What if we applied the many arguments for economic controls to sex? An important announcement: From the Office of the Reproducer-General [mp3] or [YouTube]. The original post: “From the Office of the Reproducer-General” [or as pdf].
From the Office of the Reproducer-General (audio version) Read More »
Here’s a print version [pdf] of my post on “’Third Way’ politics and its fruits” from earlier this year. Thanks to Chris Vaughan for his graphics work. The opening: “In 1998, President Bill Clinton announced: ‘We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say Government is the problem and those who say Government
“Third Way” Politics and Its Fruits — reprint version Read More »
I enjoyed this EconTalk podcast with Michael Clemens of the Center for Global Development. Host Russ Roberts talked with Clemens about two of Clemens’s publications on foreign aid and migration.[1] A few interesting extracts with policy implications. Roberts and Clemens start with the big question of how to solve the problem of poverty. One approach
Clemens on migration, poverty, and domestic wages Read More »
In a recent Kaizen interview, Argentine entrepreneur Enrique Duhau discussed some of the challenges of doing business in a country with a politicized economy. I was reminded of Campante and Glaeser’s comparative study of Buenos Aires and Chicago, two cities that were very similar in the nineteenth century. They were similar in population size, with
Comparing Buenos Aires and Chicago — politics and economics Read More »
Following up on “European country data on the minimum wage,” here are the data for eighteen Western European countries in table form. Or here is the Excel spreadsheet. Sources: “List of sovereign states in Europe by minimum wage,” Wikipedia. “List of countries by unemployment rate,” Wikipedia. Both viewed 9 December 2013. Related: My video-lecture on
Table: Unemployment and Minimum Wages in Europe, 2013 Read More »
Should Christians be socialists? Some data points: * Pope Francis delivered a strongly leftist apostolic exhortation, condemning free markets and endorsing some sort of paternalistic egalitarianism.[1] * C. S. Lewis argued in Mere Christianity that “a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist” — its economics would be socialist, no luxuries would be
Pope Francis, C. S. Lewis, and Christian economics Read More »
Robert Lawson (Southern Methodist University), along with James Gwartney (Florida State University) and Joshua Hall (West Virginia University), is editor of the celebrated Economic Freedom of the World Index. The Index is one of the major achievements in social science research this generation, made possible by much better data and awesome computing power. Professor Lawson
Robert Lawson on the Economic Freedom of the World Index Read More »
A good journalistic piece in The New York Times: “The Perverse Effects of Rent Regulation.” (Thanks to R.M. for the link.) Rent control is a classic case of bad economics and bad ethics. The bad economics is ignorance of unintended consequences — in this case a price control that makes the initial problem worse. The
Davidson on rent control as “perverse” Read More »