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I expect a lot of abuse for this, so don’t feel that you have to hold back. Here is my Dom post article (that was supposed to be) from the prior weekend. It kicks off as follows: The statement that we are worse off than we were is false, and society’s willingness to believe it […]
Here is an article I wrote for the fine people over at Idealog on regulation. The primer is: Tobacco prices must be higher, alcohol availability is going to be limited, and even Coca-Cola has come in for a lashing for being an addictive substance. But this obsession comes with a cost that policymakers need to […]
I have repeatedly been informed that the “economic man” is a poor description of individuals, and given this economic models provide a poor description of the world we live in. As I have said previously, I don’t agree with this conclusion – and we really need to ask what an economic model is, and why […]
From Rogeberg on rational addiction: Theories of rational addiction make assumptions concerning the choice rule, preferences and beliefs of people, and derive the resulting consumption plans. … Some economists claim support from the famous as-if methodology of Friedman 1953 … which explicitly identifies prediction as the only aim of “positive economics.”…[Such] explanations may prove excellent […]
From the philosopher Jon Elster in a trenchant critique of Gary Becker’s approach to everything: If Gary Becker didn’t exist, we would have to invent someone like him. For close to four decades he has been taking economic theory beyond its usual domain of applications, almost single-handedly creating the economics of discrimination, human capital theory, […]
Whenever someone is busy attempting to have a heart-to-heart with me, I have one catch all statement I always pull out: Hold yourself to a high standard that you can feel proud of, but never base your expectations or judgments of others on that standard The usual resp0nse to this is “that’s f’ing obvious”, “no […]