(May 19, 2013 12:01 AM, by Bryan Caplan) Suppose a city's population exogenously rises.  You might think that price theory clearly implies that demand for real estate will rise.  But that's not so.  In theory, higher population could generate a congestion externality so awful that demand for real... (12 COMMENTS)

(May 18, 2013 06:59 PM, by Art Carden) Jacob Levy directs readers to the Mission Statement of the Freedom Center at the University of Arizona. I agree that these are values to be emulated. While I sometimes allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good, I... (0 COMMENTS)

(May 18, 2013 09:59 AM, by David Henderson) In the cost/benefit analysis course i teach, one of the actual cost/benefit analyses we work our way through--and one that I present as a reasonably good CBA--is a study done by two St. Louis Federal Reserve economists on adding another... (34 COMMENTS)

(May 18, 2013 12:02 AM, by Bryan Caplan) Jim Flynn's latest book has fascinating info on age and intelligence.  But Sternberg, Wagner, Williams, and Horvath, "Testing Common Sense" (American Psychologist, 1995) suggest that Flynn misses an important part of the story.  There's a widespread perception that "common sense"... (3 COMMENTS)

(May 17, 2013 11:59 AM, by Art Carden) Ronald Coase famously advised economists to "look out the window" every so often. It's advice I (try to) take to heart. Here's an example. On Monday afternoon, I was standing behind our building waiting for a few people and "enjoying"... (7 COMMENTS)

(May 17, 2013 11:52 AM, by Bryan Caplan) Arthur Breitman and I have hammered out the following inflation bet: If the 12 month change of the CPI-U as reported by the BLS is greater than 5% for any sliding window between today and December 2015 in monthly increments,... (10 COMMENTS)

(May 17, 2013 09:59 AM, by David Henderson) Linda Gorman, my former Naval Postgraduate School colleague and author of three excellent articles in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (here, here, and here), has written a post laying out some weird consequences of the ObamaCare law. I would be... (9 COMMENTS)

(May 16, 2013 04:23 PM, by Art Carden) Here's a quick update to yesterday's post on what I've been reading lately. I had to give to exams this morning, so that gave me plenty of time to read. If you're looking for something to take to the beach... (5 COMMENTS)

(May 16, 2013 10:47 AM, by Bryan Caplan) My Ph.D. students' responses to the following question on their final exam disappointed me:In the modern U.S., what is the most efficient way for the federal government to spend an extra billion dollars?  What is the maximally utilitarian way for... (112 COMMENTS)

(May 16, 2013 09:38 AM, by Bryan Caplan) In case it's unclear, nothing in my analysis of conformity and virtue implies that I personally am especially virtuous.  The fact that I hold many unpopular views does however mean that my virtue is unusually easy to assess.  If you... (0 COMMENTS)

(May 15, 2013 12:07 PM, by Bryan Caplan) Consider a world where 80% of people are Conformists, 10% of people are Righteous, and 10% are Reprobates.  The Conformists are epistemically and morally neutral, so they believe and support whatever is popular.   The Righteous are epistemically and morally... (22 COMMENTS)

(May 15, 2013 09:14 AM, by Art Carden) I tell people I have the best job in the world: I get paid to read, write, think, and talk about things I find absolutely fascinating. Here are a few things I've read recently (or that I'm reading currently): 1.... (2 COMMENTS)

(May 14, 2013 12:17 PM, by Art Carden) I just read Arnold Kling's Featured Article on Mark S. Weiner's The Rule of the Clan. On the strength of the review I bought the book. Here's Kling's summary of Weiner: 1. A decentralized order is possible. Indeed, it is... (13 COMMENTS)

(May 14, 2013 10:49 AM, by David Henderson) Sari, Ed. My friend Edward Lopez, who blogs here, linked on Facebook to a great story from the New York Times about an entrepreneur's solution to the challenge of dry-cleaning saris. It's neat and the piece is short. Then Ed... (31 COMMENTS)

(May 13, 2013 05:01 PM, by Bryan Caplan) I was pleased to see my old friend Ben Haller challenging me in the comments on my global warming econometrics bleg.  He's in blockquotes, I'm not:The more crap you throw into the regression, the more it will be overfit and... (21 COMMENTS)

(May 12, 2013 02:03 PM, by Bryan Caplan) What happens if you regress annual global temperature 1880-2011 on CO2, linear trend, and other stuff trending positively or negative over this era?  The list of regressors should ideally include not just other climatological variables, but placebo variables like church... (27 COMMENTS)

(May 12, 2013 01:58 PM, by David Henderson) How to Mislead and Undercut While Appearing to be Writing a News Story A friend who is an avid reader of the New York Times sent me a link last night to a piece by New York Times reporter, and... (17 COMMENTS)

(May 11, 2013 03:06 PM, by David Henderson) The Daily Show had a nice segment this week on the case for not going to college. The whole thing is quite good. Check out what the guy at the 2:40 point learned. The late Ayn Rand's term for his... (5 COMMENTS)

(May 10, 2013 08:37 PM, by Bryan Caplan) In a just world, no researcher would be fired for truthfully stating that some kinds of immigrants have low IQs.In a just world, however, researchers would be fired for arguing that people with below-average IQs should be denied their basic... (44 COMMENTS)

(May 10, 2013 12:59 PM, by David Henderson) Hawking's decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his own intellectual accomplishment. His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel's Intel team. I suggest that if... (15 COMMENTS)