Eric Crampton writes – Yesterday [November 17], the Supreme Court ruled that Uber did not merely facilitate connections between four drivers and their various passengers – as Uber has maintained. And that the four drivers were not contractors for Uber either. Instead, those drivers were Uber employees while logged into the app.
If this is employment law, the law needs to change
If this is employment law, the law needs to change
22 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, managerial economics, occupational choice, organisational economics, personnel economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, transport economics, urban economics Tags: employment law
Nobel Prize Winners’ Work Supports Dynamic Antitrust Enforcement
21 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, macroeconomics, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction
Antitrust should center on dynamic market forces that drive major technological change, rather than on static “big is bad” market analysis, based on the work of the 2025 economics Nobel Prize winners. Antitrust enforcers in the United States and around the world could benefit by incorporating these insights into their policy development. Focus on Dynamic […]
Nobel Prize Winners’ Work Supports Dynamic Antitrust Enforcement
‘Limits of Antitrust’ by Frank Easterbrook
20 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics Tags: competition law
The Core Argument: Markets Beat Courts at Correcting Monopoly Frank H. Easterbrook’s 1984 Texas Law Review article “Limits of Antitrust” advances a deceptively simple thesis that fundamentally reoriented competition policy: antitrust law should recognize its own institutional limitations and design rules accordingly. The article contains two central insights. The first is that, because “antitrust is […]
‘Limits of Antitrust’ by Frank Easterbrook
Quotation of the Day…
19 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economics, Milton Friedman, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: free trade, tariffs
Tweet… is from page 158 of Milton Friedman’s 1953 paper “The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates,” as this paper is reprinted in Friedman’s 1953 collection, Essays in Positive Economics: In brief, it [free trade] is desirable in its own right as one of the basic freedoms we cherish; it promotes the efficient use of resources…
Quotation of the Day…
The stupidity of Labour on assets
13 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, politics - USA, privatisation Tags: Singapore
The Herald reports: Opposition leader Chris Hipkins is dismissive of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon saying the country needs a “mature” conversation around the potential sale of state-owned assets. “What would this government do when they’ve run out of things to sell?” Hipkins said, after Luxon spoke positively of a new Treasury report that calls for […]
The stupidity of Labour on assets
The BBC’s Biggest Scandals
12 Nov 2025 1 Comment
in industrial organisation, television Tags: British politics, media bias
The BBC is one of the world’s most respected broadcasters and a pillar of British public life — which is exactly why its failures get so much attention when things go wrong. Below I’ve pulled together a chronological, readable guide to the BBC’s major scandals from the post-war period to the present. This is not […]
The BBC’s Biggest Scandals
Does the state need to own houses to help families?
01 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, law and economics, managerial economics, market efficiency, organisational economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, urban economics Tags: public housing, state ownership
A good report from the NZ Initiative that looks at whether ownership of state houses is the best way to help low income NZ families with housing. Some key extracts: That $29,000 per unit estimated cost is not the cost of income related rents – they are the same regardless of whether the state or […]
Does the state need to own houses to help families?
Irony: quitters are making tobacco companies rich
01 Nov 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, managerial economics Tags: economics of smoking
ANALYSIS from the Economist: When lots of people smoked, there were many “price-elastic” consumers. In plain English, they were sensitive to increases in the cost of a cigarette. As more people have quit, however, only the most committed smokers are still puffing. Companies have responded by raising prices at an ever-quicker pace. MY COMMENT: In…
Irony: quitters are making tobacco companies rich
Valuing free goods
31 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation
There is a new AEJ Macro paper by Brynjolfsson, et.al. on how to value free goods. Here is one of the concrete measures: Using this approach, we estimate the reservation price [for giving up Facebook] to be $2,152 in 2003 US dollars. That is for the 2017 version of Facebook. Note this does not measure […]
Valuing free goods
The MR Podcast: Our Favorite Models, Session 2: The Baumol Effect
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation
On The Marginal Revolution Podcast this week we continue discussing some of our favorite models with a whole episode on the Baumol effect (with a sideline into the Linder effect). I say our favorite models, but the Baumol Effect is not one of Tyler’s favorite models! I thought this was a funny section: TABARROK: When you […]
The MR Podcast: Our Favorite Models, Session 2: The Baumol Effect
The BSA power grab: Post 2
22 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, survivor principle Tags: media bias
Media and Communications Minister, Paul Goldsmith’s handling of the BSA power grab follow 80 years of abysmal leadership by National Party governments re broadcasting, which have consistently betrayed their rhetoric about supporting competition and private enterprise. The National Party Holland/Holyoake government of 1949-1957, did nothing of consequence to roll back the Savage/Fraser Labour governments nationalisation […]
The BSA power grab: Post 2
State very expensive landlord
17 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, urban economics
A report by the New Zealand Initiative shows that the state is a very expensive landlord: Why does the government need to continue owning or managing more than 77,000 housing units, given its poor track record in this area, especially when state assistance can be provided without extensive government ownership? And why does it not […]
State very expensive landlord
The supply side of media bias
12 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, industrial organisation, politics - USA, survivor principle Tags: media bias
In my ECONS102 class, we cover economic explanations for media bias. Drawing on past research from Matthew Gentzkow and others, we demonstrate that there are demand-side explanations (media bias arises because of a bias in the preferences of the news-consuming public) and supply-side explanations (media bias arises because media firms segment the market, and focus…
The supply side of media bias
The Green Party Calls for the Abolishment of Private Landlords in the United Kingdom
08 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, income redistribution, industrial organisation, law and economics, Marxist economics, property rights, Public Choice Tags: British politics
On Sunday, the Green Party in the United Kingdom voted to “abolish” private landlords in a move that reaffirms the…
The Green Party Calls for the Abolishment of Private Landlords in the United Kingdom
Getting rid of subidies creates wealth
06 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, energy economics, industrial organisation, Public Choice, public economics Tags: electric cars, Internet, subsidies
REASON: Starting Today, Electric Vehicle Buyers No Longer Get a Federal Tax Credit. It’s bad news for upper-income motorists wanting a deal, but good news for taxpayers. In 2022, then-President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law…,[awarding] up to $7,500 for purchasing an electric vehicle. …Donald Trump [terminated the subsidy] on September…
Getting rid of subidies creates wealth
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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