Lynne Kiesling Adam Thierer of the Mercatus Center on corporate welfare, and why he doesn’t like the phrase “crony capitalism”: Here’s Adam arguing against a proposal to nationalize Facebook “to protect user rights”.
Lynne Kiesling Whether the topic is retail sales or higher education (or some other application), the role of digital technology raises the question of how, if at all, online activity substitutes for physical, face-to-face activity. That relationship differs case-to-case; you wouldn’t expect the effects of online shopping on bricks-and-mortar shops to have the same patterns … More Physical and Virtual Aren’t Always Substitutes
Lynne Kiesling I’d like to offer an enthusiastic hat tip to Popehat for writing the blog post that I had worked on all weekend in my head, but couldn’t pull off that incisively. Over the weekend the Volokh Conspiracy’s resident authoritarian and author of TSA policies, Stewart Baker, wrote a bizarre post expressing his bewilderment … More A Tip of the Hat to Popehat
Lynne Kiesling Whether or not you’ve read Leonard Read’s famous essay I, Pencil, I recommend this short video rendition, courtesy of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It captures poetically the fascinating, marvelous coordination that we achieve through markets, enabling prosperity and well-being beyond what we would each individually be able to achieve alone. And at IPencilMovie.org … More I, Pencil: The Movie
Lynne Kiesling The disruptive digital innovations that have transformed music, movies, and news are now changing business models in higher education. This month’s Cato Unbound features a set of essays on the possible effects of changes like universities offering MOOCs (massive online open courses) at zero price. In the lead essay, Alex Tabarrok argues that … More Disruptive Innovation in Education
Lynne Kiesling I hope you are enjoying a fun and relaxing holiday weekend! I’ve been using it, among other things, to catch up on my reading, made more enjoyable by two new additions to the rotation: askblog: Arnold Kling has started blogging again, this time at his own new site. Given that his tagline is … More Two New Blogs of Note
Michael Giberson A graphic illustrating states with price gouging laws (blue) and states without them (gold). For a list of the states with citations and related notes, see my earlier “List of States With Anti-Price Gouging Laws.” So far as I know, the only serious attempt to explain why some states do have price … More Which States Have Price Gouging Laws?
Lynne Kiesling I cannot recommend highly enough the EconTalk conversation between Russ Roberts and Mike Munger on price gouging. Some hurricane, some gasoline, some John Locke, some Aquinas, well worth your time. Their discussion of Locke is fascinating. The comments from readers/listeners are also quite good. On the same topic, Art Carden posts a useful … More Some More Worthwhile Price Gouging Links
Lynne Kiesling Remember the first time you bought a mobile phone (which in my case was 1995). You may have been happy with your land line phone, but this new mobile phone thing looks like it would be really handy in an emergency, so you-in-1995 said sure, I’ll get a cell phone, but not really … More Regulation’s Effects on Innovation in Energy Technologies: the Experimentation Connection
Michael Giberson The New York Attorney General’s office takes action against 13 gas station owners in the state for price gouging. Like last week’s prompt response by New Jersey, this is unusually quick work for price gouging cases. A few quotes from the AG’s press release: NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today … More New York State Also Moves Quickly on Price Gougers