Michael Giberson Al Roth, at Market Design, points out an inadvertently amusing column from The Guardian a few weeks back, “Our speechless outrage demands a new language of the common good.” The writer, Madeleine Bunting, asserts that economists of a certain sort (namely, Friedrich Hayek and his associates at Chicago in the 50s) came to …
Michael Giberson “Buy American sounds great—until you think about it,” said Marc Gunther in “Buy American: Bad for America.” (Gunther begins by writing: “Congress should have known better,” but I think the truth is that Congress did know better. It just didn’t matter.)
Michael Giberson I was interested when one of the local news shows ended their 6 o’clock news segment yesterday on the proposed purchase of Xcel’s Lubbock electric system by Lubbock Power & Light by saying, “Coming up tonight on NewsChannel 11 at ten we hear from an economist and teacher who tells us the other …
Michael Giberson This morning, November 4, municipal utility Lubbock Power & Light and local regulated utility Xcel/Southwestern Public Service announced that the city utility will buy out the Xcel distribution system within the city and LP&L would become the monopoly retail power provider. The press conference hosted by the city emphasized the costliness of maintaining …
Breaking News: Retail Power Competition To End In Lubbock After More Than 90 Years Read More »
Michael Giberson A discovery of significant amounts of oil in Ghana has inspired a great deal of inquiry into how the country can avoid falling victim to the “resource curse,” the surprisingly low levels of economic development and weakening of political and social institutions sometimes associated with discovery and exploitation of valuable natural resources. In …
Ghana and Its Newfound Oil: Can It Use the Alaska Model to Avoid the Resource Curse? Read More »
Michael Giberson Yesterday’s post on the Gazprom take-or-pay contract dispute mentions a now classic article by Scott Masten and Keith Crocker, “Efficient adaptation in long-term contracts: Take-or-pay provisions for natural gas” (American Economic Review, 1985). You may wonder if there is newer work on take-or-pay contracting potentially relevant to the case of Gazprom and its …
Take-or-Pay Contracts: Lessons from Brazil and Bolivia Read More »
Michael Giberson Shifting world natural gas supply conditions have put the squeeze on long-term gas supply contracts between Russian gas giant Gazprom and its European customers. A summary from the Wall Street Journal: European energy companies, faced with weakening demand and plentiful lower-cost fuel supplies, have bought far less natural gas from Russia’s OAO Gazprom …
Gazprom, Europe, and Long-Term Take-or-Pay Contracts Read More »
Michael Giberson The list of people who agreed, after the fact, that yes there was a {internet company | real estate | … | tulip bulb} price bubble is frequently longer than the list of people who publicly announce a bubble in unequivocal terms in advance of a crash. But here you have someone willing …
Calling the Next Bubble: is There Currently a “Dollar-Led Asset Bubble”? Read More »
Michael Giberson George Soros has promised to spend $5 million a year for 10 years to support an Institute for New Economic Thinking to be hosted at Central European University in Budapest. According to the INET website, the Institute will make research grants, convene symposia, and establish a journal. As part of the announcement, Soros …
In Principle I’m in Favor of Spending Money on Economists Read More »
Michael Giberson Unfair Prices Daniel Little, at Understanding Society, asks about “Fair Prices?” In exploring the topic he draws some upon E.P. Thompson’s studies of the English working class: E. P. Thompson’s work on early modern Britain reminds us that there was a “moral economy of the crowd” that profoundly challenged the legitimacy of the …
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