Social Science, Dogma, and Steven Pinker
Why am I re-reading The Blank Slate? First, because on first reading I marked it as one of the all-time great non-fiction books. Second, because I am thinking about possible parallels between the...
View ArticleSpecialization, Externality, and Firms
Suppose that a production process is divided into tasks. Think of Adam Smith’s example of a pin factory, or think of a software application developed by many people. It is unlikely that this process...
View ArticleSpecialization, Bilateral Monopoly, and Firms
A bilateral monopoly is when there is one buyer and one seller. When the first IBM PC was introduced, there was one buyer for Microsoft’s operating system (DOS) and one seller. However, IBM allowed...
View ArticleAlchian and Demsetz on Specialization and Firms
A reader pointed me to their classic paper, which is exactly on point. there is a source of gain from cooperative activity involving working as a team, wherein individual cooperating inputs do not...
View ArticleDon Boudreaux on The Essential Hayek
It is a project for Canada’s Fraser Institute. It will launch next week. Boudreaux starts with a “nobody knows how to” introduction. He uses paper and ink as examples of mundane goods that require many...
View ArticleWhen Marginal Product is Undefined
In an Alchian-Demsetz firm, marginal product is not defined. Think of a business that has exactly one full-time tax accountant (TA). In a sense, the marginal product of the TA is zero, since the TA...
View ArticleMore Essential Hayek
Again, the book will be released next week. Another point Boudreaux makes is that in a specialized economy, our production activities are much narrower than our consumption activities. This makes...
View ArticleThe Computer as Economic Metaphor
Cesar Hidalgo says, So countries with a lot of trust and good institutions can create very complex computers that are able to process large volumes of information and create complex products that are...
View ArticleNon-marketable Outputs
A non-marketable output is something that has relatively little value outside of one firm. One company’s tax return won’t help any other firm file its return. A half-finished Chevy is not of much use...
View ArticleNon-marketable Outputs and Executive Compensation
I have suggested that one can think of firms as taking marketable inputs and producing non-marketable outputs. These non-marketable outputs ultimately contribute to marketable outputs. It is the...
View ArticleRenewable != Sustainable
Benjamin Zycher writes, there is nothing “clean” about renewables. There is the heavy-metal pollution created by the production process for wind turbines, along with their noise and flicker effects....
View ArticleThe case against policy analysts
Robin Hanson writes, On the other side, however, are most experts in concrete policy analysis. They spend their time studying ways that schools could help people to learn more material, hospitals could...
View ArticleA moonshot to overthrow neoclassical economics
Tyler Cowen gave me an idea. He described his personal moonshot. He wrote, My goal is to be the economist who has most successfully used the internet as a platform to foment broad enlightenment. He...
View ArticleDebating Daniel Jelski
He criticized my moonshot essay in which I attacked neoclassical economics. I appreciate that he took the time to read it and consider it seriously. But I want to reply to two of his points. 1. He...
View ArticleNathan Smith
On Facebook, he writes, The most overrated economist in the world is Daron Acemoglu; the most underrated may be Arnold Kling. For years, I’ve been getting more and more disillusioned with economics, as...
View ArticleA review of Specialization and Trade
Dirk Niepelt writes, Kling’s criticism of contemporaneous macroeconomics reads like a criticism of the kind of macroeconomics still taught at the undergraduate level. But modern macroeconomics has...
View ArticleA non-virtue of nationalism
Alberto Mingardi writes (in an email to followers of the Bruno Leoni Institute that he heads), Nationalism, as political rhetoric, is quite incompatible with a concept which is key to classical...
View ArticleEssay backup: overthrow neoclassical economics
My personal moonshot is that I wish to be a leader in overthrowing neoclassical economics. A better approach would focus on mental-cultural factors and rapid evolution. As I see it, neoclassical...
View ArticleEssay backup: economists wake up, it’s the 21st century
statistically my most “liked” essay on Medium. Akerselva was the cradle of Norway’s industrialisation in the second half of the 19th century. Back then the river gave power to saw mills, textile...
View ArticleAnti-fragile Arnold hates this bailout
As reported by the WSJ, The $100 billion Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility is a reprise of a program launched in 2009 that enabled investors to buy bonds linked to consumer and business debt using money...
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