Archive for David N. Laband
David Laband is a professor of economics and policy at Auburn University.
Of Fallible Umpires and Rogue Judges
There is a striking similarity between blown calls by umpires in baseball and blown calls by judges in our legal system. We now know, unambiguously, that umpires make mistakes—sometimes excruciatingly costly ones. According to baseball purists, those mistakes “are part of the game.” Yet there is a rising chorus of calls for Major League Baseball to [...]
22Oct2010 | David N. Laband | 1 comment | ContinuedOf Fallible Umpires and Rogue Judges
There is a striking similarity between blown calls by umpires in baseball and blown calls by judges in our legal system.
10Aug2010 | David N. Laband | 18 comments | ContinuedHow Not to Respond to Higher Gasoline Prices
Mix together surging gasoline prices, a conflict in the Middle East, and a presidential election year, and what do you get? Given the sorry state of economic education among our political elites, you are likely to find bad energy – policy proposals and an increased willingness to intervene in the very market forces that are [...]
1Jul2010 | and David N. Laband | 2 comments | ContinuedTragedy in the Judicial Commons
If you think that people who have been exposed to asbestos have the right to sue asbestos manufacturers for damages . . . or that individuals exposed to mercury or lead should be able to sue . . . or that everyone who has been X-rayed by doctors or dentists should be able to sue [...]
1Aug2002 | David N. Laband | 0 comments | ContinuedRegulating Biodiversity: Tragedy in the Political Commons
David Laband teaches natural resources economics and policy at the Forest Policy Center in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University. Last summer, lightning struck and killed an enormous pine tree on one side of my backyard. At about the same time, voracious pine bark beetles girdled and killed an equally impressive [...]
1Sep2001 | David N. Laband | 0 comments | ContinuedHarmful Tax Practices?
David Laband teaches economics at the Forest Policy Center, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based group of 29 governments (including the U.S. government) is demonizing tax havens around the world. Consider this statement from a recent OECD report: “Harmful tax practices may exist [...]
1Oct2000 | David N. Laband | 3 comments | ContinuedThe Internet and the Death of the Sales Tax
Richard Ault is an associate professor of economics at Auburn University. David Laband is a professor in Auburn’s Forest Policy Center, School of Forestry. The editors of our hometown daily newspaper, the Opelika-Auburn News, recently came out in favor of taxing Internet commerce. While noting, incorrectly, that sales taxes constitute the “largest source of revenues [...]
1May2000 | and Richard W. Ault | 3 comments | ContinuedEconomics, Law, and Personal Relationships
David Laband is a professor of economics at Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama. John Sophocleus is an instructor in Auburn’s economics department. Two recent, headline-making judicial decisions in civil cases offer striking reminders about why judges, juries, and legislators would benefit from instruction in basic economic principles. The decisions rendered in these cases involving personal relationship [...]
1Jan1998 | and David N. Laband | 1 comment | ContinuedCreative Destruction–Again
Whose heart bleeds for the virtually nonexistent blacksmith? In 1900, there were 226,477 blacksmiths counted by the U.S. Census. Today the number is negligible. Who laments the slide into occupational oblivion by tallow-renderers? The invention of electricity and electric lights killed off the candle-making industry. Henry Ford almost singlehandedly wiped out buggy manufacturers (as well [...]
1Apr1996 | David N. Laband | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Minimum Wage’s Dirty Little Secret
David Laband is Professor of Economics at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. The current Administration and their pals in the Congress only too obviously think that boosting the minimum wage by 90 cents per hour over the next two years is good politics (if bad economics). They are demonstrably wrong. This battle plan for “helping” [...]
1Sep1995 | David N. Laband | 1 comment | ContinuedSinging the Ticket Scalping Blues
Dr. Laband is Professor and Head, Department of Economics, Auburn University, Auburn Alabama. New York Attorney General G. Oliver Koppell filed suit recently against two New Jersey ticket brokers for allegedly scalping tickets to a Barbra Streisand concert. In New York, it is illegal to resell tickets for more than 110 percent of their face [...]
1Sep1994 | David N. Laband | 0 comments | ContinuedLessons From An Entrepreneur
Professor Laband teaches in the Department of Economics and Finance, The Perdue School of Business, Salisbury State University, Salisbury, Maryland. The praise recently showered upon the late Sam Walton suggests that now is an opportune time to question the consistency with which Americans treat successful businessmen and to reaffirm the universal applicability of capitalism’s Invisible [...]
1Sep1992 | David N. Laband | 0 comments | Continued-
The Latest
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Capitalism, Corporatism, and the Freed Market
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Creating Jobs versus Creating Value
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