For the skeptic there remains only one consolation:
if there should be such a thing as superhuman law
it is administered with subhuman inefficiency.
Eric Ambler
Tweet of the Day
The "Obama Miracle Economy": "94% of the 10 million new jobs created during the Obama era were temporary positions" https://t.co/GNbjgIrObA— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 26, 2016
Image of the Day
Unfortunately, Trump Didn't Select Allison: Yet Another Mistake
The Hubris of Government-Controlled Healthcare
An Excellent Source Summary of Empirical Free Market Studies
I used to follow Being Classically Liberal on Facebook; in fact, I describe myself as a classical liberal (meaning a belief in liberty, including economic liberal). I don't recall "unliking" their page, but I haven't seen their posts in a while. I came across this piece through a related Liberty.me Facebook blurbs. I really haven't read that many scholarly articles on economics but these excerpts are intriguing, and I encourage the interested reader to read the whole piece:- Import tariff reductions reduce poverty in India by reducing the cost of living, according to paper in the Journal of Development Economics.
- Furceri and Karras (2012) find that, in developed countries, “the effect of an increase in taxes on real GDP per capita is negative and persistent: an increase in the total tax rate (measures as the total tax ratio to GDP) by 1% of GDP has a long-run effect on real GDP per capita of –0.5% to –1%.” Results held even after accounting for endogeneity.
- Kaymak and Poshcke (2015) find that, contrary to popular belief, tax rate reductions among top earners during the last few decades in the US only had a negligible impact on income inequality.
- Bergh and Henrekson (2011), in a review of the empirical evidence, find that most studies find that countries with larger governments have considerably lower economic growth rates.
- Dawson and Seater (2013) come to a stunning conclusion: “Federal regulations added over the past fifty years have reduced real output growth by about two percentage points on average over the period 1949-2005. That reduction in the growth rate has led to an accumulated reduction in GDP of about $38.8 trillion as of the end of 2011. That is, GDP at the end of 2011 would have been $53.9 trillion instead of $15.1 trillion if regulation had remained at its 1949 level.” (They used Granger-causality tests to guard against endogeneity.)
Thomas Sowell Has Retired as a Columnist
I originally missed the 86-year-old economist's "Farewell" column about 10 days back; I've generally agreed with him, although he is more interventionist than I am; I own a couple of his textbooks in my personal library (not assigned during my UH coursework). I suspect we haven't heard the last of the great economist, but writing fresh commentaries on a regular basis requires considerable time and effort.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Henry Payne via Townhall |
Musical Interlude: Christmas Favorites
Bing Crosby, "White Christmas". The #1 best-selling single of all time.
