I’ve started reading Guillermo M. Yeatts’s 2010 Plunder in Latin America. Yeatts lists thirteen American countries’ per capita GDP in 2008 US dollars, first alphabetically by country: Argentina 8,281 Bolivia 1,948 Brazil 8,379 Canada 46,826 Chile 10,933 Colombia 5,478 Cuba 4,840 Ecuador 3,770 Mexico 10,278 Peru 4,454 Uruguay 8,942 USA 46,647 Venezuela 4,315 I re-arranged […]
The two Americas: 13 countries’ GDP Read More »
I was interviewed by David Hutzelman on a variety of topics: entrepreneurial ethics, why business ethics should focus on the positive more than the negative, our cultural progress in developing institutions of trust and becoming comfortable with non-traditional social relationships. Here’s Part I of the interview: Update: The full interview is now available. In the
Television interview by David Hutzelman in Houston Read More »
Well worth reading: “I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option
Environmentalist Mark Lynas’s lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 2013 Read More »
A fascinating working paper by economists Filipe Campante and Edward Glaeser about two initially very similar cities with divergent paths over the last century. Here is their abstract: Buenos Aires and Chicago grew during the nineteenth century for remarkably similar reasons. Both cities were conduits for moving meat and grain from fertile hinterlands to eastern
Comparing Buenos Aires and Chicago over the 20th century Read More »
Two economists report on survey results of professional economists’ policy views and voting from the mid-2000s, before the financial crisis hit. Their abstract: In Spring 2003, a survey of 1000 economists was conducted using a randomly generated membership list from the American Economics Association. The survey contained questions about 18 policy issues, voting behavior, and
Economists’ policy views and voting behavior Read More »
In my view, there are no a priori truths anywhere in the universe. But here I want to ask: Is the Law of Diminishing Utility even true? Returns diminish in many cases — but not all — and if diminishing returns is not universal, it can’t be a “law.”
Is the law of diminishing marginal utility true? Read More »
Troubles mounting in Argentina due to a government plagued by corruption scandals and heavy-handed, dysfunctional economic intervention and controls.
Do cry for me, Argentina Read More »
An instructive trio of essays by economists at Cato Unbound about Austrian economics’ reputation — especially Mises’s praxeological version — for being strongly a priori rationalist: Is Austrian economics anti-empiricist? Steve Horwitz says no. Bryan Caplan says yes. George Selgin also says yes. To Selgin’s series of quotations from Mises, I’d add this one from
Are Austrian economists anti-empirical? Read More »