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Daniel Hannan on the Logical Contradictions in the Case for Trump’s Tariffs
Daniel Hannan on the Logical Contradictions in the Case for Trump’s Tariffs
06 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, liberalism, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: 2024 presidential election, free trade, tariffs
Trump’s tariff claims are even stupider than anyone thought
04 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economic law, international economics, International law, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: 2024 presidential election, free trade, tariffs
The White House released a list of countries and the tariff rates they charged the US. It was clearly wrong as NZ has an average tariff of around 1.7% on US imports and the list said 20%. I thought it was because they were including our GST of 15%. That would have been very dumb, […]
Trump’s tariff claims are even stupider than anyone thought
Public-Private-Partnerships?
02 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, managerial economics, organisational economics, politics - New Zealand, privatisation, property rights, Public Choice, public economics
New Zealand’s economic development has always been a partnership between the public and private sectors. Brian Easton writes – Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs) have become fashionable again, partly because of the government’s ambitions to accelerate infrastructural development. There is, of course, an ideological element too, while some of the opposition to them is also ideological. PPPs […]
Public-Private-Partnerships?
The Protectionism Edition of Economics Humor
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
U.S. Trade Deficit Do Not Mean that We Americans Are Living Beyond Our Means
31 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, industrial organisation, international economics, labour supply Tags: free trade, tariffs
TweetHere’s a note to a new correspondent. Mr. P__: Thanks for your feedback on Phil Gramm’s and my piece, in yesterday Wall Street Journal, on trade deficits. You believe that I “and Sen. Gramm omit that every US trade deficit means Americans are consuming more than they are producing, a habit that is unsustainable.” With…
U.S. Trade Deficit Do Not Mean that We Americans Are Living Beyond Our Means
Ninth Circuit Upholds California’s Ban on “Large Capacity” Magazines
31 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights Tags: gun control

In a decision that could well find itself before the Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld California’s ban on “large capacity” magazines. In a rare move, Judge Lawrence Van Dyke offered a video dissent to the majority opinion.
Ninth Circuit Upholds California’s Ban on “Large Capacity” Magazines
Argentina’s DOGE
27 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economics of information, economics of regulation, growth disasters, health economics, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, property rights, regulation Tags: Argentina
Cato has a good summary of Deregulation in Argentina: The end of Argentina’s extensive rent controls has resulted in a tripling of the supply of rental apartments in Buenos Aires and a 30 percent drop in price. The new open-skies policy and the permission for small airplane owners to provide transportation services within Argentina has […]
Argentina’s DOGE
What does India want – and what is New Zealand willing to give?
25 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic history, economics of education, growth disasters, growth miracles, human capital, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economic law, international economics, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: India, preferential trade agreements
Chris Trotter writes – What does India want from New Zealand? Not our dairy products, that’s for sure, it’s got plenty of those. Indeed 45 percent of the Indian population are small-scale farmers, most of them running a few head of cattle – not to eat, you understand – but to milk. If it once […]
What does India want – and what is New Zealand willing to give?
The importance of the chronometer
24 Mar 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, industrial organisation, transport economics, urban economics Tags: Age of Discovery
The chronometer, one of the greatest inventions of the modern era, allowed for the first time for the precise measurement of longitude at sea. We examine the impact of this innovation on navigation and urbanization. Our identification strategy leverages the fact that the navigational benefits provided by the chronometer varied across different sea regions depending […]
The importance of the chronometer
The Anatomy of Marital Happiness
22 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, economics of love and marriage, industrial organisation, labour economics, population economics Tags: dating markets, economics of fertility, marriage and divorce, marriage premium
How can I not link to a new Sam Peltzman piece on such a topic? Here goes: Since 1972, the General Social Survey has periodically asked whether people are happy with Yes, Maybe or No type answers. Here I use a net “happiness” measure, which is percentage Yes less percentage No with Maybe treated as […]
The Anatomy of Marital Happiness
Commerce Secretary Lutnick Is Among Those Government Officials Who Are Ignorant of Basic Economic Facts
21 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, industrial organisation, international economics, market efficiency, politics - USA, survivor principle, transport economics Tags: 2024 presidential election, free trade, tarrifs
TweetHere’s a note to the Highland County Press. Editor: Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick asserts that NAFTA allowed U.S. automobile producers to “screw” American auto workers by shifting auto-industry production to Mexico and Canada (“Trump Cabinet members: Tariff plans are working; tariffs could eliminate federal income tax for those earning less than $150,000,” March 20). Mr.…
Commerce Secretary Lutnick Is Among Those Government Officials Who Are Ignorant of Basic Economic Facts
Stop waiting for a foreign hero: NZ’s supermarket sector needs competition from within
21 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: competition law
Lisa M. Katerina Asher, Catherine Sutton-Brad and Drew Franklin write – New Zealand’s concentrated supermarket sector is back in the spotlight after Finance Minister Nicola Willis said she was open to offering “VIP treatment” to a third international player willing to create competition. However, New Zealanders hoping for a foreign hero to break up the […]
Stop waiting for a foreign hero: NZ’s supermarket sector needs competition from within
Why tit-for-tat tariffs may not work against Trump
16 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, industrial organisation, international economics, International law, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: 2024 presidential election, game theory, tariffs

Last week, my ECONS101 class covered game theory. At the end of the final lecture, after we had been covering repeated games and tit-for-tat strategies, a really perceptive student asked me about Trump’s tariffs. A lot of the rhetoric about tariffs has been posed in terms of tit-for-tat (see here and here, for example). The…
Why tit-for-tat tariffs may not work against Trump
*Progressive Myths*: The Kling Club Convo
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
Boettke on the Socialist Calculation Debate
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
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