The Economics of Crime and the Law| Levitt, Landes, Mulligan and Peltzman reflect on Gary Becker’s legacy
14 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of crime, Gary Becker, history of economic thought, law and economics, property rights Tags: Gary Becker, Sam Peltzman
Conversations with History: Gary Becker (May 2, 2013)
12 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in Gary Becker, history of economic thought Tags: Gary Becker
Joseph Schumpeter | MRUniversity
28 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, technological progress Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurship, Joseph Schumpeter
Deirdre McCloskey (2001) on the state of modern industrial organisation economics
15 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
Frank Knight on the role of abstraction in economics as an exact science
19 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
Film review – Elysium
03 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, law and economics, liberalism, P.T. Bauer, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, Rawls and Nozick, technological progress Tags: democracies, movies, rule of law, The Great Enrichment
Elysium was on TV. When I saw it on the big screen, no one told me it was a depiction of contemporary capitalism and the class war.
I read it as a contrast between third world countries lacking the rule of law and capitalist democracies.
The ships shooting up to the space station reminded me of Cubans trying to cross into the USA by boat to Florida.
Sorry, but I am just a simple country boy from the back blocks of Tasmania.
Deirdre McCloskey: inequality is an ugly word – it frightens
20 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, income redistribution, liberalism Tags: Deirdre McCloskey, poverty versus inequality, The Great Escape The Age of Enlightenment, The Great Fact
HT: deirdremccloskey via cafehayek
Deirdre McCloskey on Adam Smith
05 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in Adam Smith, history of economic thought Tags: Deirdre McCloskey
Alfred Marshall as a pioneer of human capital theory
21 Jul 2014 4 Comments
in history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics Tags: Alfred Marshall, human capital
Marshall viewed education as an instrument capable of lifting up the poor and relocating them into the middle class. The direct benefits come from eliminating much of
that wasteful negligence which allows genius that happens to be born of lowly parentage to expend itself in lowly work
The indirect benefits of education came from character formation:
[Education] confers great indirect benefits even on the ordinary workman. It stimulates his mental activity, it fosters in him a habit of wise inquisitiveness: it makes him more intelligent, more ready, more trustworthy in his ordinary work; it raises the tone of his life in working hours and out of working hours; it is thus an important means toward the production of material wealth; at the same time that, regarded as an end in itself, it is inferior to none of those which the production of material wealth can be made to subserve.
Marshall’s primary solution to the problem of poverty is education, but he also exhorts individuals to behave responsibly, with thrift and self control.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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