Robert Waldmann The average person thinks he has higher than average intelligence. This is an empirical fact [citation needed]. It is not incorporated into standard finance theory, but it matters a lot. It has been argued that the high volume of transactions on financial markets can be understood easily. If two people with equal quality […]
By Spencer In 1971 when Nixon imposed price controls he did not do it because the on-going domestic inflation rate was about to accelerate. Rather, he imposed price controls because he expected the planned dollar devaluation to be very inflationary. But his actions just reflected the economic consensus that the dollar devaluation would be highly […]
rdan(cross posted from Roosevelt Institution) Rdan here…’Opt in’ or ‘opt out’ is one basic profit strategy device for use of a ‘service’. A personal example comes in the form of my son with Chase Bank checking account. Because a transfer of funds was late (our fault) of $240, he received a penalty of $29 for […]
by Bruce Webb (Somehow I got caught in HTML hell and can’t get this post to render correctly, not only did the read more not work it took out a paragraph with it. So I moved the post over to my site: The Magna Carta: What it is and what it isn’t It does feed […]
by Bruce Webb Scottish Professor Gavin Kennedy is the blog-proprietor of ADAM SMITH’S LOST LEGACY and a new (and continuing?) contributor to Angry Bear, most recently with Spare Us From the Invisible Hand. In an earlier post by Gavin Adam Smith in a Broader Legacy I responded to one of our regular Angry Bear glibertarians […]
It has long been a standard claim of economics—iirc, Robert Lucas was the first to say it aloud, though it may have been Gary Becker*—that a man who marries his housekeeper lowers GDP. Apparently, Dubner and Levitt have taken this claim—along with their Rick James title**—to heart. Echidne has the details. A short sample: There […]
Robert Waldmann I think that a popular approach to welfare economics requires simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs. 1) Utility is not comparable across individuals so we can only say whether an outcome is Pareto efficient or not.2) Models which are not reality but which approximate reality are useful. Both are really central to many policy […]
by Gavin Kennedy Spare Us From the Invisible Hand Patrick Kilbride writes in Chamber Post HERE: “Free People, Free Minds, Free Markets” ‘In the 18th-century, Adam Smith left us with the indelible image of markets producing desirable social outcomes through the work of an “invisible hand.” ’ CommentIn an otherwise neat argument for both liberty […]
Brad DeLong does in less than a weekend. He is as enchanted as Robert was*: My personal favorite is a giant parasol 18,000 miles in diameter at L1 to absorb and then reradiate a chunk of sunlight in other bands. but notes the reality as well: But I have never been able to find anyone […]
Robert Waldmann This McClatchy article by Kevin G Hall seems important to me. It does rely a lot on accusations by disgruntled ex employees, but I guess that is unavoidable. The lede WASHINGTON — As the housing market collapsed in late 2007, Moody’s Investors Service, whose investment ratings were widely trusted, responded by purging analysts […]