WSJ: What the Twin Cities Tell Us About Fixing the Housing CrisisThe Natural Experiment: In 2022, St. Paul enacted one of the strictest rent-control regimes in the country. The ordinance capped annual rent increases at 3% for most apartments, even empty ones. It didn’t adjust for inflation. … Across the Mississippi River, Minneapolis steered clear of rent…
A tale of two cities and rent control
A tale of two cities and rent control
23 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, econometerics, economics of regulation, law and economics, market efficiency, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: rent control
Evaluating the Sale of Warner Bros Discovery to Netflix from an Antitrust Perspective
09 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, market efficiency Tags: competition law
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has announced that it is selling its major assets to Netflix, including Warner Bros. Pictures (home of Harry Potter), DC Studios, and HBO Max. Netflix was chosen among a group of bidders that also included Paramount and Comcast. This post explores some of the antitrust issues and hurdles that a combined…
Evaluating the Sale of Warner Bros Discovery to Netflix from an Antitrust Perspective
Who Won the Socialist Calculation Debate (with Peter Boettke) 2/17/25
29 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic history, economics of information, entrepreneurship, F.A. Hayek, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, Ludwig von Mises, market efficiency, property rights, survivor principle, Thomas Sowell
An Economist’s Case for Liberty | David Friedman
07 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, David Friedman, economics of bureaucracy, economics of information, economics of regulation, history of economic thought, income redistribution, law and economics, libertarianism, market efficiency, Milton Friedman, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking
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?
Markets are forward-looking
18 Jun 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, defence economics, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, financial economics, macroeconomics, market efficiency, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: efficient markets hypothesis, World War II
LPL Financial analyzed 25 major geopolitical episodes, dating back to Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. “Total drawdowns around these events have been fairly limited,” Jeff Buchbinder, LPL’s chief equity strategist, wrote in a research note on Monday. (Full recoveries often “take only a few weeks to a couple of months,” he added.) Deutsche Bank analysts […]
Markets are forward-looking
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
Max Rashbrooke has been kidnapped again to be replaced by a neoliberal doppelganger
08 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, managerial economics, market efficiency, organisational economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: privatisation
Natural Diamonds Had a Rough Year—Some Hope to Restore Their Shine
18 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, market efficiency, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction
Lab-grown diamonds are gaining share, but they might be getting too cheap and largeBy Jinjoo Lee of The WSJ. Excerpts:”After a postpandemic surge in demand in 2021 and 2022, natural-diamond prices are down about 8% compared with the first quarter of 2020, while lab-grown diamond prices are down 75%” [if they are substitutes for each…
Natural Diamonds Had a Rough Year—Some Hope to Restore Their Shine
One early report on congestion pricing in NYC
16 Jan 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, market efficiency, politics - USA, public economics, transport economics, urban economics Tags: road pricing
That is my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit: The core version of the plan stipulates a $9 toll for drivers entering Manhattan below and including 60th Street. Implementation is by E-Z Pass, and the tolls can vary in complex ways. But if you don’t cross the line, you don’t pay. So residents below 60th Street are exempt, […]
One early report on congestion pricing in NYC
Bob Ekelund Remembered
23 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, economics of information, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, health economics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, market efficiency, Milton Friedman, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, regulation, theory of the firm Tags: competition law, Product safety
TweetHere’s my just-published remembrance, in Public Choice, of my late teacher, dissertation advisor, co-author, and friend, Bob Ekelund. Three slices: The only textbook assigned for the course was Milton Friedman’s Price Theory. From some younger members of Auburn’s economics faculty, I heard a few cocktail-lubricated complaints that core theory courses in a modern economics Ph.D.…
Bob Ekelund Remembered
Why Top CEOs Earn Big Paychecks
22 Aug 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of education, entrepreneurship, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, liberalism, managerial economics, market efficiency, occupational choice, organisational economics, personnel economics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, survivor principle Tags: CEO pay, superstar wages
CEO compensation at large firms is high, especially in comparison to average worker wages, sparking debates over income inequality. Critics argue that such pay packages are unfair and disproportionate to actual company performance. Proponents contend that high pay reflects productivity and is necessary to attract scarce top talent to large firms. Let’s go to the […]
Why Top CEOs Earn Big Paychecks
Telephone Operators: The Elimination of a Job
20 Aug 2024 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, gender, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, market efficiency, occupational choice, survivor principle, unemployment Tags: creative destruction
My tradition on this blog is to take a break (mostly!) from current events in the later part of August. Instead, I pre-schedule daily posts based on things I read during the previous year about three of my preoccupations: economics, editing/writing, and academia. With the posts pre-scheduled, I can then relax more deeply when floating…
Telephone Operators: The Elimination of a Job
Extraordinary Labor Market Developments and the 2022-23 Disinflation
19 Jun 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, labour economics, labour supply, market efficiency, occupational choice, personnel economics Tags: working from home
From a new NBER working paper by Steven J. Davis: Two extraordinary U.S. labor market developments facilitated the sharp disinflation in 2022-23 without raising the unemployment rate. First, pandemic-driven infection worries and social distancing intentions caused a sizable drag on labor force participation that began to reverse in the first quarter of 2022, and perhaps […]
Extraordinary Labor Market Developments and the 2022-23 Disinflation
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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