Michael Giberson John Carney proposes declaration of free-trade zones for gasoline in shortage-afflicted areas. Prices could stay regulated elsewhere, but consumers and merchants would gain the option to trade at higher prices within the zones. Great idea, but there is zero chance that very visible politicians will want to be upstaged by an invisible hand, …
Michael Giberson Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have anti-price gouging laws In the wake of “Superstorm Sandy” there has been a lot of writing on price gouging. Constantine von Hoffman, CBS Moneywatch, said in his column that only seven of 13 states struck by the storm had laws against price gouging, but he …
Michael Giberson The recent Economics Nobel announcement, which went to Lloyd Shapely and Alvin Roth for theoretical and practical innovations in matching processes, has prompted some misguided carping among market-oriented commentators. The Andrew Coulson post from Cato-at-Liberty (which Lynne quoted favorably yesterday) is one example. Robert Wenzel is another (calling it a prize for “work …
Lynne Kiesling Actually it’s over 350 years old, but as the Economist points out this week, there’s a new critical edition of Leviathan for the first time in 350 years. The Economist article is a good reminder that what was shocking about Hobbes in the 17th century — his mechanistic materialism — isn’t quite as …
Michael Giberson A few weeks ago I posted “Are ‘outsiders’ more likely to be accused of price gouging?” Having noticed that all four persons arrested in Mississippi for price gouging after Hurricane Isaac had surnames indicating family origins in India, I wondered about the potential for discrimination in the application of price gouging laws. First, …
Are New Jersey ‘outsiders’ More Likely to Be Accused of Price Gouging? Read More »
Michael Giberson Are price gouging laws applied fairly? This past week Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac lead to disaster declarations and the invocation of price gouging laws in several gulf states. Here are a few selected quotes from all four price-gouging related press releases issued last week by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood: August 28: “Attorney General …
Are ‘outsiders’ More Likely to Be Accused of Price Gouging? Read More »
Michael Giberson The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that pesticide drifting across property lines onto an organic farmer’s crop does not constitute a trespass under state law. The court dismissed the trespass claim as well as accompanying claims asserting nuisance and negligence under laws that govern organic farming. The organic farming laws regulate what a …
Minnesota Supreme Court Rules Pesticide Drift is Not a Trespass, but Might Be a Nuisance Read More »
Michael Giberson Sarah’s essay on reading and sympathy, explicated a bit in her post here at KP on manners, and Matt Zwolinski’s near contemporaneous remarks on the same topic, recalled to me one of my favorite ideas: the road to anarchy is paved with good manners. I mean “anarchy” in a good way, of course: “anarchy” …
Michael Giberson At Bleeding Heart Libertarians, University of Arizona philosopher David Schmidtz discusses what a good concept of property does for society. He sums his view concisely at the end, reproduced below. Go read the rest of it for the background and support for these conclusions. To summarize, in more concrete terms, when a system …
Michael Giberson Economist Alex Tabarrok, author of Launching the Innovation Renaissance and Marginal Revolution blogger, worries that the proliferation of patents is stifling innovation, particularly patents for business processes. In an interview with Russ Roberts for EconTalk, Tabarrok remarked that large companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google building up massive numbers of patents mostly to …
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