Amartya Sen arguing that what is needed is more attention to overlooked ideas from Smith and Pigou.

Let us consider the possibility that a Harvard MBA has negative value.

Paper on how the bond market failed to anticipate WWI.

Newspapers have plenty of (internet) readers: just not enough ways to turn that into revenue.

A post which is a short ( Read more... )

Between teaching, doing roster stuff at the office, being tired and forgetful and Connex being less than ideal, found myself at Flinders Station at 4.30 inappropriately dressed for a meeting at the Savage Club at 5.30pm.

After some wandering around ineffectually trying to find a suit hire place, ran into wystan and his Dutch friend Nick. wystan loaned me his ( Read more... )

Why the sex industry does well from Hollywood celebs (not worksafe due to sidebars).

How the Bolsheviks looted Russia’s treasures.

The Castro regime celebrates 50 years of economic failure: Cuba produced 7 million tons of sugar in 1952. This year, it's 1.5 million tons. This is the result of economic policy of collectivization, killing of ( Read more... )

Economic stimulus can lead to all sorts of stimulus.

Slavery is being revived in Sudan.

On not replicating Japan’s mistakes.

Reminding us that unemployment soared in the 1930s far more after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, designed to “help”, than they did following the 1929 Stock Market crash.

About the effects of the credit crunch on economicsAbout ( Read more... )

The original Thanksgiving as illustrating the failure of communal property. Plymouth colony only avoided the threat of starvation when it privatised land.

Guns are hard to get legally in India, fairly easy on the black market.

Defending the viability of newspapers as news-papers.

Graphing how US employment has become less volatile over the ( Read more... )

Critiquing a study of how (pdf) Hitler garnered popular support and paid for Germany’s war.

The Woolworths heirs were a classic case of from riches to rags.

Another review of Gregory Clark’s “bred for prosperity” theory of the industrial revolution takeoff.

Developing an economic model of (pdf) religious commitment among Orthodox Jews. The ( Read more... )

Historian Niall Ferguson has a very enlightening essay on the financial crisis, putting it in its broader and immediate historical context.

The triggering failure is straightforward: The proximate cause of the economic uncertainty of 2008 was financial: to be precise, a crunch in the credit markets triggered by mounting defaults on a hitherto ( Read more... )

About per capita income and its geographical distribution in the Roman Empire.

About militarising foreign aid (pdf).

Saudi supertanker has been seized by Somali pirates, the largest ship ever hijacked. Paper on the economics of piracy (pdf).

Singapore will allow payments to providers of human kidneys and eggs.

Rupert Murdoch is positive about ( Read more... )

The economics of spam.

Zimbabwe’s public hospitals are collapsing.

One can listen to Sir Bob Geldof’s $100,000 speech against poverty here.

About the border fence and legal and illegal immigration from Mexico to the US. A school district in Dallas has been issuing fake Social Security numbers to get illegal immigrants on the payroll.

UN study ( Read more... )

Saying it in pictures.

Babies were bred for sale at a maternity clinic in Nigeria. Part of a much larger African problem of child-trafficking.

Pakistan is seeking emergency financial help to stave off national bankruptcy: oh joy, a nuclear-armed bankrupt state.

About the debate on why the financial sector has grown so big and whether this is ( Read more... )