How will ride-sharing shape the future of transport?
17 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, survivor principle, transport economics Tags: creative destruction, Uber
The robots were coming even bigger time in the Wealth of Nations
14 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in Adam Smith, economic history, labour economics, labour supply Tags: creative destruction, industrial revolution, technological unemployment
Deirdre McCloskey summarises Rawls and Nozick on unequal incomes
02 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, Gordon Tullock, growth miracles, history of economic thought, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, labour economics, law and economics, poverty and inequality, property rights, Public Choice, Rawls and Nozick Tags: creative destruction, Deirdre McCloskey, industrial revolution, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact, top 1%, veil of ignorance, veil of uncertainty
Source: Review of Michael J. Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limit of Markets by Deirdre McCloskey August 1, 2012. Shorter version published in the Claremont Review of Books XII(4), Fall 2012 via Deirdre McCloskey: editorials.
The existence value of a Kindle library and a real library
24 Dec 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture Tags: creative destruction, digital libraries, legacy media
I was wondering other day that if we were locked out of our Kindle, which has about 300 books on it, would this be as devastating as if our library of real books was lost such as in a fire. You need to recall a password to sign into a Kindle when upgrading or replacing a damaged unit.
The crux of the matter is you cannot admire your Kindle library from afar, much less show it off to friends when they visit to make yourself look learned.
In common with my Kindle books, I do not plan to reread many of my real books but I would be devastated if they were lost. Knowing that that they are there is a comfort.
I would not be so upset if I lost my Kindle books. Perhaps partly is the Kindle books that I buy I am too cheap to buy unless they are at Kindle prices. I doubt that any of my Kindle books cost more than $10.
#OTD 1994 Netscape shipped version 1.0 of the Netscape Navigator browser
16 Dec 2016 2 Comments
in economic history Tags: creative destruction
Diffusion of consumer durables to poor American households since 1984
13 Dec 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, politics - USA Tags: child poverty, creative destruction, family poverty, technology diffusion, The Great Enrichment
We do not have air-conditioning. Do not know many people who do but New Zealand does have a temperate climate. But if you are down and out in America you still have air-conditioning.
Sources: The Economic Condition of Poor Americans (and the rest of us) Continues to Improve – Coordination Problem and Well-Being – Extended Measures of Well-being: Living Conditions in the United States, 2011 – People and Households – U.S. Census Bureau.
In the 2000s, dishwashers, air conditioning and microwaves were still diffusing rapidly in poor households in addition to the usual digital goods.
To make it even worse, despite the ravages of the 1996 US federal welfare reforms and a top 1% who apparently kept for themselves 90% of all income gains since the 1970s, air-conditioning in poor houses increased by 50% or so between 1994 and 2004.
Imagine how many more poor households would have dishwashers, air-conditioning, microwaves and digital goods but for the top 1%. Not that many actually because most of them already have those consumer durables despite their income not increasing for several decades.
I always puzzle over these who claim that incomes of ordinary families have not increased since the 1970s because that implies you can only buy the same basket of goods and same quality of goods as in the 1970s. That is what no real income growth means. You cannot buy more than before.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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