Lynne Kiesling A recent essay from legal scholars Todd Zywicki and Josh Wright analyzes the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and over at Volokh, Ilya Somin adds to their analysis based on his own research. Both pieces are founded on an important core idea — paternalistic regulation that is grounded in the desire to mitigate …
Paternalistic Regulation and the Knowledge Problem Read More »
Michael Giberson Yesterday I commented on Michael Sandel’s book, Justice, and on his discussion of price gouging. I hoped that Sandel would go deeper into his ideas about justice and price gouging, but the book’s index suggests that the introductory chapter is all he has to offer specifically on price gouging. In re-reading parts of …
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Michael Giberson From WSJ Environmental Capital: When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons. Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks …
Energy Secretary Steven Chu: Not Exactly Making Friends and Influencing People Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Grant McCracken always has insightful interpretations of various human/social phenomena, and in this recent post he offers one that he calls “concatenating capitalism“. In discussing “eco-entrepreneur” Joshua Onysko and his work developing his Pangea Organics products, Grant makes a decidedly beyond-Schumpeterian observation about the role of entrepreneurs in transforming the economy and the …
Lynne Kiesling The International Energy Agency has put a quantitative estimate on an effect that we all suspected — this year’s economic recession is contributing to a reduction in global carbon emissions. They estimate that 2009 carbon emissions will be 2 percent lower than 2008, with 75% of the reduction attributable to the economic slowdown …
Michael Giberson Michael Sandel appeared on the Today show last week promoting his new book, Justice: what is the right thing to do? The book and a related public television series this fall are based on Sandel’s course on justice taught at Harvard. (The television series episodes are online at the link just cited.) The …
Lynne Kiesling The title to this post is my phrasing of an idea from Austrian economics that I think is incorrectly ignored in standard macroeconomic theory. I don’t have much insight to add, but this Arnold Kling post had two statements in it that I find very important. The first is Arnold quoting John Quiggin: …
Michael Giberson At Overcoming Bias, Robin Hanson points out that the human instinct for cooperation has good and bad consequences. A handful of recent articles in reaction to Frans de Waal’s new book, The Age of Empathy, and other writing on cooperation have treated it as a good thing, as a helpful counterweight to human …
Price Gouging and the “Dark Side of Cooperation” Read More »
Michael Giberson From Columbia, South Carolina’s The State newspaper, more evidence of the predictable effects of anti-price gouging laws: A day after drivers began a panic-buying run on gas, S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster invoked the state’s price-gouging law with fines up to $1,000 per offense and up to 30 days in jail. Hotlines were …
Retail Gasoline Stations Shutting Down to Avoid Price Gouging Complaints Read More »
Michael Giberson The WSJ‘s Real Time Economics blog surveyed a few economist reactions to the President’s imposition of dramatically higher tariffs on imported tires. My favorite, and perhaps most appropriate to our times: In 1930, the Republican controlled House of Rep, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, …
Recessions: An Especially Bad Time to Impose Bad Public Policies Read More »
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