Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Yglesias Interviews Piketty

If you’re getting sick of the coverage, don’t worry: After I post my review (coming in a few weeks), I will probably be done with this topic. In the meantime, Piketty says some interesting things in this interview with Matt Yglesias. For example: I think what [economists are] doing wrong is that in order to […]

More on Piketty

Here’s my latest Mises Canada post, in which I show how Brad DeLong actually (though it’s not his intent) concedes that Piketty’s entire case is built on quicksand. Matt Rognlie (who I think is this PhD econ student at MIT) left what may be the most important comments in a MR blog post this year. […]

Climate Change and Captain Kirk

For some time now I’ve been trying to convey just how ludicrous it is that the US government’s anti-carbon policies are based on computer simulations of the global economic/climate system through the year 2300. A recent piece by David Kreutzer and Kevin Dayaratna (an economist and computer programmer, respectively, at the Heritage Foundation) is the […]

It’s Easy to Boo When the Guy’s Not Right There

This happens at conferences when people talk about how “David Friedman pwned Murphy” in the Porcfest debate and I’m standing right behind them.

Some Background on Capital Controversy

I am going to be putting out stuff in the coming month on why Thomas Piketty’s use of a neoclassical aggregate production function is so dubious–Austrians and Post-Keynesians agree–but if you just can’t bear the suspense, here are three links: ==> I walk through the “reswitching” controversy, focusing on Paul Samuelson’s excellent numerical example. […]

Potpourri

==> Tom Woods interviews Jordan Page, a musician who made a name for himself among liberty fans by opening for a lot of Ron Paul’s appearances. ==> I really liked this Stefan Molyneux video on heroism. (Thanks to a Molyneux fan who didn’t like my video on “Rio 2.”) I don’t think I agree with […]

Compton and Long Beach Togetha on This One: Piketty Has No Clue About Capital

It’s rare that you will see Peter Klein and James Galbraith agree, but they do. And after getting my own copy of Capital in the 21st Century, I can join the party: Thomas Piketty doesn’t have the foggiest idea what economists are arguing about when they bring up concerns over aggregation in capital theory. Here’s […]

Hayek > Krugman

I focused on Mises in my Mises Canada post, but I also should highlight this part: Thus we see the where Finegold is coming from, when he claims that Krugman is clearly a better (or more important) economist than Rothbard, and that Krugman is indeed comparable to Mises and Hayek. It will be easier for […]