Monday, November 30, 2015

Econ Conference for Undergrads

Saturday, November 28, 2015

A Reading for the Pigou Club

Toward a Pigouvian State by Jonathan Masur and Eric Posner in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

Friday, November 27, 2015

Debating Introductory Econ

Noah Smith takes the standard course to task.  David Henderson says, not so fast.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Expunge Woodrow?

I have been following the debate at my alma mater about Woodrow Wilson.  Here are two good pieces for and against removing his name from its current place of prominence.

Friday, November 20, 2015

The Birth of Economic Theory

Source.  Thanks to Laura M. for the pointer.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Regulatory Complexity

I enjoyed reading these remarks from University of Chicago economist Steve Davis.  The chart below, taken from Davis, is particularly striking.

What I've been watching

A student recommended to me the direct-to-Netflix TV show Narcos.  It is a docudrama about the Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.  I just finished the first season of ten episodes, and it is indeed very good.

Next up: The direct-to-Amazon show The Man in the High Castle, which will be released shortly.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Obamacare as Redistribution

When students ask me about the Affordable Care Act, I often say that the policy was motivated as much by the desire to redistribute income as it was to reform the health care system. I recently ran across the following chart from Brookings economists Henry Aaron and Gary Burtless that shows the degree of redistribution that the act entails.

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Where I'll be this week

On Friday I will be speaking at this Economics Teaching Conference.