March 2006

That Felt Good!

Lynne Kiesling Phew, it felt good to write a post like that last one. You’ve probably noticed some self-censoring going on here at KP over the past couple of months. The reason for that is that I was doing some expert testimony analysis on a retail competition issue, and felt the need to hold back …

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Evaluating Electricity “Deregulation” in a Period of Rising Fuel Costs

Lynne Kiesling Periods of rising costs make it hard to be a market process supporter. Nowhere is this more true than in electric power, where a century of regulator-regulated co-dependency has created a culture of price control. Right now Maryland is the center of this debate, triggered by economic and political motives, including rising natural …

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Posner, Kling Cynical About Government Reorganizations

Michael Giberson At EconLog, Arnold Kling challenges James Pinkerton?s push for reorganization of the federal government into five super-departments. Kling cites a former colleague of his as saying, ?When they don’t know what to do, they re-org.? Kling writes: A re-organization like the [proposed] plan would create all sorts of uncertainty about where people fit …

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The Wooly Concept of Sustainability: Gore and Blood in the Wsj

Lynne Kiesling Today’s Wall Street Journal has a commentary from Al Gore and David Blood that asks the question: when will we start accounting for environmental costs? Gore and Blood begin by invoking the concept of sustainability, and the relationship between capitalism and sustainability. Sadly, they do not bother to define what they mean by …

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Markets Vs. The Wisdom of Crowds in Picking Ncaa Basketball Winners

Michael Giberson Once again this year, like millions of folks around the country, I filled out a NCAA basketball tournament bracket. Once again, my bracket is far from perfect. Once again, this year, I have been searching for an edge. (Preferably, the kind of edge that will enable me to out-pick my sports-minded, math-teacher wife.) …

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Innovation and Its Discontents: Jaffe and Lerner in Wsj

Lynne Kiesling We’ve seen lots of discussion of how dysfunctional the US patent system is at the moment; from business process patents to laws of nature patents to the recent Research in Motion (Blackberry) lawsuit, we see the pernicious entry barriers that too broad a patent policy can erect. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Adam …

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