Economics

Archive for Economics

Modern Utility Theory and Interpersonal Utility Comparisons

I want to elaborate on my earlier post in which I temporarily ceased being The Fonz of Economics due to a problematic question that Dan Klein had used to separate the men from the boys among the libertarians. First, let me be clear: Tyler Cowen clearly knows about everything I am going to say in […]

Now David Beckworth Should Really Be Jealous

I saw this at Karl Smith’s blog:

Econ Journeyman Watch

Sometimes my hunches turn out to be so correct that I surprise myself. (Other times, for example on late 2009 official CPI, not so much.) So there I am, minding my own business skimming Tyler Cowen’s blog about Daniel Klein’s admission that libertarians can be just as biased when it comes to economics questions as […]

Guest Post: Praising the Financial/Economic Punkosphere

[Frequent commenter James Miller submitted this to me a good two months ago, and I somehow managed to just post it today. But, he should appreciate my punky behavior.–RPM] Praising the Financial/Economic Punkosphere by James E. Miller Last December, the New York Times ran a piece entitled “10 Annual Year in Ideas.” The number one […]

Krugman the Modern Day Bastiat?? C’est ne pas!

(If my French is ungrammatical, I am coining a new phrase.) David R. Henderson asked who today’s Bastiat is. People were throwing out obvious candidates like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, but Karl Smith kept arguing that it was clearly Paul Krugman. (BTW it was an honor just to be nominated, and don’t worry I’m […]

Depreciation Rules and Investment Swings

And now for something, completely different. Since there aren’t too many people willing to pay me to spin out the implications of a private legal system, I have been focusing more on research for investors. (In all seriousness, if you are curious about such individualized consultting work, drop me an email.) Tom Landstreet and I […]

When a Referendum Is Seen as Cheating

This FreedomWatch interview of Gerald O’Driscoll hit on something I’d been thinking too: Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com Near the end of the above clip, Napolitano and O’Driscoll discuss the irony that when it comes to the crisis in Greece–the birthplace of democracy–the one group who will not be consulted is the Greek people […]

The Most Ironic Statement I’ve Heard All Week

“Theoretical macroeconomists love to play with their little toy models, but unfortunately these models don’t actually describe the world we live in.” If you’ve been reading this blog for at least two months, you know who said it.