I have long noticed that folk comfortable with market economics tend to have much more sophisticated discussions of the proper boundary between public and private action than do more progressivist folk. Among the latter, typically, anything that goes wrong in markets shows that government should do more. The proper answer is always that ( Read more... )

In terms of economic distress, Australia had one of the worst Great Depression experiences of any developed country. (The country with the worst early 1930s experience was, of course, the Soviet Union under Stalin: millions dying of starvation rather outweighs even Depression unemployment, but that had nothing to do with the Great Depression as ( Read more... )

Thomas Sowell being witty and pointed on economics and economic history.

Having a local Wal-Mart does not appear to depress business activity.

A bidding war to eat (or save) a 100 year old 10kg lobster.

Fallujah now has a KFC.

Massachusetts decides it likes the idea of being the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage.

Reminding us that mass poverty is ( Read more... )

Adam Tooze’s book The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy is a superb example of how revealing and clarifying economic history can be ( Read more... )

Murray Gordon’s Slavery in the Arab World is a sensible and informative text on the subject ( Read more... )

An economist’s weight loss plan. Then there is the donation alarm clock.

Books that claim things are getting better.

The “science of happiness” is changing its mind: The most dramatic result is that when the entire range of human living standards is considered, the effects of income on a measure of life satisfaction (the "ladder of life") are ( Read more... )

Benjamin Friedman’s (no relation to Milton) The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth argues that economic growth is morally good for a society by reducing conflict and increasing openness, tolerance and concern for others. He also argues, implicitly or explicitly, for redistributive policies (though rather less for government regulation-he is a ( Read more... )

Finance markets (particularly sub-prime stupidities) explained (laughed lots). Recent UK bank crisis explained (also laughed lot). Brings to mind Milton Friedman’s comment that capitalism is a profit-and-loss system and, of the two, loss is more important.

A list of the world’s largest cities throughout historyPositive but worried review of ( Read more... )

There is a broad consensus among mainstream economists that, with the exception of unusual cases, free trade is better for economic growth and efficient resource allocation than protection. Given how much better the Oz economy has performed as it has moved to a free trade/floating exchange rate structure-and how comparatively worse it performed ( Read more... )

I originally came across Gregory Clark’s neo-Malthusian analysis of economic history via the excellent economics blog Marginal Revolution. At that time, Prof. Clark had various chapters up on his website. Chapters that include much fascinating data.

I thought Prof. Clark's thesis striking but unpersuasive. A blog post expresses well what ( Read more... )