Latest Posts

May 07, 2019

Is behavioral economics blind to its blindness?

I find some of the work of behavioral economists, especially that of Daniel Kahneman to be very interesting and important. Thinking Fast and Slow is essential reading. His distinctions between what he calls Type I and Type II thinking is very insightful, and the broad critique that human beings don’t always act like rational maximizers is a correct. Continue Reading...
May 07, 2019

Why capital markets matter

Of all the many components of a market economy, I don’t think that any are as misunderstood — or reviled — as capital markets. They have never been held in high esteem, and the financial crisis of 2008 did enormous damage to their already low reputation. Continue Reading...
May 07, 2019

When the Fed does too much

Note: This is post #122 in a weekly video series on basic economics. If you think through all of the variables that shape a country’s economy, it’s no wonder that monetary policy is difficult, says economist Alex Tabarrok. Continue Reading...
May 06, 2019

5 facts about Margaret Thatcher

This past Saturday marked the fortieth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher taking office as the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Thatcher served as PM for nearly a decade, during which time she became, along with Ronald Reagan, one of the West’s greatest champions of free enterprise, anti-communism, and individual liberty. Continue Reading...
May 06, 2019

Thanos the revolutionary

After the second weekend of release, the directors of Avengers: Endgame have declared that spoilers are fair game, and so it is time to pick up where some previous reflections left off and explore the villain Thanos’ development from Infinity War to Endgame. Continue Reading...
May 02, 2019

Religious toleration in a religious state

The concepts of toleration espoused by theologians in the officially religious states of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries deserve closer examination. So argue Tobias Dienst and Christoph Strohm in their introduction to Martinus Becanus’s 1607 treatise, On the Duty to Keep Faith with Heretics. Continue Reading...