It would take true Milei-like ardour to slice through Brazil’s economic troubles. These are caused by a gnarly mix of high public spending, stubborn inflation and low saving. The result is a crippling cost of capital. Some analysts put Brazil’s real interest rate, the BCB’s policy rate adjusted for next year’s expected inflation, at 9% or…
Brazil’s economic problems, in a nutshell
Brazil’s economic problems, in a nutshell
26 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, development economics, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, growth disasters, labour economics, macroeconomics, welfare reform Tags: Brazil
Job fatality and injury risk, and compensating differentials
25 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, econometerics, health and safety, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice
Last week, my ECONS102 class covered health economics. Part of that topic involves discussion of approaches to measuring the ‘value of a preventable fatality’ (sometimes also called the ‘value of a statistical life’, or VSL). One of those approaches is the willingness-to-pay (WTP) approach, which involves estimating what people would be willing to pay in…
Job fatality and injury risk, and compensating differentials
SIEPR Economic Summit 2026 | California Wealth Tax
22 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, history of economic thought, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, Public Choice, public economics Tags: California, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment
Guest Post: Woke 1 was crazy. Are you ready for Woke 2?
22 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of crime, gender, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left
A guest post by Alex Penk: “Woke 1” was crazy. Don’t take my word for it; that’s what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. The globally influential US politician made the comment when asked to explain some of her past positions, like defunding the police, and the internet went, well, crazy. But the most interesting thing is what the…
Guest Post: Woke 1 was crazy. Are you ready for Woke 2?
Defining the Unemployment Rate
22 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in business cycles, history of economic thought, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, unemployment
An updated version of our Marginal Revolution University (MRU) video on defining the unemployment rate. Free to use for anyone but goes best, of course, with Modern Principles of Economics, the best principles of economics textbook. The post Defining the Unemployment Rate appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Defining the Unemployment Rate
World Cup pay gap: Here’s why it’s justified | FACTUAL FEMINIST
20 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, gender, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, poverty and inequality, sports economics Tags: gender wage gap
Texas Court Refuses to Enforce Pakistan Court’s Divorce Judgment, in $100M-Marital-Community-Asset Case
20 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of love and marriage, economics of religion, gender, law and economics, property rights Tags: marriage and divorce, Pakistan
From Azhar v. Choudhri, decided today by the Texas Supreme Court: A man who has lived in Houston since he… The post Texas Court Refuses to Enforce Pakistan Court’s Divorce Judgment, in $100M-Marital-Community-Asset Case appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Texas Court Refuses to Enforce Pakistan Court’s Divorce Judgment, in $100M-Marital-Community-Asset Case
Some Progressives Tried To Abolish the Tipped Minimum Wage. Now They’re Backtracking.
19 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, labour economics, minimum wage, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: offsetting behavior, regressive left, unintended consequences
Policymakers across the country are confronting the unfortunate—and predictable—economic results of prohibiting restaurants from paying servers a lower base wage supplemented by tips.
Some Progressives Tried To Abolish the Tipped Minimum Wage. Now They’re Backtracking.
China fact (?) of the day
15 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles, health economics, labour economics, labour supply, population economics Tags: China
A monograph by Yi Fuxian, a University of Wisconsin-Madison demographer and longtime critic of China’s population policies, argues that China’s actual population may be closer to 1.27 billion—not the 1.4 billion officially reported. The gap would be as much as 130 million people, roughly the population of Mexico. And Yi argues the distortion has warped…
China fact (?) of the day
Predictable
15 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, Economics of international refugee law, International law, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: British politics, Gaza Strip, Middle-East politics, war against terror
LBC reports: An investigation has revealed that a man known only as ‘Mr X’ worked as a personal bodyguard for Ismail Haniyeh, who was Hamas’ leader in Gaza between 2007 and 2017. He then successfully applied for asylum and eventually indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and was able to plot an antisemitic attack…
Predictable
California in-migration and out-migration
14 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, public economics Tags: California, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply, top 1%
Long-run U.S. population movements have been driven more by natural amenities than by jobs, and California, rich in both uniform and complementary climates, should be a persistent net gainer of domestic migrants. It has instead lost residents to other states every year since about 1990. This paper argues that its amenities are unchanged and that…
California in-migration and out-migration
Michael Woodford, Nobel Laureate
13 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in labour economics, macroeconomics, history of economic thought, monetarism, business cycles, unemployment, monetary economics
I think of Michael Woodford as the kind of economist who studies something very specific very intensively and tries to get it just right. But in his case he is not studying something small and irrelevant, he is studying “monetary policy.” I think of him as the economist who put monetary policy and “monetarism” —…
Michael Woodford, Nobel Laureate
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