Archive for Daniel B. Klein
Book Review ~ To Americas Health ~ A Proposal to Reform the Food and Drug Administration by Henry I. Miller
Hoover Institution Press • 2000 • 112 pages • $14.95 paperback
The Food and Drug Administration has a stranglehold on the introduction of new drugs, medical devices, and manufacturer-written information about products. The rationale is to assure quality and safety. Although consumers demand quality and safety assurance, the free-enterprise and tort system are supposedly unable [...]
Economists Against the FDA
Contributing editor Daniel Klein is an associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University.
A sulfa drug called Elixir Sulfanilamide released in 1937 killed over 100 Americans, mostly children. A sedative called Thalidomide released in Europe in 1957 and taken by pregnant women caused deformities in 10,000 children. These famous episodes strike us as [...]
Economists Misplaced Faith in an Invisible Hand
Contributing editor Daniel Klein is associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University. He is editor of What Do Economists Contribute?, recently published by New York University Press and the Cato Institute.
In academia most economists practice technical crafts. Academic incentives strongly favor such crafts, and economists pursue academic rewards, perhaps with a faith in [...]
Trust and Privacy on the Net
Daniel Klein teaches economics at Santa Clara University. He is the author of Assurance and Trust in a Great Society, a recently published FEE Occasional Paper.
With the growth of the Internet has come a lot of talk about privacy. In a recent cover story in The Economist, “The End of Privacy,” the magazine warned [...]
Discovery and Economic Freedom
Dr. Klein is associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University. This essay is a condensation of his article, “Discovery Factors of Economic Freedom: Respondence, Epiphany, and Serendipity,” in Uncertainty and Economic Evolution: Essays in Honour of Armen A. Alchian, ed. John R. Lott, Jr. (London: Routledge, 1997). Reprinted by permission of Routledge.
When [...]
A Sentinel for Auto Emissions
Dr. Klein, associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University, is co-author with Pia Koskenoja of The Smog Reduction Road: Remote Sensing Versus the Clean Air Act, recently published by the Cato Institute.
The 1992 Clean Air Act amendments require local governments in smoggy regions to abide by an array of tough regulations. The most [...]
Book Review: Liberty and the Great Libertarians edited and compiled, with Preface, Introduction, and Index by Charles T. Sprading. With a new Foreword by Carl Watner
Fox & Wilkes • 1995 • 362 + xiv pages • $24.95 cloth; $14.95 paperback
I was at Powell’s bookstore in Portland and saw the aged print on the binder-edge of the yellowed dust-jacket: Liberty and the Great Libertarians—Sprading—$1.50. Very curious, I thought. The Preface began with a definition from Webster’s: “Libertarian: One who upholds [...]
A Sales Pitch for Laissez-Faire Health Care
A Health-Care System Based on Liberty, Property, and Consent Would Have Many Benefits
1Jul1995 | Daniel B. Klein | 1 comment | ContinuedBook Review: Second Thoughts: Myths and Morals of U.S. Economic History edited by Donald N. McCloskey
Oxford University Press published for the Manhattan Institute • 1993 • 208 pages • $28.00
The two magnetic poles of social science are the bumper-sticker and quod erat demonstrandum—that is, the important and the precise. Anyone can make his statements precise and cohesive if he is willing to be irrelevant, and anyone can prattle about [...]
Libertarianism as Communitarianism
Dr. Klein is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine.
The Age of Irreverence
In former decades there was a certain decorum about fundamental values. Even if you did not share the other fellow’s sentiments about religion, politics, or family living, you knew to let your differences lie: “Never talk sex, religion, or politics [...]
The Moral Consequences of Paternalism
Picture a man gobbling a second helping of chocolate cake, or chain-smoking a pack of cigarettes, or injecting heroin into his vein. Is there a crime being committed? Is aggression or violence being done to an innocent person?
In a sense, yes. A fleeting, short-term self that enjoys chocolate, nicotine, or heroin is working his [...]
Private Highways in America, 1792-1916
Fifteen years ago only technology aficionados and laissez-faire idealists entertained the notion of private highways. Today, however, public officials and entrepreneurs are struggling to make the notion a reality. Four private highway projects are underway in California and many other states are following suit.
The notion of private highways, which would seem fantastic to our [...]
Book Review: Destroying Democracy: How Government Funds Partisan Politics by James T. Bennett and Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Cato Institute, 224 Second St., SE, Washington, D.C. 20003 • 1985 • 561 pages, $24.95 cloth, $11.95 paperback
Destroying Democracy provides a detailed account of the thousands of hidden and diverse ways Federal agencies hand over billions of taxpayer dollars to special interest advocacy organizations. This practice subverts whatever fairness we may have in American [...]
Privatization Further Down the Road
Daniel Klein is a fellow of the Austrian Economics Program at New York University.
A new era of private roads may be close at hand.
Private ownership of “public” resources may be an idea whose time has come. There are proposals for the privatization of Grand Coulee Dam, National and Dulles airports, Conrail, and Amtrak. [...]
What the Government Takes
Daniel Klein is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at New York University.
Thirty-seven years ago F. A. Harper addressed the following question: Of the average dollar’s worth of goods and services produced in the United States, what portion is taken by the government? He studied the year 1946 and his findings were published by the [...]
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The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let it Happen
By Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous
