Michael Giberson Scott Sumner wrote, “On or about December 1978, the world’s ideology changed,”explaining that “this quotation from Joan Robinson did not seem insane in 1977”: Before the last Korean war in 1950, the North was home to most of the country’s heavy industry. As late as 1975, its income per head still exceeded the …
Michael Giberson In WIRED, Jonah Lehrer reports on how Toronto geological statistician Mohan Srivastava discovered a flaw in a lottery scratch-off game. As a trained statistician with degrees from MIT and Stanford University, Srivastava was intrigued by the technical problem posed by the lottery ticket. In fact, it reminded him a lot of his day …
Better Living Through Applied Statistics: Cracking Scratch-off Lottery Games Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday the Wall Street Journal featured an essay from Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto, focusing on the socio-economic roots of the current protests against the authoritarian Mubarak government. De Soto’s work on the debilitating consequences of the lack of property rights for individual prosperity and economic growth is outstanding, and he has been …
Michael Giberson Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal included a story on HOT lanes and other ways commuters can buy through congestion, “American Idle: On the Road.” One excerpt: In the early years of the nation, entrepreneurs built toll roads, offering travelers a faster carriage ride in return for money. Now, the concept of the toll road …
Michael Giberson Ethiopia devalues currency => prices jump => consumers complain => government issues price controls to stop price gouging => goods disappear from market shelves. Yep, no surprises here. From www.voanews.com: Price Controls Cause Chaos in Ethiopian Markets Price controls on many staple food items ordered by Ethiopia’s government early this month have reduced grocery bills …
From the “No Surprises Here Department”: Price Controls Cause Chaos in Ethiopian Markets Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I’m teaching a principles/intro class this quarter (for the first time in longer than I care to remember!), and my students are all very clear on a concept that I’m afraid President Obama has forgotten … or at least that his rhetoric contradicts: economic activity is not a win-lose relationship. Using language like …
Lynne Kiesling With apologies to my colleague Mark Witte for plagiarizing him … we were discussing how the EU has had to suspend their carbon emission permit trading system (I wouldn’t dignify it by calling it a market) due to online security breaches and the theft of millions of Euros worth of permits. Mark asked …
What Has the Eu Ever Done for Us? Carbon Edition Read More »
Lynne Kiesling As I’ve mentioned before, I am passionately and actively opposed to the TSA’s fear-based violations of the rights and dignity of individuals. But my opposition extends beyond the moral and philosophical into the economic … and some recent commentaries indicate that I am not the only one! First let’s think about the cost …
Lynne Kiesling As an addendum to Mike’s post Monday about Evergreen Solar and Ed Glaeser’s comments, note that WW at The Economist’s Democracy in America blog has also posted some remarks on the subject. In particular, he focuses on the use (or uselessness) of solar technology subsidies as social policy: If subsidies for solar-panel manufactures …
Lynne Kiesling Like other economists, I was intrigued by President Obama’s op-ed in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal about streamlining federal regulation. Like Matthew Kahn, I see the influence of Austan Goolsbee here, as well as Cass Sunstein; like Tim Haab, I think this is a salutary call for more, and more consistent, application of cost-benefit …
Is Rationalizing Regulation Even Possible Through Political Processes? Read More »
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