Lynne Kiesling This month’s issue of Cato Unbound has a topic that sits at the core of the issues of interest here: Hayek’s concept of spontaneous order, its universality, and its applicability to orders beyond market processes, including the common law. Examples abound. No one individual or committee sets market prices; those who have tried …
Lynne Kiesling I’m pleased to announce the publication of a book on electricity restructuring in Texas that I co-edited with Andy Kleit. Electricity Restructuring: The Texas Story is unique among applied regulatory analyses in several ways, most notably that half of the authors are not academics, but are instead the actual policymakers who worked directly …
New Book — Electricity Restructuring: The Texas Story Read More »
Lynne Kiesling The East Anglia CRU leaked climate research emails and the Copenhagen climate meeting are reviving old discussions about the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle has much in common with Pascal’s Wager. Two new analyses this week have caught my eye, the first from George Mason law professor Ilya Somin. Somin argues for consistency …
Somin and Lambert on the Responsible Use of the Precautionary Principle Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Interesting … via Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing, links to the two parts of Steve Landsburg’s 10-question exam to determine the honors eligibility of Oberlin economics majors for honors. Oberlin always solicits questions from an outside expert, and Landsburg has posted them on his blog, The Big Questions. I also recommend his blog …
Steve Landsburg’s Questions to Oberlin Honors Students Read More »
Lynne Kiesling A couple of weeks ago I linked to a post from Ed Glaeser on his research on urban dynamism. Glaeser has posted a follow-up to his initial comments. He asks: For decades, economists have debated the “ Dutch Disease” and other ailments associated with too much success. The discovery of natural gas in the …
Lynne Kiesling Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a true literary gem. Also known as the “cynic’s word book”, it complies witty and biting definitions that Bierce contributed to magazines starting in the 1880s, with all of the bluntness and prejudices that you would expect (in other words, if Bierce were writing today he’d certainly offend …
The Devil’s Dictionary Meme Applied to Climate Politics and to Financial Markets Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I’ve mentioned NPR’s Planet Money before, specifically their story on the history of employer-provided health insurance. They do a good job (not perfect, but good) of exploring economics topics for a general audience; they did some very good reporting on the underlying macroeconomic issues in the financial crisis earlier this year (although they …
This American Life/planet Money and Market Dynamics Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Here’s an illustration of several important economic points. Illinois instituted a smoking ban in bars and restaurants in January 2008. One of the arguments for such smoking bans is to spare patrons and employees the negative effects of second-hand smoke. Clearly such a blanket ban has some negative unintended consequences that reduce economic …
Lynne Kiesling The Marriott hotel on Michigan Avenue has been harvesting honey from beehives they have set up on their own roof. They use the honey in an on-site microbrew beer and in some of the dishes they make in their restaurant. What do you think are some of the economic motives driving such a …
Lynne Kiesling Check out this cool new data center plan — locate the servers under a cathedral and use the waste heat to warm the cathedral and the neighboring buildings! This is an established system called district heating, which uses a network of steam or hot water pipes to heat distributed buildings.
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