Economics

Archive for Economics

More Thoughts on Large-Scale Unemployment

Bryan Caplan and others have been trying to explain why wages aren’t falling, in spite of high unemployment. I applaud their efforts, since this is an important task to avoid a Keynesian solution. However, I haven’t found these theories too convincing. (Here are my own musings on “sticky wages.”) For example, I’m pretty sure Bryan […]

Are Government and Private Debt Different?

This idea has been zooming around the geeconosphere. Krugman et al. keep telling us, with eyes rolling, that the Republicans (and even that poor ol’ hoodwinked Obama) are nuts when they say things like, “In tough times when families are tightening their belts, the government should do the same.” Now this always troubled me, for […]

Market Prices Mean Something, When an Economist Agrees With Them

This is pretty funny. In the great debate over Bernanke, guys like Scott Sumner and Paul Krugman keep pointing at the bond market to show that guys like me are nuts for worrying about (price) inflation. My strongest comeback is to point at commodities, and in particular the price of gold. After all, surely S&K […]

Potpourri

* Another great Anthony Gregory article, this time ripping Republicans. My favorite line: “To say Republicans spend money like drunken sailors insults sailors and greatly exaggerates the effect of alcohol on financial judgment.” * A great Mises Daily (not from me) showing a silly use of mathematical economics to “prove” the efficacy of a carbon […]

Wage Movements During Two Depressions

In the thread discussing today’s Mises Daily, we are getting into a standard fight over the idea that Herbert Hoover might have had something to do with unemployment (and not because he was a dogmatic laissez-faire kind of guy). Blackadder made the point well: Clearly you have very different outcomes from the 1921 and 1929 […]

My Heretical and Pathbreaking Work on Austrian Interest Theory

By popular demand, here are two things that are extremely geeky: (A) My doctoral dissertation. (B) A long paper I wrote for a recent Liberty Fund conference on Austrian business cycle theory. I realize how obnoxious this sounds, but it’s just possible that I mapped out enough work to occupy the careers of three productive […]

Supply Curves for Digital Goods

[UPDATE below…] A very sharp guy emails me (slightly edited): When a company makes an ebook, they pay for it to be made. Then they make it available. It can be purchased 1 time, 1 millions times, 1 trillion times, with no further expenditure on the company’s part. They do not produce more of the […]

The Critical Flaw in Keynes’ System

Just when the Austrians were getting ready to purge me for my “Keynesian” thoughts on interest theory, I confuse everyone by writing this. An excerpt: So even if we mechanically assumed that a fall in labor’s money-wages would translate into a proportional fall in retail prices, labor would nonetheless have the power to reduce its […]