Economics

Archive for Economics

The Slugfest Continues: My Article on the FRB Debate With Selgin

My one regret in the Soho Forum debate with George Selgin–besides the fact that he won according to Oxford rules–is that we didn’t have time to spell out our respective positions a bit more clearly. For example, a lot of people on social media assumed I thought (a) fractional reserve banking was fraudulent and (b) […]

Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem: The Statement versus Its Proof

Ah! I love this stuff. In a bout of magnanimity I went back and re-read the comments in this Potpourri post, where Keshav and I couldn’t understand why Tel kept asking certain questions about Arrow’s Theorem. (Here’s my follow up which you should also read for more context.) And now I think I get what […]

What Does the Dictator Condition Mean in Arrow’s Theorem?

In the most recent Potpourri post a raging controversy began, which has the ability to rival the Great Debt Debate. The specific motivation was my recent appearance on the Tom Woods Show when I was promoting my Liberty Classroom course on the History of Economic Thought II, and I made a quick mention of Arrow’s […]

Murphy Stuff

Some of this may be repeats, but I’ve been traveling so much I may have skipped things… ==> Contra Krugman 133, we talk about Smoot-Hawley etc. We largely agree with Krugman on this one. ==> Tom Woods Show 1125: I am the special guest talking about the Coase Theorem. ==> Lara-Murphy Show Ep. 52: We […]

The Magical Murphy Tour

==> On Saturday April 14, I’ll be speaking with Jeff Deist and Carlos Lara about the economy, in Nashville. Details here. ==> On Monday April 16, I’ll be in NYC debating George Selgin on fractional reserve banking. Details here.

Hayek and the Regression Theorem

Hayek had a controversial plan for privately issued, competing fiat currencies. (I talk about it here.) But uh oh, here’s a giant in Austrian economics who might be throwing cold water on the proposal: It is probably impossible for pieces of paper or other tokens of a material itself of no significant market value to […]

The “Calculation Problem” and “Knowledge Problem” Are Distinct

I know there is some bad blood on this topic, but I am being sincere in my praise for Hayek. Anyway: Mises and Hayek were both brilliant economists who made numerous contributions in the Austrian tradition. Yet is inaccurate to refer to “the Mises-Hayek position” in the famous socialist calculation debate, and to do so […]

Fun With Graphs! Murphy vs. Erdmann

I don’t want to put too much stock in this post. My main point is to demonstrate that you can tell just about any story you want, if you play with FRED long enough. This is why Russ Roberts asks people when they present their slides showing p-values: “How many regressions did you run before […]