Lynne Kiesling If you aren’t listening to EconTalk (and you should be, it’s wonderful!), you will miss Russ Roberts talking with Charlie Calomiris about financial crises. Truly, simply, unequivocally outstanding. Charlie brings the perspective of an economic historian along with his prodigious background in macroeconomic theory and his deep institutional knowledge about banking history. Almost …
Lynne Kiesling I am doing a lot of reading and thinking, trying to make some headway on a way-overdue paper, and have been reading a striking working paper from David Colander, Richard Holt, and Barkley Rosser, “The Complexity Era in Economics” (August 2009). Their insights are directed toward the evolution of economics methodology and the …
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday at Reason’s Hit & Run Tim Cavanaugh wrote about something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time: the institutions we use for governing the shared use of paths between cyclists and motorists on roads, and among cyclists, walkers, runners, rollerbladers, etc. on multi-use paths. Tim’s starting point was Christopher Beam’s …
Roads and Paths As Common-pool Resources, and the Problem of Governing Them Read More »
Lynne Kiesling A couple of nights ago I was reading Matt Welch’s introduction to the November issue of Reason, in which Matt wonders why we have heard so little discussion of the defeat of communism on its 20th anniversary. This fall is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall on November 9, …
Lynne Kiesling Courtesy of this Boing Boing post, I am enjoying Laura Levine’s rock & roll photographs very much. Is that Michael Stipe with hair? See more of her excellent photos here. The early R.E.M. photos are charming, and the Michael Hutchence photos are bittersweet. And I love the Iggy Pop/Chrissie Hynde photo; I’m on …
Lynne Kiesling Too bad that David Zetland’s latest idea is impossible in a world with politics: People are discussing a soda tax. Forget that — just stop subsidizing the corn that’s made into the HFCS that goes into soda. End obesity and a stupid ag subsidy at that same time. Next! My version for health …
Lynne Kiesling Wow. Paul Romer’s blog post congratulating Elinor Ostrom for yesterday’s Nobel is dramatic. And, in my view, entirely accurate. I really appreciate his “skyhooks and cranes” invocation: Most economists think that they are building cranes that suspend important theoretical structures from a base that is firmly grounded in first principles. In fact, they …
Lynne Kiesling Today David Henderson has penned the traditional Wall Street Journal commentary on yesterday’s Nobel award to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. He provides an excellent summary of the importance of their work, and I recommend it to you highly. In fact, David’s theme reconciles what some commenters have observed as a political or …
Henderson, Smith on the Nobel and Its Implications for Economics Read More »
Lynne Kiesling This story will have you shaking your head in disbelief in multiple dimensions. The electricity industry in Mexico is government-owned but decentralized, with multiple public distribution utility companies. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, over the weekend the Mexican government took over the second-largest of these government-run distribution companies, Luz y Fuerza …
High Costs Drive Government to Take over Government-Owned Electric Utility in Mexico Read More »
Lynne Kiesling At the Wall Street Journal’s economics blog, Phil Izzo draws some insights from Elinor Ostrom’s work that complement my remarks in my previous post: Ostrom’s work also has something to say about regulation: “The main lesson is that common property is often managed on the basis of rules and procedures that have evolved …
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