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Why No Recession (so far)?

By Scott Sumner | Mar 24 2024
Last year, the consensus view of economists called for a recession in 2023.  At the time, I said this sort of prediction is foolish, as the science of economics has no method for predicting turning points in the business cycle.  It was akin to astronomers trying to emulate astrologers, and made the profession look foolish.  ...

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Money Multipliers on Mars

By Scott Sumner | Mar 22 2024

George Selgin’s new Cato working paper demolishes the now fashionable view that banks are not intermediaries between savers and borrowers. (It’s a sad comment on our profession that the paper needs to be written.) Toward the end of the essay Selgin makes the following observation (on page 41): Yet there’s a fundamental sense in which .. MORE

Featured Comment

"The penalty for the good declining to participate in governing is rule by the bad." -- Plato  

Jim Glass, March 24

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Economics and Culture

You Are What You Eat: Science or Propaganda?

By Walter Donway | Mar 28, 2024 | 1

Earlier this week, I described a new Netflix documentary purporting to compare the benefits of healthy omnivore versus vegan diets. In that post, I questioned the adherence of the series to the scientific study it’s describes as being based on, and I asked, “Who \ordered this banquet?” Well, funding for You Are What You Eat .. MORE

Economic and Political Philosophy

Governing and the Rule of Law

By Pierre Lemieux | Mar 28, 2024 | 10

It is not because a law has been democratically and duly adopted that it necessarily exemplifies the rule of law. It is not because democratically elected politicians govern that governing is good. One current example is given by the US and EU governments siding against Apple and in favor of its developers (outside suppliers) and .. MORE

Obituaries

Daniel Kahneman RIP

By David Henderson | Mar 27, 2024 | 1

Daniel Kahneman, co-winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics, along with Vernon Smith, died today. Here’s his obit in the Washington Post. Here’s his bio in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Here’s an excerpt from the bio: One bias they [Kahneman and Tversky] found is that people tend to believe in “the law of .. MORE

Fiscal Policy

Higher Taxes or Lower Benefits?

By Scott Sumner | Mar 27, 2024 | 15

There’s a debate over whether to save Social Security with higher taxes or lower benefits. Matt Yglesias suggests a mix of the two approaches: Let’s consider two methods, starting with an all tax approach: 1. Increase the payroll tax by 1%, from 15.3% to 16.3%, and add a $1,000 tax on affluent seniors Now consider .. MORE

Business Economics

Most New Ideas Are Terrible

By Kevin Corcoran | Mar 27, 2024 | 3

I’m something of a tech nerd – I enjoy new gadgets and technology more than the average person. As a result, I keep up with the latest news and rumors in the gadget and gizmo space. I also follow the work of various tech reviewers and bloggers. One such person, Michael Fischer (aka “MrMobile”) posted .. MORE

Economics and Culture

This is a Documentary, Right?!?!?

By Walter Donway | Mar 26, 2024 | 14

If I hesitate to criticize the new Netflix hit, You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, as bait-and-switch propaganda—exploitation of audience trust in “science”—it is only because…well, what’s new?  Aren’t most “science” documentaries riding some hobby horse?  Attacks on virtually all companies in the natural resources field?  Attacks on “big” anything—except, of course, government? .. MORE

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Bloggers David Henderson, Alberto Mingardi, Scott Sumner, Pierre Lemieux, Kevin Corcoran, and guests write on topical economics of interest to them, illuminating subjects from politics and finance, to recent films and cultural observations, to history and literature.

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Book Club

Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings

A “Window” into Modern Economics: The James M. Buchanan Archives 2

James M. Buchanan won the Nobel Prize in 1986. Shortly after that, the Buchanan House at George Mason University was constructed to serve as both an office and an archive of Professor Buchanan’s life work. There were also the Collected Works projects that were undertaken at the Buchanan House – first Professor Buchanan’s 20 volumes .. MORE

Austrian Economics

Of Mices and Mises 5

You say Mises, I say Mices. I’m sitting across the table from a long time member and leader of the Libertarian Party, and for the third time in about an hour he has mispronounced the word “Mises”.  He’s not an academic nor is he someone I’d expect to be reading deeply in Austrian economics, so .. MORE

Regulation

Build, Bryan, Build! 13

  Prolific former EconLog blogger Bryan Caplan will soon publish his latest “graphic novel” titled Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation. He asked me to post about it and I told him that I would if I could see the contents. So Bryan sent me a pre-pub version. It’s fantastic! I .. MORE

Book Reviews and Suggested Readings

Setting the Record Straight on Income Inequality

By Art Carden

Book Review of The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate by Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, and John Early.1 Everyone knows inequality is growing. As a trio of economists consisting of former senator Phil Gramm, economics professor Robert Ekelund, and economist and former assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics John Early .. MORE

Networks, Hierarchies, and History

By Arnold Kling

The first ‘networked era’ followed the introduction of the printing press to Europe in the late fifteenth century and lasted until the end of the eighteenth century. The second—our own time—dates from the 1970s, though I argue that the technological revolution we associate with Silicon Valley was more a consequence than a cause of a .. MORE

Mises and Buchanan on Classical Liberalism versus Socialism

By Alejandra Salinas

Ludwig von Mises The works of Ludwig von Mises and James M. Buchanan reflect the best of the classical liberal intellectual tradition. Given the centenary of the publication of Mises’ Socialism,1 and since 2023 marked the tenth anniversary of the passing of Buchanan, it seems an excellent time to remember their contributions. Both defend methodological .. MORE

A WEIRD Turn in Social Science

By Arnold Kling

[E]conomists and psychologists studying Western samples have simply assumed for decades that they were measuring a feature of our species’ psychology rather than a local cognitive calibration to society’s institutions, languages, and technologies. —Joseph Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World1 (page 389) The latest book by Joseph Henrich is the most ambitious analysis of .. MORE