short papers by (more or less) prominent economists given at a 2023 conference to mark Floating Exchange Rates at Fifty. The fifty years related to the transition back to generalised floating of the major developed world currencies in 1973 (think USD, […]
Forty years of floating
26 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, financial economics, history of economic thought, international economics, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand Tags: foreign investment
The NZ Herald’s Editor has declared its journalists will be promoted or fired on the basis of factors like how many clicks they get on their articles. Yes, the Herald is now officially “click bait”. We’re trying to avoid the mistake of writing shallow nonsense at this Blog. So on that note, here’s a somewhat…
Does the Feldstein-Horioka Puzzle mean National’s Foreign Investment Ambitions Won’t Raise NZ Productivity?
21 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Marxist economics Tags: British politics, Russian revolution
I had not known of this passage, which I am packaging with its introduction from Gavan Tredoux: John Maynard Keynes has the undeserved reputation of a critic of the USSR. Few know that he reviewed Sidney and Beatrice Webb’s mendacious tome The Soviet Union: a New Civilization (1935/1937/1943) fawningly. Perhaps the most embarrassing thing Keynes […]
Keynes on the Soviet Union
20 Feb 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, labour supply, survivor principle, unemployment Tags: 2024 presidential election, free trade, tarrifs
TweetHere’s a letter to the New York Times. Editor: Encountering, in David Leonhardt’s report, a summary of Peter Navarro’s attempted justifications of Trump’s tariffs makes the head spin (“A Disagreement on Tariffs,” February 18). Navarro’s arguments are so illogical, self-contradictory, and economically ignorant that they’d be merely laughable were he not an advisor to the…
The Spectacular Economic Ignorance of Peter Navarro
06 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics, politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election, free trade, game theory, tariffs
TweetNational Review‘s Charles Cooke explains that Trump’s trade war is needless. Two slices: How do I hate President Trump’s capricious levying of tariffs? Let me count the ways. They are constitutionally suspect, statutorily usurpative, diplomatically toxic, and culturally chaotic; they represent a profound political risk for the new administration — the potential upsides of which…
Some Links
31 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, Armen Alchian, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of information, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, experimental economics, history of economic thought, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: competition law
Targeting big existing businesses may be tempting to politicians, but ensuring market openness will do more good Eric Crampton writes – It’s fair to say that economists like competition. It’s also fair to say that when politicians start talking about competition, economists ought to get a little bit nervous.
When politicians campaign on competition, be very worried
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
Res ipsa loquitur - The thing itself speaks
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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.
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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