Lynne Kiesling Will Wilkinson is sick of talking about the broken windows fallacy (as are we all …), and has instead written a very nice overview of the academic literature on the economics of disasters. He gives some good pointers to articles to read, and points out that we simply don’t know the likely economic …
Lynne Kiesling Two good articles on misguided government intervention and energy policy at Reason recommend themselves. Ron Bailey’s written a really excellent, clear, analysis of improved, safer reactor technology, and argues that the best response to the Fukushima accident is not a ban, but rather is innovation: One hopeful possibility is that the Japanese crisis …
Lynne Kiesling As you energy gurus know, CERA is one of the leading consulting firms in the energy space, and hosts an increasingly popular event called CERA Week — rather like the Davos of the energy world! In support of the event this past week, CERA has splashed out for two large advertising sections in …
Lynne Kiesling As an update on my post yesterday morning about Japan, Larry Summers, and the broken window: here’s Russ Roberts weighing in on Summers and the broken window fallacy, from Friday afternoon. Russ’ post also has some links that are worth following, and the comment thread has a worthwhile conversation in it.
Lynne Kiesling What horrific events in Japan. I was very sorry to awaken to hear of such devastation, and the videos I’ve seen and the fact that the aftershocks and waves have been almost continuous for the past 12 hours sound completely terrifying. As the tsunami waves rippled out, though, it didn’t take long for …
Another Economic Illiteracy Alert, This One from Larry Summers, Ph.d. Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I know that pointing out the economic illiteracy of politicians is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, but I have an irrationally optimistic hope that shining a light on such illiteracy will help reduce it. Today’s economic illiterate is U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who in an interview with Ezra Klein …
Economic Illiteracy Alert of the Day: Ag. Secretary Tom Vilsack Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Mirror neurons have captivated my attention for the past year. Think about the last time you were out walking around and smiling, and you noticed that others who saw you started smiling themselves (this happens to me all the time, is that strange?). Even that simple unconscious mimicry is triggered by our brain’s …
New Working Paper: Mirror Neurons, Adam Smith, and Sympathy Read More »
Lynne Kiesling A concise public choice analysis of the distortionary economic rents created by the ever-increasing “layers” of TSA security theater, as reported today on the Wired gadget blog: Airport “security” theater may be sickeningly pointless, but this stealthy introduction to a police state brings certain commercial advantages to those willing to cash in. First, …
Intrusive Tsa Searches Create Profit Opportunity for Adidas Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Economist and teacher extraordinaire Steve Horwitz has done a great video for Learn Liberty on the question “are we running out of resources?” [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcWkN4ngR2Y&feature=player_embedded] We’ve done our share of “peak oil” debunking here over the years, so it won’t surprise you that I find The Onion’s take on the question of running out …
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 …
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