Economics

Archive for Economics

Employment Ratios: Total, Men, and Women

Tyler Cowen and Scott Sumner are debating over the significance of the sharp decline in the employment ratio (which looks at what percentage of the working-age population is employed, and is a different indicator from the labor force which considers the percentage of those actively seeking employment). Although someone brought it up in his comments, […]

David Friedman versus Me

(I’m never sure whether to refer to myself in the 3rd person on posts like this. I’ve got to do what is best for Bob Murphy, even if it sounds weird.) Here’s the debate we had at Porcfest in June. The only major miscommunication is that Friedman just wanted to talk about methodology, whereas I, […]

My Position on the Current State of the Economy

I have neither the time nor the stamina to continue with the arguments in the comments of my last post. So let me clarify my position in case anyone cares: 1) Right now we are in the midst of the Great Recession, or the Second Great Depression if you prefer, in the same way that […]

Questioning the Government’s GDP Numbers

Scott Sumner responded to my post on him vs. Schiff by saying he hoped I was joking. No, I’m not. I actually think it’s weird that so many right-wingers endorse Scott’s argument. (To remind you, Scott argues that if price inflation were a lot higher than the government’s numbers, that would mean the economy is […]

I’ll Take Their Flying Cars, Then

Apparently David R. Henderson is at least intrigued by Joshua Gans, who writes: We should question the premise of whether we want flying cars. We would like quicker and less constrained options from getting from A to B but flying around in a car, while it may be a representation of the future with such […]

Is It Better to Malinvest During a Recession?

Evan Soltas (HT2 Scott Sumner) writes a more balanced view (compared to Matt Yglesias, who called Summers a communist) on Larry Summers allegedly problematic concern over low interest rates leading to malinvestments. To refresh your memory, here is what Summers said back in 2012, that is now causing a lot of people to flip out […]

Who Said It?

Look at this guy talking about China: China is in big trouble. We’re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country’s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model […]

Potpourri

==> I’m getting ready for my trip to Mordor next week, so blogging is still sparse. I’m really looking forward to posting the YouTube videos of the presentations from our panelists at the IER Carbon Tax conference, especially for you professional free-market economists who read this blog. I think you’re going to be surprised by […]