Dwight Lee in the current issue of Regulation magazine offers “The Two Moralities of Outlawing Price Gouging.” In the article Lee endorsed economists’ traditional arguments against laws prohibiting price gouging, but argued efficiency claims aren’t persuasive to most people as they fail to address the moral issues raised surrounding treatment of victims of disasters. Lee wrote, “Economists’ best hope …
Michael Giberson Five minutes of Matt Zwolinski on price gouging (from Learn Liberty). [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9QEkw6_O6w] If you think price gouging should be against the law, watch this video. Are you persuaded by Zwolinski? Let me know in the comments. MORE: Zwolinski has written serious philosophical works on price gouging,which makes the clarity of his position in …
Zwolinski: “Is Price Gouging Immoral? Should It Be Illegal?” Read More »
Michael Giberson At Reason.com, social psychologist Jonathon Haidt writes about the foundational moral concerns that animate the Zuccotti Park protestors. Working from a Moral Foundations Theory* perspective, which Haidt and several others have developed, he said, “In my visit to Zuccotti Park, it was clear that the main moral foundation of OWS is fairness, followed …
What Do the Occupy Wall Streeters Care About? Haidt on the Moral Foundations of Ows Read More »
Michael Giberson A new blog explores the world of Bleeding Heart Libertarians. Matt Zwolinski created the blog as “a forum for academic philosophers who are attracted both to libertarianism and to ideals of social or distributive justice.” He has attracted a top-notch group of collaborators, and the first two weeks of operation has produced a …
Michael Giberson Quick question for academics in moral or political philosophy or political economy: Is it worth a little extra effort to turn up the Geoffrey Brennan/Alan Hamlin article “Economizing on Virtue”? The article appeared in Constitutional Political Economy Vol. 6, no. 1 (1995): 35-56. My library has easy electronic access to CPE back to …
Michael Giberson The blogosphere is a tinderbox and an errant spark can trigger a storm of fire. In this case the spark was a news story about a city fire department refusing to put out a house fire for a home outside the city limits. For Salon writer Alex Pareene, curiously, this story implies something …
Michael Giberson A complaint is posted to an online forum: … something needs to be said. I have always noted that price gouging is something that occurs on the [Auction House] and notion seems to be prevalant that “If there is someone out there stupid enough to pay that much, I’m going to charge that …
Michael Giberson Last I checked, James Kwak had 147 comments on his blog post on price gouging and the corrupting influence of Econ 101. Other bloggers have jumped into the fray: Adam Ozimek at Modeled Behavior, the Undergraduate at Observations of a Naive Undergraduate, and David Beckworth at Macro and Other Market Musings. Quite a …
Price Gouging, Ethics, Markets, and the Corrupting Influence of Econ 101 Read More »
Michael Giberson Reports from Haiti suggest that prices for many useful and necessary goods have jumped considerably since the earthquake. Candles, matches, ice, water, food items, bus trips from the capital, petrol, plastic sandals, charcoal, rice, sugar – the list of items now selling at dramatically higher prices seems endless. Last week I suggested that …
Michael Giberson In the photo accompanying Arnold Kling’s EconLog post, he is smiling, but in his recent post “Market Failure” he does not sound like he is smiling: I want to propose a new definition of market failure. … This post ties together a couple of recent bitter themes. It is not intended in any …
Ignore the Smiling Photo – Arnold Kling is Bitter Read More »
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