Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Austrians and Keynesians Agree: Milton Was Wrong About the Depression

I don’t usually find much of value in Paul Krugman’s articles, but in this piece he relates something very important: For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy. In 2003, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, declared that the […]

Tyler Cowen Went to the Dark Side a Long Time Ago

You think I’m referring to his (always very qualified and nuanced!) support for government intervention? Nope, I am being quite literal. Today in a post designed to bring new readers up to speed with what his blog is all about, Tyler links to his 2005 post on Star Wars. Now in fairness, go read his […]

Kling Compares Stimulus to the Somme

Arnold Kling today presents the single best criticism of the stimulus that I have seen, relying on Public Choice/Austrian-type arguments rather than mainstream economics. An excerpt: Mark Thoma gives us Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Feldstein being interviewed by Charlie Rose. I listened to it last night, and I found it so chilling that it adversely […]

Yet More on the Bogus Credit Crunch

Casey Mulligan has designated this “WMD week” on his blog. His point is that the Bush Administration’s expensive (and liberty-sapping) efforts to avert financial disaster were as poorly justified as the invasion of Iraq to eliminate WMD. Although I love the spirit of his task, my problem for some of his earlier posts was that […]

I Knew I Should Have Left My Blackberry On During Christmas Break!

Sam Bostaph passed along this article with this shocking sentence: Only one outside economist contacted by Obama aides, Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, who served on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, voiced skepticism about the need for an economic stimulus, transition officials said. I’m sorry everyone. I left my contact information with Governor Blagojevich’s office, but […]

"Trillion Has Become the New Billion"

What a fantastic line from the CNN guy interviewing Ron Paul! Incidentally, Ron Paul lights it up in this interview. How many other people mention Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard, as if all the cool kids know these names? And check out his reaction to the Krugman reference. (HT2LRC)

PRI Report on the "Sizzle of Economic Freedom"

Over the summer I helped Lawrence McQuillan at PRI with its new report, “The Sizzle of Economic Freedom,” that summarizes the empirical literature on the benefits of economic freedom. (Press release here, actual report pdf here.) The way it works is that there are a few fairly objective rankings of countries (or smaller regions such […]

Sex & Money

In an effort to boost ratings, we occasionally pass along titillating links. Reader Phil Maymin sent me his article comparing central banking to a government sperm bank (though he did not specify the analog of fiduciary media–OH!). And CNBC reports that the porn industry is looking for a bailout too. (Some bad double entendres are […]