Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
25 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, labour supply Tags: India
Tweet… is from page 150 of Columbia University economics professor Arvind Panagariya’s brilliant 2019 book, Free Trade and Prosperity: In India, Bihar is the poorest state and Kerala one of the richest. Going by the Gini coefficient, Bihar is among the states with the least inequality and Kerala among those with the highest inequality. If…
Quotation of the Day…
21 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, international economics, politics - USA Tags: tarrifs
By Inti Pacheco of The WSJ. Excerpts:”Behind the jump: Extreme weather, including droughts in Brazil and Vietnam, had hit coffee crops. And even before any tariff increases, hedge-fund bets anticipating the levies were pushing commodity prices higher.” (droughts cause supply to shift to the left which raises price)”Then in July, President Trump slapped an additional 40%…
Why the Cost of Your Coffee Has Soared—and Isn’t Going Down Soon
20 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, energy economics, international economics, war and peace Tags: Iran
WSJ: “Iran insiders are rumbling about the looming economic catastrophe if Washington does not grant sanctions relief that would unlock prospects for economic recovery,” said Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow with the London-based Royal United Services Institute think tank. “Without the prospect of economic recovery, regime survival beyond the short term will face sustained structural…
The alternatives to agreement determine the terms of agreement: Iran’s alternatives are bad and getting worse.
18 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, free trade, tarrifs
In our textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I emphasize that Congress and the President are subject to a higher law, the law of supply and demand. In an excellent column, Jason Furman gives a clear example of how difficult it is to fight the law of inelastic demand: …Today a given number of autoworkers can…
The President(s) Fought the Law and the Law Won
17 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics
TweetIdeally, every government would implement a policy of unilateral free trade. But governments, of course, by their nature testify that reality is very far from ideal. Here’s a letter to a long-time correspondent. Mr. B__: Thanks for your email in response to this blog post of mine in which I express support for the World…
Harnessing Mercantilist Idiocy for the Public Good
06 Apr 2026 1 Comment
in defence economics, energy economics, international economics, war and peace Tags: Iran
European Net Zero policies appear to have created a total dependency on imported fossil fuel.
Net Zero France Capitulates to an Iranian Safe Passage Fee for Gulf Oil
26 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in financial economics, international economic law, international economics
I heard a story some years back about a court case that involved following a blizzard of cross-border financial payments. Apparently, even the lawyers were having a hard time tracking, and the jury was completely at sea. But the lawyers and the judge all knew that only one thing actually mattered in the trial. Would…
Snapshots of “Cross-Border Financial Centers”
26 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, industrial organisation, international economics, survivor principle Tags: Argentina
Last year, as part of a series on the additional reforms Milei needs to enact in Argentina, I shared this video on reducing protectionism. Since the video was only one-minute long, there was no chance to provide details. But at the conference in Buenos Aires this week, Professor Jorge Streb shared some fascinating details on […]
Javier Milei Week, Part IV: Argentina’s Pre-2023 Descent into Protectionism
16 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in business cycles, defence economics, economic growth, energy economics, industrial organisation, international economics, International law, macroeconomics, resource economics, war and peace Tags: Iran
By ChatGPT-5.2 If Iran’s oil exports alone stopped, the world would feel it, but it would probably be a serious price shock rather than an immediate global supply collapse. Iran has recently been exporting roughly 1.1–1.5 million barrels a day, close to its 2025 average of about 1.69 million barrels a day, with China buying more than 80% of those shipped […]
If Iran stopped exporting oil
16 Mar 2026 1 Comment
in defence economics, energy economics, international economics, war and peace Tags: Iran
See Why the Oil Shock Probably Won’t Derail the Economy. And One Way It Might: The U.S. is a net petroleum exporter and productivity is improving, but the bigger risk is stubborn inflation by Greg Ip of The WSJ. Stagflation combines the words stagnation and inflation. If oil prices rise, supply shifts to the left because the…
Stagflation, Recession? Probably Not
15 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, international economics, International law, law and economics Tags: economics of borders, maps
03 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, international economics Tags: nanny state
The Telegraph has written a guide for vapers travelling to parts of the world that are even more hostile to e-cigarettes. I am quoted in it. Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs and editor of the Nanny State Index, which ranks countries by how much they interfere with people’s lifestyle…
Travel advice for vapers
02 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics Tags: free trade, tariffs
We study the macroeconomic effects of tariff policy using U.S. historical data from 1840–2024. We construct a narrative series of plausibly exogenous tariff changes – based on major legislative actions, multilateral negotiations, and temporary surcharges – and use it as an instrument to identify a structural tariff shock. Tariff increases are contractionary: imports fall sharply,…
The Macroeconomic Effects of Tariffs
23 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, politics - USA, survivor principle
In Part I and Part II of this series, we looked at research showing that Americans are bearing the burden of Trump’s trade taxes. Those findings are a useful antidote to Trump’s silly and illiterate claim that foreign companies are swallowing the added cost. In both of those columns, however, I pointed out that I’m […]
The Economic Burden of Protectionism, Part III
21 Feb 2026 1 Comment
in international economics, politics - USA Tags: free trade, tarrifs
The recent Supreme Court decision that President Trump did not have arbitrary and unbounded powers he has claimed to impose or retrace tariffs came as no surprise, for a variety reasons laid out in earlier posts here, here, and here. But here I want to focus on a different claim: that the reason for tariffs…
Trump’s Tariffs Have Not Shifted the Trade Deficit
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
A History of the Alt-Right
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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
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
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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
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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
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
Researching the House of Commons, 1832-1868
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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.
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