Judge Richard Posner died this week. Few scholars have left such a mark on both law and economics. As Alex Tabarrok put it, he was “the only person ever to deserve a Nobel prize and a seat on the Supreme Court.” Most writing about him will—and should—focus on his contributions to legal scholarship. He was…
On the evening of 9 November 1989, one of the most extraordinary events of the twentieth century took place. Thousands of East Germans gathered at the Berlin Wall, demanding permission to cross into West Berlin. Within hours, border guards who had previously been ordered to prevent such crossings, if necessary by shooting, opened the barriers. […]
That is the new and forthcoming book from Bryan Caplan, University of Chicago Press. Excerpt: Real-world free markets deliver one broad benefit that flies under the radar of economic theory: They shield humanity from its own Social Desirability Bias. Markets do the good things that sounds bad. Good things like driving incompetent, unresponsive, and obsolete…
Bob Edlin writes – PoO is intrigued by the case of the nurse who says he is extremely sorry for stealing a disabled patient’s debit card to fund his gambling proclivities. NewstalkZB reports He stole the debit card four times in October 2024 and made nine withdrawals, pocketing more than $4000 in cash for the […]
Introduction Part 1 of this post explained the central problem in the Ammori litigation. We summarized why the Divisional Court ([2026] EWHC 292 (Admin) thought the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was unlawful, and why the Court of Appeal ([2026] EWCA Civ 721) reversed that decision. We also highlighted how each court approached…
In “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization,” Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz ask when joint production works better inside a firm than across markets, and what form that firm takes. Their answers turn on a measurement problem: When people produce together, total output doesn’t reveal what each person contributed. Measuring individual contributions is costly, and…
A suburban Chicago man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for conspiring to stage armed robberies so that the purported victims could apply for U.S. immigration visas reserved for crime victims. From 2022 to 2024, PARTH NAYI organized and participated in hundreds of staged armed robberies at coffee shops, restaurants, liquor stores, and gas…
The French are revolting! France has once again become the scene of widespread civil unrest, with mass demonstrations degenerating into rioting, arson, looting and attacks on police. The disturbances, which began in September 2026 as protests over conditions in French schools, have expanded into a much broader expression of dissatisfaction with the government. Yet there […]
One of the most persistent differences between the political left and right concerns their attitudes towards crime and punishment. Broadly speaking, the right tends to emphasise personal responsibility, deterrence and punishment, while the left is more inclined to emphasise the social causes of crime, rehabilitation and the circumstances of offenders. These are generalisations, of course, […]
The other day I expressed dismay that NYT writer John McWhorter produced a piece heartily endorsing land acknowledgments (“LA”s). That was out of character for a man who got a lot of attention for his “antiprogressive” stands, encapsulated in his book Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. My objection to the…
Chris Trotter writes – By allowing themselves to be recorded alongside the Mongrel Mob, Te Pāti Māori, Green, and Labour MPs may have cost the Left the election. Harry Tam is one of those rare individuals with the ability to bring outsiders inside. As a working proposition, promoting the interests of the Mongrel Mob would […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
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.”
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