EconLog Archive
Money and Inflation
The War on Prices
Co-blogger David Henderson usefully mentioned the publication of an interesting book edited by Ryan Bourne, The War on Prices. The authors, of which I am honored to be part, also include Brian Albrecht, Pedro Aldighieri, Nicholas Anthony, David Beckworth, Ryan Bourne, Eamonn Butler, Vanessa Brown Calder, Michael Cannon, Jeffrey Clemens, Bryan Cutsinger, Alex Edmans, Peter Jaworski, .. MORE
International Trade
Let’s Hope that Tariffs are Inflationary
David Henderson has an excellent post on the effect of tariffs on the price level. I agree with his analysis, but here I’ll reframe the debate in a way that I hope will also be helpful. Let’s begin with a few propositions: 1. Under the vast majority of policy regimes, the imposition of tariffs leads .. MORE
Media Watch
The Alchemy of Military Expenditure
There may be a charitable way to interpret the following Wall Street Journal statement in a report on Mr. Putin’s replacement of his defense minister (“Russia’s Putin Replaces Defense Minister in Security Shake-Up,” May 12, 2014): Military spending, which has surged to over 6% of gross domestic product this year, up from 2.6% before the .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Ryan Bourne’s Supremacy
The quantity of rent-controlled apartments demanded thus becomes enormous. In New York City, some old rent-controlled units have become family heirlooms. A woman went viral on TikTok in 2021 after showcasing her redecorated $1,300 a month rent-controlled two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, after inheriting the lease from her parents—a unit that would .. MORE
International Trade
Tariffs Do Cause a Slight Temporary Increase in Inflation
Don Boudreaux writes: Unlike you who find Duncan Braid’s May 6th harangue against supporters of free trade “devastating,” I find it to be tendentious. Braid writes triumphantly as if he’s caught us free traders in yet another of our Keystone Kops antics – specifically here, our effort to blame tariffs for inflation. Yet no competent .. MORE
Technology
Visions of the 21st century
Niels Bohr once said: “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” I say: Prediction is not about the future, it’s about the present. Now that I’m fairly old, I can look back on a wide range of visions of the 21st century, many of which now seem obsolete. Here are just a .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
My Reading Highlights for Week of May 12
First, Happy Mothers’ Day. Trump Promised To ‘Drain the Swamp.’ He Did the Opposite. By John Stossel, Reason, May 8, 2024. Excerpt: In 2020, then-President Trump said he was succeeding: “We’re draining the Washington swamp!” But it’s not true. “He made government bigger,” Economist Ed Stringham says in my new video. ‘That’s going in the wrong direction. .. MORE
International Trade
Biden Is Really Trump 2.0, Not Surprisingly
According to press reports, the Biden administration is on the verge of announcing a quadrupling of the customs tariff (a tax on American importers) on EVs made in China. He may also announce other Trumpian tariffs (“Biden to Quadruple Tariffs on Chinese EVs,” Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2024). That would not be surprising. In .. MORE
Competition
The DOJ-Apple Case: Harming Consumers v. Harming Competitors
The DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple rounds out the set of cases against the big tech firms that have drawn so much ire from enforcers. These include the DOJ’s ongoing suits against Google, and the FTC’s cases against Amazon and Meta. While the Biden administration’s antitrust officials initially signaled that their targets for enforcement include .. MORE
International Trade
The Ukraine War: Who should sacrifice?
I recently came across three news stories that are worth thinking about. The first story discussed the US government’s role in encouraging gun exports, which often lead to violence in developing countries. Here’s Bloomberg: Last October, a recently fired police officer walked into his stepson’s nursery school in the remote northeast of Thailand and, in .. MORE
Incentives
Disinformation Exists and Is Dangerous
Last week’s issue of The Economist featured a few articles about disinformation, which it defines as “falsehoods that are intended to deceive.” More precisely, I would define it as the intentional publication or spreading of fact-related information that is nearly certainly false by a person or an organization whose self-interest it is to spread the .. MORE
Business Economics
Are Businesses Hard-Hearted?
How often have you heard a line something like the following: “Because businesses care only about making money, they and their executives are hard-hearted towards their customers and employees.” Even some people who think that, on net, businesses are good for our economy, often characterize them as being hard-hearted because of their profit motive. .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Legislators, Technology, and Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton once highlighted an unusual quirk in human thinking – something he called Gell-Mann Amnesia, after his friend Murray Gell-Mann. Chrichton said: Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read .. MORE
Macroeconomics
Fed Forecasting: AI or Markets?
In a recent blog post, Vasant Dhar had some interesting remarks about the possible role of AI in Fed policy: Might AI help us better understand the data and design better economic policy interventions? Last week I had lunch with some central bankers who wanted to talk to me about AI. They were interested in .. MORE
Economics of Crime
Civil Asset Forfeiture: The War on Drugs™ as a Law Enforcement Revenue Center
This is the third in my series on the social costs of drug prohibition. You can read part one here (prison-industrial complex) and part two (police militarization) here. In the 1914 decision US v Regan, the Supreme Court held that the “rule of evidence requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt is generally applicable only .. MORE
Macroeconomics
Was High Inflation Inevitable?
During the period following the 2020 Covid pandemic, many countries experienced relatively high inflation. This reflects two factors: 1. All countries were hit by shocks such as Covid-related supply chain disruptions and the Ukraine war. 2. Most countries enacted very extensive stimulus programs, which had similar effects in each case. It was appropriate to allow .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
My Weekly Reading and Viewing for May 5, 2024
First, Happy Cinco de Mayo. Now to the content. Backpage: A Blueprint for Squelching Speech by Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason, April 29, 2024. Excerpt: From the beginning, this prosecution has been premised on a bogus rationale (authorities yammer on about sex trafficking though none of the defendants are charged with sex trafficking), overreaching in its scope (attempting .. MORE
Regulation
Imagine There’s No Zoning
For many people, a world without zoning sounds like a dystopia. Uninformed people often assume that zoning laws protect homeowners from the risk of ugly industrial plants being built right next door. In fact, there were rules against that sort of “public nuisance” even before the first zoning laws were enacted. The actual purpose of .. MORE
Media Watch
Keeping a Safe Distance From Policymakers
American “lawmakers” and “policymakers” are responsible for the one million references to what people must do or may not do that are found in the Code of Federal Regulations. This does not include state and local regulations. The situation is not much different in other Western countries. How could economists be more useful to policymakers, .. MORE
Regulation
The Regulator as an Industry…Ally?
Now before you get your torches and pitchforks, hear me out. In many industries, but aviation in particular, a stellar safety record is a competitive advantage. In High Reliability Organizations (HRO), such as airlines, safety is paramount to the success of the organization. After all, a single accident, regardless of how rare an occurrence it .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Political Power in Dune
Warning: This post, like my previous post on the subject, will involve a discussion of plot points and spoilers for the Dune series. If you haven’t seen the movies or read the books and wish to avoid spoilers, feel free to skip this one. I recently discussed what I take from the character arc of .. MORE