Lynne Kiesling Congratulations to Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims for the 2011 economics Nobel. Marginal Revolution has developed a well-deserved reputation for go-to commentary on the Nobel; see Alex’s overview, Tyler’s comments on Sargent, and Tyler’s comments on Sims. Note also the Tyler points out Sargent’s work in economic history (his “small change” book with …
Lynne Kiesling While I’m delving into history, consider this week’s revelation that a secret panel drawn from the White House National Security Council can put the names of any American on a watch list and “kill list” — and that action is entirely secret. American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or …
A Disturbing Historical Parallel: The Patriot Act and the Star Chamber Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Industrial revolutionaries, rejoice! The Bank of England is honoring one of the most fruitful and enterprising inventor-entrepreneur partnerships in economic history, Matthew Boulton and James Watt, by putting their images on the new £50 note. You are probably familiar with James Watt as the inventor of the double-acting steam engine and other accompanying …
Lynne Kiesling Today I offer a break in my usual loathing of politics to compliment a politician, not for his political work, but for an intellectually engaging and erudite essay. In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Paul Ryan reviewed The Price of Civilization, the new book from Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs is something of a bête noire …
Lynne Kiesling UPDATE: I’ve had a report that the link to the slides is not working, but I can’t get it not to work … so if you are having trouble please let me know in the comments and I’ll go bug-stomping. UPDATED UPDATE: mischief managed, I think! On Saturday I was honored to be …
Students for Liberty Talk: Economics and Complexity Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Amazon’s announcement yesterday of their Kindle Fire tablet differentiates the tablet market in one discrete jump. Anticipated for months, the Fire does indeed compete head-to-head with the iPad, but not by mimicking its feature-rich and flexible platform. Amazon has made a strong Schumpeterian move to differentiate the market. Amazon’s move follows a storied …
Razor-Razorblade, Printer-Cartridge, … Tablet-Media Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Last week the new Economic Freedom of the World report was released, and it’s pretty sobering. The Fraser Institute and a large international coalition of think tanks collaborate to publish this annual report, and the research papers written over the past 20 years using the EFW data indicate the positive role that economic …
New Economic Freedom of the World Report, and Some Suggestive Connections Read More »
Lynne Kiesling In case you were in doubt concerning my argument of a couple of weeks ago and back in March that the AT&T/T-Mobile merger is largely driven by our flawed spectrum policy, Gordon Crovitz weighed in with his version of the same argument in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week: The great threat …
Lynne Kiesling You probably received the same apologetic email from Reed Hastings of Netflix that I did on Monday, stating the impending decision to split Netflix’s streaming business and its DVD subscription business. Foresightful or bad business decision, PR nightmare, or all of the above? The best analysis of its likely drivers and impacts is …
Lynne Kiesling In the always-smart-and-interesting City AM paper from London, Anthony Evans makes an important argument that has been overlooked in financial regulation debates: risk of failure is what creates system resilience, and regulation creates brittle monocultures. He writes in the context of last week’s Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) recommendations for creating regulatory divisions …
Resiliency Comes from More Risk of Bank Failure, Not Less Read More »
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