In Rage and the Republic, I quote former Rep. Jaamal Bowman (D., N.Y.) as capturing the essence of an age…
Democratic Leaders Struggle to Explain Their Past Support for Unilateral Presidential War Powers
Democratic Leaders Struggle to Explain Their Past Support for Unilateral Presidential War Powers
09 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, International law, laws of war, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: regressive left
New results on the economic costs of climate change
09 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in econometerics, economics of climate change, economics of natural disasters, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: climate alarmism
I promised you I would be tracking this issue, and so here is a major development. From the QJE by Adrien Bilal and Diego R Känzig:: This paper estimates that the macroeconomic damages from climate change are an order of magnitude larger than previously thought. Exploiting natural global temperature variability, we find that 1○C warming reduces world…
New results on the economic costs of climate change
Selective Outrage and the Erosion of Genocide Meaning
08 Mar 2026 1 Comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, war and peace
There is something profoundly wrong with a moral culture that shouts genocide at Israel’s war against Hamas while averting its gaze from an actual genocide unfolding in Sudan. Words matter, especially words that name humanity’s gravest crimes. When they are deployed selectively—loudly against one conflict, quietly or not at all against another—they cease to illuminate injustice and instead reveal hypocrisy. […]
Selective Outrage and the Erosion of Genocide Meaning
The Hidden Cost of Hard-to-Fire Labor Laws: Why European Firms Don’t Take Risks
08 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, labour economics, law and economics, managerial economics, organisational economics, personnel economics, property rights, Public Choice, theory of the firm, unemployment Tags: creative destruction, employment law, European Union, Germany
In our textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I write: Imagine how difficult it would be to get a date if every date required marriage? In the same way, it’s more difficult to find a job when every job requires a long-term commitment from the employer. In two new excellent pieces, Brian Albrecht and Pieter Garicano…
The Hidden Cost of Hard-to-Fire Labor Laws: Why European Firms Don’t Take Risks
The Vietnam War and racial integration
07 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, discrimination, economics of love and marriage, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: marriage and divorce, racial discrimination, Vietnam war
The Vietnam draft conscripted hundreds of thousands of young Americans into an integrated military. I combine near-random draft lottery variation with administrative voter data to study the long-run racial integration effects of coerced national service. Black and Native American veterans became more likely to marry white spouses, identify as Republicans, and live in more-integrated neighborhoods.…
The Vietnam War and racial integration
The actual helicopter drop?
07 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, financial economics, growth disasters, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, property rights
When Milton Friedman pondered what would happen if a helicopter dropped $1,000 from the sky, he likely never imagined that one day a military cargo plane would scatter millions of dollars into one of Bolivia’s largest cities. But while the Nobel Prize-winning economist worried about the inflation that an influx of cash could generate, the impact in…
The actual helicopter drop?
The Nightmare Scenario Leading to a Wealth Tax
07 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, income redistribution, liberalism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
Is it time to pack our belongings and head to Argentina, where Javier Milei is dramatically improving economic policy and cultural attitudes? I’m joking, but also not joking. The reason I’m not joking is that there’s a very depressing scenario for America’s near-term economic outlook. It involves these six potential developments. Thanks in part to […]
The Nightmare Scenario Leading to a Wealth Tax
What if Hitler had been killed?
06 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, World War II
On July 20, 1944, a group of German officers planned a daring assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. This attack was part of a broader conspiracy within the German army and administrative elite, known as the July 20 plot or Operation Valkyrie. In the early afternoon, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg placed a bomb in a briefcase […]
What if Hitler had been killed?
Dismantling the competition myth
06 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, organisational economics, politics - Australia, technological progress, theory of the firm Tags: competition law, creative destruction
Ask anyone in Australia’s competition law community what transformed the economy, and you will hear a familiar story. Australia was once a cartelised, complacent place where businesses divided up markets and consumers paid the price. Then came the Trade Practices Act in 1974, and competition law forced firms to compete. This is not a fringe […]
Dismantling the competition myth
The youth gender gap is because young women have moved left
06 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: regressive left, voter demographics
The tweet above includes this graph: The original tweet has lots of reasoning as to why this is. TLDR is social media. The post The youth gender gap is because young women have moved left first appeared on Kiwiblog.
The youth gender gap is because young women have moved left
Germany’s “Energy Transition” Hits the Ice: LNG Crisis Exposes the Costs of Shunning Nuclear and Baseload Power
05 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: celebrity technologies, Germany, solar power, wind power
Baseload power sources — whether nuclear or coal — were dismissed prematurely with pie-in-the-sky magical-thinking that a renewables-centric system could replace them quickly. But the reality of an industrialized society is that demand does not pause when the wind stops blowing or when Baltic ice slows a tanker. In that context, abandoning dispatchable power before…
Germany’s “Energy Transition” Hits the Ice: LNG Crisis Exposes the Costs of Shunning Nuclear and Baseload Power
Why Most Australian Writers’ Festivals Are Pro-Palestinian
05 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of media and culture, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - Australia
Australian writers’ festivals are frequently accused of being “pro-Palestinian” or anti-Israeli. The charge is usually made in frustration: panels on Gaza and Palestinian literature are common; strongly pro-Israel voices are rare; and anyone who questions the imbalance is quickly told they are confusing “balance” with “morality”. Yet the more interesting question is not whether a […]
Why Most Australian Writers’ Festivals Are Pro-Palestinian
When Rubber Was the Critical Imported Good
05 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economic history, transport economics, war and peace Tags: World War II
At the start of World War II, the US economy relied almost exclusively on imported rubber as the key material for making, among other things, tires for cars and airplanes. The dependency was well-known, but in April 1942, when Japan cut off the foreign supply, the US was unprepared. Synthetic rubber ended up being part…
When Rubber Was the Critical Imported Good
The Evaluative Emptiness of the Economic Approach to Law
04 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, history of economic thought, law and economics, Public Choice
Law & economics traces its intellectual roots to the University of Chicago. That lineage still shapes how the field is understood. Chicago price theory—especially Gary Becker’s (1976) systematic application of maximization, equilibrium, and stable preferences across social life, and George Stigler’s (1992, p. 459) suggestion that “every durable social institution or practice is efficient, or…
The Evaluative Emptiness of the Economic Approach to Law
Jack Smith’s Secret Orders Targeting Patel and Wiles Should Alarm Us All
04 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: 2020 presidential election, 2024 presidential election
Below is my column on Fox.com on the new disclosures of secret orders targeting now FBI Director Kash Patel and…
Jack Smith’s Secret Orders Targeting Patel and Wiles Should Alarm Us All
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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