Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Correcting Hartmann on U.S. Tax History

My latest at Mises CA. On Facebook I saw a meme with 60,000 shares from “U.S. Uncut” that was simply awful. You don’t realize how awful it is until I walk you through it. Come, let us explore together.

Don’t Trust the Experts: Not in Physics, Certainly Not in Economics

Tyler Cowen has an amusing post (with which I largely agree) where he wonders how many economists truly understand various important results in economics. One might walk away from Tyler’s post thinking, “Human knowledge has become so specialized that we can really only trust a handful of world experts in each little niche.” But that’s […]

Joseph, the Law, and Infidelity

I have heard a certain passage from the Bible many times (once a year, at least) but this last Christmas I realized something new about it. In Matthew 1: 18-19 it explains that Joseph was originally (of course) disheartened to discover that Mary was pregnant: 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His […]

Potpourri

==> In my latest Mises CA post, I dig up an old Scott Winship article *defending* Piketty from the FT’s Chris Giles. Hilarity ensues. ==> Speaking of the man, Tyler Cowen links to this interview with Piketty who said of the FT critique: “I have responded in a very precise manner to every point they raised, […]

Potpourri

==> Tom Woods reports: My paper with Phil Magness on Piketty is the #1 downloaded in the past 60 days at Social Sciences Resource Network. If only truth were a popularity contest! (Oh wait, Piketty would be right then.) BTW, I should officially say that Phil did most of the laborious wading through Piketty’s spreadsheets, […]

The Myth of a Secure Military

[UPDATE below.] On NPR today they were talking about cybersecurity. The host made a throwaway remark along the lines that with private businesses, you couldn’t expect a full-throated response to the threats his expert guests were discussing, because they responded to the profit motive and it “wasn’t like Los Alamos.” Here the host was referring […]

A Revised Brain Teaser on Tax Policy

OK you guys are getting too hung up on it being gasoline in the previous post. Let me start over. Now in the following, I’m not necessarily saying each arguments in any of the steps is correct. I’m just saying, you could easily see an economist going along with the chain of logic, and yet (as […]

A Brain Teaser for Economists

This post is aimed at professional economists, but those of you with real jobs should feel free to chime in as well… I’m working on a response to Charles Krauthammer’s call for a $1/gallon hike in the gas tax, and I am making the point that (absent negative externality issues) it increases the deadweight loss […]