Economics

Archive for Economics

Not Evil, Just Lazy

Sometimes it occurs to me that maybe my conspiratorial views are totally baseless. For example, maybe the government wasn’t really trying to take over the banks or the energy sector. Here’s Arnold Kling: As reporters ask me about the report, I in turn ask them where the real report is. I mean, I cannot believe […]

Murphy Twin Spin on TSA and Subjective Value

This month I have the EconLib article. It is on privatizing airport security. You have seen some of this discussion in other venues but here I take it further, for example: By taking such critical decisions out of the hands of a government agency—which is not bound by rational cost-benefit calculations and yet, in a […]

Suggestion for Cool YouTube on Federal Debt

Darren C. sent me this neat website where you can graph the US federal debt going way back to 1791. I was playing with it and came up with (what I think would be) a really cool 3-minute YouTube. But to see my vision, you have to do the following on the site: * First […]

Murphy Defends Tyler Cowen (Sort of)

[UPDATE below.] Actually that is my cheap attempt to get your attention. Since Tyler apparently contradicted himself (which we all know is always apparent but impossible to prove) on this point, you could argue that I am attacking him. Anyway, a bunch of people have been jumping on Tyler for the hypothesis in his new […]

Are Sumner and Krugman Incorrectly Claiming Victory?

A friend who is a very sharp economist mentioned to me that when he reads my critiques of Sumner, it is very challenging to discern my argument. So if he was having trouble following my posts, I pity the fool with a normal IQ. So for this post, I will start out at Square One. […]

It’s Official! Next Week Murphy Will Debate…

…Jerry Dwyer, an economist with the Atlanta Fed. I am going to be one-half of the lunchtime presentation at the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) meeting in Atlanta on Thursday February 10th. They have graciously made an option for people who just want to go to the lunch and watch the debate. Be careful […]

Twin Spin: Debt Ceiling and Sticky Wages

I forgot to blog last week’s “current events” article on Congress and the debt ceiling. Then today, I respond to Karl Smith’s invocation of “sticky wages” as a justification for monetary and fiscal activism. Note that this is not my response to the quasi-monetarists (though it’s applicable); this particular article has been in the queue […]

Different Analytical Frameworks

I’m doing this as a separate post because I want to keep the arguments distinct… Let’s go back to this example from Scott Sumner: NGDP is $10, and each of ten workers [gets] a dollar in wages. Now they negotiate a 10% wage increase, in anticipation of 10% more NGDP. So wages rise to $1.10. […]