Mere Economics (Page 4)

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#FreeBookFriday: David Friedman on Price Theory and Radical Capitalism

David D. Friedman, son of 1976 Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, describes himself as someone who teaches economics in a law school despite never having taken a course in either. Despite this, he has made important contributions to the theories of anarchy and capitalism. Furthermore, he has graciously made some of

Diamonds are Forever - Commitment

I'm posting a 14-part series of mini-essays on diamonds (but really about the economic point of view). Here's part 9. Commitment At least in the United States, engagement rings are a relatively recent invention. Before 1935, it was not customary for a man to offer a

Why Go To College?

Why go to college? Three reasons: For a Credential. For a lot of students, college is about making friends and memories for a few years before getting out with a credential everyone sees as a ticket to the middle class--but not because you learned anything useful. As Bryan Caplan explains,

Sowell Sagacity

It has often been asserted that women receive only about two-thirds of what men receive for doing the same work. While this assertion is open to very serious challenges on empirical grounds, the more relevant analytical point here is that it treats employers’ perceptions as if they were independent of

#FreeBookFriday: Last Set of Gratis "Mere Economics" Sources

Robert L. Schuettinger and Eamonn F. Butler, Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls: How Not to Fight Inflation. Milton M. Shapiro, Foundations of the Market Price System. Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Francis Wayland, The Elements of Political Economy. Philip H. Wicksteed, The Commonsense of Political Economy. And

Diamonds are Forever - Transaction Costs

I'm posting a 14-part series of mini-essays on diamonds (but really about the economic point of view). Here's part 8. Transaction Costs When De Beers meets with a prospective, commercial buyer, the interaction looks, well, bizarre. The customer tells De Beers what they’re looking for.

Mere Economics Isn't - Forecasting

In this series of posts, I'll describe five things that mere economics is not. Note, this post was written with Scott Burns and was originally published at The Independent Institute. Forecasting If your only impression of economics comes from talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News, it’

Recent Reading: Journal Articles on Environmentalism and Housing

Mark Pennington, "Liberty, Markets, and Environmental Values: A Hayekian Defense of Free-Market Environmentalism," Independent Review 2005. One of several takeaways: environmental communitarians want to take decisions about what gets used where, when, and how out of the marketplace and put them in spaces that are democratic and deliberative--but

Heiser Hints

The phrase “image of God” occurs several times in Genesis (Gen 1:26–27; 5:1–3; 9:6). A close reading of the passages in which the phrase occurs tells us that the “image of God” applies to both men and women, is never used of any other earthly