ANALYSIS from the Economist: When lots of people smoked, there were many “price-elastic” consumers. In plain English, they were sensitive to increases in the cost of a cigarette. As more people have quit, however, only the most committed smokers are still puffing. Companies have responded by raising prices at an ever-quicker pace. MY COMMENT: In…
Irony: quitters are making tobacco companies rich
Irony: quitters are making tobacco companies rich
01 Nov 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, managerial economics Tags: economics of smoking
Capital gains tax: how Hipkins has abandoned policy soundness for a symbolic gesture
01 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in fiscal policy, income redistribution, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and investment
Peter Dunne writes – In 1994 the then Labour Opposition resolved to introduce a new top tax rate of 39 cents in the dollar. The reason for the policy was purely political, not fiscal. Labour was shedding votes to Jim Anderton’s left-wing Alliance at the time and wanted to do something symbolic to staunch the flow. […]
Capital gains tax: how Hipkins has abandoned policy soundness for a symbolic gesture
The Great Escape
01 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, child mortality, The Great Escape, vaccines
Erasing the Duke of York: The Roll of the Peerage and the limits of removal
31 Oct 2025 1 Comment
in law and economics, property rights Tags: British constitutional law
Buckingham Palace today announced that the King has “initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew.” The style of Royal Highness, the title of prince, and his appointments to the various chivalric orders can be revoked under the royal prerogative without too much difficulty,[1] but Andrew’s peerages are another […]
Erasing the Duke of York: The Roll of the Peerage and the limits of removal
Valuing free goods
31 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation
There is a new AEJ Macro paper by Brynjolfsson, et.al. on how to value free goods. Here is one of the concrete measures: Using this approach, we estimate the reservation price [for giving up Facebook] to be $2,152 in 2003 US dollars. That is for the 2017 version of Facebook. Note this does not measure […]
Valuing free goods
The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials
31 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, econometerics, economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: crime and punishment, law and order, racial discrimination
In a great paper, The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials, Shamena Anwar, Patrick Bayer and Randi Hjalmarsson exploit random variation in the jury pool to estimate the effect of race on criminal trials. The authors have data from nearly 800 trials in two Florida counties. On any given day, a jury pool is randomly […]
The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials
Guardian, Sky, ITV erase pro-Hamas views of British man facing US deportation
30 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, International law, law and economics, laws of war, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, media bias, Middle-East politics, regressive left, war against terror
The Guardian (“ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour“), Sky News (“Anger after British commentator held by ICE in US… The post Guardian, Sky, ITV erase pro-Hamas views of British man facing US deportation appeared first on CAMERA UK.
Guardian, Sky, ITV erase pro-Hamas views of British man facing US deportation
Bill Maher’s latest “New Rule”
30 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in television, TV shows
Bill Maher’s latest comedy/politics skit on Real Time is called “New Rule: Crazy in Gov”. In it, he takes the Republicans to the woodshed, which should dispel the stupid rumors that Maher is a right-winger because he found Trump a genial host during a dinner at the White House. (Those who go after Maher for this always […]
Bill Maher’s latest “New Rule”
The erosion of medical journals
30 Oct 2025 1 Comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Of all the papers in the special issue of the Journal of Controversial Ideas on censorship in science, the one below is perhaps the most important, as the censorship being imposed can cause permanent damage to humans. I’ve described this censorship before: it involves papers on or critiques of extreme claims of gender ideologues, especially […]
The erosion of medical journals
The scramble for Africa
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in economic history, international economics, International law Tags: Age of Discovery, age of empires
Implications of the (Second) Libertarian Landslide in Argentina
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, development economics, economic growth, fiscal policy, growth disasters, growth miracles, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics Tags: Argentina
In yesterday’s column, I celebrated the huge victory for Javier Milei and his libertarian LLA party in Argentina’s mid-term elections. Today, let’s contemplate the consequences. Starting with this video. The above video is from an interview yesterday with the great Ross Kaminsky of KOA in Denver. He wanted to know the big-picture meaning of Sunday’s […]
Implications of the (Second) Libertarian Landslide in Argentina
How the British establishment votes
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in politics Tags: British politics
An interesting poll at Electoral Calculus, where a 2,000 person poll of the British Establishment was done. They found: It would be interesting to do the same poll here. Very telling. Hating your country’s history! The post How the British establishment votes first appeared on Kiwiblog.
How the British establishment votes
The MR Podcast: Our Favorite Models, Session 2: The Baumol Effect
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation
On The Marginal Revolution Podcast this week we continue discussing some of our favorite models with a whole episode on the Baumol effect (with a sideline into the Linder effect). I say our favorite models, but the Baumol Effect is not one of Tyler’s favorite models! I thought this was a funny section: TABARROK: When you […]
The MR Podcast: Our Favorite Models, Session 2: The Baumol Effect
The Great Enrichment
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics Tags: life expectancies, The Great Escape
Agustín Etchebarne on Milei and the election
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, liberalism, libertarianism Tags: Argentina
Passed along to me by the excellent Gonzalo Schwarz, I will not double indent: “Against all odds, Javier Milei achieved a major national victory, surpassing the expectations of polls that had predicted a technical tie, and doing so in a context where markets were deeply pessimistic and heavily dollarized. Despite having most of the media […]
Agustín Etchebarne on Milei and the election
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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