Economics

Archive for Economics

Vienna vs. Venus

I can’t believe I didn’t think of that title originally… Anyway, years ago for Mises.org I wrote, “Venus Needs Some Austrians,” saying that the idea of “resource-based economy” (RBE)–as opposed to a money-based economy–and the “Venus project” needed the benefit of Mises’ arguments about calculation. Kevin Tilsner of Zeitgeist Philadelphia Radio has been trying for […]

Reactions to Thaler’s Nobel

Commentary from David R. Henderson, Alex Tabarrok, and Tyler Cowen. Von Pepe also sends this feisty reaction from Mario Rizzo. Check this out: Nevertheless, the emphasis on the limits of the standard rational paradigm, as pioneered by Thaler, has been a very refreshing and useful thing. And yet behavioral economics remains wedded to this narrow conception […]

Baffled by CNBC

I’m not kidding, I have no idea what is going on in this CNBC story on the recent jobs report. Here are some excerpts: Hurricanes Harvey and Irma damaged not only Texas and Florida but also the U.S. jobs picture, as payrolls fell by 33,000 in September. That drop came even as the unemployment rate […]

Does the Rest of Society Care if You Work?

So if you followed my orders, you have already listened to my critique of Paul Krugman, when he claims that the rest of society doesn’t benefit if rich people work more. (Krugman says that free-market economists like to claim that workers get paid their marginal product, so–he concludes–they can’t then turn around and say marginal […]

“That’s the Story of the Hurricane”

I am always happy to read a defense of the person receiving a Two Minute Hate, even if it’s a Fed official who seemed to subscribe to the Broken Window Fallacy. In that spirit, here is David R. Henderson defending William Dudley’s remarks about the hurricane. (Also notice Scott Sumner’s caveat in the comments.) To […]

A Surplus of Articles on Price Gouging

I pile on. However, all modesty aside, I think I collected everybody’s good points into a one-stop-shop for you and your normal co-workers/relatives. I also hit an issue related to philanthropy that many standard “economistic” defenses of price gouging miss. Two excerpts: In the path of an incoming storm, where thousands of people want to […]

The Fun Stuff on Liberty Classroom

I was checking the Student Dashboard for my History of Economic Thought classes on Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom, and came across a fun question prompted by my lecture on utility and welfare theory. Just to show you the romping good time, I’ll reproduce the question and answer below. Sign up today and join the fun! […]

Three Times Interventionists Moved the Goal Posts

At the Independent Institute’s blog I have 3 posts up: One Two Three In the third installment, make sure you don’t miss how slippery Ezra Klein was. For example: Cass recently summarized the Oregon results for his readers by writing, “In a randomized trial in Oregon that gave some individuals Medicaid while leaving others […]