Wall Street Journal Editorial
I have an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today on the importance of experimental economics and Vernon Smith’s Nobel prize.
Economics
Vernon Smith Wins Nobel Prize
Vernon Smith has won this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering work in experimental economics. This is outstanding! See the press release from Mercatus for further details. See also my post from yesterday about electricity experiments and demonstrating the benefits of choice. Vernon Smith and his work form part of the foundation of …
Reason’s Interview With Steven Pinker
I’ve been reading Steven Pinker lately, and his new book The Blank Slate has just arrived. In The Blank Slate Pinker takes on three “myths”: the blank slate, the noble savage, and the ghost in the machine. I think the implications of his research, and his writing for laypeople, are profound for economics and the …
Experimental Economics As an Electricity Policy Tool
Experimental Economics and Retail Electricity Deregulation: Demonstrating the Benefits of Choice Regulatory change in electricity moves slowly, in part because of human dislike of change and aversion to risk. Convincing people that regulatory change is worth undertaking would be a lot simpler if we could demonstrate the possible outcomes of a change, and thereby that …
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The Energy Bills And The Administration’s Proposal Are Static And Backward-looking
My colleague Adrian Moore and I argue in this policy analysis, published by the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, that the administration’s proposal and the House and Senate versions of the energy bill retain too much government manipulation of markets, and fail to recognize the range of institutional approaches available to address …
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Isnie
After the Coase workshop, most of the attendees stuck around for the annual conference of the International Society for New Institutional Economics, which had lots of great papers on electricity, so I was thrilled.
Where Have I Been?
In a hotel that only has dialup, that’s where! Last week I was honored and delighted to be on the faculty of the Ronald Coase Institute’s Workshop on Institutional Analysis. The workshop gathers together 25-30 economists from developing countries, either graduate students or young Ph.D.s, who are doing research on formal and/or informal economic institutions …
We’re Wealthy Enough To Absorb The Shock
According to Robert Samuelson at Newsweek, the expected cost of a possible war in Iraq is only one percent of our GDP. Not that our wealthy society is a reason to go wage war, but it does mean that we are more likely to be insulated from most of the economic effects on us experienced …
Packets And Thingies
And this article by Arnold Kling is the first of a two-part series looking at the economics and architecture of what I think of as electronic infrastructure. His comments on the economics of Packets are interesting, and I think he’s right that we’ll see packet delivery priced at different levels for different volumes. Yahoo! is …
The Celtic Tiger
Tech Central Station has a lot of good content today, including this article by Ben Powell on Ireland’s economic growth. Punch line: Ireland’s successful formula for development for the past 15 years has been a reliance on market forces, lowered taxes, reduced trade barriers and reduced regulatory burdens. This simple, market-driven focus has created opportunities …