Economics

Archive for Economics

Mankiw vs. Rothbard

This was a Mises Daily I had last week that I forgot to post. An excerpt: In a recent New York Times piece, bestselling textbook author, Harvard professor, and Mitt Romney advisor Greg Mankiw offered four principles of tax reform that are almost universally endorsed by professional economists, even extremely free-market ones. In the present […]

In Which I Charge Into Kling’s Red Cape

Arnold Kling, after telling MMT proponents that sometimes printing money can cause prices to rise too quickly: Consider another group of crackpots, the gold standard advocates. They say that a dollar should be a physical unit of measurement, meaning x grams of gold. Having the value of the dollar fluctuate is like having the length […]

Answers to Reddit “Ask Me Anything”

I know the synch gets way out of whack on this, but I’ve already put a bunch of time into this and I really have to move on with my life. Pretend it’s a kung fu movie, or that I’m transmitting from a Martian base.

1950s High Tax Rate Bask

I am working on an article with a prominent supply-side economist dealing with the frequent objection, “If marginal income tax rates on the rich are so important, how come the economy boomed in the 1950s?” I know I’ve read lots of progressives making this type of comment over the least 3 years, but I can’t […]

Potpourri

* My cousin Frank alerted me to the termination (of his contract, not his heartbeat) of Pat Buchanan. And here I was, thinking I had a shot at the slot after Maddow. * Dan Carroll, the guy who blogs about counterproductive government foreign-adoption policies, had an exchange with me in the comments of Bryan Caplan’s […]

Play the EPA Number Game!

Earlier this week, the Institute for Energy Research (IER)–for which I’m the resident economist–submitted its formal comment on the EPA/National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s plans to impose higher fuel economy standards on light-duty trucks. I think many of you will be surprised at our findings. But rather than just tell you, let me motivate it […]

I Hope Everyone Who Likes This NPR Story Uses Contraception

Just listen to this NPR story on the contraception “compromise”: It’s hard to know where to begin. First of all, let’s say you believe the White House line, that this new mandate will provide contraception to millions (?) of employees who don’t have to pay for it, and that no one–not the employer and not […]

Fiat Money Useful After All

From The Telegraph: Hungary’s central bank is burning old monetary notes to help the needy in Europe’s deadly cold snap. The bank is pulping wads of old notes into briquettes to help heat humanitarian organisations. “It’s a very useful charitable act, a vital aid for our foundation because we can save part of our heating […]