Regular readers will recall that I have, intermittently, been on the trail of the approach taken to the selection (and rejection) of external MPC members when the current crop were first appointed in 2019. I have been pursuing the matter since a highly credible person who was interested in being considered for appointment told me that […]
2023 was the year when the offshore wind industry’s grand implosion began. Major investors bailed out as the insane cost of attempting to (occasionally) generate electricity with no commercial value in hostile marine environments began to bite. Dozens of projects have been scrapped and others are now highly doubtful. And for those wind power outfits […]
A quarter century ago, economist Price Fishback published “Operations of ‘Unfettered’ Labor Markets: Exit and Voice in American Labor Markets at the Turn of the Century” in the prestigious Journal of Economic Literature. Fishback’s article is packed with insight… and understatement. But let’s back up. Virtually every standard history textbook describes U.S. labor markets before…
Yusuf Mercan, Benjamin Schoefer, and Petr Sedláček, newly published in American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. I best liked this excerpt from p.2, noting that “DMP” refers to the Nobel-winning Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides search model of unemployment: This congestion mechanism improves the business cycle performance of the DMP model considerably. It raises the volatility of labor market tightness tenfold, […]
Some commentators have claimed that the decision to expedite the process of formally exonerating the sub-postmasters potentially runs afoul of certain core constitutional principles, in particular the separation of powers. It has also been claimed that the ‘crown does not have a prerogative of justice but only a prerogative of mercy’. This blog considers and challenges those claims. Technically, […]
In Part I of this series, I explained that the War on Poverty, launched by Lyndon Johnson and expanded by other profligate presidents, has been bad news for both taxpayers and poor people. More specifically, I shared some academic research showing how it led to a big increase in dependency on government. Let’s expand on […]
The gender wage gap has been decreasing slowly and steadily over time. At least, that’s what I thought until I read this 2023 NBER Working Paper by Peter Blair (Harvard University) and Benjamin Posmanick (St. Bonaventure University). They present the following graph of the gender wage gap in the US (for White women, compared with White men,…
Being pounded with 20% increases in power bills, year after year, is all part of the grand wind and solar transition. Every single country that’s tapped into subsidised wind and solar has seen retail power prices rocket – no exceptions. It’s one case where whatever goes up, never comes down. The promise of cheap electricity […]
Below is my column in The Hill on Hunter Biden’s sudden offer to appear for testimony in Congress. Biden’s demand presents institutional considerations that weigh against re-issuing the subpoena. This was a valid subpoena issued by multiple committees with independent subpoena authority. Few members relish Hunter and his team turning them into dancing bears for […]
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.”
“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.
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