All Posts Tagged With: "economists"
Scientism and the Great Power Nexus
President Obama wants to create jobs. His political life depends on it. So the President recently used the bully pulpit to propose a “jobs” bill that would include heavy spending on infrastructure. Journalists wanted to know what the bill would do. They turned to economists. These experts, armed with the most sophisticated methods available, gave [...]
30Nov2011 | Max Borders | 5 comments | ContinuedDangerous Political Naifs
Being well past the age of 50 and having spent nearly all my adult life as an academic economist, I seize the privilege of doing what so many other economists of my age and rank do—namely, offer unsolicited speculations about what is right and what is wrong with modern economics. First, something that is right. [...]
26Oct2011 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 10 comments | ContinuedGuilt by Corporate Association
Economists who support deregulation while having links to corporations should not be accused of being shills without clear and specific evidence of a quid pro quo.
19May2011 | Steven Horwitz | 7 comments | ContinuedFreedom in America: Is the Glass Half-full or Half-empty?
It is an age-old question of perception. Show a person a glass with some liquid in it and ask, “Is it half-full or half-empty?” The importance of the answer depends on the interests of the person asking the question. If you owned a restaurant and wanted to skimp on the wine, you would rather your [...]
5Jan2010 | George C. Leef | 5 comments | ContinuedThink of a Number: A Theory of Rational Forecasting
We don’t know how many blood-curdling economic forecasts are the result of career planning rather than sincere professional conviction. What we do know, though, is that such forecasts are the best method of deepening the gloom, frightening the credulous, and making the worst more probable.
21May2009 | Anthony de Jasay | 0 comments | ContinuedFortune-Cookie Economics
It is little wonder that some economists want to be perceived as having fortune-telling abilities. After all, history and literature are full of examples of revered and exalted prophets and oracles. So we can understand why many economists sit up straight, clear their throats, look us right in the eye, and foretell next year’s change [...]
1Jun2004 | Arthur E. Foulkes | 0 comments | ContinuedWhy Are Economists So Misunderstood?
Here is a puzzle. I’m at a social gathering that includes some doctors. One doctor is discussing a prescription drug for a particular ailment. I interrupt with a lengthy discourse on the medication, explaining that the doctor’s understanding is faulty. He has misunderstood the most important applications of the drug. His analysis of the side [...]
1Jan2004 | Russell Roberts | 8 comments | ContinuedSensible Assumptions
I’m proud of the contribution that the best economists have made to our understanding of society and to the preservation of freedom. What would our world be like today if F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Adam Smith had not written and lectured as they did? These four great men, and scores [...]
1Dec2002 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Price System as Can Opener
Both the subject matter and the choice between paradigms in economics contain interesting and perplexing problems. A key problem that we face in society, as F. A. Hayek pointed out as far back as 1945, is in making use of widely dispersed knowledge regarding available means in satisfying human wants. The key problem that we [...]
1Jan2002 | D.W. MacKenzie | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Ultimate Externality
Pick an economist at random and ask him or her, “What is government’s chief role?” The likely answer will be, “To correct market failures.” Economists have long understood that markets aren’t textbook perfect. Sometimes they fail, most notably when part of the cost of a person’s actions is shifted onto others who don’t consent to [...]
1Dec2001 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 1 comment | ContinuedTen Years After the Bet: The More Things Change. . .
Michael Mallinger is a research associate at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. The late Julian Simon’s victory in his famous bet with Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich was a defining moment in the free-market movement’s victory over Malthusianism. In 1980 Simon challenged Ehrlich to choose five commodities that would become more expensive over the [...]
1Nov2001 | Michael D. Mallinger | 0 comments | ContinuedTrue Ecology
Daniel Hager is a writer in Lansing, Michigan. Ecology is generally considered to be a branch of biology. It does not belong there. An examination of the subject indicates a better home for it. Ecology is defined as the study of organisms in relation to their animate and inanimate surroundings. It focuses on the connections [...]
1May2001 | Daniel Hager | 1 comment | ContinuedCapital Letters
Who’s an Imperialist? To the Editor: Mark Skousen’s “Imperial Science” (January 2001) dismissed the great impact of co-operative efforts between economists and researchers, scientists, and authors from other disciplines. In fact, such cooperative interdisciplinary work is now commonplace. Economists have at least as much to learn from, as they have to contribute to, other disciplines—a [...]
1May2001 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Problem of Environmental Protection
A common belief is that economists don’t care much about the environment because they are preoccupied with money, markets, and material wealth. And when economists do consider ways to protect the environment, they emphasize benefits and costs, trying to express all values in terms of cash.
1Apr2001 | Dwight R. Lee | 2 comments | ContinuedEconomists’ 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 [...]
1Aug2000 | Daniel B. Klein | 0 comments | ContinuedWhat Do Economists Contribute?
Professor Daniel Klein of Santa Clara University is one of the most engaging and creative economists around. In What Do Economists Contribute? he and nine other economists (most of them known to readers of Ideas on Liberty) try to explain just how economists contribute to the betterment of mankind. Although the title implies that the [...]
1Jul2000 | Philip R. Murray | 1 comment | ContinuedIt’s the Margin That Counts
Economists, like everyone, have opinions about how the world should be. And it would be disingenuous to claim that economists never let their opinions influence their conclusions and recommendations. But the power of economics is in fundamental concepts that prevent economists from letting their imaginations obscure reality. They may wish that scarcity didn’t exist, that [...]
1Jun2000 | Dwight R. Lee | 16 comments | Continued-
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