Archive for E. Frank Stephenson
Frank Stephenson chairs the department of economics at Berry College in Rome, Ga. He blogs at divisionoflabour.com.
An Economics Lesson for the Drug Czar
A few years ago I heard a news report that then-drug czar General Barry McCaffrey considered it “good news” that Americans’ spending on illegal drugs had fallen to $57.3 billion in 1995 from $91.4 billion in 1988. The implication of the report was that the reduction was evidence of a successful anti-drug policy, presumably one [...]
30Jun2010 | E. Frank Stephenson | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates
If you had a childhood interest in pirates and a teenage love for economics, what would you do as an adult? If you are George Mason University economics professor Peter Leeson, you write a book on the economics of piracy. That book, The Invisible Hook, is a rollicking good read—more fun than any person should [...]
29Jun2010 | E. Frank Stephenson | 3 comments | ContinuedThe Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity
The primary characters in The Price of Everything are Ruth Lieber, an economics professor and provost at Stanford University, and Ramon Fernandez, a Cuban immigrant tennis prodigy studying there. Ramon is saturated with hostility toward the market process, while Ruth has a strong appreciation of markets and liberty. Their conversations—serves and volleys of economic ideas—form [...]
2Apr2009 | E. Frank Stephenson | 0 comments | ContinuedT. Boone Pickens is Right About Oil Imports? It Just Ain’t So!
The $700 billion that Americans spend annually to purchase oil from other countries (according to Pickens) is a price not a transfer. For the $700 billion we send to oil exporters, we get something in return—oil. Our receipt of millions of barrels of oil in exchange for that money is hardly a transfer. We receive a versatile commodity that can be used for everything from making plastics to fueling family vacations. The exporters receive the $700 billion that they can then use to purchase other goods and services.
1Apr2009 | E. Frank Stephenson | 6 comments | ContinuedDry-Cleaning Economics in One Lesson
Another day, another news story about economic wackiness. Gas prices rise, the dollar sinks, and stores are limiting rice sales. What could be next? Clothes hangers. Yes, clothes hangers. Marie Sledge, co-owner of Rome (Georgia) Cleaners, states, “Hangers last year at this time were $28 a box, where now they are $56.” News reports indicate [...]
1Sep2008 | E. Frank Stephenson | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance, by Russell Roberts
A few semesters ago I created a freshman honors seminar in economics. While I was pleased with the course overall, like most first-time courses there was room for improvement. During the last class meeting, I asked students to discuss what worked well and what did not. One comment was most memorable. A young woman who [...]
10Feb2003 | E. Frank Stephenson | 0 comments | ContinuedReducing Class Sizes: Other Things Are Not Always Equal
“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” —Henry Hazlitt One frequently hears economists use the phrase “other things equal.” For instance, other [...]
1Jan2002 | E. Frank Stephenson | 22 comments | ContinuedOf Genomes and Lemons
Michael Rupert is a senior majoring in economics at Berry College in Rome, Georgia. Frank Stephenson is an assistant professor of economics in Berry College’s Campbell School of Business. While the recent announcement of the mapping of the human genome was greeted with optimism about cures for dread diseases, it also led to predictable teeth-gnashing [...]
1Sep2001 | and Michael E. Rupert | 0 comments | ContinuedWorkin’ on the Chain Gang: Shaking Off the Dead Hand of History by Walter Mosley
Ballantine Books • 2000 • 118 pages • $16.95 Walter Mosley, author of the Easy Rawlins mysteries, departs from the detective genre to offer us Workin’ on the Chain Gang: Shaking off the Dead Hand of History. This economic diatribe is part of Ballantine’s misnamed “Library of Contemporary Thought,” for there is nothing contemporary about [...]
1Jun2001 | E. Frank Stephenson | 0 comments | ContinuedOf Lights and Liberty
Recently, while returning from lunch with a colleague, we observed a person blatantly running a red light. This event prompted my colleague to remark that he couldn’t understand why the government had not installed cameras to photograph the license plates of people who run red lights. I pondered his remark briefly, then told him that [...]
1Mar2001 | E. Frank Stephenson | 0 comments | ContinuedWorking-Family Gibberish
Wilson Mixon is Dana Professor of Economics at Berry College. Frank Stephenson is an assistant professor of economics at Berry College and an adjunct scholar with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. Nothing was sillier in the late presidential campaign than the political rhetoric about so-called working families. Politicians of both major parties frequently invoked working [...]
1Jan2001 | and Wilson Mixon | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Virtues of Federalism
Dan Alban is a recent graduate of Berry College and a fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies. Frank Stephenson is an assistant professor of economics in the college’s Campbell School of Business and an adjunct scholar with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. The political benefits of federalism as a mechanism for dispersing and restraining [...]
1Nov2000 | and Daniel L. Alban | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Berry Bikes: A Lesson in Private Property
Daniel Alban is a senior with an interdisciplinary major at Berry College, in Mount Berry, Georgia. Frank Stephenson is an assistant professor of economics in Berry College’s Campbell School of Business. Berry College is a private college located on a large campus adjacent to Rome, Georgia. In March 1998, the Berry College Student Government Association [...]
1Oct1999 | and Daniel L. Alban | 2 comments | Continued-
The Latest
Contraception: Insuring the Uninsurable
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The Snow Plowers’ Petition
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Super Bowl versus Education?
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Capitalism, Corporatism, and the Freed Market
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Creating Jobs versus Creating Value
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