Economics links
A lovely, clear rendition of the theory of the firm: Now, the manager does buy this equipment on the market, and pays real prices. But he doesn't sell the computer time to the staff. He gives it away. Is it worth it, in terms of somehow increasing profits or raising the company's share values? The boss has to guess. Many different bosses, in many different firms, make different guesses. Some of the firms are profitable, some are not. No one knows what specific choices led to increased profits, or to bankruptcy.
A tribute to Peter Bauer, and an obituary: a development economist whose critiques about aid were deeply unfashionable, but have since been vindicated. A prize-winning essay explores Bauer’s ideas and the evidence for them (including the mounting evidence of the harmful effects of foreign aid): If capital investment is in fact an essential precondition of escaping poverty and only wealthy countries have the means for this investment, how did currently wealthy countries, which were once as poor as currently developing countries, become rich? … Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson’s (2001, 2002) research has had a profound effect on modern development economics and provides powerful empirical evidence that Bauer was right about the primacy of private property rights for economic development.
Newsweek’s European economic editor critiques the public school curricula in France and Germany as wildly biased against capitalism. How it represents an old joke turning into truth. A classic example of why you don’t want a dominant supplier of schooling services and you really don’t want a dominant supplier who is also the regulator.
Complaining about an introductory economics textbook for being, well, an introductory textbook. The author of said textbook responds.
An Indian company has released the world’s cheapest car.
A critical review of Naomi Klein’s latest screed.
The Scottish Government would like more land to be released for housing. The reality is, once there is official discretion over land release, you’re screwed.
The FBI finds some of its phone surveillance shut down because the Agency doesn’t manage to pay its phone bills in time.
A paper on why there is not more legal prostitution in the US, particularly Las Veg as. At a Prague brothel, you can have sex for free - as long as you agree to have it videotaped and broadcast online.
Mapping foreclosures in the US: there are some compounding effects.
The most cited economics papers over the last five years.
A tribute to Peter Bauer, and an obituary: a development economist whose critiques about aid were deeply unfashionable, but have since been vindicated. A prize-winning essay explores Bauer’s ideas and the evidence for them (including the mounting evidence of the harmful effects of foreign aid): If capital investment is in fact an essential precondition of escaping poverty and only wealthy countries have the means for this investment, how did currently wealthy countries, which were once as poor as currently developing countries, become rich? … Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson’s (2001, 2002) research has had a profound effect on modern development economics and provides powerful empirical evidence that Bauer was right about the primacy of private property rights for economic development.
Newsweek’s European economic editor critiques the public school curricula in France and Germany as wildly biased against capitalism. How it represents an old joke turning into truth. A classic example of why you don’t want a dominant supplier of schooling services and you really don’t want a dominant supplier who is also the regulator.
Complaining about an introductory economics textbook for being, well, an introductory textbook. The author of said textbook responds.
An Indian company has released the world’s cheapest car.
A critical review of Naomi Klein’s latest screed.
The Scottish Government would like more land to be released for housing. The reality is, once there is official discretion over land release, you’re screwed.
The FBI finds some of its phone surveillance shut down because the Agency doesn’t manage to pay its phone bills in time.
A paper on why there is not more legal prostitution in the US, particularly Las Veg as. At a Prague brothel, you can have sex for free - as long as you agree to have it videotaped and broadcast online.
Mapping foreclosures in the US: there are some compounding effects.
The most cited economics papers over the last five years.